Title and meta for repetitive products

[JHP_photo]

Hi everyone, 

Well, I would call myself an 'SEO starter' but I'm on my way learning and developing.

I sell photo prints - www.jophermans.com

How should I handle title and meta descriptions for repetitive products, as I sell prints on the same material where of course the image is always different. Should I focus on creating a different description every time, or is it okay to repeat SEO titles and meta descriptions?

Thanks for thinking with me.

Jop

[oscprofessional]

Hi,

hope you are doing well for your store 

my suggestion is, Keep changing with meta content for your products every time. 

refer these urls it has useful tips. hope it will work for you!

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/meta-description-mistakes/250897/#close 

https://www.digitalmediastream.co.uk/blog/what-you-need-to-know-about-duplicate-meta-descriptions 

have a nice day!

[JHP_photo]

Thanks for your tips @oscprofessional .

I notice that I kind of struggle to put together a meta description the way it should. Descriptive, clear, to the point, using at least one keyword in the title as well as in the description.

Am I right that it's a good idea to add 'original' titles and meta to all pages?

• homepage
• portfolio page
• collections pages
• about page
• contact page
• and even per product page?

[Niki_K]

Hi @JHP_photo,

in the best scenario, it's always better to have unique titles and meta descriptions for each product. However, I have two points to this issue.

• I see that you've quite a lot of products. So, writing unique titles and meta descriptions will be very time-consuming. I would start with writing unique titles and meta descriptions for your best-sellers (check Shopify reports to find them out).
• If you really want to invest in this, you can speed it up by changing only a few words (name of the image, material, size..)
• Even if you write unique titles and meta descriptions, there is no guarantee that they will be displayed as you wish so (btw. I've published a blog post on my website about this issue, you can learn more about it here: Writing titles and meta descriptions seems to be a waste of time. Right, Google

Hope this helps! 

[Niki_K]

@JHP_photo That's correct. Unique titles and meta descriptions should be written for each page, hence homepage, contact page, about page, collection page, product pages...

[JHP_photo]

Thanks for thinking with me @Niki_K ! Much appreciated 🙂

• I have 45 products in my webshop, is that too much in your opinion?
• great tip to pick a few best sellers and complete the SEO for those
• titles and alt-text should be no worries, meta description is a different story as my products comes down to only two material variants

I'll have to do some research how other photographers handle their meta descriptions and 'inspect some elements'. And how to write good meta descriptions anyway. Maybe your article can help https://doorbelldm.com/seo-titles-meta-descriptions/ 

[Niki_K]

Hi @JHP_photo,

you’re welcome! Here are my thoughts:

• 45 products - yes, writing unique titles, alt text and meta descriptions will definitely take some time. And I guess you have some other business things to do, which need your time. So therefore I would definitely start with the bestsellers.

You mentioned that you’re starting with SEO, here are some more tips about alt text:

• Alt text - needs to be very descriptive. Alt texts are very important - three reasons: 

  1. If a page loads slowly, the alt tag shows instead of the image - the visitors get an idea of what the picture is about if you include them

  2. Screenreaders - images don’t show up so the alt tag is the only way how to describe wha’t s on the image

  3. Search by images - people tend to search by images. E.g. if you want to buy a photo, people don’t usually scroll the main SERP on Google but rather check the images straight away. And how Google and search engines show the pictures? They need to know what’s on them, so the alt texts help and are very important. 

  •  Alt texts shouldn’t be just product titles, they should be very descriptive (sometimes it helps to imagine that you’re in a shop and you’re calling to your friend and want to describe the product you’re holding in your hands and want to buy it). And this is exactly how the alt text should be written.

• I have some more tips, if you are interested, just contact me and I’ll be happy to help you!

By the way, checking your competitors is always a great idea!!!

Have you thought about writing some articles for professional photographers to your collabs (or another) section? I think it would be great content. It’s just an idea. 

And the last thing, I really like the design of your shop. It’s minimalist and the photos are awesome! 

[JHP_photo]

I appreciate your feedback so much @Niki_K !

The biggest question for now is how to write proper meta descriptions, especially for my products (as materials are the same, only the print is different).

I added an example. Am I heading into the right direction?

Thanks you 🙂

 

 

[Niki_K]

Hi @JHP_photo,

I really like your organizational style! It's great you have set up a sheet for writing meta data. 

Anyway, back to your question. I think you're heading into the right direct. The meta description is descriptive, describing the product itself + it contains a CTA (such as Visit my shop...Visit my online store...). 

In my opinion, the second meta description is the best. It's written in a sentence (This black and white surf photograph is now available in print! Plus, it includes a clear CTA (Visit my shop and discover more original surf art from the Netherlands).

However, the remaining meta descriptions are also great! 

One more thing about meta descriptions. You've probably noticed that more stores are struggling with having displayed the meta descriptions they wrote for their products in Google SERP correctly. Google is changing the meta descriptions according to their algorithm with the explanation that the changed meta descriptions will suit better for the specific search query. I think that we've already discussed this in another thread, but I just want to stress this out so that you don't spend that much on meta descriptions because it might happen that they won't be displayed as you wish. 

Happy to discuss with you further SEO and overall marketing questions!

[JHP_photo]

What a valuable reply again @Niki_K , super helpful! I don't want to loose myself too much in writing descriptions, but now I'm doing it I might as well pay some attention to it 😉

One thing you can maybe help me with is Google Search Console.

Do you know a thing or two about this? I feel lost to be honest...

If so, I will post another reply with screenshots. Url inspection keeps failing, so now I can't crawl my website (crawling is that Google recognises changes I made to the website...right? Like the SEO changes I'm making).

Thanks again!