SEO product descriptions for your webshop and marketplaces

Why the supplier text is not an SEO product description

Almost every webshop that sells a product from a wholesaler receives the same product description. Publish it unchanged and the same text sits on dozens or hundreds of other sites. Your page then adds nothing for the customer, and that is exactly what Google looks at.

In its guidance on helpful content, Google asks questions such as: does the content provide original information, and does it avoid simply copying or rewriting its sources?¹ In its spam policies, Google lists republishing content from other sites without added value, or modifying it only slightly with synonyms, as an example of scraping.²

Be honest about what this does not mean. Google writes that duplicate content on your site is not a violation of its spam policies and does not lead to a manual action.³ So you are not penalised for a supplier text. You simply give Google no reason to show your page rather than another shop's.

What your own text adds

• Your own wording, aimed at your customers and their questions.
• Facts the supplier text leaves out, such as dimensions, material or what is in the box.
• A clear structure: first what it is and who it is for, then the specifications.

For the structure of a product text, read how to write product descriptions.

How people search and how to build the product title

Someone looking for a product usually types a mix of three things: the product type, a brand and a specification. Think of "electric coffee grinder", "Brewline CM40" or "waterproof pannier bag 20 litres". Google advises you to think about the words a user might search for to find your content.³ Those words belong in your title.

A fixed order makes that easy and keeps your range consistent: brand, product type, model, key specification and variant.

Google describes a good title as unique to the page, clear and concise, and an accurate description of the page.³ So skip titles like "BEST coffee grinder!!! Lowest price".

Using keywords naturally

Put the main keyword in the title and the first sentence. After that, write for the reader. Google also recognises related words: according to its starter guide, its language matching systems understand how a page relates to many queries, without the exact wording.³

Attributes and category: why complete product data matters

The product text is only part of the job. Colour, size, material, weight, capacity and brand sit as separate attributes on the product. Filters in your webshop and on marketplaces only work with those fields: a pannier bag without a "capacity" attribute does not show up when a customer filters on 20 litres.

• eBay writes that adding item specifics helps increase the chances of appearing in a buyer's search results.⁷
• Kaufland recommends filling every attribute it offers as completely as possible so variants display correctly, and calls the right category crucial because the legally required attributes depend on it.⁶
• Google can use product structured data to show price, availability, review ratings and shipping information right in search results. Whether such an enhancement appears is up to Google.⁴

Always pick the most specific category as well. "Kitchen" tells a customer and a marketplace little; "Coffee grinders" tells them a lot.

For filling in missing data, read product data enrichment.

Texts that AI assistants can read

More and more customers ask an AI assistant to recommend a product. Optimising for that is often called GEO (generative engine optimisation). Google is sober about it: the usual SEO basics remain relevant for AI Overviews and AI Mode, and there are no additional requirements or special optimisations needed.⁵ Google does list making sure your structured data matches the visible text on the page.⁵

For product texts that comes down to a few practical rules:

• Facts instead of adjectives. "40 grind settings, 150 gram bean hopper" is useful; "an unrivalled taste experience" is not.
• Specifications with units. Litres, centimetres, watts and grams, preferably in a list.
• The same data everywhere. If the webshop says 20 litres and the marketplace says 22, nobody knows which is right.
• Answer the customer's question. Who is it for, what is in the box, does it fit my bike?

Whether and when an AI assistant mentions your product is up to that assistant. For more on AI and product data, see AI product enrichment.

Marketplaces have their own title and text rules

A title that works in your webshop does not always fit a marketplace. Two examples from the official guidelines:

Kaufland

• A recommended title length of 50 to 80 characters; longer titles may be shortened.⁶
• Numbers as digits (15, not fifteen), no symbols or emojis, no all caps titles, no stringing together of keywords and no promotional statements about price or condition.⁶
• The description: continuous text plus bullet points with technical details, a recommended 150 to 5,000 characters, without links, prices, advertising or keyword spam. Automatically generated translations are not permitted.⁶

eBay

• You have 80 characters for the title. Include the brand, model or type, colour, style and even the model number.⁷
• Avoid special characters and irrelevant words.⁷

Other marketplaces have similar but not identical rules. Read each channel's guidelines before you shape your titles for it.

SEO product description checklist and where StoreLinkr helps

Where StoreLinkr helps

For a handful of products you do this by hand. With hundreds of items from a supplier, AI product enrichment in StoreLinkr helps:

• Keywords and your own instructions. In the AI settings you list keywords the text should emphasise, plus your own instructions (up to 2000 characters), such as "End with a bulleted list of the key specifications".
• Your own version of the supplier text. The AI rewrites the existing description faithfully: every fact stays, no new claims are added. If there is no text, the AI can write one from the known facts only.
• Category and product data from the product catalogue. Starting from the EAN, StoreLinkr fills in missing data; a category it finds is linked into your own category tree.
• Check first. You see before and after per field and accept field by field.
• One source for every channel. StoreLinkr sends the same product data to WooCommerce, Shopify or SitePack and to marketplaces such as Kaufland, eBay and Allegro.

For how the AI writes and when you are better off writing yourself, read AI product descriptions.

Frequently asked questions