Boosting your Marketplace Listings in Search Engine Rankings
If you’re a marketplace seller you may think your product listings’ rank on search engines like Google and Bing is beyond your control. In reality, most marketplace sellers can impact one of the most important search ranking factors: product content. Highlighting the importance of on-page content, Google’s own guide to search engine optimization (SEO) states, “Creating compelling and useful content will likely influence your website more than any of the other factors discussed…”. Creating “compelling and useful content” starts with creating unique content that searchers can’t find elsewhere. By crafting original product descriptions, marketplace sellers can separate their product listings from the throng of other pages and websites on the internet. Here are 4 guidelines for developing unique product content for your marketplace listings:
1. Avoid Duplicate Product Listings Content
If unique product content is your friend then duplicate content is your enemy. Google defines duplicate content as, “substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely matches other content or are appreciably similar”. While search engines acknowledge that most content is not intentionally duplicated, it can still negatively affect a page’s search rankings. When product content is copied across multiple pages or websites search engines must try to determine which page is the content owner. The page that wins content ownership in the eyes of the search engines will be highly ranked while other pages will be ranked lower or not at all. Marketplace sellers should be particularly wary of duplicate content as they often use the same descriptions and titles across multiple marketplace product listings. For optimized search rankings retailers should never copy content.
2. Write Content from Scratch
One of the best ways to prevent content duplication and to create highly valuable, original product pages is to write content from scratch. For marketplace sellers, this can be extremely resource intensive — but it is still the best practice. To build content from the ground up, first determine your target customers on each marketplace. Understanding your customers will help inform everything from the wording you use to the product features you emphasize. Second, research the product and compile a list of all the features and benefits. A deep grasp of the product’s functionality and features will translate to more comprehensive product content and make it easier to differentiate content between e-commerce channels. Third, discover the key words and phrases your target customers may use to search for your items and integrate these into your product descriptions and titles. Fourth, use different copywriters to produce product descriptions for each marketplace. Utilizing multiple copywriters will not only reduce the likelihood of copied content but also develop a distinct voice for each marketplace.
3. Curate Content from Multiple Sources
If writing content from scratch isn’t feasible, one option is to curate product content from multiple sources. Start by aggregating product data from as many relevant sources as possible. Sources may include manufacturers, competitors, other marketplace product listings, blogs, and even reviews. Next, evaluate the content from these sources and pick the best elements to use in your own product description. Finally, combine the selected content elements, reword them, and integrate targeted keywords to create your own unique product description. While more achievable for most marketplace sellers, content curation should be approached with caution since the potential for duplicate content is heightened. To minimize this risk and ensure the originality of your product content always keep your target customers in mind and tailor your product descriptions to that audience.
4. Put Existing Content in Your Own Words
If all else fails and avoiding content duplication seems impossible then rewrite existing product content in your own words. Though not ideal, marketplace sellers may be forced to resort to this technique due to prohibitive costs, limited product knowledge, a lack of internal resources or a combination of all three. Regardless of the reason, it’s helpful to keep these tips in mind when reworking existing product content:
- Address your target customers for that specific marketplace
- Integrate the keywords and phrases you want to rank for
- Use a thesaurus to brainstorm alternate terms and phrasing
- Summarize content where possible
- Collaborate with others to gain fresh ideas
Take the Next Step
Taking the time to craft original product content for your marketplace product listings is no small task but it can pay dividends in the form of increased traffic and revenue. To help sellers not only produce compelling content but understand how it impacts search rankings Newegg has published our very own search engine optimization (SEO) guide. Although tailored to Newegg sellers the guide offers helpful insights for all marketplace sellers. Claim your copy of the Newegg Seller SEO Guide
