Website SEO Product Pages - Condense Product Pages
-
We are managing a website that has seen consistently dropping rankings over the last 2 years (http://www.independence-bunting.com/). Our long term strategy has been purely content-based and is of high quality, but isn’t seeing the desired results. It is an ecommerce site that has a lot of pages, most of which are category or product pages. Many of the product pages have duplicate or thin content, which we currently see as one of the primary reasons for the ranking drops.The website has many individual products which have the same fabric and size options, but have different designs. So it is difficult to write valuable content that differs between several products that have similar designs. Right now each of the different designs has its own product page. We have a dilemma, because our options are:A.Combine similar designs of the product into one product page where the customer must choose a design, a fabric, and a size before checking out. This way we can have valuable content and don’t have to duplicate that content on other pages or try to find more to say about something that there really isn’t anything else to say about. However, this process will remove between 50% and 70% of the pages on the website. We know number of indexed pages is important to search engines and if they suddenly see that half of our pages are gone, we may cause more negative effects despite the fact that we are in fact aiming to provide more value to the user, rather than less.B.Leave the product pages alone and try to write more valuable content for each product page, which will be difficult because there really isn’t that much more to say, or more valuable ways to say it. This is the “safe” option as it means that our negative potential impact is reduced but we won’t necessarily see much positive trending either.
C.Test solution A on a small percentage of the product categories to see any impact over the next several months before making sitewide updates to the product pages if we see positive impact, or revert to the old way if we see negative impact.Any sound advice would be of incredible value at this point, as the work we are doing isn’t having the desired effects and we are seeing consistent dropping rankings at this point.Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you,
-
Another quick question about your comment on the link profile quality.
There are currently no messages or warnings about the link profile quality in WMT. Would you suggest still reviewing these backlinks and trying to get them off the link profile?
Thanks!
-
Thank you Andy for your response and recommendations.
-
Hi
Its a tricky dilemma you are having. I would personally say option A.
You mentioned over the last two years you have done lots of great onsite content which is great, but SEO is really boiled down to three area's.
- Content
- Link building
- Technical
You could argue content / link building is the same, but I tend to keep them separate. While over the last two years you have been working on the content part of your overall strategy, have you let something slip in the other two area's.
What new links have you recently gone and got in your niche (not directory links etc, but links from key influencers and websites in your niche. While this article talks about launching a blog, its one of the best articles on here for explaining what you need to do: http://moz.com/blog/my-recipe-for-success-how-to-launch-a-successful-blog.
You have some great blog idea's, why not share these with similar websites (obviously not your competitors), but other sites in your niche and get them to link back to you.
And the third option is technical - have you kept upto date with all the latest recommend changes from Google, is the schema markup correct on your product pages, to help rank the pages higher. Is your sitemap working, so that Google can crawl your site more efficiently, does your site work well on mobile etc.
Writing great content is just part of an overall strategy and on its own won't help you to rank any better. While Google tries to use other metrics to determining ranking, links are still an important factor in where you rank.
All your link in my opinion look spammy and from directory sites and if I am thinking this, Google is potentially seeing the same thing. Have you got any messages in WMT about penalties.
Have you thought about contacting some bloggers and asking if they would like to review your products (Note never asks for a link, but let the website decided if they want to link to you - looks more natural if every mention isnt a link). This way if these bloggers review your products as well as some potential extra links, you are also potentially advertising to new customers.
Hope this helps.
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
-
Google Appending Blog URL inbetween my homepage and product page is it issue with base url?
Hi All, Google Appending Blog URL inbetween my homepage and product page. Is it issue or base url or relative url? Can you pls guide me? Looking to both tiny url you will get my point what i am saying. Please help Thanks!
