Ecom SEO 3 of 4: Content + Category & Product Pages (The Real Money Makers)

[00:00:02] Intro & Outro: It's time for the SEO show, where a couple of nerds talk search engine optimization so you can learn to compete in Google and grow your business online. Now, here's your hosts, Michael and Arthur.

[00:00:23] Michael: Hello. It is week three of the E Commerce series on the SEO Show. I am Michael Costin, and I'm joined by Arthur Fabik. How you going?

[00:00:31] Arthur: I'm good. Ready to talk about. What are we talking about this week? Content Week three.

[00:00:37] Arthur: Time flies.

[00:00:38] Michael: It does.

[00:00:38] Arthur: It feels like only yesterday we did episode one.

[00:00:41] Michael: Exactly. Time flies when you're having fun, when you're talking ecommerce SEO. So we did the intro, we did technical, getting your foundation, your plumbing, all that sort of stuff in place. Now we're going to talk about the actual pages themselves and the words you put on it, and then we're going to finish strong with links.

[00:00:58] Arthur: I'm going to put you on the spot.

[00:00:59] Michael: Okay.

[00:00:59] Arthur: If technical is the plumbing, what's content?

[00:01:04] Michael: The frame, I'm going to say, like the. Yeah.

[00:01:07] Arthur: The wall.

[00:01:08] Arthur: The gyprock.

[00:01:08] Michael: The. The. It's the. The wood. Like the frame.

[00:01:11] Arthur: The frame. Yeah.

[00:01:12] Michael: And all that. And the gyprock. And then links are the nice finished fittings and fixtures and the paint and all the fancy stuff at the end that drive the results. Like, they make you. Like the house.

[00:01:23] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:01:23] Arthur: Because without the links, it's just the shell.

[00:01:26] Arthur: Right?

[00:01:26] Michael: Yeah.

[00:01:26] Arthur: There you go.

[00:01:27] Arthur: That's good.

[00:01:27] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:01:28] Michael: And without the shell, the content, it's just a foundation. It's just your technical.

[00:01:32] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:01:32] Arthur: Boom.

[00:01:32] Arthur: Wow.

[00:01:33] Arthur: What an analogy.

[00:01:34] Michael: Put that one in the bank. Better than the last couple that we've tried on this show on the podcast.

[00:01:38] Arthur: We tried me. Yeah.

[00:01:39] Michael: I've had some shockers lately, but that's a good one. But, yeah, content. In the last episode, we spoke about how, from a technical point of view, you can optimize certain things within your template so that at least a baseline is there for content. But we all know that in SEO and to try and rank in competitive spaces, you need to have optimized copy all over the place, addressing certain different intents and have a bit of strategy behind it. So that's what we're going to talk about today, like optimizing your site from a content point of view. We're going to break it down into talking about the basics first, then category pages and then product pages. Those two are the money makers on your site. Then we're going to talk about the full conversion funnel, so the different stages of intent and what sort of content can be created at each stage. Where that sits. So with that done, we should have totally covered SEO E Commerce content.

[00:02:36] Arthur: You would hope so.

[00:02:37] Michael: You'd hope so, wouldn't you?

[00:02:38] Arthur: You would hope so.

[00:02:39] Michael: Let's chat basics.

[00:02:40] Arthur: Let's chat basics.

[00:02:42] Michael: Since we're chatting basics, I'll throw to you.

[00:02:44] Arthur: Sure.

[00:02:45] Arthur: So throw to me. Okay, cool. Yeah, Basics. So we're talking about SEO basics. Not necessarily just applicable to E commerce, but any website. So we're talking about page titles, H1.

[00:02:56] Arthur: So your headings on the page or headings, and also the keywords in the copy.

[00:03:01] Arthur: So for a category page, you want to make sure you're hitting all those different elements.

[00:03:06] Arthur: Agree?

[00:03:07] Michael: I agree. And it would be also. Did you say keywords early in the copy? Because. No, I think that's part of every SEO strategy. You want your target keyword not just in the title tag, but the H1 tag. But early on in the page.

[00:03:21] Arthur: Yeah. So it depends on the page.

