21 Oct Product descriptions for Amazon: SEO optimisation and benefits
Have you ever wondered what’s behind the description of a product you see on Amazon?
Let’s thank our Content Manager Silvia Vicini, who will help us explain it.
But first we need to take a step back to decipher the acronym we mentioned above. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It is nothing more than a branch of Digital Marketing that deals with the position of the page of a given item within the organic results of search engines.
Creative Words can help you to boost your online presence.
Contrary to what we are used to thinking, Amazon is a search engine in its own right, on par with Google, Yahoo or Bing. A recent survey of September 2022 that included 1,000 Italian respondents between the ages of 16 and 65 revealed that 74%of them start searching directly on Amazon when they are looking for a product to buy online. Further internal statistical data from the e-commerce giant also showed that 90% of sales are based on search results appearing in up to the first three pages, and not beyond.
In light of this, it’s easy to see how a product’s success, or its failure, depends to a large extent on its placement within the site. Here we come full circle back to our product description.
What does writing a product description really mean?
In the context most closely connected to translation, product description and its SEO represent two enormous challenges. Both in terns of difficulty and importance. The logics of localising a product within a market tell us that these two activities don’t involve a simple literal translation of a text. But rather an adaptation, and in some cases outright transcreation.
This is the case because while texts are almost always all translatable, keywords never translate. In order to write an effective product description, first you have to conduct keyword research from scratch that is based on the language, culture, and market related to the language into which you are translating. And only then set up SEO as naturally and effectively as possible.
A translator’s work in this field is further complicated by the existence, within e-commerce but especially within Amazon, of different types of items. With different activities requiring different types of work from relative professionals. To better explain this, a totally new item (called a “Parent” in jargon) will need optimisation from an SEO perspective, for which research starting from scratch will be required. As well as totally new text to both write and translate. While a “Child” of the same is a very similar item that differs more for target audience, will retain the same keywords but will need a product description designed for its target audience. Other cases, such as so-called “Duplicate” items, only require the modification of a size or number, thus a much smaller expenditure of resources.
What to do before you start
The goal of an effective product description is to report all the “Unique Selling Points” of a given item in the text. And this requires knowledge of the item’s features, modes of use and benefits. Amazon unintentionally comes to our aid with this task thanks to reviews. By looking at them, we can figure out the language the customer uses to refer to that particular product, adjusting ours to make it as natural as possible in their eyes. The customer is always the starting point on which to build product communications. However, in this case we can’t help but also sift through Amazon’s algorithm.
While the customer expects catchy and evocative language, typical of marketing translations, Amazon prefers generally more impersonal and objective communication. Which its algorithm will reward with a better ranking. Considering the tightrope on which the translator must balance, a set of guidelines should be drawn up. With the customer beforehand to agree on the communication features of the product together.
Another thing to consider before starting with the translation is whether or not the particular section of the product page you are writing in has been indexed. If the answer yes, the shadow of Amazon’s algorithm will loom over the translation, making it much more limited and problematic for the translator, but certainly more effective for sales purposes. Whereas otherwise the translation and communication to the customer will be much freer. More creative and potentially engaging.
Conclusions
Despite the fact that this work is as interesting as it is challenging, it has been demonstrated that a proper product description has significant advantages for sales, not only from a quantitative but also from a qualitative point of view: once everything possible has been done to better communicate and index the product, the customer will be quite certain of what they are buying and unlikely to be surprised when opening their package. This positively affects the data regarding product returns, which customers will not need to do, as well as the total rating percentage data, which will increase in direct proportion to perceived satisfaction regarding their purchase.
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Maria Giacalone (Marketing team Intern at Creative Words)
Endlessy curious she has a new fixation every month. Overthinking champion, music enthusiast and stationery lover, she will try to guess your zodiac sign. Currently reading: “Somehow I manage” by Michael Scott.
