• seohunters9

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. On-Page Optimization
        4. Ecommerce On-Site SEO: Keywords in Category Descriptions

        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.

        Ecommerce On-Site SEO: Keywords in Category Descriptions

        On-Page Optimization
        4
        12
        6651
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • BobGW
          BobGW last edited by

          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.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • BobGW
            BobGW @BobGW last edited by

            Great, that sounds like an improvement. With that many words, appropriate keywords for the page can be used 3 times in various word orders.

            If your keyword was "running shoes" and you have your words at the top, do you use your keyword once as "running shoes" at the top, and then in the bottom text include it once as "running shoes" and once as "shoes for running"

            Or what have you found is effective? I don't like to keyword stuff.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • CMC-SD
              CMC-SD @BobGW last edited by

              We do what Gerd describes in his comment -- a short description at the top of the page, then the products in the middle of the page, and then additional description at the bottom of the page. Total word count ~500.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • BobGW
                BobGW @CMC-SD last edited by

                I agree. How many words do you guys recommend for a category? We could probably add up to 300-500 if we wanted in our case.

                CMC-SD BobGW 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • CMC-SD
                  CMC-SD @MagicDude4Eva last edited by

                  Meta-Keywords and Meta-Description no longer contribute to ranking, I thought -- and optimizing Meta-Description is less and less important as Google becomes more likely to use whatever the heck they want for the snippet.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • CMC-SD
                    CMC-SD last edited by

                    160 well written words are certainly enough for Google to understand what the page is about. Adding more words could help bring in more long-tail, as you include variations on the keyword, modifiers, etc. But you don't want so many words that conversion suffers.

                    I find that for most keyword phrases, more than twice in ~150 words feels stuffed and unnatural.

                    BobGW 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • BobGW
                      BobGW @BobGW last edited by

                      Forgive me for not knowing, but what is a high index-ratio?

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • MagicDude4Eva
                        MagicDude4Eva @BobGW last edited by

                        True, there is obviously a lot more to SEO than just filling meta-tags. My example above was just something we do for categories and obviously elements such as TITLE, H1-H3 are important.

                        I would look at SEO in eCommerce holistically:

                        • Understand your product category taxonomy and related categories. Provide a mechanism to "boilerplate" tags important for SEO. This also should include microdata such as breadcrumbs.
                        • Provide a "fall-back" mechanism if your content team fails - i.e. if your product team introduces new categories without SEO meta-data, craft them from the information you know about the category (i.e. category title and generic keywords)
                        • Don't forget about pushing Sitemap data to Google - this will push your whole taxonomy and products into the index.
                        • Ensure that your search indexes (many people say don't but we have not found an issue with it).
                        • Pay attention to canonicals for both products and categories and ensure that all links are SEO friendly
                        • Craft your brand verbs (buy, sell, cheap etc) in searches and categories

                        I think it is more important to have a high index-ratio in search than stuffing keywords which result in irrelevant search results. Over 80% of our products get indexed through Google and since we have mostly user-generated content, we ensure that the meta-data for the products is good.

                        If your client has a product catalogue SEO becomes a lot easier, as data should be very structured, but it will be challenging since the same content is syndicated to many other competitors.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • BobGW
                          BobGW @MagicDude4Eva last edited by

                          Gerd,

                          Could you say more? I'm not sure I completely follow you. I assume you think titles, h1, etc. should point to what's exactly on the page, and I agree, but don't you work in what's most searched for?

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • BobGW
                            BobGW @MagicDude4Eva last edited by

                            Gerd,

                            Could you say more? I'm not sure I completely follow you. I assume you think titles, h1, etc. should point to what's exactly on the page, and I agree, but don't you work in what's most searched for? In your case gaming is very searched for almost no matter what terms you use to describe it.

                            MagicDude4Eva BobGW 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • MagicDude4Eva
                              MagicDude4Eva last edited by

                              I honestly would not stuff keywords like that. Meta tag keywords and descriptions should hint at the actual content on page.

                              Our site-structure for eCommerce categories consists of the following (here is an example😞

                              • Meta tags with keywords and description
                              • Content lead-in (text below the banner)
                              • Subcategory links and content
                              • Content lead-out (text below pagination)

                              Each category has the same structure and our product team manages the actual content. This works very effectively.

                              BobGW CMC-SD 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • TomRayner
                                TomRayner last edited by

                                It's pretty hard to give a 'right' amount here.

                                Of course, it's well documented that more content on a page has a strong correlation with improved rankings (and conversions).  To say that there is a golden threshold of characters, however, is impossible to say.

                                I'd rather bring up the point you make about stuffing.  That's probably the main thing to keep in mind when writing descriptions or content - don't make it look like you're gaming for a search engine, but keep it great for a user.  If you can use your keyword multiple times, that's great.  But, as you allude to, writing it for the sake of getting it on the page more often is a bad move.

                                If 160 words for a description is the absolute most you can say on a topic, without repeating yourself, then 160 is the right amount **in this case.  **Other times it might be more, and sometimes it might be even less; it really is dependent on the context.

