Shoddy Product Descriptions Hound Walmart
Think you can slap up a mediocre product description and no one will notice? Think again. Gamers have targeted Walmart for ridicule after the e-commerce giant published a shoddy product description of Diablo III. The original description touted the much-anticipated computer game as a "strategy video game" that revolves around an "interesting plot." Come on people. Part of the plot involves killing somebody's zombie wife and then snatching fuzzy boots...read more >>
Weekly Content Critique: Suit Yourself
I recently read about a new campaign Men's Wearhouse launched to convince the younger generation the company is not, in fact, woefully behind the fashion times. To do this, they shot a video with young cool guys in suits (with tattoos visible around the edges). In what seems like a shortsighted move, they didn't have any of those same young cool guys model clothing for their product pages. But the retailer has the right idea; Millennials are highly...read more >>
Costco Plans E-Commerce Makeover
Do profitable brick-and-mortar stores need e-commerce? Costco Wholesale thinks so. The country's second-largest retailer has announced plans to overhaul its e-commerce operations, according to a recent report in the Seattle Times. Costco.com already does $2 billion in online sales, but feels like it's falling behind competitors like Amazon and Walmart. "The stakes are very high. The growth of e-tail is far sharper than the growth of retail in general,...read more >>
Tips for On-Page SEO Optimization
Paddy Moogan of SEOmoz recently shared a must-read list on how to jump to the head of the class when it comes to on-page optimization for e-commerce websites. The items that stand out are the significance of customer reviews, quality images, product videos, social sharing, and product descriptions. We've touched on the importance of each of these on Content Ping, but thought this was a terrific list that really puts it in perspective when thinking...read more >>
Weekly Content Critique: It’s a Baby Miracle
A Baby Carrier Miracle, that is. (I'm surrounded by talk of babies and baby products lately, it's getting to me.) I read a lot about product video--how badly consumers want it and how badly some people want to give it to them, for instance--but I don't see many good product videos. Sure, Zappos and Amazon have tens of thousands of videos about shoes and backpacks in which a brogrammer narrates what is essentially an animated video montage. Frankly,...read more >>
Weekly Content Critique: Wynn Las Vegas
We focus on consumer goods a lot here, because that's our business. But websites for consumer services need to meet the same, if not additional, requirements to succeed. Often, the sale depends on a business's website alone--there's no other way for the consumer to gather concrete information about said service. Accommodations at Wynn Las Vegas hotel, for example. Reviews of hotels might help some, but reviews are subject to a universal issue: dissatisfied...read more >>
Site Design as a Cloaking Device for Calls to Action
The effect of slow load times on customer experience and conversion rates are of perpetual concern to anyone involved in e-commerce. Whether it's the consequences of slower load rates on mobile commerce or the 7 percent drop in conversion rates that comes with each extra second of load time, a simple matter of impatience quickly grows to an industry-wide problem in need of constant attention. Even Wal-Mart isn't immune. However, simpler matters can...read more >>
Weekly Content Critique: Tens Unit
Recently, I found myself shopping for TENS units. Backstory: muscle pain, mildly slipped disc, chiropractor, application of TENS unit, pleasant relief from muscle pain, realization that I could buy such a machine for roughly the cost of one office visit. So I launched into the frustrating world of medical supply websites, which are not known for their easy navigation and good product pages. Around the same time, I read an Internet Retailer article...read more >>
Weekly Content Critique: Style #8851
No, I did not accidentally slip into a number code. My cat did not take over my keyboard (that would be quite a feat, since I don't have a cat). This week's product forgot to bring a name to work and got assigned this random number. It's actually a baton twirling dress. One design of many nameless, serial-numbered dresses. There are better ways to handle this, even without coming up with unique names for each dress. Let's get to it. STANDARD PRODUCTION...read more >>
R-E-V-E-N-U-E: Win the Spelling Bee to Win the Sale
Language is not quite as natural as breathing, but it's not far behind (unless you're a proponent of universal grammar, in which case it is as natural as breathing). Words are the foundation of good business communication; in the arena of online retail, words are the beginning, middle, and end of your communication. Without good writing, building a good SEO campaign is hard. Explaining the beautiful images you have is hard. For that matter, explaining...read more >>