Technical SEO | | amu1230 -
Images on Website for SEO
Good Morning, We have a magento website with hundreds of different products that have slight size variations. The image for each of these products looks the same (the only difference between the products is some of the dimensions) .... Would you recommend using the same image for each of these products and just use a generic file name that describes the overall product or would you give each product its own image with it's specific product name as the file name? Should I use 1 image for 500 different sku's or should i rename the file the name of each individual sku and load an individual image? The end user will not know the difference since all of the images will appear identical, simply asking from an SEO perspective. Thanks
Technical SEO | | Prime850 -
SEO impact of adding a lead gen form to a #1 ranked page
We have a page that ranks really well and gets a lot of traffic. We're wondering what would be the SEO impact of putting a lead gen form before visitors can download what they want. Currently, entrepreneurs can download a free business plan template kit. It's a zip file that include 6 files like a blank template, an blank Excel for the financials, examples files and links to related articles. The page is : http://www.bdc.ca/en/advice_centre/tools/business_plan/Pages/default.aspx Do you think that adding a form before downloading the zip file would cost us rankings? Thanks,
Technical SEO | | jfmonfette0 -
Have I done enough seo on this page to make a difference
Hi, my home page has been a thorn in my side for as long as i remember. On normal sites i am ok with seo but when it comes to my magazine site it is a whole new ball game as everything is different. I have been working with a developer who has told me to remove the intro to the site on the home page and to move the bottom of the site which was about the magazine but i am not sure if this is right. I want the site to rank well for the following Lifestyle Magazine now before our upgrade, we ranked well for this and other words, we were number one for a very long time and then stayed on the first page but now since the upgrade, i am jumping from page 9, 10, to six and not sure why that is happening. I would like to know if the advice i have been given is correct, have i done enough on the page to rank well for lifestyle magazine, or should i be doing what i have been taught previously where i should be having an intro to the site so google can pick up the words lifestyle magazine and other words. the site is www.in2town.co.uk many thanks for your input
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Can I put the tag in the MasterPage of my ASP.NET website or does this need to be specific to each page?
Hi Moz Community, I am a designer/junior SEO'er and have been working with our web developer to setup SEO oriented redirects and the rel canonical tag on our ASP.NET page running MasterPages - www.tisbest.org. I know setting up an incorrect canonical tag can be devastating so I'm hoping for some guidance. Can we put the <title> </span>Charity Gift Cards | Donation Gift Ideas | TisBest Philanthropy</p> <p style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="color: #5e5e5e;"> </span></p> <p style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="color: #5e5e5e;"></title> Thanks! Chad
Technical SEO | | TisBest0 -
Duplicate Content on Product Pages
Hello I'm currently working on two sites and I had some general question's about duplicate content. For the first one each page is a different location, but the wording is identical on each; ie it says Instant Remote Support for Critical Issues, Same Day Onsite Support with a 3-4 hour response time, etc. Would I get penalized for this? Another question i have is, we offer Antivirus support for providers ie Norton, AVG,Bit Defender etc. I was wondering if we will get penalized for having the same first paragraph with only changing the name of the virus provider on each page? My last question is we provide services for multiple city's and towns in various states. Will I get penalized for having the same content on each page, such as towns and producuts and services we provide? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | ilyaelbert0 -
Redirecting website page to another
Hi there one of my old pages on my site is currently ranking for a phrases that I want to rank for on a new page I created. My old page from 1 year ago is ranking for 'Property Management Training' (it's a blog post dating 2011) I have cretaed a new main Page on my site and would like to rank for 'Property Management' as it's more relevant. What is the best suggestion to keep my ranking but have people go to my new page? 301 redirect old page to new page? Thanks,
Technical SEO | | daracreative1 -
Same page from different locations has slight different URL, is it a negative SEO practice?
Hi, Recently we made change in our website link generation logic, and now I can reach the same page from different pages with slightly different URLs like this: http://www.showme.com/sh/?h=wlZJNya&by=Featured_ShowMe and http://www.showme.com/sh/?h=wlZJNya&by=Topic Just wondering is this a bad practice and should we avoid it? Thank you, Karen
Technical SEO | | showme0