Why good product descriptions are essential for product reputation
Ensuring your products are represented accurately across other retail websites can be hard because you don’t control them, but you can ask that the product descriptions are accurate and consistent with those on your own site, and you can take control of any online reviews by replying to them and boosting the positive ones.
Your product’s reputation
With the introduction of Google’s ‘shop’ section which appears in a product search, consumers can instantly see the prices and most of the time, a star rating for that product on a variety of retail websites.
For example, if we were to search for a “Morphy Richards accents toaster” – here’s what comes up at the top:
Google’s shop function is extremely influential to a consumer’s purchasing decision, so any variations in star ratings or price may influence where the consumer chooses to purchase from. Make sure that if you’ve specified a certain price, the retailer is sticking to that and not undercutting your own website.
It’s also important that if the star ratings are three-star or below for your product on another retailer’s site, that you take control to try and improve this. Have a look at the reviews and reply politely and helpfully to any of those that are negative, also ensure you reply to the positive ones, too. You can boost the presence of the positive reviews by sharing them on your social media channels.
Your product’s reputation can be determined in an instant with a Google search, it’s essential that you take as much control as you can of how they are represented on Google’s shop function and other retailer sites.
Product descriptions
As consumers, we’re all getting much savvier when it comes to purchasing decisions and deciding where to buy from. There is increasingly more and more choice about where to buy a particular product from, and even which product to buy.
We’re doing more of our own research online than ever before – reading reviews, listening to personal recommendations, searching forums – so it’s essential that product descriptions at the very least are optimised to help the consumer purchase your product.
They need to be descriptive – not brief, informative but not salesy, and they need to be accurate – one sure way to bad reviews is misleading the consumer on what they’re purchasing.
Not only will your product descriptions influence the consumer and help you make the sale, but fresh, unique and descriptive content will help it to rank for searches.
Ensure that these product descriptions are consistent and accurate across all retailer websites selling your product, the reputation of your product depends on it.
What not to do
Don’t duplicate descriptions: Google is clever when it comes to recognising duplicated content, Google ranks on original content and anything duplicated will send you down in terms of ranking. Creating original, accurate and attention-grabbing item descriptions provides potential customers with the right, useful information.
Don’t abandon mobile-friendly updates: With 60% of purchases carried out on mobiles in the 2015 Christmas season, making sure your e-commerce website is transferable to mobile devices is a definite way to ensure you do not miss out on significant sales. Text and layouts all need to have the ability to automatically alter to fit a smaller screen, making the overall purchase process quick and easy.
Don’t ignore reviews: Ignoring reviews sends the consumers the message that as a company, you do not value their opinion and that you simply do not care. Tackling any negative reviews quickly and professionally shows that you accept responsibility for the problem and that you are willing to resolve the issue.
Don’t focus only on images: Many retailers are focusing on the design and the imagery of the products and relying on this to sell the product, but not only is Google interested in the product description, the user is too.
Improve and manage your product’s reputation
If you’re unhappy with the way your product(s) look on Google shop or just want to know how to improve it, get in touch with me at simon@igniyte.co.uk or on +44 (0)203 542 8689 and I’d be happy to have an informal discussion about how I can help.
