Do I really need to fill in product meta tag decsription/keywords in opencart?

[mrvillicus]

As above, I use opencart and I wonder if I "MUST" fill in the meta tag descriptions and meta tag keywords for every product? Those familiar with OC will know that for each product listed, the SEO details must be completed individually. Now this wouldn't be a problem if I sold one product and help 100's of stock but my products are unique and always changing so when I add new stock, which could be 100 items, then I must edit each item individually!

 

[Ninja Commerce]

Hi Mr Villicus.

Are you asking whether it is required by the CMS? If so, I wouldn't have thought so, although I haven't the most recent versions of Open Cart, so I could be wrong.

But if you are asking whether you MUST from an SEO point of view then I would say:

For the keywords tag - no, most people generally don't bother with that these days. Some search engines factor it, but only as a very minor factor, so IMO it's not worth the time.

For the meta description - yes, this is a MUST. This can potentially have a bit impact on the traffic you get from search engines and if you have 100's of different products you probably have a huge long-tail SEO opportunity.

It may seem like a lot of work, but if you write the tags in an excel spreadsheet first it shouldn't take that much time and it really is worth it. Each one should be unique, so don't cut corners, but if you really don't have time, pay someone else to do it.

 

[mrvillicus]

thanks thinktraffic, I shall concentrate on the meta description

 

[ThE_SeeKeR]

a good description and title is all you need, as previously stated dont worry about the keywords rag

 

[StevePoster]

I wonder if I "MUST" fill in the meta tag descriptions and meta tag keywords for every product? Now this wouldn't be a problem if I sold one product and help 100's of stock but my products are unique and always changing so when I add new stock, which could be 100 items, then I must edit each item individually!

Meta title for the every product will help to target your audience within the page then meta description will tell the search engine what the site page is all about as well as it attracts the users to visit your site to benefit them.

 

[mrvillicus]

Thanks for the replies

 

[fisicx]

But if you do as suggested in the website review you will only need to do this a couple of times.

You only have a few products - the sizes of those products are options. So if you reorganise the site you will only need to write two or three descriptions.

 

[mrvillicus]

thanks fisicx, I don't really want to change the category layout as you suggest, reason being is most of my customers are looking for a piece to fit in their tank, hence the individual sized categories. Most customers have one tank of one size, so there's not much point in me offering them the choice to buy large manzanita and nano manzanita on the same page

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Search expectancy is what matters. Here is an example. I wanted a spare 500GB hard drive, I did a search I sorted by price, I then got taken to a seller who had a drop down where you had to select your drive size. They didn't actually HAVE a 500gb drive available. I was an unhappy customer and will not go back to them.

Search expectancy is KING. if they search for a specific size, and when they get there it is not immediately available then they will HATE you for it, they will feel conned, deceived, duped and you will have no chance of selling them anything.

Thinktraffic has the right of it. Descriptions are king but with the caveat that Google doesn't use the description tage for SEO, the REAL benefit of the description tag is you use it to encourage the click through from the search results page. SELL the product, encourage the click or contact..

 

[fisicx]

Most customers have one tank of one size, so there's not much point in me offering them the choice to buy large manzanita and nano manzanita on the same page

Why not?

You could select wood by tank size. The fact that you call it nano is irrelevant. I could have a 36" tank and you could advise what combinations work - it may be that because of the rocks I have 2 12" pieces might be better.

Showing options on the page allows me to choose from a range.

So my point is, have you tested a page with options or are you assuming people only want specific sizes?

 

[mrvillicus]

I'm assuming people only want specific sizes but they also have a choice to choose whatever they want by browsing other categories. I don't quite understand you Fisicx, im thinking that my customers visit the site looking for manaznita wood or redmoor wood. They can choose which size they want from the nav categories and then choose the piece they want. If they want to mix it up they can easily...

 

[fisicx]

...im thinking that my customers visit the site looking for manaznita wood or redmoor wood.

Yes - that is correct

They can choose which size they want from the nav categories and then choose the piece they want.

But why are you forcing them to click on new pages when you could offer all the sizes on the current page? You have a the size comparison image, you could make that the selector.

The less clicking people have to do the better the conversions.

 

[neils3]

don't really want to change the category layout as you suggest, reason being is most of my customers are looking for a piece to fit in their tank, hence the individual sized categories

This is actually really sound SEO advice and I bet you didn't know it was SEO related. Good SEO is putting customers first. I like the fact that you have thought about who most of your customers are and made sure your website is well structured around them.

 

[Tin]

Just to add to the discussion, use your meta description to sell your product. The title and description are you first sales pitch to your customers and you need to make your search snippet stand out. Tie it up with your page title so that between the two you can encourage a searcher to become a visitor and potentially a customer.

But beware, Google has a habit of ignoring the text within your meta description and pulling snippets of text from within your page if it doesn't feel that the description matches what the searcher has typed in. To help, make sure that you include your main keywords for the page, these don't have to be verbatim, like they do in your page title, and a bit of variety will stop it looking spammy.

You might find these two web pages very helpful.

http://www.freshbananas.co.uk/meta-description.html - that gives more information about meta descriptions and how best to play with the wording in them.

http://www.freshbananas.co.uk/serptool.html - that page is a tool that shows how Google will display your serp (title and meta description in it's serch results. It's probably the most accurate tool online and works by counting how many pixels your words use 'on the fly' as you type them in.

Hope that helps

Ray

 

[Codefixer]

2 other options

1. Create a meta description template from a combination of database fields.
2. Leave the meta description blank and let Google pick up the most relevant content from the page, which they often do anyway.

Matt Cutts suggests whatever you do don't dupliate it -