Optimizing E-Commerce Category Pages For SEO
-
Hey,
Does anyone have any tips for optimizing e-commerce category pages? Looking to add content to each category page but not sure where to put the content i.e. above the footer? Above the search results? In the left hand nav bar? Have a landing page which they click through to see search results?
If anyone has any good examples or tips it would be much appreciated.
cheers
David
-
I would suggest simple solution
After Header of your website , Middle content Start with
[Impressive Word] Category
Piece of Content about Category , main products , features...
After that Product listing with order of Top Selling or Featured Products..
No one is interested in lengthy content in Category or even in Product Page (not even search engines).. instead of that I would suggest use that space with
to list Last Buyers or visitors who visited this category has also visited this category kind of feature
-
I can see right away that not everyone agrees on how to optimize a category page. This is just my opinion based on experience, but I really don't think that 500 words, or several paragraphs, is necessary or even desirable on a category page. And I don't recommend putting the copy down at the bottom either.
If you use the word "SEO copy" to explain a chunk of text, right away that should be a red flag to you. If you claim that copy is good for users, why would you put it way down at the bottom? Because it kills your conversion rate? Well then it's not good for users is it? What's good for users will improve your conversion rate. Remember that.
In my experience a category page only needs about two-three useful sentences with appropriate keywords to rank. And by "useful" I don't mean just saying "This is our Green Widgets page where you'll find the bets green widgets in the world. We have big green widgets, small green widgets and cheap green widgets."
I mean something like "Find the best green widget for your needs by using our filtering options above. Choose to see green widgets sorted by price, color and popularity, or simply browse the offerings below. Call 1-800-Green-Widgets or click the 'Chat' button to the right if you have any questions."
If it is a complicated topic, like something scientific or technical, you may consider adding more copy for the users to help them choose the right brand / product. In this case, a drop-down "Read More" type of div works well, as does a link to a larger "guide" on another page. If they don't know what they want yet, maybe your category page is too far down in the funnel, in which case sending them to a separate "guide" could be beneficial.
I'll leave this topic open for discussion for awhile since others my find some very good reasons to disagree. In the end, what you really need to do is test out a few different options on different category pages and go with whatever works best for your users and your site.
-
Brad out of interest what do you think about using expandable divs so that users can see more content on the cat page if interest ? Not sure if this would be seen as black hat or not.
-
Hi David,
We are in the process of writing more how-to type guides that will be used on our site. E.g. for that category we might have how to choose a baby maker, how to make baby food, recipes etc. This will be at the top of the page above the products (a small excerpt then a link to another page). The SEO text will remain at the bottom.
Thanks,
Brad -
Thanks for the link and the advice Brad. Don't take this the wrong way as I like what you have done with the site. The content on the bottom of the page is well optimised but has been written for the benefit of google and not users. if you have guide for selecting the right baby food maker Would you be putting that at the bottom of the page? Or maybe that should be somewhere else on the site? Just trying to the best solution.
-
Brad - nice site! Just curious what shopping cart you use.
-
We have recently moved our SEO text from above the fold/products to below the fold/products and haven't noticed any changes in organic results. The reason for this is because the SEO text was pushing all the products below the fold and we noticed a significant jump in conversion rates once we changed the way our category pages were set out.
We generally try to go for 2-3 solid paragraphs of SEO text that explain the features, uses, brands etc of a certain type of product. Of course, this isn't good for just SEO, but it gives a basic overview of the product type to the customer.
We've also added a basic SEO tag at the top of each category, just under our logo so that our keywords are closer to the start of the code.
I'm not sure of the rules of posting your own URL, so apologise if I have broken any rules, but here is an example: http://www.kitchenwaredirect.com.au/Appliances/Soup-Baby-Food-Maker
-
Thanks Brian . Any chance you can post a link to an example site? It is a balancing act between what works and what looks good.
-
Here's my rules of thumb for my category pages.
1. Write quality content not SEO copy. Keyword stuffed content will do more harm than good. Don't repeat keywords more than 1-2 times.
2. 500 words is a minimum. I use 1300-1500. Again, focus on quality content that will actually describe the products and provide the reader with substance.
3. I put it beneath the products and check my work with the On-Page Optimization tool.
4. Be an expert on your products and how they are used. Transfer this knowledge to your cat and product pages. Offer content that no one else does.
-
Thanks ranksurge. Footer was the wrong word. I mean like comet have content at the bottom of each page just above the footer. http://www.comet.co.uk/c/Fridges-Freezers/Fridge-Freezers/1735 They don't really have that much content. How much content did you have on each page? We are looking at 500 words.