[00:03:23] Arthur: Right. But when we talked about. We'll go into more depth about category and product pages. But on a category page, you'd want to have the keyword and a bit of a copy above the page, but you also want to focus on the products, whereas on a product page. Different again.

[00:03:36] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:03:37] Michael: So what we're saying here with Basics is SEO essentials. These things just get you a seat at the game, but they don't let you win the game. You know, everyone's doing this stuff. Everyone does the basics well. So if everyone's doing the basics well, you need to do the same. And then when you change things on your site, make sure you keep an eye on your competitors and that you're not doing something wildly different to what's out there. Ranking which things like title tags, H1 tags, keywords and page copy.

[00:04:03] Arthur: Simple.

[00:04:03] Michael: That's never going to change.

[00:04:04] Arthur: No.

[00:04:05] Michael: Make sure you have that done.

[00:04:06] Arthur: How do you choose a keyword?

[00:04:08] Arthur: So you just do keyword, basic keyword research, and you try to figure out which keywords that you want to rank that page for. You have a look at how competitive they are, pretty much depending on the niche. But essentially it's very. A lot of the time it's obvious if you're selling laptops and notebooks well, your keywords are going to be laptops and notebooks online.

[00:04:25] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:04:26] Arthur: For selling, you know, shoes.

[00:04:27] Arthur: Men's shoes.

[00:04:27] Arthur: It's men's shoes. So people tend to overcomplicate a lot of the time, I feel.

[00:04:32] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:04:32] Michael: And I feel that your basic, like, title tag, placeholder should be some sort of variable where it will Just be like buy, then name category online, quite templated and then you can probably change individual pages as you need to.

[00:04:45] Arthur: Yes.

[00:04:46] Michael: But you have that baseline in place 100%. Let's talk category pages off air. We're kicking around like deeper content on the page. Do you need it? Do you not? Like in our world generally we've always add content to category pages. But then you look at someone like Amazon, they don't have content on their category pages.

[00:05:06] Arthur: No.

[00:05:07] Michael: But then again they're Amazon.

[00:05:08] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:05:09] Michael: Most people with an E commerce site aren't a titan of industry like Amazon.

[00:05:14] Arthur: No.

[00:05:15] Michael: So we advocate always putting copy on category pages a little bit above your product list, but only like a sentence or two where you can work in the main keyword because you want the star of the show to be the products at that point because that's what people are there to buy. But then below the product list, expand on that content, put in your FAQs, link to buyers guides, all that good stuff can be below the products.

[00:05:40] Arthur: Yeah. Internal links to subcategories.

[00:05:42] Michael: Yeah, As a general rule we find that works. And we did a little search for buy laptops or laptops online.

[00:05:49] Arthur: Yep.

[00:05:49] Michael: Pulled up JB hi Fi.

[00:05:51] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:05:51] Michael: Officeworks, all the ones that were ranking mwave and they all to different degrees had a version of that. So Amazon gets away without it. But we would say that for most people you're going to want to put your content on the category pages the way we've just said.

[00:06:06] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:06:07] Arthur: One thing I did want to flag though is we spoke about this as well with category pages. It's a bit different with E commerce sites with a say you're a service based business, the page is quite static. Right.

[00:06:19] Arthur: So you're not often changing the content.

[00:06:20] Arthur: On that money page. Whereas with an E commerce site, very different because you have different product ranges, different brands, you might have a sale. So that page is constantly dynamically changing and with any change that you make.

[00:06:33] Arthur: On a page there's gonna be fluctuations with rankings.

[00:06:36] Arthur: So we find that with some clients they can make big changes on, on a specific page by just adding a specific product spotlight product. That can change the code changes everything changes the way Google sees the page and you might see rankings drop a position or two. So you gotta be pretty careful when you're working with category pages on E comm sites.

[00:06:55] Michael: What are you, are you a fan of trying to keep category page content relatively generic and evergreen so that doesn't have to change?

[00:07:03] Arthur: And well, it's not so much the.

[00:07:05] Arthur: Actual content, it's just the products.

[00:07:06] Arthur: Because if you think about when you know Google's not just looking at the words on the page, it's also looking at everything else. So if you're appliance retailer and you've got say you want to push Sony products this, this month, you update your category page, you start showing more Sony.

