(Q&A Section Below!)

The content that makes up an item page is one of the most critical elements of ecommerce, because it’s the main way that both shoppers and search engines view your products online. To create successful item pages, you need content that’s optimized to show up in search results and speak to the shopper to give them the confidence to click Add to Cart.

During this roundtable webinar, a panel of industry experts discussed content excellence on Walmart.com, with topics including:

• What constitutes content excellence for a Walmart.com product page

• How content optimization can help shoppers find your items and convert

• The return of videos and 360 spins to Walmart.com some time in Q1

• What makes excellent enhanced content and why it works

PANELISTS:

• Amanda Wolff, Chief Marketing Officer and E-Commerce Educator, OneSpace

• Corey Hammond, VP of Product Strategy, WhyteSpyder

• Michael Lebhar, CEO, SellCord.co

• Moderated by WhyteSpyder Founder & CGO Eric Howerton

Walmart has made it a priority to improve the overall quality of content on Walmart.com to provide a better experience for shoppers.

Learn how to improve your item pages to sell more items and stay compliant with Walmart requirements from our panel of Walmart experts!

Webinar Q&A:

• Is there any indication of which of the impact of rich media by product category? Any indication of conversion rate decreases since it went away?

  1. Amanda - During the webinar, I just have general stats from Amazon about the boost that comes from below the fold. We also know from our contacts at Target that video is their highest converting asset type on PDPs, so they score it very heavily on their content scorecard.

  2. Michael - For our higher priced products, products that have unique features we saw an immediate decrease in conversion rate once rich media went away.

• If we had videos and enhanced content (below the fold) on the site before, will we need to republish all of these again or will they automatically be "reactivated" by Walmart for those specific products?

  1. Corey - If your videos and enhanced content were created on the SKU Ninja platform, then yes, you can expect your modules to be pushed live as Walmart activates each module.

• Is it possible to optimize fresh produce listings with this enhanced content?

  1. Amanda - I’ll be curious to see if fresh listings also include the features, but I would anticipate so!

• Any indication if Walmart will require video content across all categories?

  1. Amanda - My guess is that it will be handled as Target does – but it’s totally a guess – not a requirement, but a boost to content scores

• When Walmart brings back the BTF capabilities, do we know if they will offer an automatic translation to a Spanish version like Amazon does?

  1. Amanda - I would be skeptical that they would launch this feature parity with the first release.

• Does below-the-fold content need to be unique for each retailer for SEO purposes?

  1. Amanda - No. Below the fold content is typically not crawled by the retailer algorithms, and when it is (which is debatable since algorithms are a black box) it seems that they don’t weight them heavily. Google DOES typically crawl text-based modules (not images), so we like to include google keywords into the content. However, the btf modules are really for driving conversion and merchandising – which do ultimately help SEO, but not from a keyword relevancy standpoint.

  2. Michael - No, although for some retailers such as amazon you have the opportunity to add alt text to each image which will help with SEO and indexing

• Will stuffing keywords result in organic impressions, ranking on top?

  1. Michael - Walmart doesn't like keyword stuffing and what we have seen work best is to understand the keywords that customers are searching for and focus in on those keywords instead of trying to add a lot of not relevant keywords.

  2. Amanda - I am 1000% supportive of using retailer keywords in your content, but never a proponent of keyword stuffing. Copy should always be written for a reader, so never keyword stuff to the point of illegibility.

• Outside of tracking search rank, are you able to also track conversion rates on Walmart.com?

  1. Corey - If you are a Walmart Marketplace seller, you can view conversion rate vs. the competition (e.g. Walmart tells you whether your conversion rate is Low, Medium, or High vs. competitors).

  2. Michael - Yes, Walmart now tells you this data in Seller Center!

• Do you have any data on how many shoppers typically add to cart from the search page versus clicking into the pdp and adding to cart from there?

  1. Amanda - Instacart has some stats on ordering from “past purchases” but I’ve not seen stats about people who “cart” from the serps. That said, on sites like Walmart that allow carting from search engine results pages, I recommend making your title as conversion-focused as possible AND leverage the most robust hero image type that the retailer will accept to eliminate any purchasing confusion/barriers and to stand out from competitors in the search results pages.

• Any indication if Walmart will require video content / make mandatory across all categories

  • Corey - Walmart buyers may strongly recommend that you invest in enhanced content if they plan to put your Product in Walmart stores.

• Does WMT allow review syndication? if so which 3rd party vendor do they authorize?

  • Corey & Michael - Yes bazaarvoice or Yotpo

• How are people balancing WM's focus on content health scores with search optimization on PDPs (in copy and titles) when what the buyer wants for the content health score contradicts what you'd consider best practice for search?

  • Michael - Great question, there's no right answer to this and its all about a balance what we do is only implement SEO best search practices that contradict style guides when we believe it will have a really large impact. For example, if a product of ours has a few very important keywords that are used and we need all of them in the title but that will cause us to go a few characters over on the title recommendation.

  • Corey - Great question. Since buyers don’t necessarily know everything about the Walmart search algorithm, it’s best to inform them of such contradictions. We’re all learning here, and it’s best to not assume the buyer is knowingly damaging your organic search rank when requesting a title change. That being said, Style Guides, which are created by the merchants, are now being included in the search algo, so you’ll soon have full alignment on content.

• Can I get a copy of the content health and merchandising scorecards that Corey was discussing?

  • Corey - You can find content health in Seller Center if you are a Walmart Marketplace seller. If you are in the 1P space, you will have to ask your merchant for the content health score. Alternatively, SKU Ninja can provide the content health score in our platform, updated on a weekly basis.

• Where does one get general data about Walmart shopper that Michael just mentioned?

  How do we find those merchandising specs?

  • Amanda - Walmart publishes category guides with their requirements for each category. Is that what you’re referring to?

  • Michael - https://marketplace.walmart.com/9-things-about-walmart-customers