-
I work with a client that has over 800k products and about 500 category pages. It was decided to always place the content above the listing of the all available items.
Not sure why you would want to place content at the footer? Unless you don't want the category pages to get ranked?
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
-
Too many links per page? Double navigation on every page...
I have a client with navigation across the top of each page plus the same nav links in a sidebar on every page. Can that duplication (or the sheer number of links) on each page have a negative ranking factor?
On-Page Optimization | | brm20170 -
URL structure of the page: Does this one need to contain the most important keyword for better SEO?
Hi everyone, I’m trying to get "air-conditioner-repair.html" to rank higher for the keyword "air conditioner los angeles". I am wondering whether or not I should change URL to "air-conditioner-los-angeles-repair.html" to get better results? Will be thankful very much for any advise you can offer!
On-Page Optimization | | kirupa0 -
Understanding why our new page doesn't rank. Internal link structure to blame? + understand canonical pages more.
Hi guys. Sorry it's an essay...BUT, i think a lot of you will find this an interesting question. This question is in 2 (related) parts, and I imagine it would be an 'advanced' SEO question. Hoping you guys can help bring some real insight 🙂 Always amazed at the quality for this forum/ community. **Context... ** We had a duplicate content issue caused by this page and it's product permutations, so we placed canonical tags on all the product permutations to solve it. Worked a treat. However, we now have more **product ranges. **We now sell Diaries, Notebooks & Music books, which are clearly different from one another. So...we've placed canonical tags on all the product permutations leading back to the 'parent' theme. In other words, all the diary permutations 'lead back' to the diary page. All the notebooks permutations 'lead back' to the main notebook page. So on and so forth. Make sense so far? Context end..... Issue. Amazingly our Diary page outranks our notebook pagefor the search term 'Design your own Notebook'. The notebook page is well optimised for this search term, and the diary page avoids the word 'notebook' altogether (so no keyword cannibalisation going on). Possible reason? Our Diary page has a vast amount of internal links to it throughout our site. The notebook page has only a few. Could this be the issue? If so, what reading/ blogs/ content/ tools would you recommend to help understand and solve this problem? i.e) Better understanding internal link structure for SEO. 2nd part of the question (in the context of internal linking for SEO). When there are internal links to a page with a conical tag does that 'count' towards the 'parent page', or simply towards that specific page? I really hope that makes sense. If it's clear as mud just shout. Isaac. EDIT: All pages in question have been indexed since we added these changes to the site.
On-Page Optimization | | isaac6630 -
How to "on page" seo a small local service business - particularly headers
First off, let me apologize if this question is posted elsewhere, worded differently. I've looked around quite a bit and have been unable to find the answer. Basically, we are a small web design firm just getting our feet with with SEO. Most of our clients, especially initially, will be quite small, local, service businesses. For example: and electrician, a pet sitter, a retail printing and map store, a surgeon etc. Almost all of their sites will follow a basic "business card on the web" format... Home Page - About Us - Testimonials - Rates - FAQ - Contact Us - Etc So, from what I've read about on-page optimization, making sure my keywords are in the title, header, body, and meta description is one of the easiest and quickest things we can do for our clients. This is a straightforward concept for me when applied to the homepage. For example, take the local pet sitting business. Her keywords are: Pet sitting, Dog walking, and the city we live in, Anytown USA. So, I've used those keywords in all the appropriate places on the home page: title: Dog Walking and Pet Sitting Service in Anytown USA header: Dog Walking and Pet Sitting Service in Anytown USA first sentence of body: We are a professional Dog Walking and Pet Sitting Service in Anytown USA meta description: We are a professional Dog Walking and Pet Sitting Service in Anytown USA. At Business Name your furry friends become a part of our family. So, my question is: Do I also optimize the "about us" page? I've changed the title of all the pages to follow this format: Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - Home Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - About Us Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - Rates Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - FAQ Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - Etc Easy enough so far. Also pretty easy for the meta description, and the body. However, how would I add keywords to the header without making it look ridiculous? We use wordpress with the genesis framework, and child themes from studiopress. The header is always prominently visible at the top of the page. Most people would expect to see the header be the same as the link they clicked on the nav bar: for example, on the "about us" page, people expect the header to be: "about us" Not: "dog walking and pet sitting in Anytown USA - About Us" Do I just not worry about the headers on the other pages? For that matter, I'd really like people to "land" on the home page, not any of the other pages, so should I not optimize