Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Body of text on category pages
-
Hello everyone, wonder if I can pick your brains about our company's website. We are a tea company - Canton Tea Co. We have been advised that it is really important to get more text onto the category pages on our website, as otherwise the page just consists of a list of products, and therefore provides Google with a ton of headers, tiny descriptions, and not enough text to allow the page to being easily indexed, therefore hurting our Google ranking for key search terms like 'Green Tea' which should lead to the Green Tea category page.
So we decided to add some text to the category page. The only place for this text to go was laid over the category header image. However, it looks pretty awful and unsophisticated having this text on top of the image - please see an example, our Green Tea category page, via this link: http://www.cantonteaco.com/loose-leaf-tea-1/type/green-tea.html
So I have three questions:
- How significant is the text on a category page such as this to that page's Google ranking?
- If we moved the text to an area that was hidden until clicked on, for example the 'Filter by' section that opens up when you click on it (see via URL above), would that negate the SEO benefit?
- Do you have any other ideas or opinions on how to resolve this?
Thank you!
Louise, Canton Tea Co.
-
URGENT: I checked the text on a few of your product pages, then searched for a snippet of your product description in quotes. Your descriptions are posted on other sites. And that text on your site for some products is verbatim identical to the product descriptions displayed on amazon.co.uk. That is deadly. Google is filtering several other websites where this same text appears verbatim. I see amazon with verbatim and four filtered results here. So, I would be sure that the text on my site is unique. If you are spreading it to amazon, rewrite what is on your site. If other people are stealing your text, that's a harder problem to solve.
=============================
If this was my site, I would do the following with the category page. I am not saying that everyone is going to agree with me, but this is where I would bet my money and time.
-- Include two to three sentences, in proper language, about each of the products. Give the visitor enough information so he/she can decide to click. Don't give me a whiff and make me click to taste it. People who buy tea are the kind of people who don't mind reading by hate clicking into fifteen pages just to get some idea about the product.
-- Personally, I would ditch the hover-over effect and get that text onto the page. You NEVER know how search engines are going to treat it. You never know how devices are going to treat it, or how old men like me, who enjoy their tea are going to react when it doesn't seem to work when I click on it. Also, I believe in getting all of my info out for the visitor. Don't make the visitor click to another page unless he is really interested.
-- I would show the rating on the page. Ratings are like bling. Flaunt them.
-
I see what you mean Louise, but you need to be careful with category pages that they aren't seen as Doorway pages, that Google is clamping down on. Read more here.
**1) How significant is the text on a category page such as this to that page's Google ranking? **
It's not just about text, it's about usability and how useful the page is. If the page is only there to collect traffic for a search term and then fire someone off to other internal pages, you might fall foul of penalties.
**2) If we moved the text to an area that was hidden until clicked on, for example the 'Filter by' section that opens up when you click on it (see via URL above), would that negate the SEO benefit? **
There is no direct SEO problem with having the content hidden behind a tab, because the content is still there and Google can see it in the code as well. However, this wouldn't be my preferred option on it's own as that doesn't do much for the page and is only there to try and combat some SEO issues.
**3) Do you have any other ideas or opinions on how to resolve this? **
Usability and more usability. Make sure the page bring more than just some text and links. Think about people landing on there and what else they would like to see that would be useful to them. If you search for your key phrases, who is winning in the SERP's? How do they combat this issue? A little competition analysis can go a long way.
You could also do with focusing on keywords that bring people to that page. Rather than just focusing on "Green Tea", you want the people who are looking to "buy green tea" or for "Green tea suppliers". If you get the wrong people to the pages, this can also be detrimental.
I hope this helps
-Andy
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How to fix non-crawlable pages affected by CSS modals?
I stumbled across something new when doing a site audit in SEMRUSH today ---> Modals. The case: Several pages could not be crawled because of (modal:) in the URL. What I know: "A modal is a dialog box/popup window that is displayed on top of the current page" based on CSS and JS. What I don't know: How to prevent crawlers from finding them.
