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SEO for an essentially visual sale

by bryantch
10 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I dont ask many questions here so forgive me if I am asking in the wrong place or if I am not providing adequate information for your response.

We sell products that are purchased by the customer based almost solely upon their photographic/artistic subject matter, not necessarily based upon their description. Specific details of the subject matter is usually unavailable so writing unique descriptions beyond a couple of sentences about the common features of these products is tedious and seemingly trivial.

Considering we inventory 2500+ sku's, the task of writing a couple of sentences for each is no small chore. We have in the past and will continue to create these unique descriptions if they are of value, but as mentioned, our product is not purchased based upon its description.

In a case such as this, is the consensus that the SEO value created by these short, unique descriptions is valuable enough to warrant the cost of creating it or would we be better served maximizing the rest of the on product page SEO and spend our time and efforts elsewhere to increase traffic/sales, ie category landing pages, etc?

Thank you in advance for your responses.
#descriptions and titles #essentially #sale #seo #unique content #visual
  • Profile picture of the author alvinchua91
    If you are absolutely sure that nobody looks for your type of products on search engines whatsoever and instead usually depend on brand name more, then try social media advertisement To be honest SEO would yield minimal impact for you if my above assumption based on what you type is correct.
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    • Profile picture of the author bryantch
      Thank you for the reply. As I suspected, I would have a hard time conveying my point clearly.

      Using calendars as an example. No one buys a calendar of a car because of the description of the calendar. They buy it based on image(s). Now surely you could paint a rosy, keyword appropriate description for the calendar (All 2500+ of them in our case). However, the issue I am trying to resolve is that we have lots of car calendars for instance. With maybe 24-25 different main categories of calendars lets say, you can only spin each "Bla, bla, bla wall calendar include a wide open grid to jot down all of those important appointments and special days" so many ways. Like calendars, our products are dated yearly so this has been an annual battle.

      Should the time be spent on the thousands of descriptions that are essentially "subject matter...wide open grid for appointments, etc" or use minimalist products descriptions (or those from the manufacturer) and spend our SEO efforts developing content for the main and subcategory pages which to remain from year to year?
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      • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
        Originally Posted by bryantch View Post

        Thank you for the reply. As I suspected, I would have a hard time conveying my point clearly.

        Using calendars as an example. No one buys a calendar of a car because of the description of the calendar. They buy it based on image(s). Now surely you could paint a rosy, keyword appropriate description for the calendar (All 2500+ of them in our case). However, the issue I am trying to resolve is that we have lots of car calendars for instance. With maybe 24-25 different main categories of calendars lets say, you can only spin each "Bla, bla, bla wall calendar include a wide open grid to jot down all of those important appointments and special days" so many ways. Like calendars, our products are dated yearly so this has been an annual battle.

        Should the time be spent on the thousands of descriptions that are essentially "subject matter...wide open grid for appointments, etc" or use minimalist products descriptions (or those from the manufacturer) and spend our SEO efforts developing content for the main and subcategory pages which to remain from year to year?

        Using the calendars example, you want to split it up into categories and target keywords around those categories to those category pages. You are not trying to rank every single calendar individually. Someone searching for a car calendar should find your car calendars page that has 20-30 car calendars displayed with a description at the bottom. They can click on each individual calendar then to order and find out more about it. You don't need a big description for each calendar on those pages.

        That is how I would handle it.
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        • Profile picture of the author bryantch
          Thanks for the replies!

          I am coming to the conclusion that we are too busy to figure out and manage this type of thing, however I am also wary of some of the unrealistic claims that are made in the SEO business due to its nature.

          We are an established company with multiple websites, a warehouse, an office and a staff of up to 10 in our busy season. We are considered a player in our field and have been in the business for 20 years, online for almost 10.

          Our products are not evergreen products and just like the calendar example, are produced and sold with new editions yearly. Once the year is up, the current editions have little if no value and are usually discarded in favor of the newest edition of the product.

          I believe we need an trustworthy, proven marketing company/and or consultant to review our situation and make recommendations to move forward. We have spent a few dollars on Adwords campaigns in the last two years but really havent gotten anywhere with them. Truthfully, we have probably attempted to undertake the adwords campaigns too late in our season to realize any real effect.

