Body of text on category pages

[Cantonteaco]

Hello everyone, wonder if I can pick your brains about our company's website. We are a tea company - Canton Tea Co. We have been advised that it is really important to get more text onto the category pages on our website, as otherwise the page just consists of a list of products, and therefore provides Google with a ton of headers, tiny descriptions, and not enough text to allow the page to being easily indexed, therefore hurting our Google ranking for key search terms like 'Green Tea' which should lead to the Green Tea category page.

So we decided to add some text to the category page. The only place for this text to go was laid over the category header image. However, it looks pretty awful and unsophisticated having this text on top of the image - please see an example, our Green Tea category page, via this link: http://www.cantonteaco.com/loose-leaf-tea-1/type/green-tea.html

So I have three questions:

1. How significant is the text on a category page such as this to that page's Google ranking?
2. If we moved the text to an area that was hidden until clicked on, for example the 'Filter by' section that opens up when you click on it (see via URL above), would that negate the SEO benefit?
3. Do you have any other ideas or opinions on how to resolve this?

Thank you!

Louise, Canton Tea Co.

[EGOL]

URGENT:   I checked the text on a few of your product pages, then searched for a snippet of your product description in quotes.  Your descriptions are posted on other sites.   And that text on your site for some products is verbatim identical to the product descriptions displayed on amazon.co.uk.   That is deadly.    Google is filtering several other websites where this same text appears verbatim.  I see amazon with verbatim and four filtered results here.  So, I would be sure that the text on my site is unique.   If you are spreading it to amazon, rewrite what is on your site.  If other people are stealing your text, that's a harder problem to solve.

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If this was my site, I would do the following with the category page.  I am not saying that everyone is going to agree with me, but this is where I would bet my money and time.

-- Include two to three sentences, in proper language, about each of the products.  Give the visitor enough information so he/she can decide to click.  Don't give me a whiff and make me click to taste it.  People who buy tea are the kind of people who don't mind reading by hate clicking into fifteen pages just to get some idea about the product.

-- Personally, I would ditch the hover-over effect and get that text onto the page.  You NEVER know how search engines are going to treat it.  You never know how devices are going to treat it, or how old men like me, who enjoy their tea are going to react when it doesn't seem to work when I click on it.  Also, I believe in getting all of my info out for the visitor.  Don't make the visitor click to another page unless he is really interested.

-- I would show the rating on the page.  Ratings  are like bling.  Flaunt them.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

I see what you mean Louise, but you need to be careful with category pages that they aren't seen as Doorway pages, that Google is clamping down on. Read more here.

**1) How significant is the text on a category page such as this to that page's Google ranking? **

It's not just about text, it's about usability and how useful the page is. If the page is only there to collect traffic for a search term and then fire someone off to other internal pages, you might fall foul of penalties.

**2) If we moved the text to an area that was hidden until clicked on, for example the 'Filter by' section that opens up when you click on it (see via URL above), would that negate the SEO benefit? **

There is no direct SEO problem with having the content hidden behind a tab, because the content is still there and Google can see it in the code as well. However, this wouldn't be my preferred option on it's own as that doesn't do much for the page and is only there to try and combat some SEO issues.

**3) Do you have any other ideas or opinions on how to resolve this? **

Usability and more usability. Make sure the page bring more than just some text and links. Think about people landing on there and what else they would like to see that would be useful to them. If you search for your key phrases, who is winning in the SERP's? How do they combat this issue? A little competition analysis can go a long way.

You could also do with focusing on keywords that bring people to that page. Rather than just focusing on "Green Tea", you want the people who are looking to "buy green tea" or for "Green tea suppliers". If you get the wrong people to the pages, this can also be detrimental.

I hope this helps

-Andy