Many websites have a plethora of content waiting to be uploaded, just because the company running the site sells lots of products. Having lots of products does not necessarily equal the right content though.
As we have discussed in our various blog posts on content, there are two main considerations when choosing the right material for web pages. These are simply relevant content and unique content, 2 things which the search engines must see for a company to be successful online.
Content will obviously come in various forms, in formats such as boxed products being described, or a service being offered in a thousand words. Some websites have a tough job with preparing content for SEO purposes- mainly those with a design element such as reproductive companies or those selling simple products like crockery or cheap shoes.
Whatever you offer to the public, the search engines still need to know what theme your pages represent, and all content should be unique and informative.
Here are the steps we suggest when selecting content, in part two of our SEO tutorials:
Describe the theme in your title. Take the main points from the product or service and make sure they appear in your page title, product title, Meta description and keywords. Keep the density f relevant words high, but overall length of titles low. This improves the weighting of each word.
Images draw the crowds- and alt tags remind the robots. It’s all very well adding lots of pictures for the visiting browsing public, but for SEO it doesn’t mean much without the all important alt tag, which describes what the image is to the search engines.
Products need unique content. With retail websites the easy option is too replicate the standard manufacturer descriptions from the brands you sell. This is a bad way for SEO as this is clearly duplicate content, and although your site will still be ranked, it’s very hard to get to the top positions. This is because only the most powerful website overall will rank for the duplicated product content. Take a description from the manufacturer, then expand and elaborate on the key features in your own words. This is a USP for the search engines with regards to SEO.
Make the content involving, but give a chance to convert. Bear in mind during the process of adding content that the main aim of the website is to convert traffic to sales. By overwhelming the visitor with information, and not offering a clear path to either checkout or contact details, your ability to monetise that traffic diminishes.
Remember to expose the material off page, but don’t duplicate it. We know how important it is to bookmark, blog and Tweet about our new pages and fresh content, but remember not to duplicate the words on other sites. If Google picks the text up from another site first, it will see your own page as duplicate content. Just offer a brief but unique paragraph to introduce the link through.