          Any other good advise or recommendations?
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          • Profile picture of the author yukon
            Banned
            Originally Posted by bryantch View Post

            Thanks for the replies!

            I am coming to the conclusion that we are too busy to figure out and manage this type of thing, however I am also wary of some of the unrealistic claims that are made in the SEO business due to its nature.

            We are an established company with multiple websites, a warehouse, an office and a staff of up to 10 in our busy season. We are considered a player in our field and have been in the business for 20 years, online for almost 10.

            Our products are not evergreen products and just like the calendar example, are produced and sold with new editions yearly. Once the year is up, the current editions have little if no value and are usually discarded in favor of the newest edition of the product.

            I believe we need an trustworthy, proven marketing company/and or consultant to review our situation and make recommendations to move forward. We have spent a few dollars on Adwords campaigns in the last two years but really havent gotten anywhere with them. Truthfully, we have probably attempted to undertake the adwords campaigns too late in our season to realize any real effect.

            Any other good advise or recommendations?
            What exactly is your goal?
            • Are trying to rank the pages the images are on?
            • Are you trying to rank thumbnail images in Google text search?
            • Are you trying to rank images in Google Image search?
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            • Profile picture of the author bryantch
              Originally Posted by yukon View Post

              What exactly is your goal?
              • Are trying to rank the pages the images are on?
              • Are you trying to rank thumbnail images in Google text search?
              • Are you trying to rank images in Google Image search?
              We acquired this company two years ago and have increased the bottom line through efficiencies, now we are looking to increase sales dramatically on our websites. We essentially purchased the company as a turn around project that will be offered for sale in the next couple of years. We would like to double/triple our current website revenues taking them from approx 15% of overall revenue to 30+ percent.
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              • Profile picture of the author yukon
                Banned
                Originally Posted by bryantch View Post

                We acquired this company two years ago and have increased the bottom line through efficiencies, now we are looking to increase sales dramatically on our websites. We essentially purchased the company as a turn around project that will be offered for sale in the next couple of years. We would like to double/triple our current website revenues taking them from approx 15% of overall revenue to 30+ percent.
                Ok, but what I'm asking is what's your SEO goal? What do you want to rank, pages, images, both?
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                • Profile picture of the author bryantch
                  Originally Posted by yukon View Post

                  Ok, but what I'm asking is what's your SEO goal? What do you want to rank, pages, images, both?
                  Both? I will admit ignorance here as to why it would or would not be desirable to do one, the other or both. This is probably why I would like to find a consultant with experience to help guide us.

                  For us it is really of matter of ROI.
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                  • Profile picture of the author yukon
                    Banned
                    Originally Posted by bryantch View Post

                    Both? I will admit ignorance here as to why it would or would not be desirable to do one, the other or both. This is probably why I would like to find a consultant with experience to help guide us.

                    For us it is really of matter of ROI.
                    The reason I ask is, IMO the easiest way to get started with Google SEO is to target images. The keyword wall calendar gets roughly 5,400 traffic per month, the same keyword shows thumbnail images at the top of the 1st page in the Google SERPs (screenshot below).

                    Those existing ranked images/calendars are old & outdated (2007, etc...) which shows Google doesn't care about the dates for that [exact] keyword (time sensitive SERPs). I checked the first 2 ranked images for a couple of things, they look weak as far as SEO.

                    There's potentially 4-5 ranked positions available at the top of the 1st page of Google text/organic SERPs for the keyword wall calendar. This specific keyword is evergreen.

                    That was only a quick look at one keyword, If you was serious about ranking images you would need more detailed keyword/competition research.

                    My point is, your selling a product that involves images, traffic will most likely be clicking those ranked thumbnail images in Google text/organic search. This way your not really competing with tough competition yet (not ranking image pages right now (maybe rank pages later)) you could possibly still have clickable thumbnail images at the top of the 1st page of Google SERPs. Also, Google will allow a single domain to dominate those ranked thumbnail images per keyword.






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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    You still have to do SEO If you want SERP traffic.

    Pick your most profitable keywords & stay focused on the keyword for each image.
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