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.
Word Count - Content site vs ecommerce site
-
Hi there, what are your thoughts on word count for a content site vs. an ecommerce site.
A lot of content sites have no problem pushing out 500+ words per page, which for me is a decent amount to help you get traction. However on ecommerce sites, a lot of the time the product description only needs to be sub-100 words and the total word count on the page comes in at under 300 words, a lot of that could be considered duplicate.
So what are your views? Do ecommerce sites still need to have a high word count on the product description page to rank better?
-
Writing very generous product descriptions can answer questions for the buyer. They can facilitate the buying decision or prevent purchase of items that are poor fits for the shopper - and thereby reduce returns.
-
Hi Bee159,
With Ecommerce, it is all about the user experience. Detail the products so the consumer knows exactly what they are buying. Even the simplest of products can benefit from a detailed description. I do not know how many times I am shopping for a product and there are many brands of the same item. What it is going to set it apart? A good description.
So its not word count... it is more like "Words Have Meaning" give value to your descriptions and more people will choose your products over the competitors.
-
I don't think that total word count is TOO much of an issue for e-commerce, however, it is key to have enough detail as possible in the description. We have products that we can't really go too much into detail as there isn't much to say, we can only write enough to ensure the pages are unique and descriptive enough to explain to the customer exactly what the product is, but often the word count is between 100-150. A key part of ranking for e-commerce is ensuring headers, page length, meta descriptions etc all up to par and make sure the page is as user-friendly and easy to navigate as possible.
We like to refer to this as a checklist when checking our product pages are as good as they can be.
https://magento.com/blog/best-practices/seo-best-practices-ecommerce-product-pages
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
-
Writing cornerstone content for a shop (eCommerce) website
Hi there I am trying to optimise my site to the best that it can be. Since the most recent Google updates, everything that I reading is saying cornerstone content with lots of valuable content is a really good strategy as it tells Google what is the most important content on your site. Writing articles that are well structured and have give the user a detailed overview of that subject. Lots of top SEO's are saying 3000 words plus on these pages. My question is, how do I go about this with and eCommerce site? Obviously that majority of the keywords that I want to target are product related and these are the pages that I want to come up in the search. How do I go about creating cornerstone content for these pages? I am thinking that one of my cornerstone pieces of content would be "The Ultimate Guide to [my main product category]". But that product has numerous products related to it, all of which have their own keywords, so how would this help the products to rank? The site had two main product categories, with numerous products under each of those categories. The two main categories are targeting my best performing keywords, but currently the landing page for these is the main product category pages. I am really struggling to work out the best strategy here. The content that I have on my actual products pages is comprehensive and covers a lot of detail about that particular product and has started to rank for product keywords, but I am guessing Google wouldn't consider that to be cornerstone content. I hope this make sense. Any advice anyone can give would be really useful. Many thanks in advance
On-Page Optimization | | Clojobobo1 -
Duplicate content in sidebar
Hi guys. So I have a few sentences (about 50 words) of duplicate content across all pages of my website (this is a repeatable text in sidebar). Each page of my website contains about 1300 words (unique content) in total, and 50 words of duplicate content in sidebar. Does having a duplicate content of this length in sidebar affect the rankings of my website in any way? Thank you so much for your replies.
On-Page Optimization | | AslanBarselinov1 -
Does using Yoast variables for meta content overwrite any pages that already have custom meta content?
The question is about the Yoast plugin for WP sites. Let's say I have a site with 200 pages and custom meta descriptions / title tags already in place for the top 30 pages. If I use the Yoast variable tool to complete meta content for the remaining pages (and make my Moz issue tracker look happier), will that only affect the pages without custom meta descriptions or will it overwrite even the pages with the custom meta content that I want? In this situation, I do want to keep the meta content that is already in place on select pages. Thanks! Zack
On-Page Optimization | | rootandbranch0 -
301 Redirect to external site
Hi guys, We have a client who is getting their website redesigned through us. They are discontinuing couple of their services which will not get featured in the new site. They are fairly well ranked for these services and my client wishes to 301 redirect these pages to an external site owned by his friend so that they benefit out of the ranking. The question is: Will my client's website's general ranking get affected due to 301 redirecting to an external site? The external site is not spammy or red-flagged by Google (at the moment, at least). Thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | RameshNair
Ramesh Nair0 -
Duplicate content penalty
when moz crawls my site they say I have 2x the pages that I really have & they say I am being penalized for duplicate content. I know years ago I had my old domain resolve over to my new domain. Its the only thing that makes sense as to the duplicate content but would search engines really penalize me for that? It is technically only on 1 site. My business took a significant sales hit starting early July 2013, I know google did and algorithm update that did have SEO aspects. I need to resolve the problem so I can stay in business
On-Page Optimization | | cheaptubes0 -
How to use canonical with mobile site to main site
I am pretty sure that the mobile version of the main site needs to be the same canonical link from what I understand. I am trying to find good docuementation that supports this. Even better if its from Google or Matt Cutts. I have a main domain like http://www.mydomain.com the mobile version of this is http://www.mydomain.com/m/ Should my canonical be rel="canonical" href="http://www.mydomain.com"/> for both these pages?
On-Page Optimization | | cbielich0 -
Duplicate Content from on Competitor's site?
I've recently discovered large blocks of content on a competitors site that has been copy and pasted from a client's site. From what I know, this will only hurt the competitor and not my client since my guy was the original. Is this true? Is there any risk to my client? Should we take action? Dino
On-Page Optimization | | Dino640 -
Ecommerce On-Site SEO: Keywords in Category Descriptions
Hello, I'm doing on-site SEO for a client's ecommerce site. Are 160 words enough for a category description? I'm using the keywords once at the top of the description, and once at the bottom of the description, with the ones at the bottom reworded so that they are the keywords with a different word order. I used to put the keywords in 3 times but it just feels like stuffing. Is twice, worded differently the second time, enough for a category description? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | BobGW0