Short descriptions

[tbow50]

Hi everyone,

I am building a new website for the company that my Wife and I have bought and have an SEO question that hopefully you can help with.

The products we are selling don't really need very big descriptions, and therefore the content on the individual pages isn't going to be very long. Will this matter as long as I carefully word what content there is with keywords/phrases?

Also, does it matter if the content on the page is similar to the meta description and title of the page or do I need to make them totally different?

Thanks in advance,

Tom

 

[An Oasis]

Yes
&
Yes

Short copy put you in danger of getting tossed into the SE supplemental hell, as the SE's don't have enough text to "really" differentiate page from page.

 

[Steve2507]

What are the products?

Generally speaking longer descriptions are better as search engines like content. If you can tell us the products maybe we can help.

 

[stephendoyle]

hi tom,

it is better to write more in general.

obviously you have to please the search engines with seo;
however firstly imo you need to please the customers.

in other words create the emotion with the features and benefits
of the product or service so that they will buy it.

regards
stephen doyle

 

as said the longer the description the better if it includes multiple use of the key words up to a ratio of about 8% to the rest of the text.

the more relevent the copy is to your title and tags the better.

Earl

 

[Tripta_Kneoteric]

Short descriptions should be adequate enough to highlight the important features of the products.

Where as about the content for the website. as Stephen said, "firstly you need to please the customers". Write apart from the products description.

Content has the preliminary target to convince the customers, which could be modified to be Search Engines compliant.

Write about your products'/services specialties,
Display the best standards of your services, in terms of good content, images case studies testimonials, etc and you would end up with a lot to content for your website.

The activity should not be confined to your about us page, services page, etc, but write unique description for every page. Write good things about the benefits of doing business with you.

Then you may modify the content, to use your keywords at the appropriate areas.

 

[SillyJokes]

SEO is hugely important but so is making the sale when the people land.

Sites like Firebox go for long copy and prattle on for ages about each product (i.e. paintball firing remote control Grandad or some such)

Johnlewis cuts to the point. But everyone knows what a toaster is, for heavens sake.

We don't know your products, you say they don't need much introduction. Just keep it fairly short then but get those keywords in, make sure images have alt text and menu items have link text. Link from page to page.

SEO v. important but write for humans first and foremost as Search engines don't spend money and there's nothing worse than reading an obviously keyword ridden block of text.

 

[tbow50]

Thanks everyone! As a few of you have said it should be, my main concern was that the description made sense to the potential customer and wasn't an obvious load of waffle just to get in the search engines.

The products we are selling are wedding accessories, an example of a description we already have is:

"A fine chiffon wrap, sewn in layers to give an exquisite mystery to your wedding dress. This fabric is so light that it really does appear to float on the air. A perfect spring/summer touch."

I think that pretty much says all there is to say about it, but is that too short?

Thanks again.

 

[jimmy555]

Hi everyone,

I am building a new website for the company that my Wife and I have bought and have an SEO question that hopefully you can help with.

The products we are selling don't really need very big descriptions, and therefore the content on the individual pages isn't going to be very long. Will this matter as long as I carefully word what content there is with keywords/phrases?

Also, does it matter if the content on the page is similar to the meta description and title of the page or do I need to make them totally different?

Thanks in advance,

Tom

a) Do not build content in predefined fashion ( ie same title/description + content)

b) Make your content atleast 2-3 paragraphs ( 100-200 words). More unique content will help you.

c) Description only appears in your seo listing, it is not visible to your website visitors

I am sure it will help you

 

[Page]

The products we are selling are wedding accessories, an example of a description we already have is:

"A fine chiffon wrap, sewn in layers to give an exquisite mystery to your wedding dress. This fabric is so light that it really does appear to float on the air. A perfect spring/summer touch."

The problem I had when looking at descriptions was that I started in a similar way to yourself but quickly found that this approach did not really work.

It is fine on one item but not on multiple items. IMO. By the time they get to the fourth one they will be reaching for the bucket.

We solved this by spending a good chunk of time analysing our products and what we could say and what others were saying and then coming up with ideas in different categories - such as texture - pattern - and then coming up with a template that worked nicely for nearly all of them.

 

[Page]

a) Do not build content in predefined fashion ( ie same title/description + content)

But I am assuming that a similar style is okay provided the content is okay or is this not the case ??

 

[jimmy555]

But I am assuming that a similar style is okay provided the content is okay or is this not the case ??

If your content is okay, then it is perfect. It should be natural and not be over-stuffed with targeted keywords

 

[SillyJokes]

The way we handle it is a short decription on the index page and much more detail on the details page- that way people can drill down to info on things they are most interested in.