Web Design | | Dan-Louis0 -
Incorporating Spanish Page/Site
We bought an exact match domain (in Spanish) to incorporate with regular website for a particular keyword. This is our first attempt at this, and while we do have Spanish speaking staff that will translate/create a nice, quality page, we're not going to redo everything in Spanish page. Any advice on how to implement this? Do I need to create a whole other website in Spanish? Will that be duplicate content if I do? Can I just set it up to show the first page in Spanish, but if they click on anything else it redirects to our site? I'm pretty clueless on this, so if anything I've suggested is off-the-wall or a violation, I'm really just spit-balling, trying to figure out how to implement this. Thanks, Ruben
Web Design | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Internal Linking: What is the best practice for pages not included in Nav bar?
I never quite understood why internal linking was such a big deal for SEO, but now I'm having second thoughts and perhaps understanding it more. I always thought since most websites have a navigation feature--usually the menu bar located at the top and often another one in the footer--that internal navigation was usually already built in to most websites and therefore, a silly topic to make a fuss over; however, I may be the silly one after all. I am now creating pages that are not included in the navigation so.... What is the best practice for this? If I am creating say, pages for certain locations and those location pages begin to number in the hundreds, it makes my navigation bar a little too cumbersome to have all those pages in a drop down menu. So I made a Locations page and just link to all those pages from that page (and from nowhere else). But now I'm wondering if this could be a bad internal linking practice and perhaps hurt my online visibility as an SEO ranking factor. Is this a crawl problem? And if so, is there a better option that provides a good visitor experience while appeasing the search engines.
Web Design | | Dino640 -
Magento Category H1 Tags
I am currently using magento and have all titles labeled correctly. I have made a H1 tag for the main page which works fine. Each product title becomes and H1 tag, which again is fine. However my category pages are missing H1 tags. If I manually code an H1 tag, then there becomes 2 H1 tags. It is using my category name then my manual H1 tag. I don't want it to use my category name because it is shortened to fit on my navigation bar.
Web Design | | nchachula
Ex. www.mydomain.com/tshirts/short-sleeve
In this example the subcategory title is short sleeve. When using MOZ tool on frontend it shows NO H1 tag or the title becomes H1 tag "short sleeve" however I want the H1 to actually be "short sleeve tshirts"
If I manually add an H1 tag to description on category page it adds both the title AND the H1 tag I enter.0 -
Wordpress: Pages vs Posts vs Portfolio
Hi All, I'm looking to put pen to paper and design my main structual template for my website. I will be creating the new site in Wordpress. My understanding of Wordpress is broken into the Static Pages, Posts and Portfolio. Static PAGE
Web Design | | Mark_Ch
Static one off content.
No tags, categories or archived Posts
content entries, which is listed in reverse chronological order.
Update post entry to maintain overall freshness of your website.
tags, categories & archived Portfolio
????? Question What are the benefits of a portfolio page over Static Pages & Posts When creating feature rich articles should i use static pages, posts or portfolio. Thanks Mark0 -
Too Many Outbound Links on the Home Page - Bad for SEO?
Hello Again Moz community, This is my last Q of the day: I have a LOT of outbound links on the home page of www.web3.ca Some are to clients projects, most are to other pages on the website. Can reducing this to the core pages have a positive impact on SEO? Thanks, Anton
Web Design | | Web3Marketing870 -
E-Commerce Website Architecture - Cannibalization between Product Categories and Blog Categories?
Hi, I have an e-commerce site that sells laptops. My main landing pages and category pages are as follows:
Web Design | | BeytzNet
"Toshiba Laptops", "Samsung Laptops", etc. We also run a WP blog with industry news.
The posts are divided into categories which are basically as our landing pages.
The posts themselves usually link to the appropriate e-commerce landing page.
For example: a post about a new Samsung Laptop which is categorized in the blog under "Samsung Laptops" will naturally link somewhere inside to the "samsung laptops" ecommerce landing page. Is that good or do the categories on the blog cannibalize my more important e-commerce section landing pages? Thanks0 -
White Text / Black Background & SEO Impact
Does anyone know of any testing / studies with evidence that Google prefers dark text on a light background vs. light text on a dark background? I have a website that currently has light text on a black background, and really like the way it looks, but am concerned that the style may be hurting SEO. Moreover, redesigning something inverse with the same quality would be a large project and fairly costly, so I'd like to make sure the benefit will really be worth the cost before moving forward.
Web Design | | Bromtec0