Isn't Content On An E-commerce Site Just Fluff? Options

[RisaBB]

Hello,

All I really want to do is sell my stuff. I visited a lot of sites in my niche, and they don't have articles. It seems pretentious to me to come up with content. There are so many sites that sell things that don't have content beyond the descriptions of the products. Is it because this is a new site and has more to prove? Or is it because I want to make my site an authority site, and the best one out there in this niche, so I need more than products to set it apart?

I can see writing an article about the products that I'm selling, or bios of the artists who make the stuff, but articles out of the blue related to this topic?

Is the point that somebody wants to find information that I have on my site, and just maybe they'll also need to buy a gift, too? Or it's purely for the SE's? Or both?

I guess I need to understand why content, beyond product descriptions, is necessary to make my site successful.

Thanks.

Risa

[eKstreme]

I like to think of it as casting a net or spreading a dish antenna. The more articles (content) you have, the more likely you are to catch visitors looking for things you're selling. Once you have people on your site, you can guide them to the actual selling process and convert them.

Another way to think about this: would you buy from someone who's knowledgeable or not? If you walk into a shop and the sales team actually works with you to understand your needs, your exact problem and suggest the "best" solution for your particular problem, then you're more likely to buy. Website content is your virtual sales team - it's what people see and interact with when they enter your online shop.

To flip it one last time (sorry): I would guess that people who buy based solely on short descriptions are either not very savvy buyers (stupid really) or already know exactly what they want. In the former, the buyers just think something is cool, and I bet they're not a high proportion of people. In the latter example, the buyers have already done their research and are probably hunting for the best deal for the exact product they want. Your content should be aimed at converting the visitors who are in between these two extremes; my bet is that they are the great majority.

My 2c.

Pierre

[A.N.Onym]

Your site is what you make it. Forget about others, do what you want to deliver value to the people

[joedolson]

Your products are your content. What you need to do is find ways of exposing that content to search engines in the best possible way, since they can't easily walk into your warehouse.

Product descriptions and reviews are great (if well done); and articles can be very complementary content for some sites. I think that some ecommerce sites lend themselves easily to writing extensive commentary, and others just need to be very simple and product-driven. An organic furniture company should tell you about why they feel their manufacturing process is organic; why the environmentally friendly approach is important, etc., etc. These are great opportunities for article writing. A battery shop really doesn't have that opportunity. Nobody wants to read about batteries - the extra content will (in my opinion) just seem forced.

Basically, if you feel that you have something to say, write an article and find a way to use it. If not, don't worry about it. Just write good product descriptions with a focus on immediacy: making certain the critical pieces of information can be ascertaining very quickly.

Giving your users the ability to learn about your products easily is important; whatever form that information may take, it needs to be easy to find, easy to read, and thorough.

[bwelford]

I like to think of it as casting a net or spreading a dish antenna. The more articles (content) you have, the more likely you are to catch visitors looking for things you're selling. Once you have people on your site, you can guide them to the actual selling process and convert them.

I'm with that sentiment 1,000%.

[Ruud]

When content is not fluff but helpful advice, expertise, then expertise sells:

“The least expensive Miele canister has better filtration even without a HEPA,” or a high efficiency particulate air system, which you need if you have allergies, Mr. Bagnall explained. “It has a filtration system to handle anything that’s one micron or bigger. Let’s put things in perspective. I’m bald. When I used to have hair, the average hair was 70 to 80 microns in diameter. At 10 microns, something becomes invisible to the naked eye.” [...]

I could save $30 by comparison shopping. But Mr. Bagnall’s advice was worth at least that much. So I bought the vacuum from sweepsvacuum.com.

Without any content you're just selling features. Features are nothing: often they mean literally nothing to people.

With content you can be the helpful expert. This laptop at Tigerdirect looks tempting. As I scroll down, wondering if I should part with my hard earned money, pictures entice me. Then "What You Should Know". CD burning guide. What I should know about Windows. What is a Windows Vista Ready PC? About laptop batteries. And finally, if I made it that far down and clearly need help to be convinced, Carl's Guide To Selecting the Ideal Notebook.

