Originally published June 29, 2021 , updated on January 18, 2023

Frank Ronald (Ronnie) Price bought a cottage in a remote area of South Africa, the Klein Karoo. He painted “RONNIE’S SHOP” on the outside of the building and waited for passing travellers to buy some of his fresh produce. The business was slow in this semi-desert area and he hardly made ends meet. His friend pulled a prank one night and added the word “SEX” to the existing words. The irresistible name soon brought in hordes of customers. Ronnie opened a beer garden and restaurant at the back of his cottage. The shop is now one of the most popular pitstops for bikers, families on holiday, and other curious travellers along Route 62. It has become a tradition to take a selfie with the now-famous sign in the background.

The Requirements of e-Commerce Content

What can we learn from this success story, other than ‘sex sells’? Ronnie intrigued passers-by with a quirky name. He offered quality produce and saw to individuals’ needs by opening a pub, restaurant, and even a play park for the little ones, thereby engaging with potential customers. A positive experience raises the probability that they might trade more and also return on their next trip through the Klein Karoo.

Ronnie’s farmstall exemplifies the perfect subscription model. Intrigue, engage, trade, & return should be the aim when writing content for an e-commerce business. The former two rest on the scribe’s skills of selling a company’s goods with, yes, good content. We need words to sell products, whether it is a radio ad, TV commercial, a written description, or even word of mouth. Extra content, other than the nuts and bolts of what is for sale, is a different ballgame because it requires a potential customer’s valuable time.

This also begs the question: How to navigate an anonymous user’s cursor to a link and get him/her to read more about a topic that the boss felt could boost sales? The new shopfront is a smartphone or computer screen. The location once mattered in a real estate sense, but it is now a case of where you rank on Google search algorithms. You can polish your online window as much as you like. If the customer is not intrigued, you will soon start packing boxes.

The Pen and Algorithms

BACKLINKO is a company that specializes in SEO research. Brian Dean and his team ran some tests, 11.8 million to be exact, on which factors correlate with first-page search engine rankings on Google. They looked at e-Commerce content, backlinks, and page speed. The research data on content is jaw-dropping. Here are some key findings: 

• Comprehensive e-Commerce content with a high “Content Grade” significantly outperformed content that didn’t cover a topic in-depth. In other words, users are more satisfied with search results that give them a full answer to their query.    
• Word count is evenly distributed among the top 10 results. The average Google first page result contains 1,447 words.
• Websites with above-average “time on site” tend to rank higher. Specifically, increasing time on site by 3 seconds correlates to ranking a single position higher in the search results.        
• The vast majority of title tags in Google exactly or partially match the keyword that they rank for. There is essentially zero correlation between using a keyword in your title tag and higher rankings on the first page.

So it is obvious that Google likes to sit back and enjoy a bit of quality reading. If you attended to its literary needs, your business might be cracking the whip on the backs of competitors. Yet, if you run a medium to large-size company and your website takes an hour to load, not even a Pulitzer Prize laureate can write you out of the pickle. Assuming that your back-end technology is up to scratch, customers still have thousands of options to choose from when shopping online.

The retail sector in the UK is slowing down, but the e-Commerce market is currently worth more than 200 billion euros a year. Amazon UK marches in the front with 220.7 million monthly visitors. It is a meaningful coincidence that Jeff Bezos founded his company by selling books online. It brings us to the importance of storytelling in content writing.

Applying the Data to Writing e-Commerce Content

Intrigue, as Ronnie taught us, is the initial drawing card. The fourth bullet in the above data set hands writers a blank cheque for the opening line. It doesn’t have to be riddled with keywords. Make it punchy but avoid cheap sensationalism such as “A woman bought a broom online and what happened next will blow your mind”. Ursula Le Guin once stated, “… opening lines [by great writers] cast an immediate spell, grab your attention like a starter’s gun, set the tone, and even foreshadows what is to come.” The British author George Orwell’s opening line of 1984 is a prime example. “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

Even if he was writing for a company that sells spark plugs and other busybodies that move about under the bonnet, the mouse clicks in London would have drowned out Big Ben striking … thirteen.

Google prefers 1,447 words. So, how do you keep readers engaged for the next five pages? You need a character and a plot. The topic of your content is the ‘person’ we invest in to guide us through the unknown. Assume your boss asks you to punt the speed at which the company delivers groceries to the customer’s door, tell the reader about one of the driver’s encounters with the law.

What happened on that day when he dodged a traffic officer to deliver a roast chicken on time for Hamilton’s Christmas lunch? Post a photo of the unsung hero and reserve, say, 400 words in your article to the latest research on the psychology of customer care. Conclude with a testimonial by one of the family members. Avoid police reports of a delivery man on the run.

Conclusion

Think of Ronnie before you write anything that resembles the following: “Did you know that our company is the most sought-after online retailer in … “

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