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
-
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 -
HTML Site SEO (NO CMS)
I have got a client site, which is dated (2007) and has not been shifted to any recognised CMS yet. It is HTML based. Is it possible to SEO on such a site? Is it even worth it? If it is possible to do SEO on this, any suggestions will be highly appreciated. Thank you.
On-Page Optimization | | ArthurRadtke3 -
Internal Linking - in content vs navigation menu
Would like to get some thoughts on whether navigation menus or in-content links are best for internal linking, from an SEO standpoint. A few thoughts to get started with: For sites with a lot of content, you can have a navigation menu linking to your higher-level pages, then in-content links to deeper pages on your site. For smaller sites, this is not an option, as the navigation menu will probably link to all your important pages. You could add in-content links, but Google only counts the first link on the page, so the in-content links would be ignored if you'd already linked yp the page in your top nav menu. I can think of several possible reasons navigation menu links could be less desirable than in content links from a Google perspective. (They are sitewide boilerplate content without context.) If you setup your navigation structure based on what is best for the user, small sites don't have much wiggle room to optimize internal link structure, as all their money pages will be linked to from the top nav menu. Do you think Google prefers in content links to navigation menu links? If so, how do you get around the fact that for many sites, all their money pages are being linked to from their main navigation menu?
On-Page Optimization | | AdamThompson0 -
Page content length...does it matter?
As I begin developing my website's content, does it matter how long or short the actual text found in the is? I heard someone say before "a minimum of 250 words", but is that true? If so, what is the maximum length I should use?
On-Page Optimization | | wlw20090 -
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!
On-Page Optimization | | kennyrowe1 -
.us VS .com
In general from what I have experienced a location specific extension such as .co.uk geo-targeted to the same location gives the best results when ranking BUT when I look at results from the US, page after page shows results of .com, surely if my above statement is true then a .us domain extension should rank better then a .com.
On-Page Optimization | | activitysuper0 -
Word count requirement
The on page optimization tool recommends a minimum word count of 50. Given the panda update, what word count would you recommend? Would that count vary if a photo appeared on the page, too?
On-Page Optimization | | thappe0