Now back to your questions...

All I really want to do is sell my stuff.

OK - how? Let the product sell itself? What if I would want to buy your product as a gift for someone -- but I am clueless about these products? Is there anything about these products that you feel others should know? If you were to go into a store to buy one of these, would it be off the shelf and that's it or would there be a sales person guiding and helping you?

I visited a lot of sites in my niche, and they don't have articles.

Cool. You've just listed a unique value you can add to your site. Maybe those other sites sell despite not having any content? Maybe they get window shoppers despite having nothing tempting except hard cash products?

There are so many sites that sell things that don't have content beyond the descriptions of the products.

1: cool, see above

2: why? Is it because they are basically resellers and don't know their stuff? Is it because they emulate Wal-Mart where the tech guy knows as much, or as little, as your next door neighbor? Is it because they bought into an old model (offline selling in a store) and just ported that to the web "as-is"?

I can see writing an article about the products that I'm selling, or bios of the artists who make the stuff, but articles out of the blue related to this topic?

The articles, the content, have to serve a purpose. Some articles will help a buyer understand the value of a specific item or product range. Other articles might help them show off their knowledge about these things at the next party; "... yes, and did you know that before 600 B.C. they were only made by left-handed tribes people from the outer reaches of north Alaska?"

Other articles can help raise interest. Depending on the field, some of your content might be the only way to stay informed about this field.

Which content for what purpose.

Is the point that somebody wants to find information that I have on my site, and just maybe they'll also need to buy a gift, too? Or it's purely for the SE's? Or both?

Initially my goal would be to have content which will help people to find my site via the search engines.

I would aim for people to link to this content. I would aim for authority or expert status.

I would puzzle over which bumps in the road to a sale there might be. Is it price? Privacy? Security? Color? Quality? Ignorance? I would write appropriate articles for the appropriate products to help a customer overcome these bumps.

I guess I need to understand why content, beyond product descriptions, is necessary to make my site successful.

A site with a clear purpose in mind, when well done, is like a beautifully orchestrated symphony. Not one single clarinet or violin not engaged in a solo is absolutely necessary. Take one instrument away here, another there and to most it still sounds good. That's because the whole is more than its individual components.

It's not about juicy descriptions, high-quality photos, 3D tours, accepting online payments or not, additional content ... It's not about any of these individual things. It's about tempting users to become buyers -- and about helping buyers.

[bwelford]

Excellent points, Ruud.

One point that came to mind here is the assumption that because e-commerce websites exist, they must be making sales at satisfactory levels. I would guess that the vast majority do not earn satisfactory revenues for their owners, even though they might be quite pleasing. That's certainly the feedback I get from owners of what on the surface look quite attractive e-commerce websites.

As Ruud said, RisaBB, it's great that you find your competitors don't have content on their websites. You'll leave them trailing in the dust when you really start to make your website work.

[DCrx]

Let's take a look at sites that are probably successful. Here's Bed, Bath & Beyond's page on window treatments. There is a "Shop For Window Treatements" button, but mostly, it isn't about sales pages but information content.

Bed Bath & Beyond's guide to window treatments appears on the first page when you Google "window treatments." If you were going to link to a page on Bed, Bath & Beyond, it would probably be the shopping guide -- if it was any good.

Okay, the shopping guide is highly ranked. What purpose does this serve?

Not everbody is ready to buy. Yet most web sites are designed around people who know what they want and are ready to buy. We know this isn't everybody, it probably isn't most people -- but that's the traffic everyone is competing for.

What Bed Bath & Beyond is probably trying to do is target people who are shopping, before they buy. If people research your product or service on some other site, how likely are they to buy from you. If you are very good, and a little lucky, this puts you on about equal footing with everyone else. If potential customers learn about the product on your site, you have raised your chances they will choose you when they switch from a shopper to a buyer.

