A report from Econsultancy has claimed that the content included within product reviews on e-commerce websites have widespread SEO benefits.
Also cited by Technews.am, report author Graham Charlton confirmed that not only does publishing product reviews potentially increase the likelihood of getting a sale, but that it can also prove highly beneficial when it comes to boosting a site’s authority with search engines.
This is due to the “fresh, unique content” provided by the reviews, in addition to the potential for long-tail keyword targeting. With recent updates like Google’s Panda and Caffeine greatly affecting websites’ rankings, having content of this kind on an e-commerce site can only prove beneficial.
Charlton went on to add that reviews can “improve rankings for ‘product name’ + review”, as well as providing “increased CTR on results pages”.
He continued: “If review content is correctly formatted, then these rich snippets can help increases [sic] clickthroughs from search engine results.” Charlton’s comments don’t just extend to positive reviews, either – both can be useful.
However in order to capitalise upon said benefits, online retailers must take a few things into consideration. Each review must be hosted on a single page, with its own URL and content must appear in a text format. Charlton suggested: “You should also avoid a reliance on JavaScript, cookies, Flash, images, iFrames or other technologies that would limit the accessibility of any content you wish the search engines to see.”
