As a retailer, the product names you publish do not change the items you sell, but they can dictate whether a shopper purchases from your ecommerce site or decides to support a competitor. If you follow the practice of many companies and manufacturers, your product names may reflect your brand or personas. For instance, a business that sells vintage merchandise may use terms like rustic or antique to describe items.
While these attributes are beneficial for showing a product's aesthetic properties, they do not offer much information about the design or appearance of the item. Consumers will be left wondering: what color is it? What is it made of? What are its dimensions?
Online retailers need a consistent and optimized product-naming system to give prospective customers a shopping experience that encourages them to come back and buy more. To help guide you through product taxonomy, Virtucom Group discusses the different places consumers view item names and how this ecommerce strategy can determine which retailer earns a sale.
Product Names at the Category Level
The Virtucom Group team previously explored the connection between normalized product data and consistency with naming. If product names are not uniform across your site, customers will struggle to navigate category-level pages with comparisons between different items of the same type class. Therefore, product names need specific characteristics, such as size or quantity, to help consumers differentiate similar items.
To attain product name consistency at the category level, develop a formula from your linked normalized attributes. This formula makes it easy for browsing consumers to pinpoint items on your product pages that meet their needs.
If you practice bad product data management by filling your pages with conflicting and disorganized names for like items, customers will likely become confused and turn to a competitor’s site. When shoppers leave your ecommerce platform for another, all your high-quality product descriptions, images, and videos go to waste. Keeping product names constant and complete with relevant information is integral to securing sales and customer conversions.
Product Names on the PDP
While utilizing key attribute-level information in the product name is valuable, you should avoid stuffing the name with details located elsewhere on the product description page (PDP). In other words, keep it concise to make a great first impression with shoppers. Consumers primarily look at product names for fast and easy reference—not to obtain all the information they need about the item.
Think about the item name as the main title of the PDP, setting the stage for the product description, features and benefits, and attribute values. Since browsers usually end up at the PDP after referencing the product name, all information on the page should support and build on the basic data offered in the title. Additionally, ensure product names include no errors or discrepancies as they will surely confuse customers and drive them to competitor sites.
Product Names in Search Results on Your Site and the SERP
Besides relevant characteristics, product names should include keywords and search terms potential customers use to help your ecommerce site rest at the top of the search engine results pages (SERP). Numerous resources are available to help you find the best keywords to use for each product on your online retail site.
Having keywords in a product name is not enough to ensure your item secures a spot at the top of the SERP—they must also be unique. Say you use the manufacturer-supplied product name verbatim on your ecommerce site. More than likely, competitors who partner with that manufacturer will use the same product name on their website. If you share content with another retailer, Google will not reward your site on the SERP.
Product names need keywords for your site’s internal search engine, as well. When buyers search within your inventory, keywords help them identify items they need quickly to avoid spending hours looking for a particular product.
Improve Your Product Taxonomy with Virtucom Group
Retailers who fail to use normalized and consistent product data do a disservice to consumers and sales. Providing shoppers with coherent and easy-to-reference product names enables them to make more informed purchasing decisions, boosting customer conversions and brand loyalty. However, it can be challenging to enhance the shopping experience when all you have to work with is manufacturer-supplied content.
If you need assistance with your product names, turn to Virtucom Group for ecommerce solutions. Our managed item onboarding system provides data cleansing and quality control to help ensure every product name draws in and resonates with your target audience. Additionally, we use pertinent keywords in our ecommerce content to increase search engine optimization (SEO) and your site’s rank on the SERP. Contact us today to learn more about the importance of product names and our ecommerce services.