If you can capture traffic of people who are getting ready to buy, you are competing for a segment of the market fewer competitors are targeting. But there is another reason for targeting this early.

Once you are ready to buy, you're pretty much locked on course. When you are "shopping" you are persuadable. That means you have the potential of selling a whole window treatment, not just drapes.

This is basically the idea behind Jared Spool's "shopping cycle." And most web designers are building sites like vending machines for buyers, with no information and poor product descriptions. Bed Bath & Beyond hopes to target shoppers -- not just buyers.

This post has been edited by DCrx: Feb 21 2007, 06:58 PM

[RisaBB]

Thanks for the great responses, everybody. I never thought of a alot of these things.

Risa

[infonote]

New user here,

I think it is important to write content related to the products you are selling.

E.g.

A financial investor will gain a better reputation if he/she talks about finance on the media. You will be promoting your activity and marketing at the same time.

As long as the articles are related to your business, then I think you will be fine.

[DONMAC]

No good content... no good, period.

[cre8pc]

Content around product images is important and related to what was brought up earlier, about the buying cycle.

One of the things I find fascinating to experiment with and learn about is content on product pages and how it relates to usability (persuasion), momentum (moving the visitor to take action) and SEO (providing organic data for search).

Instead of an article, a product page can provide a short piece on product history, fables, tales of usage by people and by different customs, or customer centric personal experiences with the product (or service). These aren't articles, but are brief "extras" that help visitors make decisions.

I equate it to sales people you meet in stores, or car dealerships or furniture stores, or art galleries, antique shops or flea markets. The product is nearby, but its what the sales person or product owner has to say about it that truly engages a customer.

An empty page is not a conversation

[AbleReach]

I'd second what has been said about the buying cycle.

It's in my brain from somewhere that a significant chunk of people use the Internet for research before buying. Most of those people buy in whatever face to face store they deem to be "best" for comfort reasons like convenience, service and price. Of the people who do buy online, the time from first encounter to first purchase can be really long, months even. Heck, I think I'd been reading descriptions on Amazon for several years before I started buying there. I knew how to do their little personal site stuff long before I actually bought from them - I kept coming back because I appreciated what the site had to offer. Before I started sending them money I'd come to trust the site as a resource. One of the keys for me was availability of information *before* I'd become attached enough to them to want to create and remember account details. The way Amazon has pulled this all together is genius.

Internet = research heaven.
Product page low on research goodies/bait = more like a shopping cart page just before checkout.
Online content = knowledgeable face-to-face employees, with a good customer service orientation

It seems to me that the key, long term, would be to make enough of an impression as a resource so that when new user made search #2 they'd think "what was that cool site that told me how the widget worked?"

Somewhere down the line, ideally, that shifts to "before making up my mind I'll go to that cool site with those useful features."

[RisaBB]

Thanks for the input.

You're right, AbleReach - internet = research heaven.

My 7 year old regulary uses Google to research things.

My 5 year old has been trying to understand the concept of infinity for the last month. Last week he asked, "Is Google infinity?" I laughed because Google really is a means to research an infinite number of things.

It's nice to see you back online, Kim.

Now to think about great ideas for content....

Risa

[EGOL]

Great reply Ruud... one of the best and most generous posts that I have seen in a while.

[RisaBB]

Ruud, I just read your response again, and read the links (great NYT article to prove your point), and your response was like a "beautifully orchestrated" post. It was really good. Lots of great lessons in there which I know took a lot of time to write.

Thanks.

Risa

[Ruud]

That's extremely kind of both of you Thanks

[bragadocchio]

Welcome to the forums, infonote.

I like the idea of helping people make an informed purchasing decision. I think that Tiger Direct, as Ruud points out so well, is an excellent example of a site that does that well. So, how far does that go when we talk about writing content related to the products that we sell. I end this post with an example of a hypothetical store that does that.

