How can product information contribute to your online findability?

When you have a small product range, product information is often entered and enriched manually per product. This enrichment is an important step in the race for customer attention. Online visibility is an increasingly important part of the customer journey. When the product range increases, this enrichment process suddenly becomes a time-consuming job.

In this situation you can distinguish yourself by creating unique, but more importantly, search engine friendly content faster and smarter. This is exactly what a PIM system can help with. Curious how a PIM can work for you? Then read on quickly.

Standard product information via data broker

In a PIM system you can collect standard content via a data broker. A data broker is a company that collects information from various sources and then processes it to enrich or analyze it. Licenses are then issued for certain or limited applications, so that other companies, such as companies in the food industry and hospitals, for example, have this (often mandatory) information. The disadvantage is that this is not unique content and that the competitor also has this information.

What requirements must product information meet for search engine optimization?

The online success of a product is determined by good content, good marketing and demand for a product. A product does not automatically sell itself. Help is needed for that. A good website, a good content management system and the right marketing through different channels.

To start with, it is wise to look at how you can make your range known to the general public. This is quite simple for a small range. You manage your products manually, for example, in your Google shopping account, your Google Ads account and via the various social media channels. With an extensive range, this becomes time-consuming and error-prone. A PIM e-commerce system then offers a solution.

Previously, organic findability was often neglected and people focused heavily on advertising. Nowadays this is different and more and more companies are realizing the importance of a good SEO strategy. Many of the marketing resources are paid, such as Google Ads and advertising on (social) media. Ultimately, this is at the expense of the margin on a product. Scoring on organic findability is a challenging and time-consuming job, but it is certainly one that will pay off in the long term. The bottom line is that product information:

• Must be unique, must contain the right keywords and must be informative

Step 1. Keyword research for important keywords

Make sure you have keyword research carried out in advance to identify the best keywords or keyword combinations. As a rule, people no longer search for one word, but use word combinations or ask complete questions to Google (this is also becoming more common with the rise of voice search). Using multiple words in your search query gives a more relevant answer. For example, the search query 'Shoes' gives a different result than 'Blue Nike shoes size 40. The more you as a retailer respond to these keyword combinations, the more important you are for your target group.

Step 2. Determine which keywords you want to use for your products

Include the keywords in the right places on the page, such as:

• In the URL of the pageIn the title of the pageIn the meta description of the pageIn the headers on the page (heading tags)In the text and the most important word at least in the first paragraph

Step 3. Create search engine friendly URLs

A search engine friendly URL is readable, contains the important keyword of the page and is not too long. So do not use any codes in the URL and make sure that the words are written separately and connected with a dash (-). When you have a webshop in combination with our PIMeCommerce solution, you can build a good URL in smart ways. This relatively small-seeming part also contributes to your SEO value. A well-constructed URL can consist of elements such as brand name, item number and color. The data that PIMeCommerce uses to properly build this URL comes from the PIM.

Step 4. Use a unique page title for each page

The page title must be unique for each page. The title provides a direct description of the page. Make sure the main keyword is used at the beginning of the title. The page title may contain 55 characters. No more characters are shown.

Step 5. Provide a catchy meta description

The meta description indirectly contributes to the success of findability. Make sure the meta description is catchy and provides a brief description of the page. Use the main keyword in this description. Don't make the description too long. Google shows 155 characters in the search result. A longer description is truncated.

Step 6. Use heading tags with the most important keywords

The heading tags are the headings on the pages. These headings make the page readable and scannable. The headings are indicated by H1, H2, H3, etc. The H1 heading is used for the visible title on the page and only appears once on a page. The H1 contains the main keyword of the page. H2 headlines can be more common, just like H3 headlines. And H3 heading is again a subheading of H2. The great thing is that you can automatically feed these headings from the PIM. This saves a lot of time!

Step 7. Use unique content and unique descriptions

Never just copy the descriptions provided by suppliers, manufacturers or data brokers. If you place the product descriptions exactly as they were supplied, this will result in “duplicate content”. Google only shows unique content and will not show your copied descriptions. It is therefore very important to supplement the standard content provided (which often forms the basis) with unique, distinctive content. A PIM offers you the option to add this unique content (automatically). More about this later.

Step 8. Use enough words

A strong product description should consist of at least 350 words. Backing pages of at least 550 words. Also use the important keywords in this text. The most important keyword must be used often enough, but not too often: a standard rule is a keyword density of 2%. So for every 100 words you use the keyword twice. If you use the keyword too often, the text becomes less pleasant to read. The use of synonyms or relevant words is then a solution.

Step 9. Enhance the images on the page

Make sure you improve the product images. When improving images, you should pay attention to:

• The image size (ensure fewer KBs per photo)Save the photo descriptively, so not img10102.jpg, but for example blue-Nike-shoe-size-40.jpg. Ensure that the images are provided with descriptive Alt tags with the most important keywords

A photo that is too heavy will cause the page to load slowly. Google gives fast websites priority in the organic search results. It is smart to save the images for web use.

Also make sure that the image is readable and do not use codes. Include the most important keyword on the page. Consumers also regularly search for images via Google. Images without names are not shown here. The descriptive Alt tag contributes to the findability of the product page.

Step 10. Provide as much product information as possible

Consumers often want to know the strangest things about a product before they make a choice. If this necessary information is missing, there is a good chance that they will go to a competitor who does offer this information. Sufficient relevant information can greatly increase the conversion rate of your website. So make sure you are as complete as possible when sharing details.

And the last step, step 11. Link building

Link building is an important factor in SEO. You can make a division between internal and external link building. Internal links are links that point from one page to another page within your own website. These links provide a strong structure within the website, think of it as a kind of spider web. Try to connect relevant products and topics.

External links are links that your website receives from other websites, such as forums or other relevant websites. External links provide more authority. If others find your website important, Google will too. The referring websites must have a certain degree of relevance to your product.

What is the role of a PIM tool in this?

The advantage of a well-oiled PIM machine is that you can add unique product information (automatically or otherwise) to the standard (data broker) content, which saves a lot of manual work. In addition, it is possible to use the PIM to allow different departments to work together to create optimal product content. You can obtain unique content in different forms, such as:

• Own reviews; This is perhaps the easiest example for the “PIM layman”. By letting your customers write reviews, they create their own piece of unique content for you.
• Create your own unique content by relating rules to each other once.
• A PIM system works on the basis of certain “rules”, these are pieces of code that work together in a smart way, so that there is an advantage arises. This applies to:
• Texts (manage synonym list)
• Images
• Videos
• Manuals
• Quality marks and labels
• Creating your own product relationships, link building; This so-called internal link building ensures that mutual relationships are established between different products. Consider:
• Product variants: the same item in different colors
• Product bundle: a set of products that are related to each other
• Accessories: also show matching items based on a specific item
• Suggested items: if you are interested in a laptop, also offer a corresponding cable.