Will more comprehensive content on product pages help improve ranking?

[Bob_Kastner]

We're working to improve the ranking of one of our product landing pages. The page that currently ranks #1 has a very simple, short layout with the main keyword many times on the page with otherwise very little text. One thought we had was to make a more comprehensive page including more info on the features and benefits of the product. The thought being that a longer form page would be more valuable and potentially look better to Google if the other SEO pieces are on par.

Does that make sense to do? Or would it be better to keep the product page simple and make some more related content on our blog linking back to that landing page?

Thanks in advance to any help you can provide!

[DmitriiK]

Howdy.

My answer would be "User Intent", and "User Experience". Basically, Would user expect such short, simple page? Or after landing there they'd have more questions than answers, which would make them go all over the website to find what they want to know? That's how I would determine what should or shouldn't go on pages. If your product is a pen, I really doubt that people would be interested in how the molecular structure of it looks. Yet, if it's a lego set, then they'd wanna see the images and videos of how it's gonna look when it's done, dimensions, number of pieces etc.

Hope this makes sense.

[Bob_Kastner]

Thanks for the response Dimitri!

This definitely makes sense and is great to keep in mind. Our products are event technology rentals like tablets and computers, so I think there is some level of detail we can go into such as different specs, use cases and success stories. We definitely wouldn't want to go into too much detail beyond that as it would be unnecessary to the user.

In this case, the user would expect to see an easy way to get in touch and then see additional service and product options.

Thanks!

[brettmandoes]

Definitely add more comprehensive content on product pages but make sure it's unique. Meaning if you use an API to bring in the manufacturer's specs and everyone else selling or renting your equipment are doing the same thing, then it's not unique and Google won't determine that you have something extra to provide to users. You should still have that content, but add on to it.

If you want an example of this technique working in the wild, just search any product and you'll find that Amazon ranks highly for thousands and thousands of products that others sell. They have a lot of unique content in the form of user generated content (which Google counts as unique content) and this helps them rank.

So yes, adding content will help you rank, but make it useful content (scrap the fluff), make sure it's unique content, and mark it up with schema for that extra oomph in the SERP.

[Bob_Kastner]

Thanks Brett!

Definitely a great point there about Amazon. We're thinking of posting some use cases and success stories on the product pages, which will be unique and shouldn't be seen as fluff by visitors.