We're going to try something new starting today: shorter Nuggets focused on SEO. In the past, we gave you lots of marketing ideas and essentially full articles in every Nugget email. Over the next few days, or weeks, we'd like your feedback on our new approach. If it fails, we'll go back to the previous format.
For more details on why this is happening, please read Matthew Perosi's blog post from today:
http://www.jwag.biz/blog/2011/01/04/one-seo-book-to-rule-them-all.htm
Duplicate content is the phrase we use to describe when one web page has the same information on it as another. The design and navigation don't matter much, but the information in the body of the page should never match the information on another page.
You need to have a high percentage of new information on every single page, and it's pretty easy to shoot your foot off.
Most jewelry websites have product information stated similar to this:
Metal Type :14k White Gold
Width :4 mm
Diamond Shape :Diamond
Total Ct. Weight :.91 ctw
Center Stone Information:
Stone Name :Diamond
Minimum Carat Weight(ct. tw.) :0.7
Shape :Round
Clarity :SI1
Color :H
Setting :Prong
Side Stone Information:
Stone Name :Diamond
Cut :Excellent
Shape :Round
Clarity :VS1
Color :G
Setting :Pave
Carat :.21 ctw
That's 54 words, 34 of which are the attribute descriptions on each line. In addition to this basic technical information, most jewelry product catalog only have a photo. Otherwise, nothing else on the page changes.
That translates to a static 62% of the product information on the page.
This is a perfect example of shooting your foot off with duplicate content.
How do you solve it?
Choice 1: Ditch the technical attributes in the list format and rewrite it as a unique paragraph for each item.
Choice 2: Include an embellished product description that you write. Write enough so only 10% of your page is duplicate content. In other words, you would need to add a 300 word, hand-written product description.
Most jewelry product pages rank poorly or not at all in the SERPs. This is just one of the reasons why.