[00:07:22] Arthur: Products, you have new banners, new, the page changes.

[00:07:25] Michael: Yeah.

[00:07:25] Arthur: That will inevitably have a small impact.

[00:07:28] Arthur: Or large impact on rankings. So you never know.

[00:07:31] Arthur: So that's, that's why I say you have to be a bit more cautious than you would be with a regular.

[00:07:35] Arthur: Service based Legion website. Yeah.

[00:07:37] Arthur: Because you're not changing that page.

[00:07:38] Michael: It's a balancing act of pushing what's important for your store.

[00:07:43] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:07:44] Michael: But keeping your SEO in check.

[00:07:47] Arthur: Yeah. And we've seen that with clients we work with now, you know, and you.

[00:07:50] Arthur: Can'T avoid it because you're going to have to change products. But that's why we always tell them, you know, if you're going to be making a big change, keep us in the loop because then we can, you know, give you advice on whether or not you should do something a specific way or whether to do it, not do it at all. So something to think about.

[00:08:07] Michael: But I would say category pages is probably the more easier of the two because they serve as a funnel to push people into your product pages ultimately on the site. So you know, the blurb above the blurb below, FAQs, links and buyer's guides, maybe some internal links to brands or subcategories and then that's that. But the product page is where from a conversion point of view as well, you're going to have a big impact. So tell me, tell me about your dream product page. What's that look like?

[00:08:36] Arthur: My dream product page.

[00:08:38] Michael: Absolute dream. Do you have a dream? I'm sure you've thought about this in dev.

[00:08:42] Arthur: Well, for me, a good product page, first thing I look at is the images, right. Like a nice high resolution image of the actual product and a gallery. I want to see product title, I want to see the price. Very important. A lot of the time it's very hidden. You know, things like usps. Yeah, USPS product reviews, all that. Like user generated content description, a well.

[00:09:10] Michael: Written description, links to buyer's guides or videos or whatever about people using it. So yeah, pretty pretty straightforward. The stuff above the fold like that is the star of the show on your E commerce product page.

[00:09:25] Arthur: Product page. Yeah.

[00:09:25] Michael: So you're probably not even leading with SEO focus up there. Like some of that's going to be beneficial from an SEO point of view, but it's going to be later on the page that stuff that you can influence from an SEO point of view comes in.

[00:09:37] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:09:37] Arthur: I think from a CRO perspective, like if you have free delivery, things like that, like free returns, that's very important to have it like front and center. So when someone's making a decision where they see the product and you're blasting free returns, if you're not happy, you.

[00:09:52] Arthur: Can return it risk free, 30 days.

[00:09:54] Arthur: It's just going to entice them more to make that purchase because it's eliminating a lot of the risk.

[00:10:00] Michael: Yeah.

[00:10:01] Arthur: So making it very clear all of those USPs.

[00:10:04] Michael: So we've got a couple of little points here of things that can factor into a product page from an SEO point of view. First one is your product description for a bespoke product, flowers. Then you have to write something from scratch, so that's fine. But if you're just selling products that other people can sell from a brand, don't just import whatever description they've given you. In an ideal world, or particularly for the products that are most important to you, your high value ones, try and write custom benefit focused ones, not just the boilerplate stuff that every other store has. That's going to be a point of difference from an SEO point of view. Help you potentially rank higher, get more keywords in the page, that sort of stuff.

[00:10:50] Arthur: Yep.

[00:10:51] Michael: You agree with that one?

[00:10:52] Arthur: Yes, absolutely.

[00:10:55] Michael: User generated content.

[00:10:56] Arthur: Yep.

[00:10:58] Michael: Reviews, Q&As, even photos before and after photos.

[00:11:02] Arthur: I love that user photos is massive and I love that Amazon does that.

[00:11:05] Michael: Yeah.

[00:11:06] Arthur: Because often the product images that you.

[00:11:07] Arthur: See, you know this, they're made to look perfect. But the reality is some of the stuff doesn't look that great. So I like to look at especially cheaper products, what it actually looks like.

[00:11:17] Michael: Yeah, it's all fresh content.

