Slippery Rock Gazette

Stephen Alberts

Countertop Marketing 

I talk to a lot of countertop shops each week and review their websites. And about 1 out of 10 make a huge mistake on their website. Making this mistake will result in:

The Mistake I See -> Lower Google Rankings -> Low Website Traffic -> Fewer Project Leads

It’s a bad chain of events. And it’s all caused by… thin content.

Thin content is not having enough content on your website in terms of word count. A low word count is not having enough words on the page. I know this might not sound like a big issue, but let me explain why it is.  

Google has complex systems that will crawl (scan) your website’s code when it’s looking to rank it on a search page. It looks at your site structure, pictures, videos, and other elements on your website. But the most important part of your site it crawls is your content, which are the actual words and paragraphs that are on your site.

So: say someone types in “granite countertops austin tx.” Google is going to scan all the sites in that local area and look for relevant websites. If you’re a countertop shop in Austin and have one, small paragraph on each page of your site, then it will be tough for Google to see how relevant you are.

Their goal is to show the websites on a Google search page that are most relevant to a search term someone types in. 

But no need to worry! I’m going to break down exactly what you need to do. 

How many words should there be on each page?

Each page on your site should have around 500 words on it. This content should not be copied from other sites or other pages on your site. It should be 100% unique. If some pages have 450 words and some have 850 words that’s totally fine. 

I suggest typing this into Google:

site:yoursite.com

This will show you all the pages that Google sees and crawls. Then go to each page and look at the content and word count. I suggest creating a spreadsheet and putting all these URLs into your spreadsheet that you want to check.  

You can use this tool (Graphic 2) to count how many words are on a page: Word Counter Plus, found at chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/word-counter-plus/.

My word count is low; what do I write about?

After you make your list of pages that you want to add content to, go through each one and add a few paragraphs of quality, unique content to each page. Check that page off in your spreadsheet and then move to the next. Try to tackle a few pages a month. Ideally, you want these pages on your website:

Home

About

Material (Granite, Quartz, Marble, Quartzite)

Portfolio

Contact

Quote

Your Quote, Contact, and Portfolio page will naturally have a lower word count and that’s fine. But your Home page, About, and each material page should have at least 500 words or so. For the countertop shops we work with, we show a gallery of material for each type of countertop, and then at the bottom, we add a few paragraphs of content. These pages are easy to come up with content because you simply write about the advantages of that type of material, how to care for it, and some general facts. 

Two scenarios that can happen

1) I already rank on Page 1 and don’t have a lot of content.

That’s awesome! Having a lot of content is not the only factor that helps you rank. Maybe your website is old (older sites usually rank higher), you have a lot of great internal links, or you have decent backlinks.

That’s excellent but there are TONS of searches you can still rank for. People type in:

Kitchen countertops

Bathroom countertops

Affordable countertops

Durable countertops

Quartz vs Granite

Above are 5 pages that you should be able to write about. Once those pages start to rank, you’ll get even more traffic and countertop project leads. 

2) My competitor is ranking and has a low word count.

This often happens for all the reasons I mentioned above. But one of the best and easiest ways to outshine your competition (in Google’s eyes) is to beef up your pages with a higher word count. Will it shoot you up to the top of Google tomorrow? Nope. But you’ll eventually see your site move up in the rankings.

What NOT To Do When Writing Content To Your Website

There are a few things you want to avoid doing. Some of these are old-school tactics and others are just plain bad practice! 

Keyword Stuffing: Don’t try to stuff keywords into the page and mention it 20 times. Google wants to see natural, organic flowing content. If you have a page about granite countertops, it can be within 500 words 2-4 times. I wouldn’t go more than that. 

Duplicate Content: Don’t copy content from another site or another page. I mentioned this earlier. It should be 100% unique content. It’s better to have zero content rather than to have copied content. 

Non-relevant Content: You want to make sure that the content you are adding to a page, makes sense. If a page is about granite, don’t start talking about the advantages of quartz. Think about it: if someone lands on that page, what do they want to see? Now, mentioning quartz on the page and comparing it to granite is OK, but just don’t go off the rails!

In the end, what Google wants to see is that you are satisfying the website visitor. So always keep that in mind. You want that visitor to invest as much time as possible on your website, so the better you make that content and the more valuable it is to them, the better the experience they’ll have on your website. 

Stephen Alberts is the owner of the Countertop Marketing Co and STONE ENGAGE. They specialize in helping countertop companies grow the retail side of their business outside of word-of-mouth and referrals. They also offer software to help you engage more with customers and close more countertop projects. 

To learn more please visit countertopmarketingco.com or stonengage.com. You can also email Stephen at steve@countertopmarketingco.com.