Grab long-tail searchers and discover your highest-converting shoppers

When you enable user-generated content on your site, you’re opening up a whole new world of search engine marketing. Driving traffic from natural search continues to become more competitive and expensive, but effectively implementing user-generated content helps you drive exponentially drive natural search.

But it involves much more than just adding more content to your site.

At Bazaarvoice, we never settle for “good” results. When it comes to search, we want to make 100% of your content work for you, without duplication. Search engines hate duplicate content, so our solution separates all your product copy from your user-generated content (though it all appears on the same page to your site visitors) by using Review Landing Pages or Answer Landing Pages. In a recent study, no Bazaarvoice client saw more than a 3% overlap between the search terms used on the review content and those used in their product content. And when users start submitting content, you start to get more notice from search engines, without spending an extra dime.

Also, shoppers tend to search like your customers tend to review (and not necessarily how your marketers write). For example, the marketing department in a computer company may call a portable computer a “notebook” in their copy, but a reviewer may call it a “laptop,” and so might a shopper. So now, when a shopper searches for a laptop, he can find you. The same idea applies for searchers who might use common misspellings in review or search text – chances are, your reviewers may make the same mistakes.

What’s more, review content specifically drives more visitors who are actually closer to making a buying decision. Someone who searches for “Camry” might be looking for anything relating to that vehicle. However, someone who searches for “2007 white Toyota Camry with sunroof Austin Texas” is obviously looking for something very specific, and is likely to be closer to the point of sale. This is called the “long tail,” referring to the tendency of shoppers using longer, more specific search terms to be closer to making a purchase. You want to capture the 80% of people using longer searches, rather than the 20% who are searching for a “Camry.”

Additionally,

• Review content outperforms product content in driving first-time customers to a retailer
• Referrals from ratings and reviews content generate 97% more revenue per referral than reviews from natural search engines to product pages
• Links between product pages and review pages that include product-related anchor text are ideal for search engine optimization

For more in-depth information about how user-generated content drives natural search to your site, check out our white paper, “Boosting Natural Search Traffic using Ratings and Reviews.”

User-generated content helps your customers market for you. Call us at 1-866-522-9227 or email to get started with creating online conversations today.