Is unique content absolutely necessary for ecommerce seo?

Krass

Krass

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I'm starting an ecomm site with some friends, and i'm finding it really time consuming to write fresh content for every product. Does it really matter?

Maybe make the site unique in terms of the user reviews instead of all content? Or am i just being lazy
 
Not only unique., but GREAT content matters.

However, with ecommerce, you can often get descriptions, etc from the vendors.
Meaning you'll have the same bland content as everyone else.

The solution is to start with the short head, not the long tail.
Write great, engaging content for the bestsellers, top products and go from there.

::emp::
 
I've had 2 different clients that just pulled their information from the store they were reselling from. The marketing managers there were adamant about getting unique content on every single product because all the 'create quality content' stuff. SEO effect was not even noticeable and the people with duplicate content still outranked them. Links were the only thing that saved the day.

I'm not slinging links or anything, and in fact used to run a business just for blogging (before expanding) and I would be first to tell you content isn't everything. In fact, autoblogging is a big strategy for me and I don't spin a thing, Google loves it too. Other factors at play.

Saying that, improving the content can help and it can totally help the sales (meaning improving the copywriting).
 
The product description's don't need to be unique. Everything else does and high quality. Unique descriptions wouldn't hurt though.
 
I wouldn't let anything slow you down and content is quite often that factor... I tend to just use duplicate or readable-spun content to get going and then change/improve content over time.
 
It depends what you're doing.

If you expect people to read it, then yeah, it's absolutely necessary. Unless you're a Nigerian Prince who wants bad content on purpose in order to pre-qualify the leads that aren't smart enough to notice.

Believe it or not, this "spun" content is passing about as well as Caitlin pre-Photoshop. I don't care if it's TBS, SpinnerChief, Word AI, and whatever magical thesaurus they're using... It's all the same at the end of the day, you can't fake nuance.

Those words are how you're communicating with your audience, it blows my mind how this is even still a question (No offense OP, I'm not trying to single you out.)

Put yourself in the shoes of somebody sitting at their computer or on their phone looking for whatever your page is about.

Does spun content still work and do people get away with it? I'm sure there will be responses saying "YES!"... But it's so naive to think Google (Or whoever your masters are) can't or won't ever be able to tell the difference.
 
MetaData said:
It depends what you're doing.

If you expect people to read it, then yeah, it's absolutely necessary. Unless you're a Nigerian Prince who wants bad content on purpose in order to pre-qualify the leads that aren't smart enough to notice.

Believe it or not, this "spun" content is passing about as well as Caitlin pre-Photoshop. I don't care if it's TBS, SpinnerChief, Word AI, and whatever magical thesaurus they're using... It's all the same at the end of the day, you can't fake nuance.

Those words are how you're communicating with your audience, it blows my mind how this is even still a question (No offense OP, I'm not trying to single you out.)

Put yourself in the shoes of somebody sitting at their computer or on their phone looking for whatever your page is about.

Does spun content still work and do people get away with it? I'm sure there will be responses saying "YES!"... But it's so naive to think Google (Or whoever your masters are) can't or won't ever be able to tell the difference.
Click to expand...

What if I take reviews from other blogs that talk about the same products? If the issue is just the quality of the writing this should solve it as long as I can choose reviews that are well-written and maybe do some rewrites here and there.
It just feels redundant to write yet another original piece on the same exact thing that a ton of people have written about.
 
@Krass Yeah I'm specifically talking about spun stuff, I can't really comment on taking content from elsewhere and re-posting it and ranking it, that's outside of my experience but I'd refer ya back to @juliantrueflynn's post.
 
My advice is to stop worrying about the content...at least for starters, google doesn't give a hoot if it is truely original google cares about user experiance first and foremost, focus on making your site as userfriendly as possible, not only will google reward you but more importantly so will your buyers.
Once your site is the most user friendly it can be, focus on prototing and linkbuilding, make your custumors do some of the link building for you by offering them discounts on their next purchase if they refer frends or share your site on social networks, that is actually a technique I've implented on a few clients webshops and their sales has skyrocketed becouse they get one new custumor and one returning custumoer(returning to buy and claim their discount).
Only then should you optimize content/product description and so on in order to increase (hopefully) the conversion rate.
 
Links > Everything.

Though content matters from a SEO perspective links aside.

Also consider the content quality affecting conversions at the end of the day.
 
And why not just run a test?.. take a couple of pages that are ranking for a product, say page 2, 3 etc and write a unique description on one, use a unique image taken yourself, rather than manufacturers image, get a few reviews etc.. .. and on the other simply do the opposite with only a couple of well placed links or social shares.. the proof will be in the pudding.

These days, every site performs differently.. It's all down to user experience and how people interact with your site. There is no one size fits all. Unless you're churning.

Of course, you can help this process along with a few nudges from nicely placed links :smile:
 
Some terrible advice in here!

As someone who sold an ecommerce business for 7 figures, I will tell you without a doubt you want unique product descriptions that emphasize the benefits to the customer. The BBB Method. If you haven't already, read Catalog Copy That Sizzles.

One more thing, if you are selling the same products as other vendors like in a drop ship model, not only do you want unique product descriptions, you want unique product names and images if possible.

This will allow you to do 2 things:
1. Raise prices and still offer a money back guarantee.
2. Prevent customers from comparison shopping because when they type in your product name, you will be the only one that shows up!

When employing this strategy be sure to include things like <product name> coupon, <product name> free shipping, etc. into your website copy so that you show up when users perform those searches!
 
Meatplow said:
Some terrible advice in here!

As someone who sold an ecommerce business for 7 figures, I will tell you without a doubt you want unique product descriptions that emphasize the benefits to the customer. The BBB Method. If you haven't already, read Catalog Copy That Sizzles.

One more thing, if you are selling the same products as other vendors like in a drop ship model, not only do you want unique product descriptions, you want unique product names and images if possible.

This will allow you to do 2 things:
1. Raise prices and still offer a money back guarantee.
2. Prevent customers from comparison shopping because when they type in your product name, you will be the only one that shows up!

When employing this strategy be sure to include things like <product name> coupon, <product name> free shipping, etc. into your website copy so that you show up when users perform those searches!
Click to expand...

I could be wrong but I don't see one person in this thread saying copywriting doesn't matter, more people praising it actually. For SEO value I will stay by my guns and say no it's not the biggest influential factor in ranking for ecommerce -- in most cases.

What you're saying with coupons, free shipping, etc. Google will pick up any references of that off the page, you can simply put that in with tagging, categorization, etc., if you wanted to pull that longtail traffic.

In a lot of cases you wouldn't be able to change the product name if it's a wholesale reseller (for me it was). Changing images would work though. In the case you could change the titles that would be more of a overall branding move than just SEO if you ask me.

Good book reference BTW.
 
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