them at all? Does optimizing the rest of the pages help the home page to show up higher in the SERPS? If I do end up optimizing the rest of the pages, should I use slightly different spellings of the keywords: like Dog walker instead of dog walking? Or pet sitter instead of pet sitting? I've repeatedly seen people talk about not using the same keywords on more than one page... but for most of these businesses there are really fairly few keywords. There just isn't that many different ways that someone is going to search for an electrician, or a plumber, or a pet sitter. By the second or third page that I optimize on one site, I imagine I'll start running out of different variations of the keywords. I recognize that a lot of what we'll do that will be most helpful to local clients has nothing to do with on page optimization (setting up google places, google+, yahoo + bing local, etc). I'd just like to make sure that I'm doing the on page stuff as perfectly as possible. Thanks for your time and responses! -Matt p.s. while I'm at it, let me ask another question about domain names as well. Right now the pet sitting client mentioned above is using: www.petcare_Anytown_.com After operating her business for the last year she realized she is much more interested in dog walking than pet sitting. We are in the processes of redesigning the site, and when finished, are considering moving it to: www.dogwalking_Anytown_.com My assumption is that as long as we use permanent redirects from the old site to the new one, we shouldn't lose much SEO value. Is this thinking correct? On a related note though: another article I read mentioned that using a brand name in the domain may actually be more useful than the keyword rich domains above. However, www._businessname._com happens to already be taken by a pet sitting business at the other end of the country. We could however use: www.businessnameAnytown.com Which one do you think would work better? The keyword/location domain, or the businessname/location domain? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | Webformix0 -
Duplicate Page Content on Empty Manufacturer Pages
I work for an internet retailer that specializes in pet supplies and medications. I was going through the Crawl Diagnostics for our website, and I saw in the Duplicate Page Content section that some of our manufacturer pages were getting flagged. The way our site is set up is that when products are discontinued we mark them as discontinued and use 301 redirects to redirect their URLs to other relevant products, brands, or our homepage. We do the same thing with brand and manufacturer pages if all of their products are discontinued. 90% of the time, this is a manual process. However, the other 10% of the time certain products come and go automatically as part of our inventory system with one of our fulfillment partners. This can sometimes create empty manufacturer pages. I can't redirect these empty pages because there's a chance that products will be brought back in stock and the page will be populated again. What can we do so that these pages won't get marked as duplicates while they're empty? Write unique short descriptions about the companies? Would the placement of these short descriptions matter--top of the page under the category name vs bottom of the page underneath where the products would go? The links in the left sidebar, top, and in the footer our part of our site architecture, so those are always going to be the same. To contrast, here's what a manufacturer page with products looks like: Thanks! http://www.vetdepot.com/littermaid-manufacturer.html
On-Page Optimization | | ElDude0 -
How to properly remove pages and a category from Google's index
I want to remove this category http://www.webdesign.org/web-design-news-all/ and all the pages in that category (e.g. http://www.webdesign.org/web-design-news-all/7386.html ) from Google's index. I used the following string in the "Reomval URS" section in Google Webmaster Tools: http://www.webdesign.org/web-design-news-all/* is that correct or I better use http://www.webdesign.org/web-design-news-all/ ? Thanks in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | VinceWicks0 -
Would I be safe canonicalizing comments pages on the first page?
We are building comment pages for an article site that live on a separate URL from the article (I know this is not ideal, but it is necessary). Each comments page will have a summary of the article at the top. Would I be safe using the first page of comments as the canonical URL for all subsequent comment pages? Or could I get away with using the actual article page as the canonical URL for all comment pages?
On-Page Optimization | | BostonWright0 -
I am optimizing my webpages according to suggestions from the On Page Report Card. Should I have more than one keyword for a page?
I am optimizing my webpages according to suggestions from the On Page Report Card. Should I have more than one keyword for a page or should I make separate pages for each keyword even when they are similar? Will Google penalize me for making similar pages? Imagine selling, bargain milk chocolate peanut clusters. Keywords examples could be: Bargain chocolate Bargain milk chocolate Bargain milk chocolate peanut clusters Bargain chocolate peanut clusters Chocolate peanut cluster bargains Milk chocolate peanut cluster bargains Etc. Will one page called http://mycompany/bargainmilkchocolatepeanutclusters.com be OK or should I have one called http://mycompany/bargainmilkchocolate.com and one called http://mycompany/bargainmilkchocolatepeanutclusters.com and one called http://mycompany/chocolatepeanutclusterbargains.com , etc.? Thanks for your advice.
On-Page Optimization | | KSHAYY0