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.
Should I change my product titles from singular to plural to satisfy optimisation?
-
At present most of our products are listed in the singular form.
http://www.towelsrus.co.uk/towels-bath-towels/aztex/turkish-cotton-bath-towel_ct473bd182pd2744.htm
However we are optimising for the plural form after carrying out keyword research
The question is should I update the product title to reflect this change? This would then change the URL of the page, H1 tag, H2 tag (both auto generated from the product title)
My concern here is that these pages will then become "new pages" and will need to index and rank, albeit they don't rank well as they have never been optimised until now. I could put 301 re-directs in place on the old URL's or i could just let the return a 404.
What do people think?
-
Hi Mat.
OK I had optimized this page for "Turkish cotton bath towels" and "Turkish bath Towels". That said, it still had 47 instances of the keyword in alt tags and a further 16 instances on the page. I can see why and where the extra instances are being generated unnecessarily which can be addressed when the product page is redesigned. As for the lat tags this is beyond me as to why its generating these so many times.
BTW, your helps really been useful. This is relatively new to me (2 months working on this site actively) and so much has come to light that you just wouldn't ever ask unless you get "hands on".
-
You didn't get an A grade when I checked it I am afraid. However results will depend on what keyword you enter. When I used the URL you gave above plus the keyword "towel" that gives you a B - mostly downgrading due to keyword stuffing.
The word towel is mentioned 105 times on that page.
This is clearly too much. Who ever put the CMS together probably read something about SEO written in 1998 and thinks that is the way to get results. Definitely get this addressed. Getting your CMS output correct on those template pages is vital.
Tabs can work well. However they do have to be thought about. At the moment it seems that the main purpose of the tabs is to hide keyword stuffed content - which doesn't help anyone. I actually quite like tabs for product pages, however I'd still have the most important information visible on the default page. However, that is personal opinion. A single page can work equally well and can actually be useful in terms of forcing you to edit and prioritise the information on that page.
-
Hi Mat
Thanks for the response. I have run all pages being optimsed through the on page checker and am getting A results for those pages optimised.
In regards to keyword stuffing, the issue I have is a lot of the keywords are dynamically generated by the system we use which is frustrating, I will be discussing this with them as I will regarding alt tags (40 instances of our keyword on 1 page in alt tags seems strange). We are about to have the product page redesigned to remove all tabs and have a 1 page affair so all the information is right in front of the customer without them having to click all over the place for more information.
Any further comments greatly appreciated.
-
You have both in the page title there anyway, so it must literally be the product name you are considering changing.
I really, REALLY wouldn't do that. You already have a product image showing multiple items. If your product name was also the plural I think you'd risk upsetting quite a few customers - you don't exactly make it clear looking at the page.
Customers first. Always. What's the point otherwise? Higher rankings, but less sales. In fact if I were optimising that page my first step would probably be to use that default overiew tab to ensure that everyone knew exactly what they were buying.
I think that your product pages are also a bit heavy on the keyword stuffing. I'm all for making things clear, but there are a lot of uses of the key terms going on. Maybe run some key pages through the onpage optimisation tool as well: http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/on-page-keyword-optimization/new
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
-
Changing Url Removes Backlink
Hello MOZ Community, I have question regarding Bad Backlink Removal. My Site's Post's Image got 4 to 5k backlinks from unknown sites and also their is no contact details on their site so that i can contact them to remove. So, I have an idea for which i want suggestion " If I change the url that receieves backlinks" does this will remove backlinks? For Example: https://example.com/test/ got 5k backlinks if I change this url to https://examplee.com/test-failed/ does this will remove those 5k backlinks? If not then How Can I remove those Backlinks? I Know about disavow but this takes time.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jackson210 -
Topical keywords for product pages and blogs
Hi all, I have a question regarding keywords. Of course we all know that keyword research should be focused on a certain topic and on user intent (and thus on answering specific questions) instead of trying to put keywords in a page to make it rank. However, duplicate content is of course still an issue. So here's my question: A client that sells floor heating systems that you can install yourself, has a product page for this topic and blog pages for questions regarding this topic. So following pages are on the website: Product page about the floor heating systems the client sells Blog article with tips how to install a floor heating system yourself Blog article about how to choose the right floor heating system These pages all answer different questions and are written about different topics. However, inevatibly all these pages also talk about different aspects of floor heating systems so this broad term comes up on all pages naturally. You could say that a solution is to merge pages and redirect the blogs to the product page, so the product page would answer all questions. But that is not what a customer is looking for. The goal of a product page is to trigger a conversion: let a customer contact the company or ask for a price offer. If the content on a product page is not comprehensive enough, the goal gets lost. Moreover, it doesn't make sense to talk about tips and tricks on a product page. So how do you tackle this problem without creating duplicate content? In search results, the blog pages rank for the specific questions, but the product page doesn't rank for the generic term 'floor heating'. The internal link structure is ok: the product page has obviously more incoming links than the blogs. All on page SEO factors are taken care of as well. Any ideas on this? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mat_C0 -
