E-commerce site Content guidelines

[seoUndies]

Hi Everyone.

Im the owner of a mens underwear company start up  I have heard so many things about content on e-commerce sites that I'm at a point where I have no idea what to believe  people tell me do a blog, but honestly on a start up who has time for that? plus we are not shedding money to hire a full time employee to take care of that.

I have inserted text related to the category i try to keep my ratio below 7% and under 120 words. but is that enough? I have seen sites ranking #1 under mens underwear with way less content or almost non existent.

Any comments would help me a lot.

Thanks

R

[ChristopherGlaeser]

Regarding 170 words, are you referring to the meta data description or the actual content in a product page?  If you are referring to the latter, you can (and should ) have much more content than 170 words.

Best,
Christopher

[EGOL]

Im the owner of a mens underwear company start up......   but honestly on a start up who has time for that?

Sir,

There are many underwear sellers out there.  I can name at least a dozen and I can't even tell you what kind I am wearing right now.

If you hope to compete with these other companies you will challenge them by using your voice to clearly explain why their product is half ass and yours is not.   If you don't have anything to say about that then why are you in this business?

If you can make your case and present your products clearly with enthusiasm, verve, humor and common sense then you have a chance to succeed on  the web and I will bet my money on you.  If you can't then I am willing to bet a month's pay that you will fail.

I have inserted text related to the category i try to keep my ratio below 7% and under 120 words. but is that enough?

People buying underwear don't give a damn about this.  Google doesn't care either.  Forget the numbers and do a fantastic job describing your product.  If you don't care enough about it then let the underwear selling to somebody else.  Why should anybody anywhere buy from you?

Show people that you know your stuff.  Explain why your product is the one that they should buy.

I have seen sites ranking #1 under mens underwear with way less content or almost non existent.

Success on the web does not fall to the lazy man or to the sloppy.  it goes to the person who does a fantastic job.  Since these guys are doing such a crappy job that should motivate you to show them up.   When I see crap like that above me it gets my blood pumping to outdo them.

You arrived at this battle about ten years too late.  They have a huge head start on you and you must play catch-up if you want to unseat them.  They grabbed the high ground when the time was right.  Its just like getting the best location on Main Street or at the Mall.  You must fight uphill to make up for being tardy.  They are not going to step aside for you.

.. plus we are not shedding money to hire a full time employee to take care of that.

II think that this is a job that you should trust to nobody but yourself.  Certainly you should know an awful lot more about underwear than they ever did or ever will.  Why would you hire a cheap noob to explain your valuable product and try to sell your hard work on your most important marketing place?

Tomorrow get out of bed and decide to make your website the best place on this planet to purchase underwear.  Write articles that help people learn to judge quality.  Write  articles to help them select the right style, the right fabric and the proper fit.  Certainly you must know a lot about these things.   You probably don't see that type of information on the cheap ass underwear sites.   Yours can be different if you get it into your head that building a great website is one of your most important jobs.  Make yours the best-on-the-web  where people can learn and buy with confidence.

That's how you win on the web.

[bashseo]

Raul,

If you wouldnt mind, could you shed a bit more detail as to what you meant by the following question:

"I have heard so many things about content on e-commerce sites that I'm at a point where I have no idea what to believe  people tell me do a blog"

As a fellow ecommerce store owner, I can definitely relate to your unique situation.  Content for ecommerce sites can sometimes be a bit different than other non-ecommerce sites, and things can definitely get very confusing.  As EGOL mentioned, you have to have the mentality that your going to make your site the best damn site on the planet.  Unfortunately, sometimes that can be EXTREMELY difficult to do, but EXTREMELY simple to say (especially when a person doesnt work in the ecommerce field).  Where exactly are you looking to get your content? Product Pages or Category Pages? Some content on category pages can be very helpful for UX depending on the brand, and if there is anything to say that wont distract your customers.  Product Pages are the pages where your going to have more flexibility as far as content is concerned.

In regards to the blog, you dont have to blog 10x per week, and there are plenty of websites out there that are geared towards helping people who have absolutely no clue about blogging.  Here are a couple links that should help you out:

1. Darren Rowse - 31 Days To Build A better Blog : [http://www.problogger.net/31dbbb-workbook/

2. ](http://www.problogger.net/31dbbb-workbook/)http://skyrocketseo.co.uk/blogging-for-your-business-guide/ (This was written by forum member James Agate, a very generous contributor here)

There is more out there, but that should be plenty to get you started.

Hope that helps

[seoUndies]

Hi EGOL.

Our site was founded in 2003 and we had a good run as online retailer, however 2 years ago we decided to focus only on our brand and since then we have done it. we started selling our brand just 2 years ago and focusing on our site probably 8 months ago.

Thanks you for your comments and I will make sure to write along those suggested lines. However lets say a customer lands in one of my category pages (Mens Boxers) please have in mind that I do know the content has to be interesting but how big should that block be? IS it the same if I write 60 words as if I write 300? I could probably say the same in both versions.

Thanks

Raul

[seoUndies]

Hi Bashseo.

I want to place content on our categories, the main goal is to rank well in each category, we dont have that many probably 10 - 12.

Thanks

Raul

[EGOL]

My category pages show a thumbnail of each item and a unique block of text for that item.  This text block is usually 50 to 100 words per item.

So, if I have category pages with 20 items, they are going to have 1000 to 2000 words.  These seem to rank really well and they pull in lots of long tail queries.

[seoUndies]

By the way EGOL. Thanks for the though love and right now I do belive that this is the most important job of my life. I have a lot at stake and that's why I was motivated to post in this forum looking for some expert opinions.

Raul

[seoUndies]

I dont quite understand.

Im using Magento so I'm not quite sure I can add content to the prodcuts displayed.

I was planning on adding content to the category header and also add content to the Meta description since according to google webmastertools videos the SE uses as a sniped in the serach results.

I have attached a printscreen of a page with no content and wehre I paln to palce content but the idea of inserting content to each prodcut is very interesting. Would you be able to elaborate on it? if you can and have time.

Thanks

zUBkAh1

[bashseo]

EGOL,

Are you doing this on a CMS like Magento or Open Cart, or something else? I'd definitely be interested in trying to implement something like this on Magento.

[EGOL]

Great!  Glad to hear that you have the fever!

[EGOL]

This site is built in DreamWeaver.

I don't use CMS for my most important pages - because I want them to be finely craft arrows... also building LONG content pages with lots of images in Dreamweaver is much easier for me than building them in the tiny window of a CMS.

[seoUndies]

Magento Community Edition 1.6.02