ECommerce Product Meta Descriptions vs. Product Descriptions
-
Wondering if using on-page product descriptions as the individual product meta descriptions is a best practice for an eCommerce site?
Instead of writing two product descriptions (one regular and one meta), I am thinking if the product copy is SEO rich, we'd be good to use just the one for both purposes.
Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions?
Seems that many companies follow this practice. Thanks!
-
Hi. I know I'm a bit late to the question, but Google favours unique content. Google will issue warnings in GWT if you have just copied and pasted from the page content. You should be looking to write a compelling message that informs viewers of the content of the page and urges them to click through to read more.
I found this [relatively] recent article useful. I just so happen to be looking for more examples when I came here.
http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/62553-33-examples-of-great-meta-descriptions-for-search
-
You're welcome Gretchen - would love to hear how it turns out in the end...
-
Thanks Alan!
Per your response, I will look closely at the product descriptions already written and either pull out copy that can have keywords added intelligently or simply write a whole separate meta description.
Want to be sure this is time well spent. Approaching this project partially utilizing what is already done could be my best bet.
Thanks again!
-
Are your product descriptions well written? Do they accommodate "cut and paste" use within Meta Description fields? Remember there's a character limit to Meta Descriptions - too short and searchers may not be enticed to click. Too long and you leave it to Google to decide where to cut off...
Otherwise, the concept is a sound one, since the idea is you've said "product copy is SEO rich".
Then again what does THAT mean? A description that is too "spammy" looking may be a deterrent to a click.
Best course of action is to have human review on that whole policy.
And if you want to automate as much as possible, have the first portion of the product description the exact content you want in the meta description field. Standardize it. Make it a policy that writers need to keep that concept in mind.
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
-
Content hubs vs blog
Hey all! I work for a large healthcare company. We're in the planning stages of redesigning our website, and the question came up of whether we needed to continue with the patient-focused blog at all when we could simply incorporate the blog articles into the service lines they best fit with (i.e. an article about feeding babies solid good would go under the pediatrics section of the website instead of the pediatrics section of the blog).Anybody have an opinion/insight on whether the articles would get better rankings being dispersed to the services sections of the website instead of concentrated on a blog? Or would good internal linking make the whole question moot?Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | MartyIHC1 -
Keywords on Title Tag and Meta Description?
I have question regarding the use of keywords on title tag and meta description. I will take my website as example... Title Tag: Web Design Company & Digital Marketing Agency in Jakarta Meta Description: Coriate is a full-service website design & Internet marketing firm in Indonesia. We offer the best web solutions and SEO service in the industry. My questions: Is it good? Because I followed Blue Fountain Media. They don't use same keyword on title tag and meta description. You can see on title tag I use "web design" while on meta description I use "website design". Or should I use "web design" on meta description too? Blue Fountain Media doesn't use their company name on title tag. But when I search "Blue Fountain Media" on Google, it only showed their company name. How? Their title tag was "Website Design Company & Digital Marketing Agency in NYC | BFM". Is it necessary to use H1? Because as you can see on my company website Coriate there's no H1.
On-Page Optimization | | Japracool0 -
Moz shows page has no meta description but it does
Hi We recently worked on optimising one of our product pages, we created a new meta description, new unique content and a ensured it was optimised for our keyword. Despite all of this its ranking is still significantly lower than competitors eventhough the page authority is as good as theirs. I have just noticed that Moz crawl diagnostics is showing it up as having no meta description - but it does! when you check the source you see:http-equiv="description" content="Buy the robust and reliable Canon imageRUNNER 2525 from Copyfaxes. Learn more about the Canon 2525 before you buy." /> The page is: http://copyfaxes.com/product/2552/Canon-ImageRunner-2525-Digital-Copier I would appreciate any ideas.
On-Page Optimization | | copyfaxes10 -
How often should ecommerce category and product descriptions be rewritten?
We are a 15 year old ecommerce company. Most of our category descriptions are about 3 years old. Our product descriptions are 5-8 years old. While our category pages still rank well in Google our product pages have dropped significantly over time. How often should product page descriptions be rewritten so they do not become stale to Google? We have about 1,000 products on the site. If we rewrite them we are thinking about 250 words each. Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | SLINC0 -
Static content VS Dynamic changing content what is best
We have collected a lot of reviews and we want to use them on our Categories pages. We are going to be updating the top 6 reviews per categories every 4 days. There will be another page to see all of the reviews. Is there any advantage to have the reviews static for 1 or 2 weeks vs. having unique new ones pulled from the data base every time the page is refreshed? We know there is an advantage if we keep them on the page forever with long tail; however, we have created a new page with all of the reviews they can go to.
On-Page Optimization | | DoRM0 -
Dublicate meta
Hello, we have many dublicate meta titles and descriptions. But it shouldn't be. dublicate examples: www.site.com/page-name.html www.site.com/Page-Name.html Mainly all dublicates are for capital letters. but we have in such urls canonical tag with lower case urls. So why google detects as dublicates? Need your advise urgent. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | bele0 -
Lists of Product Links: What is good, what is bad?
I am a web designer but a bit of an SEO noob (trying to get better at both). I am working with one particular client on a site I inherited with existing structure. This client has about 10 products on 2 pages. On every page there is a product list that is basically the same list sorted in 2 ways: 1st by product, 2nd by usage. These all link to internal anchors so this might be an example on www.site.com Cleaner X1 - links to www.site.com/cleaners.php#x1
On-Page Optimization | | mparry9
Cleaner X2 - links to www.site.com/cleaners.php#x2
Cleaner X3 - links to www.site.com/cleaners.php#x3
...
Cleaner For Brick - links to www.site.com/cleaners.php#x1
Cleaner For Marble - links to www.site.com/cleaners.php#x2
Cleaner For Stone - links to www.site.com/cleaners.php#x3 Obviously this adds about 20 links on every page on the site (including the actual pages these products are on). What are your thoughts on this? Good idea or bad to have on the site? Should I remove the redundant links on the actual page that product falls on...or is this bad and should be removed altogether?0 -
Long meta description
Hello, I apologize in advance because the question must have already been posted, but 90% of my searches in "Search for a Question" drive me to a "no questions found" (i would be nice to improve this aspect of the Pro Q&A Forum 😉 So, a friend of mine asked to me what he should put for the meta description of automatically generated pages for his project. He has no tool to set a customized meta description for every page (and does not want to find one !) but he asked me the following : what is the less worse between : put the first words of the content (150 characters) put nothing and let google find what will be the better parts of the content for the user request put the whole content (600 characters) in order to avoid having just the begining of the content, which is not always useful in that case Did anyone try these options, what would be the less unproductive ? Thanks Loïc
On-Page Optimization | | mandinga0