                                You might be able to squeeze more content for a description by using things like an example of how a system/process works etc.  But I'd always remain focus on writing for a user, not a search engine, and to avoid stuffing where possible, as you rightly pointed out.

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                • 1 / 1
                                • First post
                                  Last post

                                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.

                                • See all categories

                                Related Questions

                                • mbmozmb

                                  What is the best meta description for Category Pages, Tag Pages and Main Article?

                                  Hi, I want to index all my categories and tags. But I fear about duplicating the meta description. for example: I have a tag name "Learn Stock Market", a category name "Learning", and a main article "What is Stock Market". What is your suggestion for meta description of these three pages that looks great for seo google?

                                  On-Page Optimization | | mbmozmb
                                  0
                                • mattl99

                                  Product Descriptions (SEO)

                                  So I would like a few opinions. How long should a product description be? Enough to get the point across? 100 words? 800 words? Over detailed? Any advice would be appreciated.

                                  On-Page Optimization | | mattl99
                                  0
                                • abisti2

                                  How unique should a meta description be?

                                  I'm working on a large website (circa 25k pages) that presently just replicates each page title as a meta description. I'm thinking of doing a 'find and replace' in the database so I change: to where the preceeding and following text would be the same in each case eg Is this unique enough? Obviously the individual keyword would make it technically unique each time....and manually changing them would take the rest of my life 🙂

                                  On-Page Optimization | | abisti2
                                  1
                                • lcourse

                                  Best practice for footer in ecommerce - Shall I add Top Category links?

                                  What would you recommend regarding links to "Top Products" and "Top Categories" in footer? Would you add them to give extra link juice to top categories? would you try to avoid category links in footer that are already in the header navigationor in the main content area to avoid linking twice from all pages? would you vary these top category links in footer according to main category

                                  On-Page Optimization | | lcourse
                                  0
                                • CKerr

                                  Trying to SEO a site that used Header Tags for Design

                                  I am trying to SEO a website that was built years ago and uses Header tags for design.  The site must have 25 and tags used for design purpose. Is there any way to work around this problem?  Perhaps a code that tells Google to ignore these as Headers?  The web designers say that they are looking to fix the problem sometime this summer but you never know if that means it a month away or years away.  I really want to help this website but I believe that the Header tags are one of the reasons that his site does not show in the top 100  rankings for any keywords.  Any help would be great. www.wallybuysell.com Chris.K

                                  On-Page Optimization | | CKerr
                                  0
                                • Jungles

                                  SEO for luxury brands!?

                                  Hi all, It is widely known fact that you will be a bit in trouble if you will need to do SEO for luxury brand that is not willing to sacrifice design, layout etc. for SEO purposes. So basically - there is no content to optimize and there is almost no keywords to rank! 😉 Just wondering - how would be the best to approach such kind of terrible situation? Regards, Jungle

                                  On-Page Optimization | | Jungles
                                  0
                                • elaineryan

                                  Duplicate meta descriptions

                                  Hi all, I'm using Yoast's SEO plugin and when I run a On Page report card here on SEOMOZ it says there are 2 descriptions tags I've been trying to fix this but can't (I'm new!) Anyone any ideas on this? Thanks Elaine

                                  On-Page Optimization | | elaineryan
                                  0
                                • lwilkins

                                  Is it better to include the secondary keyword or site name in a title tag?

                                  When I add a site name to my title tag with long-tailed primary and secondary keywords the title tag is longer than 70 characters. I need to include all three parts, so what should I do? At 70 characters the site name is usually partially cut off. I do not want to get penalized by Google, but I need to include the site name to have consistency. I am using the format Primary Keyword-Secondary Keyword | Site name

                                  On-Page Optimization | | lwilkins
                                  0

                                Get started with Moz Pro!

                                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                                Start my free trial
                                Products
                                • Moz Pro
                                • Moz Local
                                • Moz API
                                • Moz Data
                                • STAT
                                • Product Updates
                                Moz Solutions
                                • SMB Solutions
                                • Agency Solutions
                                • Enterprise Solutions
                                • Digital Marketers
                                Free SEO Tools
                                • Domain Authority Checker
                                • Link Explorer
                                • Keyword Explorer
                                • Competitive Research
                                • Brand Authority Checker
                                • Local Citation Checker
                                • MozBar Extension
                                • MozCast
                                Resources
                                • Blog
                                • SEO Learning Center
                                • Help Hub
                                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                                • How-to Guides
                                • Moz Academy
                                • API Docs
                                About Moz
                                • About
                                • Team
                                • Careers
                                • Contact
                                Why Moz
                                • Case Studies
                                • Testimonials
                                Get Involved
                                • Become an Affiliate
                                • MozCon
                                • Webinars
                                • Practical Marketer Series
                                • MozPod
                                Connect with us

                                Contact the Help team

                                Join our newsletter
                                Moz logo
                                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                                • Accessibility
                                • Terms of Use
                                • Privacy

                                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.