Product Pages: An Overview of Main Promotional Tools

SEO of product pages serves several strategic purposes, namely:

• Acquiring target traffic from search engines.
• Increasing conversion (the number of orders).
• Decreasing bounce rate.
  

First let’s review the basic SEO recommendations from Google, and then we will go over page elements in detail.

Google, in its commercial page quality evaluation guidelines, breaks any page into main content and supplementary content.

The main content is your product information. This includes headers, descriptions, photos and videos, transactional elements, tabs like “Reviews”, “Shipping”, “Certificates”, etc.

The supplementary content is parts of a page that are not included in the main content: page header, footer, navigational links, similar products, etc.

And here are a couple of example pages that are high quality according to Google.

A comment from Google:

The purpose of this page is to provide information about, and allow users to buy, a specific type of school backpack. The page provides a lot of helpful product information, as well as 600 user reviews.

A comment from Google:

This shopping page on a reputable shopping website has a satisfying amount of high-quality MC. The page provides the manufacturer’s product specs, as well as original product information, over 90 user reviews, shipping and returns information, multiple images of the product, etc.

Now we’ll list required elements of a product page in order of their importance, starting from the most important. This article covers only the main points of SEO that suit most shops. Depending on a specific sphere, you might need some additional content, alternative methods of displaying data, etc.

Before promoting product pages, you need to understand which keywords might be used to search for your products, and for this you need to assemble a semantic kernel.

Product queries usually use medium- or low-frequency keywords (with long tails) that describe a product with maximum precision. By analyzing collected queries, you will understand which words should always be present on a page (such as product code, color, or size) and which synonyms you should use in your text elements.

Why might you need a product code? Many people go to brick-and-mortar stores to get a closer look at a product and then order it online, and that code will help them find your product.

It’s important to understand that if your site has many products, then manual optimization is out of the question.

Some things to consider:

• We recommend using several variables in your templates for unambiguous product identification. That way, you won’t have multiple pages with the same meta tags.
• Variable examples: product name, code, manufacturer, model number, price, specifications (size, color, weight, etc.).
• Use commercial words: buy, order, price, shipping, etc.
• Meta tags and headers can be very long if they include the name of an item and its parameters. This is normal.

Listing a price is important for promoting your product page.

As noted by an expert at Google, it’s the presence of a price itself that is important, not how competitive that price is:

“It’s not the case that we would try to recognize the price on a page and use that as a ranking factor. So it’s not the case that we would say we’ll take the cheaper one and rank that higher.” 

Buttons like “Buy/Order”, “Add to cart”, and “Buy now with 1-click” are an integral part of any commercial page. The one-click button is especially relevant for mobile devices, for which it simplifies the order process.

Ideally, a product page that sells shouldn’t have an  overly spammy description that answers all potential questions. But since this is not always feasible, at least try to list product specifications, preferably as a table — then you will have a chance to get an expanded snippet.

A popular opinion states that you should not, under any circumstances, copy descriptions from a manufacturer’s site. But this is a misconception. Here is an official response of Google’s representative John Mueller:

“You don’t get a penalty for duplicate content. The only time Google would have something like a penalty or an algorithmic action or manual action is when the whole website is purely duplicated content.”

“If these are ecommerce sites and you have the description that’s the same and the rest of your website is different, that’s perfectly fine. You don’t need to worry about any demotion or dropping in ranking or anything.”

“Essentially what we try to avoid is to create search results pages where the snippet is exactly the same as other websites.”

“If someone is searching for something generic which is only in the description of that product and the snippet that we would show for your website, for the manufacturer were exactly the same, then Google would try to pick one of those pages and show only that one.”

When Google would choose to rank a reseller over the manufacturer:

1. When the user intent to buy is clear and the reseller is the best source for the product.
2. The reseller is local and a local retailer is the best result.

You can read about cases when original content makes a big difference in our article Why Unique Content is Important for Website Promotion

When possible, post several photos of your product that show it from different sides. Sometimes it’s useful to have a photo with something else in the background, so that your customer can gauge the actual size. According to the research conducted by Baymard Institute, 42% of users try to determine the size of a product by looking at its photos on a shop page.

Videos can’t be called a required element, but they can give you a competitive edge. Here are several facts from DemoUP, a company that specializes in making video reviews for ecommerce projects:

• Customers who watched videos about a product made a purchase 85% more often.
• Videos have a positive effect on behavioral factors (visiting time).
• ~70% of respondents consider video reviews to be the best way to showcase a product and its specs.

Experts from Vendasta shared the following statistics:

• 88% of customers use reviews to make a decision about a purchase.
• 43% of customers search for reviews of products and companies.
• 88% of customers trust reviews as much as personal recommendations.

Reviews increase customers’ trust. Furthermore, it’s a source of unique,  updated content that Google likes so much.

It’s recommended to display blocks like these to answer questions a customer might have without making them leave the current page.

These blocks shouldn’t have a lot of text; otherwise, it will lower the percentage of unique pages on your site. The detailed information should be put on separate pages with links leading to them.

Price and delivery time calculations (right on a page), showing pick-up points on a map, payment options information — all of these positively affect your site ranking. If you can’t implement online price calculation, at least show this information as text.

Other blocks that can be added to those mentioned above are: “Availability”, “Licenses/Certificates”, “Articles”, “FAQ”, etc. You can determine how necessary they are after analyzing your market and competitors.

These blocks have three functions:

1. They provide interlinking for product pages, which improves their indexation and link juice transfer.
2. They make a page unique because of a randomized display of products from certain categories.
3. They increase user engagement.

On average, each block displays 4 to 16 products, depending on a market and your stock.

Similar to videos, a product-comparing block can make you stand out among your competitors.

All of the above doesn’t really matter if your mobile version is poorly optimized — or if you don’t have one at all 😱. Google switched almost all sites to mobile indexation, which means that it ranks based on mobile content specifically.

A product page URL should include your product name, or just a part of it if it’s too long. You can also use your product code in your URL to avoid possible duplication. More information on friendly URLs in our article.

Your product pages, just like all others, should participate in internal interlinking. This can be done by using blocks of similar products, as well as employing catalog pages or links from a blog. Product pages should also participate in external interlinking. The optimal way to include links is by using overview-type articles, like “An overview of TOP-N products for this and that”.

Structured data means a standardized, machine-recognizable format that allows robots to analyze your content as correctly as possible. Product pages usually use microformats: Product, reviews, Open Graph, and breadcrumbs.
You can send your structured data via a Google Merchant Center feed (an alternative to Product) or by directly formatting the contents of your page.
A summary of structured data advantages:

Using feeds and data markup on your product page allows you to get extended snippets.

Text paths (breadcrumbs) make site navigation easier and participate in interlinking of pages.

According to Nielsen Norman Group, ~80% of users follow an F-shaped path when viewing product pages. To ensure that you have maximum conversion, it pays to display the most important information along that shape.

Try to fit all necessary information on one page. This includes product name, photos, price, transactional buttons, a short description, and specifications.

• Try to fill in every product page as fully as you can.
• Check your pages from time to time for technical errors and, should any appear, promptly correct them.
• Always bear in mind usability and visual aspects.
• Site optimization in general will also aid in raising its rank.

You will likely improve the ranking of your product pages by implementing all elements and recommendations we talked about. However, your work doesn’t stop there.
Strive for perfection. You can always add new elements and solutions, constantly improving your pages. Keep an eye on your direct competitors and changes they make or find inspiration in other markets. You should also test various ideas and implement the best of them.