Product Description vs. related Articles for Content

which one is best?

[JayDev]

Hi,

We are studying developing in depth product descriptions vs. industry related articles. We have quite a few products in our database and wondered which solution would be most effective for seo.

Does anyone have experience with this? I know some of you will say to choose both but what if you had to pick one of the two with the main purpose of developing unique content.

Thanks!

[shahed]

we are also selling health related products and we like to what is the best way of doing this. I always thought adding more article is good but is it ethical to do on e-commerce site?

[Syzygy]

How about in-depth (and objective) articles about the product? A combination of both.

You have the opportunity to create unique content of an authoritative nature whilst being able to optimise the pages relative to the products promoted...

Syzygy

[decaff]

Develop comprehensive product descriptions and then one or more satellite articles per product to support the product description page...link out to these from the product page ... but not back to the product page from the article pages...link outbound from there to offsite authoritative sources to reinforce the articles...

[JayDev]

Thanks for the feedback. I think writing an in-depth description and link to article is a fine idea. However, what if you have 10,000 products? You can't possibly write 10K articles.

I guess it would link to a related article pertaining to the category the product is in?

How does Google view content? On one hand, you have a page with thumbnails and small descriptions. On the other hand, you have an article page. Which one would get the most value in the eyes of Google? Both would have equal unique content.

[decaff]

JayDev..

Well from your visitors perspective...the product descriptions are very important...and Google will evaluate a page based on these alone...just make sure you focus your title/description/keyword tags to the actual content on each product page...(this may not be possible if you are using a CMS or shopping cart software to manage your 10K worth of products....

Now what the article does it lets you concentrate your copy towards your target with a nice cluster of text...
again make sure to focus your page title/description/keyword tags to that pages content ... don't try to stuff all your industry keywords into an individual product or article page...

Yeah...10K worth of articles is quite the undertaking..
unless you want to hire an expert like me to do this ..
let's see...10,000 x $ per equals....ooops..my calculator doesn't read out to 10 digits...oh well..

no seriously..
If you were to place an article that related to your top categories this should narrow down the count..

then pump up your description some (but keep them nice and friendly for your visitors...they have to serve this purpose first and foremost...then the engines get to feast on them..

good luck...sounds like a fun, challenging project..good luck..

[JayDev]

Thanks for the feeback. This is some good information and will help me figure out what to do.