Formatting product data
In this article we explain how to structure your product data which will lead to a higher usability, better findability and higher conversion on your webshop. A good data structure of your products also ensures that large product sets are easier to manage and optimize.
Building a data file
Create a product data sheet
The first step towards a good product structure is the creation of a product data sheet containing the relevant columns. We usually do this together with the customer using Google Sheets. Through this tool you can easily create a shareable spreadsheet in which you can work together to build a good dataset for your products.
Through this link you will find a sample file for importing products into Afosto:
In this file you will find several columns in which the mandatory fields for Afosto are marked red and the product specifications are marked light blue. This file is the basis of your product set in which you will add the relevant specifications for your specific article group.
Relevant specifications
After you have created the product data file and shared it with the people who will participate in filling the product data, it is important to think carefully about your product set. Now you need to determine which specifications are relevant for your specific products.
Questions you should ask yourself are these:
- What do customers want to be able to filter on the website?
- What product data does a customer want to see on the product detail page?
- What specifications do I need to use internally?
What do customers want to filter on?
Filters are the options available on a collection page of products to reduce the number of products listed. Suppose you have a clothing store and a customer clicks on a page with all the shoes. He is looking for a particular brand of shoe, because you have added the specification Brand to your product set the customer can filter on the different brands. You could do the same with for example size, color and material.
What data do you want to show on the product detail page?
When a visitor views your product detail page they are looking for more information about the product, important here is of course the photography but also other specifications such as packaging options, shipping options are very relevant. If this differs per product you could also manage this by adding product specifications.
What specifications do I want to use internally?
If you have a large product set and you want to link different products, you can do this by giving these products the same specifications. You might also want to add data to a packing list or to a supplier per product. For this you can also use the specifications of your products.
Within Afosto we have compiled a document in which we explain a number of guidelines for building the names of your specifications. By adhering to these guidelines you ensure a clear structure in the creation of the various specifications. Especially when working with a large number of products it is important to have a clear structure so that when different people work on the same product set they use the same method and data structure.
Information about the specifications can be found here.
Product titles and descriptions
Once you have your product specifications in place you can easily build product titles and descriptions based on these specifications. In Google Sheets, by combining text from the different cells of your built specifications, you can build relevant and good product names.
An example of a good product name could be: _[brand name] + _[main category] + _[color] + _[size].
By building your product titles in this way, you get a nice uniform overview of your products on the collection pages and at the same time, the relevant keywords for your products are in the names of your products. You do need to make sure that every combination is unique so you could also choose to use the product’s “subcategory” or another relevant specification instead of “main category” in the above example.
For the descriptions of your products, the same thing actually applies. The moment you have built up the specifications nicely you can combine them into a nice description that is unique for each product but at the same time contains the relevant data.
An example of a product description could be:
_This ″main category ″ from the brand ″in the color ″in the color ″you can easily order from ″domain webshop ″. This product is also available in colors of linked products.
_For any questions about this product, please contact us at _____.
Indexing Products
Of course, you do all this effort to build up your product data for a reason; The goal is better usability and findability of your products. Therefore it is important that you make sure that your products can be found by search engines. This ensures that people who are looking for your products can actually find them.
Sitemap
A sitemap is a file where you to the search engines _ (google, yahoo, bing) _ indicate which pages on your website. It is important that all your products are well presented and that you add this sitemap to Google Search Console. By doing this you will make it a lot easier for Google to crawl your website.
Structured Data
It is also important that you use so-called rich snippets to indicate to Google what the availability, price, description and images of your product are. For this purpose, Google has also developed a handy tool in which you can check what data is provided as structured data.
By executing the above steps properly, you lay the foundation for a well-structured product data set that you will enjoy a lot, both for internal and external use.