How can I resolve my low word count SEO issue?

[Dogify]

Hello. According to ubersuggest.com, this is my biggest SEO Issue:
Low word count. And I have 289 pages where this problem exists. How can I help with this? What do you advise?

[Hilary]

Hi, @Dogify 

Great question. While sometimes these SEO audit algorithms can be misleading, for the most part they are extremely helpful in identifying where your pages can be improved. According to Ubersuggest's website, a page is considered low word count if it's less than 200 words total. I'd infer that this means they believe it's optimal to have more than 200 words per page for SEO purposes. 

From your screenshot, it looks like most of the flagged pages are product pages. You can increase the word count by increasing the length of your product descriptions. We have a couple great resources on writing product descriptions that I'll share below. One thing to remember is always write for humans, not for search-engine crawling bots. The whole point of search engines ranking results is to display information that is most useful to the searcher. If you provide the best information possible for the human who is searching, this will help your search engine ranking. 
Here are my suggested blog article on writing strong product descriptions with SEO in mind:

• SEO for Product Descriptions
• Product Description Examples and Tips

With the advice from these articles, you should be able to increase the word count of your product descriptions to increase your overall SEO. We also have a great introduction to SEO course through Shopify Learn (free, online, video course) if you're only getting started with this topic. Alternatively, you may wish to hire a Shopify Expert who is highly experienced in SEO if you aren't sure how to tackle these changes, or would like some assistance. 

Let me know if you have any further questions! 

[Dogify]

Hi Hilary. Thanks for the reply. But I do not agree in part. I agree with the product descriptions. But not that this would be the solution. Write + text for 289 pages? Most are really product pages. But I think the tags will be the problem. I have a lot of tags. I can't smoothly delete these because the pages remain. What do you suggest?

Sincerely

[demib]

The UberSuggest analysis is, to say the least, not very accurate. Never blindly trust tools like that 🙂

If you look at one of the marked pages: https://bamboody.com/collections/all/hairtie

Uber Suggest appear to count all content on the page but what is really important is how much UNIQUE text is one the page. That is what Google look at - not all the "boiler plate" text (such as navigation, footer etc.).

So, the above page actually have almost no unique text.  

Most of your product pages look fine. You should not be too worried about the "200 word" limit on product pages. In general it is good to have long, unique and good texts on a page but for product pages 200+ words is actually very rare and you can perform very well in Google with much less. The important thing here is - as on any page, that there actually IS some unique text, that engage visitors, inspire them and make them buy. 

For category pages, that are typically a little more competitive than single product page keywords, more text is often necessary. The challenge here is that if you add too much text at the top the product listing is pushed down. That is bad for conversions. So my best advise - what works really well for both users and in Google is to have a little text - just a couple of very focused lines at the top and then add some more below the products. 

Here is an example of how I did that at one site:
https://www.demib.com/collections/pitfire

In addition to the primary text below the products it can also boost your listings if the add FAQPage elements and encode them with correct FAQPAge Schema. This can expand your listing with Rich Snippets elements such as this:

Tag pages should, in general be excluded from crawling or indexing - unless you give them the same love and attention as your collection pages (including writing enough text for them). It is much better for SEO to exclude thin pages that leaving them. Google may de-index them anyway for thin (no) content and if they do this cn harm the rankings of all your other (good) pages. 

[AsthaUpadhyay]

Word count is not a ranking factor. Yes you read it correctly.  Word Count is not indicative of quality. Some pages have a lot of words that say nothing. Some pages have very few words that are very important & relevant to queries.

According to Google - The number of words on a page is not a quality factor, not a ranking factor. So just blindly adding more and more text to a page doesn’t make it better.

It clearly means, ranking should be based on how well a product page satisfies the search intent of audiences.

It’s not about word count, instead it is about how thoroughly you cover a topic, if you can write a thousand words that really stays focused on the keywords, you can outrank a three thousand words article that is full of fluff and goes on random tangents.
The key here is really to stay as close as possible to the search query so with that being said why do we typically try to write longer articles.

Note - Keyword density is more important than the number of words on a page.
There are majorly three factor which helps your website pages for the better ranking - 

1. What is the purpose of the page?
2. What problem can you solve for your user?
3. Make that connection with your visitors when they land on your page.

Remember - Different tools will give you different results. So just focus on the relevancy of your page and stay focused on the keywords which match to the searcher’ query.

Tags - Tags will  provide the details about an item/product and make it easy to locate related items that have the same tag.

[SEOProStaff]

Hi @Dogify  ,

Addressing the low word count issue on your Shopify pages involves enhancing the content quality and providing value to your readers. Focus on enriching product descriptions and collection pages with useful information, descriptive language, and relevant keywords. It’s about striking a balance between quality content and SEO optimization.

In such cases, SEOPro can be instrumental. It's designed to run a thorough SEO audit, highlight key areas for improvement, and provide tailored recommendations. By using SEOPro, you can not only identify the pages with low word count but also get suggestions for optimization, ensuring that the content is both engaging and SEO-friendly. Plus, its bulk optimization tools can save you time while maintaining consistency across your store's SEO strategy.

Full disclosure: We are the developer of this app.