SEO Product Pages Do's and Don'ts

E-Commerce is an ever growing piece of retail. Making smart SEO practices a must for this modern more digital world. A product page is just like any other page on your store, meaning that SEO matters for these pages just as much as it does for your home page or blog posts. These are the pages where a user makes the decisions to buy, that’s why your product pages should be playing a central role in your SEO strategy.

Working with E-commerce sites usually means you have a lot of pages to work with, these pages can include category and product pages. Overhauling all these pages at once may seem daunting but the good news is you don’t have to do everything at one time. You can start with the products and categories that generate the most revenue for your business and then work your way down from there.

Product Names

Product names should be easy to remember, understand and be relevant to the product in question.

Product Name Best Practices
• Include important keywords in the beginning of the name.
• Include unique characteristcs of the product like the brand, color, size, or type
• Avoid jargon or internal company lingo
• The product name should always be the only H1 used on the page. Any additional important information (such as specifications or reviews) should be labeled as H2’s.
• Keep it simple, straight foward and easy to read. Remember you are writing for a human .
• Don’t use all caps or any unnecessary punctuation.
• Don’t add the price in the title.

Product URLs

According to Google a good URL structure can help the crawler index your site.

With a poor URL structure content can be missed; if Google thinks two URLs will return the same content only one of the URLs will be retrieved by their crawler. This can happen if fragment identifiers are used to show different content.

An example of this would be /product/left-bumper#black and /product/left-bumper#white

URL Best Practices

• Convert all text to the same case as upper and lower case text in a URL is treated the same by the web server
• Add descriptive words in URLs to help Google better understand the page
• Avoid using the same parameters twice
• Include links directly on the page using the href tags; don’t use JS (JavaScript) to navigate between pages. Google may not detect navigation from JS code.

Meta information

Your meta information is what will show up in Google searches.



Title Tag

A title tag is a snippet of HTML code that tells search engines, social media and browser tabs what the title of the webpage is. Optimizing this piece is an easy way to improve rankings. Most CMS platforms will automatically generate this, therefore you may need to check to make sure it includes the specific keywords you are trying to rank for.

Title Tag Recommendations
• Between 30 and 60 characters in length
• Should target one keyword which should show towards the beginning of the tag
• Title tags should be unique and easy to read

Meta Description

A meta description is an HTML element that summarizes the information on the page. These descriptions have a big impact on click through rates and are a major factor in the overall SEO ranking of the page.

Meta Description Recommendations

• While these descriptions can be any length Google will cut them off after around 120 characters.
• Use targeted keywords – if you include the keyword that is being searched Google may bold this in the search results page.
• Meta descriptions should be unique. Generic or duplicate descriptions do not add value to your pages or your rankings.

Product Descriptions

SEO product descriptions are used on websites that sell their products online and help products show more in search engines by using words or phrases that people might be searching for. The benefits of having SEO focused product descriptions are improved search engine rankings, build online trust and credibility, and of course increased sales.

SEO Product Descriptions Tips and Tricks

• Create unique product descriptions for each product display page (PDP). This means you avoid duplicate content, when you have descriptions that appear to be duplicates search engines assume the pages are the same and can cause low visibility.
• Write for people not bots. Including bullet lists, headings, pictures and line separation can help users understand your content more easily.
• Focus on the features and benefits of the product.
• Add a how to section in your descriptions. Examples include: How to use the product, how to keep it clean or how to install it.
• Add an FAQ Section. This can include anything from questions asked by previous customers to shipping or return information.

Product Availability

As a consumer you would want to know if the product you were looking at was in stock as well as how quickly you can expect it to be shipped and delivered. Showing if there are only a few products left in stock can also provide customers with a sense of urgency that they need to purchase sooner rather than later.

Being up front with shipping costs can reduce the number of carts that are abandoned. Most customers will not make purchases if the shipping costs are too high, therefore showing them their costs on the PDP can allow them to make the final decision.

Include high quality images/videos

Most users do not want to see exactly what they are buying. That is where high quality images and videos on your PDP come in handy. You can include detailed photos showing the product from all sides and videos that show the product actually in use.

Product Reviews

A product review is the feedback a customer has a on certain product that they purchased from your store.

Having unbiased product reviews can:

• Help create more informed customers
• Increase transparency and trust in a business
• Increase sales
• Give insights into your products
• Improve your search engine rankings

Include breadcrumb navigation

Breadcrumbs are a secondary navigation that helps users understand where they are on the site.

Breadcrumbs are not only important for site users but for search engines as well. With breadcrumbs a user can quickly jump to category pages to search for more products and they also add internal links for search engines.

Optimizing your product SEO will take time and effort, you should not expect to complete all these steps on all products at one time. Staying focused on what makes your business money is the most important first step in the process.