Importance of User-Generated Content in eCommerce

Posted by AlexDobson on March 28, 2022

Running an eCommerce platform can be exhausting, no matter how well you manage your stock or shipments. Convincing cold leads to purchase products, subscribe, or otherwise engage with your platform is very difficult without user-generated content. User-generated content, or UGC, represents content created by your customers.

According to recent reports, more than 86% of businesses use user-generated content in their marketing. 75% of brands understand the value of UGC, stating that it makes their marketing content more believable and authentic. Let’s talk UGC in eCommerce and how you can benefit from relying on it for lead conversion and revenue generation.

What Exactly is User-Generated Content?

User-generated content is all digital content created by people rather than brands or businesses. Text, videos, images, testimonials, reviews, etc. all fall under the user-generated content umbrella. The real value of UGC lies in the fact that customers often don’t embellish anything and state facts. Is a product worth its money? How well did a company’s services pan out for them? Should you trust this business with your cash?

These questions are always at the back of the mind of people looking for eCommerce platforms to purchase from. With research paper writing help, you can turn UGC into reviews, testimonials, and other types of writing to use as marketing content. User-generated content can bring you a step closer to convincing cold leads to seriously consider buying something from you. What are the specific ways in which you can benefit from introducing UGC into your marketing mix moving forward?

Improved Social Proof

Sales, and online sales, in particular, rely on psychological triggers to convince people to purchase something. This is what social proof is all about. Social proof is a phenomenon of people assuming that just because something worked out for someone else, it will also work out for them. This type of psychological trigger is very important for online sales because people have no idea of who you are and whether to trust you themselves, at least at first. It’s why we always instinctively look for online reviews when we want to buy something.

For example, if someone bought a new microwave from your eCommerce store and has written a glowing review for it, a cold lead might be convinced that yes, this product is good. They’ll quickly decide to purchase the same product thanks to the social proof effect which happened thanks to user-generated content, or in this case, the review. Having UGC present on your eCommerce store can dramatically improve the social proof of your entire platform and brand image. If people see that others have bought your products and are satisfied with them, you’ll be likely to convert even more leads to do so in the future.

Humanize your eCommerce Brand

Many online stores have the problem of seeming too robotic, bland, or uninteresting to new customers. According to published data, UGC represents 39% of all time spent with online media, with 56% of teens and 22% of 55+ people browsing through it daily. You need to do your utmost to humanize your eCommerce brand as much as possible. People need to feel like you care about their customer’s experience and that real people benefit from using your products already.

This is best done by integrating UGC like reviews, social media posts, star ratings, and user comments into eCommerce product pages. You can use SupremeDissertations to write product descriptions and written content based around UGC which can then help humanize your eCommerce platform. Avoid simply selling products – try and convince people that you really care about your customers and they’ll want to join in on the benefits. Humanizing your brand is a project which will take some effort, but once you get there, you’ll be able to passively attract and convert leads more easily.

Increase your SERP Ranking

Your Search Engine Results Page (SERP) ranking is what determines how high your eCommerce website’s links will rank in search engines like Google. The best way to manage your SERP is to directly manage your SEO or Search Engine Optimization. Adding user-generated content to your platform can help improve your SEO and subsequently lead to your site ranking far better. According to statistical research, search engines like Yahoo, Bing, and Google drive up to 10 times more traffic to eCommerce platforms than social media.

People tend to use search engines to look for items to purchase, and if your store ranks well, they’ll see it on the first page. First-page links are far more likely to be clicked on than those further down the ranking. You can turn UGC into short blog posts and case studies with the BestEssayEducation writers who can help you edit and format content. Doing this will enable you to focus on managing your eCommerce store instead of worrying about creating content all the time. Work on your SERP ranking by using more UGC in your site, social media, and any other digital marketing channel you use for advertisement.

Utilizing User-Generated Content in 2022

As we push further into the social media era, user-generated content will only become more relevant. If you haven’t been using UGC for eCommerce marketing so far, you should start doing so in 2022. Start by reaching out to existing leads with survey forms and asking them about their experience with your platform.

This can act as a great UGC if you quote customers and integrate testimonials into your home page or social media content, for example. You can get very creative with user-generated content and organize UGC events, giveaways, and other activities based on content created by customers. All of this will in turn help bring new people to your platform and have them convert into paying customers.