[00:11:19] Arthur: Fresh content.

[00:11:20] Michael: Google likes fresh content a lot of the time. So yeah, there's tools like Yotpo and Judge Me and stuff that will allow you to bring in that sort of content pretty easily without too much effort on your behalf.

[00:11:31] Arthur: All right, what about conversion content? So things like social proof urgency triggers or like even benefit focused content.

[00:11:38] Michael: Yeah.

[00:11:39] Arthur: What about the one I mentioned off Mike when we were talking about adding in like a, a blurb from someone in the team, like an expert in the team promoting a specific product. So in the example of laptops, you know, Joe from the computer department recommends this for university students on a budget that are looking for a PC that can handle all the tasks they need in a, you know, budget focused.

[00:12:02] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:12:03] Michael: Benefit driven. Benefit driven, absolutely. That's going to be unique to the product page. Ways for people to find it that maybe searching those things, it's going to help them make the purchase because it's addressing their need. You've got all your social proof, your UGC urgency triggers like, you know, sale on, now ending, countdown timer, whatever, two.

[00:12:21] Arthur: Left in stock at this price.

[00:12:23] Michael: That's a big one.

[00:12:24] Arthur: Stuff like that.

[00:12:25] Michael: Yeah, that's pretty much it. Like from an SEO point of view, having the basics in place and then doing all of the above that we just spoke about, you're going to have a pretty fine tuned product page and category page.

[00:12:40] Arthur: Yep, I think so.

[00:12:41] Michael: But let's talk about the whole funnel.

[00:12:44] Arthur: Yes.

[00:12:44] Michael: Like people will find the site searching for a very specific, you know, whatever. It could be like a ping driver, right hand, certain size or something because they know they want to buy that in golf. Or they might be at the very start of the process typing in, do I need to get fitted golf clubs as a. If I can't break 100 or something.

[00:13:07] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:13:07] Michael: Two very different intents, but potentially leading to the same point of them buying some golf clubs from a golf store.

[00:13:14] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:13:15] Michael: And we've just spoken about doing all the basics on your category pages, product pages, but there are other stuff on a site like blog posts, like your buyer's guides and all that. There are other ways you can try to target long tail keywords that maybe are less competitive than the big juicy head terms. So maybe we can start with maybe looking at that funnel and just brainstorming or freestyling ideas of content that can be done at each stage. So you know, the awareness stage, that's where someone's right at the start and they're not actively in hunt mode. They don't have their wallet out ready to buy at the moment, but they could turn into a customer. So what? Like for me, that's where your blog posts come into play.

[00:13:55] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:13:56] Michael: And maybe really good buyer's guides.

[00:13:57] Arthur: Yeah. Comprehensive buyer's guides.

[00:13:59] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:13:59] Arthur: So let's do an example. We'll do, let's do appliances. Right. So let's just say you're looking to buy a fridge. You don't know what fridge, like what type of fridge you want to get. There's so many different types. You've got, you know, your French door, you got your standard, you know, top fridge, bottom freezer. The alternate of that.

[00:14:18] Michael: Was that the limit of your fridge knowledge?

[00:14:20] Arthur: No.

[00:14:20] Arthur: Well, and then there's built in fridges, the ones into like go straight into the fridge with the cabinetry counter.

[00:14:26] Michael: Fridge.

[00:14:26] Arthur: Yeah, Buy fridges, you know, you know your fridge.

[00:14:29] Michael: I see you know your fridge as well.

[00:14:30] Arthur: I know fridge as well.

[00:14:32] Arthur: I've. Yeah.

[00:14:33] Arthur: But someone might not be sure what type of fridge they want to get for their new kitchen. So they'll start searching what type of fridge should I get?

[00:14:41] Arthur: So a comprehensive buyer's guide would basically kind of tick off all the different.

[00:14:44] Arthur: Types of fridges or options of fridges that you have available at your store, give a comprehensive rundown of all of that. Talk about things such as features, you know, do you need a fridge with wi fi? Do you want stainless steel? Do you need a white one, black one? Do you want one that's got, you.

[00:15:01] Arthur: Know, cameras inside it that can tell.

