09/09/2021
Biggest mistakes when writing content for an eCommerce store…
Start with the name.
What you name your product is extremely important for marketing, branding and searches.
Let’s say you have a brand-new line of sports water bottles; unlike anything the world has seen. You have them designed with images of all different sports. Because all you sell are these water bottles, you simply name them by the sport and color, “Baseball Red”, “Frisbee Yellow”, etc.
Guess what searches Google Shopping is going to show your products for? You guessed it, “yellow frisbees”, “red baseballs”, etc.
In addition, most eCommerce platforms use your product name as the H1 and Title tags. This means that search engines will assume your product pages are about…
From a technical standpoint, the ideal name would be something like, “20oz Water Bottle using Space Age Widgeteen Technology - Baseball Lovers Red.”
This way, your products would show up for searches like…
“red 20oz water bottle”
“water bottle for baseball lovers”
“water bottle with widgeteen”
“red baseball themed water bottle”
Perhaps a name that long won’t work on your category pages. The are ways to use different values for the name on your category page, your product page, your feed, etc. If you are using WooCommerce, there are many plugins that do these things.
Actually “Sell” your product.
Some products can be sold by well written content, just think of the J. Peterman catalog. If you don’t know what that is, it is from Seinfield.
However, online shoppers don’t read.
This has been proven time and time again with heatmaps and conversion rate studies. Books have been written about it. If you haven’t already, read “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug.
The average site visitor scans the page and starts making decisions very quickly. If they don’t see the “next logical step” they may scroll, hit the back button (bounce) or start looking closer. From this point, milliseconds count.
Satisficing
This word, an economics term, is a portmanteau of the words “satisfy” and “sacrifice.”
When faced with multiple options, a person will choose the first “plausible” option not necessarily the best option.
When a decision needs to be made quickly, like anytime someone is browsing the web, satisficing comes into play to a greater extent.
Let’s use the water bottle example…
A shopper comes to your site and sees the red water bottle with the baseball image in the top row. It checks all the boxes, 20oz, red and baseball themed.
You have a special edition series of bottles in unique colors, but visitors have to scroll down to find them. Other than colors, they look exactly like your standard series.
There is a strong possibility that your site visitors don’t even see the special edition water bottles because one that met their needs was already found.
If they do scroll down, all the customer can see is the $5 price difference and the color. They decide the “standard” red is just fine.
What they did not know was that your special edition had 30% better insulation and impact protection. These were things that they would have gladly paid the additional $5 for.
Let’s say they do get to the product page, where the special edition features are explained within a paragraph, you know for “content.” This is great for search engines (SEO) but horrible for shoppers.
Guess what, the average site visitor is NOT reading it. If they have to scroll to get to it, you can almost guarantee most visitors don’t see and/or read it.
What’s the solution?
Explain features/benefits of your upsells above the fold and as early as possible. Have a “Good, Better, Best” on your category pages. Use bullet points to show features/benefits. Put upsells on your product pages with clear reasons for the shopper to choose the upgrade.
If your customer walked into your physical store shopping for a water bottle, what would be one of the first things you told them? Personally, I would point out that the special edition bottles kept water colder longer and was designed to withstand high impacts without breaking.