Looking for opinions on structuring meta title tags/page title/menu title/H1
Hi everyone I am hoping a few of you can share your opinions. I have been having conversations (okay, healthy debates) about how to write/structure meta title tag and how to compliment them with the H1, page title, menu name. To help explain the thought processes I will use a pretend keyword. How about "screwdriver". Case: (I made this up) we are redesigning a website for a construction tools manufacturing company (pretend name: ABC Tools) targeting OEMs who are interested in purchasing large quantities of tools. The product categories (to become main menu items) are Screwdrivers, Nails, Drills, and Hammers. (bear with me .... this is just an example I am making up on the fly) K. Circling back to screwdrivers - let's say we have one landing page (a primary category page and in the main menu) listing products and great details about screwdrivers. Focus keywords are screwdriver manufacturer, screwdriver supplier, construction screwdrivers Below are questions being debated. If you are willing ... how would you address these questions? And, can you explain WHY? QUESTION ONE: How would you structure the meta title tag (feel free to write one of your own) Screwdriver Manufacturer - Construction Screwdriver | ABC Tools ABC Tools - US-based Screwdriver Manufacturer Supplier Near You High-Quality Screwdrivers for Construction with ABC Tools QUESTION TWO: how would you write the H1 on the page? Would it match the meta tag? OR, would you write something different using the primary keyword? QUESTION THREE Remembering this is not a blog post ... it is a primary landing page linked to the main navigation. What would the menu title be? (remember the product categories above are how the main menu items are bucketed) Screwdrivers Screwdriver Manufacturer Typically in WordPress, the H1 and the menu title is auto-populated using the page title (not the title tag)... So, if we use Screwdrivers as the page title but we want the H1 to match the meta title tag, would we manually change the H1? Or, have the page title and title tag match, but manually change the menu item?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Brenda.Haines1 -
Best Practices for Homepage Title Tag
Hi, I would like to know if there is any update about the best practices for the homepage title tag. I mean, a couple of years ago, it was still working placing main keywords in the homepage title tag. But since the last google SERP update, the number of characters that are being shown were reduced, and now we try to work with 55 and 56 characters. That has reduced our capacity of including many keywords on the title tag. Besides, search engines are smarter now to choose the correct inner page to show in SERP. But I am wondering if the Homepage Title should have a branded orientation or should include main keywords, cause it is still working that strategy. I would appreciatte any update in this issue. Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | teconsite0 -
Multiple Ecommerce sites, same products
We are a large catalog company with thousands of products across 2 different domains. Google clearly knows that the sites are connected. Both domains are fairly well known brands - thousands of branded searches for each site per month. Roughly half of our products overlap - they appear on both sites. We have a known duplicate content issue - both sites having exactly the same product descriptions, and we are working on it. We've seen that when a product has different content on the 2 sites, frequently, both pages get to page 2 of the SERPs, but that's as far as it goes, despite aggressive white hat link building tactics. 1. Is it possible to get the same product pages on page 1 of the SERPs for both sites? (I think I know the answer...) 2. Should we be canonicalizing (is that a word?) products across the sites? This would get tricky - both sites have roughly the same domain authority, but in different niches. Certain products and keywords naturally rank better on 1 site or the other depending on the niche.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AMHC0 -
When removing a product page from an ecommerce site?
What is the best practice for removing a product page from an Ecommerce site? If a 301 is not available and the page is already crawled by the search engine A. block it out in the robot.txt B. let it 404
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bryan_Loconto0 -
Google and Product Description Tabs
How does Google process a product page with description tabs? For example, lets say the product page has a tab for Overview, Specifications, What's In the Box and so on. Wouldn't that content be better served in one main product description tab with the tab names used as (htags) or highlighted paragraph separators? Or, does all that content get crawled as a single page regardless of the tabs?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AWCthreads0 -
Domain Name Change - Best Practices?
Good day guys, We got a restaurant that is changing its name and domain. However they are keeping the same server location, same content and same pages (we are just changing the logo on the website). It just has to go a new domain. We don't want to lose the value of the current site, and we want to avoid any duplicate penalties. Could you please advise of the best practices of doing a domain name change? Thank you.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Michael-Goode0