[00:15:02] Arthur: You that you can tap into at any time when you're at the shops to see what's in your fridge? So you don't buy more yogurt if you don't need to.

[00:15:09] Michael: Yeah.

[00:15:09] Arthur: You know, fridges these days are so high tech.

[00:15:12] Michael: Yeah.

[00:15:12] Arthur: Essentially just creating an extremely comprehensive long form article on that one specific category that ranks really well for users to.

[00:15:21] Arthur: Be able to find.

[00:15:22] Arthur: And once they read and figure out what fridge they want, having internal links to specific categories, products, even images, all that, it's just a one stop kind of shop for that specific product category.

[00:15:36] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:15:36] Michael: So the people at this stage, they kind of know, they know they need.

[00:15:41] Arthur: A fridge, but they don't. They're not sure which fridge, they're not sure which brand, they're not sure.

[00:15:46] Michael: So you're educating at this point.

[00:15:47] Arthur: It's an educational, long form, comprehensive blog post essentially.

[00:15:51] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:15:52] Michael: And so with this sort of content structured.

[00:15:54] Arthur: Structured. Well, yeah.

[00:15:56] Michael: With this content, you're not looking for it to convert on first visit. Cold traffic like it's more about getting traffic like driving lots of organic traffic via these articles and then looking at, you know, new verse, returning users in future and are they eventually coming down the funnel. But the intent of the copy is not the hard sell. It's about educating, providing a ton of value.

[00:16:17] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:16:18] Michael: So that when they are ready to move forward, yeah, you've helped them, you're in the box seat to get the sale.

[00:16:24] Arthur: Educating and also pointing out, you know.

[00:16:26] Arthur: If you're looking for a like a French door fridge, we have this Panasonic fridge.

[00:16:31] Arthur: Yeah. A little blurb, the description, the size.

[00:16:33] Arthur: Little image, have a look, check it out.

[00:16:35] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:16:35] Arthur: So people start looking at your products, start looking at your product range. So when they make the decision of the type of fridge they want, they'll think of you.

[00:16:43] Michael: Well, let's talk about that next stage. The first stage is awareness.

[00:16:45] Arthur: Yep.

[00:16:46] Michael: The next stage is consideration. This is where they're like, all right, I know that I'm into a French door fridge.

[00:16:52] Arthur: Yes.

[00:16:53] Michael: And I'm ready to make a decision here.

[00:16:55] Arthur: Yep.

[00:16:55] Michael: I've discounted all the others. So I'm going to be looking at things like, you know, detailed, really detailed product pages and comparing them or comparison guides where you list all the different products together, reviews from customers. So you need to start having content that's suited to people at that stage. So yeah. Do you have any examples or fridge examples that you want to throw out for that one?

[00:17:18] Arthur: I mean you could just. For a comprehensive like product page, you can just have a very detailed rundown of the product description images like you said, reviews, specs.

[00:17:28] Arthur: Specs.

[00:17:29] Michael: But also dimensions is a big one. Probably.

[00:17:31] Arthur: Yeah, dimensions, but also like you said, comparison table. So you could compare the model against the comparable model from a different brand.

[00:17:39] Arthur: And show the features.

[00:17:41] Arthur: So hey, you're interested in this type of fridge. We also have a fridge by lg and these are the features, this is the price.

[00:17:47] Arthur: So you can see.

[00:17:48] Arthur: Okay, well I don't really need, you know those fridges where you tap the glass and it goes see through.

[00:17:52] Michael: Yeah.

[00:17:52] Arthur: Do you find that useful?

[00:17:53] Michael: Yeah.

[00:17:54] Arthur: You do find it useful?

[00:17:55] Michael: No, I've only ever seen that once.

[00:17:58] Arthur: I don't find it useful. I don't need a big screen in my fridge.

[00:18:02] Arthur: Yeah. So I'm not going to spend fifteen hundred dollars more.

[00:18:04] Arthur: Yeah, I much prefer to get one that's fifteen hundred dollars cheaper. Equally as good.

[00:18:09] Arthur: So you're basically giving people options and.

[00:18:11] Arthur: Letting them figure out what they want using that. Yeah, using that method.

