From The Blog

By Aaron Sananes

11 May, 2010

8 Comments

Writing Good Product Descriptions that are SEO-Friendly

Magento is a very powerful shopping cart solution that is free (community edition). It is unrivaled in many categories and even has features and functionality that other shopping cart solutions just plain out do not have, even commercial shopping carts!

Even with all of its features and powerful functionality, it can not automatically write you good product descriptions that will rank your online store or individual products higher within Google’s search rankings. It comes down to requiring a human (you), to write good copy for your product descriptions that are seo-friendly while making sure that copy is tailored for your consumers to help persuade as many click-throughs (purchases) as possible.

You may be thinking, “How can I write the product descriptions but yet maintain a good balance?”. It is very simple, because you do NOT write your product descriptions for the search engines or for more clicks.

All you focus your time on is writing RELEVANT copy. If you are selling light bulbs, your copy needs to describe the specific light bulbs you are selling and nothing more, nothing less. You need to put 100% focus into writing copy that is RELEVANT to the product you are selling.

You see, Google places the highest priority on relevance. They only care about giving their consumers (people who search on Google), exactly what they are looking for in the shortest amount of time and clicks possible.

For this reason alone, Google places the #1 priority on relevance. If you do not believe me, check out this video from Google’s Matt Cutt’s.

He talks in that video about how relevance is the most important factor in ranking.

Okay, so now that you know what they want, you may be asking yourself “How do I write relevant copy?”. The answer is, it is very simple.

You focus your copy on describing your product that you are selling. If you are selling a Gucci Alligator Skin purse, then you need to describe a Gucci Alligator Skin purse in accurate and concise copy that you write.

Some common mistakes that people make when writing product descriptions for their eCommerce store, they try and perform some old school keyword stuffing, or keep repeating certain phrases or words over and over. This is a MISTAKE.

What you will want to do to get the most SEO out of your copy is to make sure you use the full product name as it appears throughout your store in your copy. Do not spam it, use it when you need it. This will help your rankings without making it look like you are keyword stuffing. Do not force copy either. If all you can write is 4 sentences about a product, then maybe that is all you can write without writing copy that is useless.

However, it is very easy to write two paragraphs about a product. I do not care what kind of products you are selling, you can and should write at least 6-8 sentences per product. People that are on your website purchasing are more likely to purchase with a detailed description because it helps establish you or your website as the “authority” in their mind.

I encourage you to watch the YouTube video I posted earlier: Google’s Matt Cutt’s and then start writing your relevant copy and watch your search engine rankings go up. There is no guarantee that you will rank better just from that, but it is a critical part of ranking higher in the search engines, specifically Google. Look for more on eCommerce SEO each week!