Amazon does a great job of sharing information about their products too, and even enables their visitors and the products that they sell to play a role in providing that information through user reviews, book recommendation lists, and their "look inside the book" and "listen before you buy" type features.

Types of Searches

When Google Human Computer Interface expert Dan Russell spoke at BayCHI last December, he presented a chart which broke down the different types of searches that they noticed people performing on Google. Here's the breakdown of the types of searches that they saw people making:

Navigational - 15 %

Transactional - 22%
- Obtain 8%
- Interact 6%
- Entertain 4%
- Download 4%

Informational - 63%
- List 3%
- Locate 24%
- Advice 2%
- Undirected 31%
- Directed 3%

For a good description of what they mean by "Navigational", "Transactional", and "Informational" queries, Andrei Broder wrote a paper detailing the differences between those types of searches:

A taxonomy of web search (pdf)

We see that transactional searches are only 22% of the searches on the web. Informational searches are almost three times as much. As an online business owner, I would be happy if someone came to to my web site, and loved the information that they found on my site, linked to it, wrote about it on their blog, bookmarked it, sent the URL to friends of theirs, wrote posts about it in a forum, created their own user profile page on my site where they could list their favorites, write about their interests, and post their wish list. I'd also be happy to have them post on my forum.

Hypothetical Example

Imagine that I'm a huge blues music fan, and I want to start a web site that sells both modern CDs of old and new blues music, as well as vinyl recordings of old blues songs.

In addition to having a shopping area where people can buy both modern CDs, and older records, I want to be seen as the place to learn about Blues music, blues musicians, blues instruments (even though I don't sell them) and Blues history.

I can have a blues Hall of Fame, where I include biographies, photos, snippets of recordings, interviews, and links to CDs and collectible vinyl (imagine starting with something like the wikipedia entry on Robert Johnson and adding pictures, snippets of songs, interviews with people who knew him, and more).

I create a history section, where I have a page for each year from the early 1900s to the present, and talk about the great performances, the top selling songs, the best venues, the greatest dramas. I can include links to items I have for sale on those pages, and to the Hall of Fame members in my other informational section. The focus is on sharing information, and making this the place for people who love blues music, and for people who just don't know yet that they love blues music.

I decide that I want to share my knowledge of guitars, banjos, harmonicas, drums, horns, and other instruments used to make blues music. Some musicians only played certain brands and models of instruments. So, I want to mention those, and maybe point to some recordings (which I sell) where people can hear those instruments. I'd also point to the Hall of Fame Entries for those performers, or the history section.

I have an online music shop. I also have an authoritative site on one type of music that gets linked to by lots and lots of people, visited by school children and college professors, music fans and musicians, and many other people. It gets mentioned in books, and newspapers, and magazines.

I get some of those 22% of the transactional searches I mentioned above, and some of those 63% of the informational searches. I'd even expect to get some of those navigational searches when someone wants to buy one of my CDs, and they remember they can get to the sales page by searching for Robert Johnson - which is how they found my site the first time.

The site gives me the chance to share my love of music, provide me with income, and maybe even hire some folks who love blues music as much as me and like to write, to create some of the informational pages that help others find the site.

Chances are also good that the majority of visitors who come to my site are there because of the hall of fame, the history pages, and the instrument gallery. They may buy to thank me for my efforts. They may buy because they love the music as much as I do. They may buy because this is the only place they can get some of this music. If I do things right, when people think of blues music on the web, they'll think of Bill's Blues.

I need to be credible as a merchant. I need to provide shipping information, and an easy way to find and purchase what they are looking for. I have to show my products off in a compelling and persuasive manner. But I don't care if they came to the site with the intent of learning, and listening, instead of buying. My articles and essays and images and snippets of song aren't fluff - they're part of the experience that makes my place the one to go to when they want the blues.

[SEOigloo]

Bill - You should build the Bill's Blues Site.
I'm sold!
Sounds totally great

Miriam

That response was so good, I'd like to frame it.

[bragadocchio]

Thanks, Miriam.

I might just do that.