What to do when writing unique product descriptions is impractical?
-
Hi Guys,
Obviously in an ideal world all product descriptions would be high quality and unique. But do you ever have a client who you know they'll be totally impractical for?
For example, one of my clients is a niche book store with 10,000s of products. There are only two members of staff. They currently C+P the blurb. I would love to recommend that they write unique copy for all their books, but considering the books have a low retail value and a fairly short shelf life, I doubt that unique descriptions would be worth the ROI.
My initial thoughts are:
- Identify the high priority books/best sellers and write new product descriptions for them
- Encourage more customers to leave on-page product reviews
Can anyone recommend any better solutions?
-
Thanks Miriam, they're a bit reluctant to hire a copywriter because of the relatively short shelf life of many of the books. I think it's a matter of prioritising and working through as many high priority descriptions as possible. Thanks for the advice!
-
Hi Alice,
I think you are on the right track, identifying top selling books for which it will be a priority to write unique copy. The key here will be setting up a manageable task list. Whether the owners can handle writing 5 new descriptions a week or 25, figure out what the golden number is that they can achieve without feeling overwhelmed. Progress on a project like this typically has to be modestly paced, because the inventory is so large. Can they, perhaps, hire a copywriter to help them with some, if not all, of the work?
-
Thanks Jakub! Two really great ideas
-
This two are good. I would try to find bloggers (followerwonk) writing about books, and ask them to leave a review about their favorite book at this store. It should be simple to get a nice scale.
Next step can be organize contest for best book review. Books as awards, and best reviews you can use as deafult to that product.
If some new ideas will come to my mind, i'll let you know!
btw: this is good topic for brainstorm.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Writing unique meta titles for canonicalised products or not?
Hi all, I have a question (duh): I have like 10 colours of the same product. I will make one colour the canonical, do I still need to write unique meta titles for the others? I am almost certain it doesn't add value at all, but wanted to double check since I couldn't find it anywhere. Thanks a lot in advance and have a great day!
On-Page Optimization | | TheOnlineWarp0 -
Smae Category Descriptions but in Different Cities
Hi, I was curious, if I have a guide with 20 categories, and that guide is in 10 different cities, can I have a category description for each city that simply swaps out the city name? Seattle Big Widgets
On-Page Optimization | | EBKMarketing
We offer the largest selection of widgets in the Seattle area. We have small widgets, medium widgets, large widgets. We have so many widgets, most people in Seattle are blown away by our selection. Portland Big Widgets We offer the largest selection of widgets in the Portland area. We have small widgets, medium widgets, large widgets. We have so many widgets, most people in Portland are blown away by our selection. Would this be considered duplicate content, if it's followed by distinct city listings? Writing 20 decriptions would be nicer than writing 200. Just trying to think about SEO, resources, best use of time, etc. Thanks0 -
Regarding Showing Shopper Approved Review on All Products
Hi All, We're planning to add Customers Reviews tab on product pages ! And, We'll display Shopper Approved reviews on product pages. But, I have biggest concern for internal duplication. If we will display similar reviews on all product pages then it will create internal duplication issue and We may get impact for Google Penalty. What should we Do to display Shopper approved reviews on all products.
On-Page Optimization | | CommercePundit0 -
Pagination for product page reviews
Hi, I am looking to add pagination on product pages (they have lots of reviews on the page). I am considering using rel="next/prev, to connect the series of review pages to the main product page. I unfortunately don't have a view-all page for these reviews or the option to get one - the reviews refresh on the same product page (by clicking whatever number page of reviews). This means each page has the exact same description content and everything else, but with different reviews. In this case is rel=next a good option? The format currently would be: On example.com/product link rel="next" href="http://example.com/product?review-p2" On example.com/product?review-p2 link rel="prev" href="http://example.com/product, link rel="next" href="http://example.com/product?review-p3 etc. Would this be a good format for product page reviews? I see rel=nextprev commonly used on ecommerce category/list pages but not really on the paginated reviews on product pages, so I thought I would see if anyone has advice on how best to solve this. I'm also wondering if it would be best to not combine this with a canonical tag on all the different review pages pointing to the product page, seeing as the reviews are actually different (despite the rest of the content being identical). I am hoping to pick up longer tail traffic from this, I figure by connecting the pages and not using canonicals that this way I could get more traffic from the phrases used in the reviews. By leaving out the canonicals, is it possible a user searching for phrases that might be deeper in the series, to land on, say, ?review-p4? Any thoughts if this would drive more traffic? Thanks!.
On-Page Optimization | | pikka0 -
A Lot of Duplicate Meta Descriptions
Hi Everyone Its polesandblinds.com newbie here again, I've Just been in Webmaster tools and see my site has: 278 Duplicate Meta Descriptions 13 Long Meta Descriptions 4 Short Meta Descriptions 304 Duplicate Title Tags We are Using Magento version. 1.6.0.0, It seems that our description content which is unique per page (200 to 300 words) is somehow getting put into the meta description, which I confirmed when I viewed the source code, however its not showing in the meta description boxes in magento. I would say its been like this since the re-launch of the site in December 2012. example page http://www.polesandblinds.com/curtain-tracks/ view-source:http://www.polesandblinds.com/curtain-tracks/ My BIG worry is how Google views this and what effects it may have or had on a site. My site has taken quite a big hit on rankings since the Google updates. I'm really looking forward to your responses good or bad. Many Thanks Jonathan
On-Page Optimization | | JonnytheB0 -
Category Descriptions if Category Pages are Noindexed?
I have noindexed my category pages. Do I still need to write a description for my categories? I am using the plugin SEO Content Control to see what I can spiff up but I don't want to waste my time. Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | dealblogger0 -
Has a product portfolio bad (direct) influence on rankings because of less relevant content?
Hey SEO's, I'm wondering if a bad product portfolio of a e-commerce website has an influence (direct) on the rankings because of less relevant content. To show you what I'm thinking about, look at these two situations: 1. E-Commerce website with 3.000 products from different brands (all top brands) but the products itself are not quite up to date 2. E-Comerce website with 3.000 products from differend brands (all top brands) but these products contain allways the top seller items. Is it possible, that Google has an index for "fresh content" or "highly demanded content" or something like this which has direct influence on the ranking? I ask this question besides the fact, that its of course allways better to have the top sellers in a portfolio than not have. But the big thing is: What to do if you don't know which products are best, or you just don't get them from your retailers or some other reason... For Google & Co. its harmfull (I guess) to put a e-commerce website without top-seller products into the top-rankings with high competition!? Any ideas on that?
On-Page Optimization | | videriconcept0 -
For Service Sites, having a phone number in meta description ALWAYS a good idea?
If you have a site that offers a same day service, e.g. plumbing, electrical, computer support: do you think it would always be a good idea to stick the phone # in the meta description?
On-Page Optimization | | ilyaelbert1