How often should ecommerce category and product descriptions be rewritten?

[SLINC]

We are a 15 year old ecommerce company.  Most of our category descriptions are about 3 years old.  Our product descriptions are 5-8 years old.  While our category pages still rank well in Google our product pages have dropped significantly over time.

How often should product page descriptions be rewritten so they do not become stale to Google?  We have about 1,000 products on the site.  If we rewrite them we are thinking about 250 words each.  Thanks.

[danatanseo]

Hi Brian,

I am an in-house SEO for two different companies. One is a small e-commerce company with about 200 SKUs and one is a larger e-commerce company with 4,000 SKUs.  The larger one has been in business for 40 years. Because of the nature of our business many of our products change frequently.

Here's what I have to say about changing content, just for the sake of changing content. First of all, lose the "250 words" each idea. Forget about the word count and just write copy that's amazing and engaging, if at all possible. Now, I understand that for something like a 15-foot Rapco XLR microphone cable, writing captivating content could be a bit of a challenge. And frankly, do you really need 250 words to describe a 15-foot Rapco XLR cable? I think not.

Freshening up your content is a great idea. But, I have another suggestion. What if instead, you start a blog if you don't have one, and begin talking about the products (with links back to the product pages) that you are most passionate about?

Sure. Freshen up your content. Make it more accurate. Fix the broken links. Fix the typos. (I can guarantee you if you've got a large site you have plenty of both). Write better title tags and more compelling meta descriptions. These are things that never stop. This is something that should always be an ongoing project.

That's the thing with SEO. I laugh when people say they've "SEO'd" their site...as if it's like putting a new roof on your house or something. It's not something you do once every 10-15 years. It's something that's a constant, ongoing process.

I know, this wasn't a cut and dried answer. But, I do hope it helps a little

Dana