SEO; Two Products or One when Customization is available?

[Patrick_McCabe]

I was looking for some second opinions. We are a store that sells printed products. Currently, there is a disagreement on if we should have two different products for the same design or not.

The idea is that one product is As-Is, meaning it has no customization options, while the other product features the exact same design with the ability to add Custom Text to a designated area of the design. This is the approach currently in use on our store.

In the other case we have a single product and allow customers to select if they want to customize. The product would have images showing both As-Is and Custom Text.
For context; some designs have a dedicated area for Custom Text, while other designs remove Text from the existing design and replace it with what the customer enters.


As the Tech Admin / In-House SEO person, I think we should only have a single product. It makes it simpler to write a unique description, as the designs are nearly identical.

The Sales & Product Design groups disagree, and think we should have two different products. Otherwise customers may get confused about what text will be present in the design.

Thoughts on which approach we should use? Is it worth it from an SEO perspective to have different products for As-Is and Custom Text?

[Olivia · Accepted solution]

Hey, @Patrick_McCabe!

Thanks so much for sharing your question with our network.

I'd be glad to offer my two cents to help you make the best decision for your company and I'm also looking forward to hearing feedback from other community members. To offer full transparency, I do agree with you that having one product with customizable and default options is the way to go. While I do think it's helpful for SEO purposes, especially if both products will have virtually identical descriptions that's not my only reason.

Here at Shopify I spend a fair amount of my time skimming through websites and even in my personal life when shopping online or managing my own store. Based on that personal experience, I am definitely drawn to visuals and clear, concise information found in one place. 

The statistics even suggest that it's safe to say we can miss the details because humans can simply "be impatient" as detailed by a recent Shopify blog. What that means for your product and store is then totally unique to your situation because you know your target audience the best. Some things you may consider are:

• are two or more products that appear similar going to add to the confusion and increase navigation challenges that could potentially result in conversion losses?
• or will these two, clearly separated products offer more convenience as opposed to one product with the customization options in the product page

To be honest with you, I can see the argument for both so I don't know that there is a better answer here based on user interface.

Hope that helps!

[Patrick_McCabe]

It does help actually. Neither party in this disagreement has considered the convivence or navigation angle.
Our site search and some collections will display the two products side by side with each other...
I will bring these angles up during the next meeting. Thank you for your insight, this may be able help us come to a decision.