Important keywords in product names
-
Hi!
among other we sell motorcycle clothing, which you can buy as a set (both jacket and pants) or single piece. Currently we name the products with the labeling in the beginning, e.g:
Motorcycle pants R2000, Motorcycle jacket R2000, Motorcycle kit R2000
Motorcycle pants R4000, Motorcycle jacket R4000, Motorcycle kit R4000
This is causing keyword stuffing and cannibalization in the category pages as all the product names include important keywords.
On the other hand it would be beneficial to keep the labeling in the name for search queries for the exact product.
What be your recommendations? I tend to take the labeling away.
-
Hi Tyler,
thank you for your quick reply. This is definitely great input, but yeah, my description of the problem wasn't quite clear. Sorry for that.
The issue right now is, that we have category pages with high keyword stuffing/ cannibalization. Following the example from above, our "motorcycle jackets" category page looks somewhat like this:
<a>Motorcycle jacket R2000</a>
<a>Motorcycle jacket R4000</a>
<a>Motorcycle jacket SuperCool</a>
<a>Motorcycle jacket Terminator</a>
etc.
And since the Motorcycle jacket category page shall be/ is the one ranking for keywords like "motorcycle jacket", we have a keyword cannibalization here.
On the other hand, if someone is searching for "motorcycle jacket R2000" if want to ensure the product page of the R2000 jacket is shown, not the product pages for the kit or the pants.
-
Without knowing the existing site architecture it is a little difficult to give a specific answer, but my two cents:
Are the 'like products' on the same page? For instance are...
Motorcycle pants R2000, Motorcycle jacket R2000, and Motorcycle kit R2000 on Page A
...and...
Motorcycle pants R4000, Motorcycle jacket R4000, and Motorcycle kit R4000 on Page B
...that is the image I am getting from your description.
Would it work with your site architecture to have a guide page for each category and then link to the product pages from there? The pants guide could talk about how amazing your motorcycle pants are, the relevant specs and about how wonderful your butt would look in a pair. The link could land on a product page that is a collection of all the pants you offer, it could be a link to the R2000 'set' page (where you sell all the products under one page), it could theoretically land on whatever you think is most user-friendly and would increase your ROI.
Ideally, and in my humble opinion, you would optimize your first page -however you choose to lay out the internal linking- for SEO and to show in relevant SERPs. Give some great original content; make that page have personality/establish your brand and brand persona (fun, serious, edgy, whatever); and something people would feel good about sharing with their buddies on facebook. Your awesome page on pants, for example, could be the canonical page and some appropriate usage of the 'rel=canonical' element could ensure that, if your user lands on the buy page (the one where all the size selections, etc... take place), that the linking metrics find their way to the page you want to rank, and have optimized for ranking, while the user happily shops and buys. This should avoid eating your own tail when it comes to talking about pants on subsequent pages -let's be honest, you can't sell pants without talking about pants.
I hope that this was clear and offered some sort of insight, but please take it only as a consideration which should be examined critically and with other options in mind. I am sure there are some other great ideas to be put forth and I would love to see some others post their thoughts!
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
-
Would you consider this title to be keyword stuffing or bad?
A competitor uses the following format for all of their meta titles: [Store Name] Voucher Codes, Cashback & Discount Codes | [Website Name] They do vary their titles slightly, depending on which keywords are searched for, for the particular store. What do you think about this title? I'm torn between it looking a little 'stuffy' but them also getting across the point that their page offers all of that.
On-Page Optimization | | vickluque0 -
Product Description Blurb on Category Page
Hey Everyone, Working with a client who currently has category pages that contain its respective product's description (or about 30 words from it) in each of their product blocks on that category page. We are currently playing with the idea of switching it down to just being the product title and image. We think this will be much more aesthetically pleasing, but aren't sure if it will effect our SEO either negatively or positively. A couple of things to note: The category pages have a description (many of them still need work, but they are unique). The product's description inside the product block is duplicate content of the first 30 or so words on the product page. If you have 30 products on the page, you end up with a page that contains about 900 words + the unique description at the top of the page. Will dropping those 900 words hurt our SEO?
On-Page Optimization | | frankandmaven0 -
Titles - Should they be short or long and descriptiive with keywords?
I just asked a question about ALT tags and then this got me to wondering....I have 300 products, so coming up with titles is not the easiest at times. Some have my keywords and some do not. Should they all have my keywords, despite making the title and the URL longer? It seems like you would want the keyword in the title, but then again the category itself it long. Here is an example: www.site.com/sea-glass-jewelry/by-the-sea (not too long) www.site.com/sea-glass-jewelry/blue-sea-glass-necklace (longer...I have some even longer than this) Thoughts?
On-Page Optimization | | tiffany11030 -
URL Keyword Variations?
I'm aware that keywords in the url aren't as effective as they used to be, but I'm still convinced that they do have a significant impact (based on results in one of the niches I'm in). My question is, will variations of keywords and "hidden" keywords have as much value as an exact keyword? For example, let's say that I'm trying to target the keyword "day." Will including variations like "daily" in the url work just as well? What about a brand name that includes the keyword hidden in its name, like "Dayest"? And, as a followup question, does including "stop" words have any effect? For example, if I'm trying to target the keyword "Day of the Month", would including "day" and "month" in the url be just as effective as including "day of the month"?
On-Page Optimization | | JABacchetta0 -
Avoid Keyword Self-Cannibalization
Hi I'm a little bit confused about my on page report. I prepared 2 version of on page seo report for the same targeted keyword and the same URL, but one of the url with www. and the other without it. In the one that i entered the URL with www. the report came with warning about the "Avoid Keyword Self-Cannibalization" we suggest staying away from linking internally to another page with the target keyword(s) as the exact anchor text. As I see on my webpage there is no anchor text at all pointing to another internal page using the targeted keyword. I'm sure that I didn't use my targeted keyword with any link . Thanks in advance for anyone If can help or explain what is that ? If I have to write the URL and the keyword no problem for me. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | seomoz591 -
Is it necessary to add keywords to all of your pages?
Hi Everyone he company I work for has just built a new website with approximately 87 pages/sub pages. Should i be looking to add keywords and descriptions to all of these pages, via the allocated areas in the back end of the site? I am using "google's key words" tool to generate relevant key words. If any one has any advice it would be much appreciated. Thanks for you help Regards Pete
On-Page Optimization | | dawsonski0 -
Homepage Keywords for a Client with Multiple Services
We have a local client who services are very broad and there is no one service, i.e. keyword or keyword phrase, that covers all that they do. This is making it very challenging to select keywords to optimize the homepage for. Basically they do everything from engineering, surveying, planning, environmental, etc. We were thinking we would focus mainly on their most important service which is engineering and then use the other services as supporting phrases. However, this feels very diluted and there will be pages on the site for each of these services where the keywords will be targeted. Any thoughts or recommendations for this type of situation?
On-Page Optimization | | DragonSearch0 -
Meta Keywords
Hello Everyone- Quick question about meta keywords. Most SEO's agree that meta keywords are no longer used as a ranking factor in Google. My question is, if a client comes to me and they already have a bunch of meta keywords on their site what would the smart strategy be? 1. Remove all the meta keyword data from the clients site 2. Scale the meta keywords back by only leaving the top keywords in the code? 3. Do nothing Thanks for all your time! Regards, Bill Parlaman
On-Page Optimization | | wparlaman0