How Retailers Can Unleash the SEO Power of UGC
I'm an everyday shopper like many of you. Say you're interested in buying something but you haven’t committed to the exact product or brand that you want to purchase. What’s the first thing you do? If you're like the majority of shoppers out there, you search online to find more information about the product, to find the exact one you like, and to get answers to whatever questions you might have at the time.
As brands and retailers, we will do practically anything to show up at the top of page one of a shopper’s search engine. Search engine optimization has proven to be a most desirable discipline and tool, and talents who are ultra-skilled at SEO continue to be in high demand. There's one SEO angle, however, that most digital marketers and heads of digital shelves may have underleveraged: content, and to be precise, user-generated content (UGC). The voice of customers is key!
Ratings and reviews are the most effective form of UGC for SEO. According to Bazaarvoice's survey of 400 brands and retailers, improved SEO performance is one of the top business benefits of ratings and reviews. Furthermore, 63 percent rely on their ratings and reviews programs to meet their SEO goals.
Luckily, shoppers are writing reviews every day, and search engines can’t get enough. In those reviews, consumers are usually using keywords and phrases that prospective customers are using in their searches. This causes the product pages with those reviews to appear in the search results. Simply put, more reviews give you a higher search ranking, which increases your conversion rate and boosts your sales.
Questions and answers are another type of UGC search engines love. We’ve found that having a Q&A on product pages can achieve a 98 percent average conversion lift. And just like with reviews, they're full of keyword-rich content that matches shoppers’ searches, which increases organic traffic.
They also provide incredible fodder for your FAQs page. There, you can post the most common and helpful questions you receive from shoppers with your brand’s answers. Not only is this a very useful customer service tool, it also provides content for Google to rank in search results.
Lastly, visual UGC — e.g., photos and videos of shoppers wearing or using a product — is becoming increasingly popular with search engines. This type of content plays a big of a role in SEO. In fact, Google returns images and videos for approximately 25 percent of search queries. Visitors to websites that include UGC galleries spend 90 percent more time on the site.
When compiling visual content from social media, you can also include the user’s caption along with the photo or video on your website. These are often full of those commonly used and searched-for keywords mentioned above.
Like I said at the beginning, we’re all shoppers ourselves and we know that organic search is by far the biggest source of e-commerce traffic. To be at the forefront of those searches, you need an effective UGC strategy. While UGC has a multitude of benefits and uses, SEO is one of the most lucrative. Not only does featuring UGC on your website ensure you stand out when shoppers are searching, but it also provides those shoppers with a wealth of information, giving them the confidence needed to inspire purchases.
Zarina Lam Stanford is the chief marketing officer of Bazaarvoice, a UGC platform for retailers and brands.
As CMO of Bazaarvoice, Zarina Lam Stanford leads with a customer-centric, insights-driven, and outcome-based approach to all aspects she touches - from research, brand, communications, product marketing, to sales, demand generation, partner/alliance and field marketing. A recognized growth catalyst, Zarina is passionate about design thinking, the art and science of being relevant, agile leadership, inclusion, and being purpose driven.  Â
Before joining Bazaarvoice, Zarina was CMO at tech giants including IBM, SAP, and Rackspace Technology as well as private equity portfolio firm Syniti. A champion for diversity and inclusion and a global citizen, Zarina has in-depth hands-on experience in Global, North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific & Japan, and emerging markets.  Zarina also serves on the Board of Fortytwo.vc, a global, cross-border fund focused VC firm, and BeyonDiversity Foundation, a non-profit on women empowerment.
Zarina was recently named among the 2021 Outstanding 50 Asian Americans in Business by the Asian American Business Development Center (AABDC).  She was also named Women of the Decade in Technology & Innovation at the Women Economic Forum in 2018, Women Worth Watching by Diversity Journal in 2016, and received the Corporate Achiever Award by the Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA) in 2009.Â
Zarina is a Marketing Academy CMO Fellow, a Southern Methodist University MBA, and a graduate of the Asian Advanced Leadership Program at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. She also holds a BA in Journalism from the University of North Texas. She is currently authoring a self-leadership book, #DareToGrow.
Born and raised in Hong Kong, the Austin-based Zarina is a nature lover, an ikebana apprentice, a published writer, an aspiring sailor, and a Mini and a Tesla fan. She describes herself as a proud daughter, sister and mother and frequents New York where her two sons now live.