[00:18:16] Michael: So they're in comparison. They're in comparison mode at the moment. So you want to have as much of your content geared around that as possible. Yeah, they're probably like at this stage when you're problem aware and you've decided on your solution, this is where people will spend most of their time, you know, in the process. So I've seen studies that say like 50% of their time is in this actual active comparison and trying to whittle down the product that they want to buy.

[00:18:43] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:18:44] Michael: One we didn't touch on that I think is pretty good is like how to either articles or videos.

[00:18:49] Arthur: Videos is like I was going to mention videos.

[00:18:50] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:18:51] Arthur: A lot of like bigger retailers will have someone from the store just give you a walkthrough of that product. So if they're trying to sell a specific LG fridge, they'll go through maybe like a two, three minute video where it's just super simple. They'll run through the fridge, go through all the features, show you the inside. I think that's great because it keeps.

[00:19:08] Arthur: Them engaged, it keeps them on the.

[00:19:09] Arthur: Page and you know, it's a lot easier to consume a video than it is to try to wrap your hand around all those different features and specs.

[00:19:15] Michael: Yeah. And not just that, but even things like how to install it or how to assemble it or different scenarios, depending what the product is, of course. But like just you got to tick all the boxes.

[00:19:26] Arthur: Yep.

[00:19:27] Michael: So all of that should be linked from your category pages and product pages as we spoke about.

[00:19:32] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:19:33] Michael: All that internal linking will help those bits of content stand on their own two legs in Google and drive traffic as well. Let's get down to the next stage. This is a fun stage, the decision where people buy the product. This is the product page. This is where they really make or break your site, basically. And it's going to be basically like what we spoke about before. Really?

[00:19:57] Arthur: Yeah. Clear call to actions, trust, signals, reviews.

[00:20:01] Arthur: Pricing, urgency, all that.

[00:20:05] Michael: Free trials or demos if you want free delivery, live chat support to help people make the call. I would put card abandonment emails in here as well if they make it. As far as checking out, but not checking out.

[00:20:16] Arthur: Yes.

[00:20:17] Michael: It's not an SEO factor, but we're getting excited here. Talking E commerce at the moment. But customer testimonials, UGC photos, reviews are the big one.

[00:20:25] Arthur: Yes.

[00:20:26] Michael: And price.

[00:20:27] Arthur: Well, yeah, price.

[00:20:28] Michael: So you gotta be competitive. All this is for nothing if you're going to charge way more than.

[00:20:31] Arthur: Oh yeah, absolutely.

[00:20:33] Michael: Yep. Unless you've got some other value prop and it's a bespoke product. Of course.

[00:20:37] Arthur: Yeah.

[00:20:38] Michael: But we probably don't need to dwell on this side. Like we've already covered product and where the purchase is made. So that's really the main. Like we don't need to go into any more of the funnel. It's just like being problem aware, made a decision and comparing and then actually deciding to buy. Do you have content on your site that addresses every stage of that and is it all nicely linked and SEO optimize? That is content for an SEO ecommerce website?

[00:21:04] Arthur: In a nutshell, yeah.

[00:21:05] Michael: An SEO E commerce website that is doing content. SEO for an E commerce website. Nice, isn't it?

[00:21:12] Arthur: Yes.

[00:21:14] Michael: All right, well, that is episode three of our series. If you've listened to all of it, we thank you for listening. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. But next week we're going to be back to talk about link building for E Commerce stores. Big topic Link building is our favorite.

[00:21:33] Arthur: Topic so it's always, always fun to talk about link building especially for ecom.

[00:21:36] Michael: I'm going to try to talk about some different angles that we haven't spoken about before.

[00:21:40] Arthur: Oh I'm excited.

[00:21:41] Michael: Going to have to figure out what they are coming now on recording time.

[00:21:45] Arthur: Can't wait to hear it next week.

[00:21:46] Michael: Sounds good. Well until then, happy seoing. We'll see you next time.

[00:21:50] Arthur: Bye.

[00:21:52] Intro & Outro: Thanks for listening to the SEO Show. If you like what you heard, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. It will really help the show. We'll see you in the next episode.

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