How to make sure category pages rank higher than product pages?

[WebmasterAlex]

Hi,

This question is E-Commerce related. We have product categories dividing products by color. Let's say we have the category 'blue toy cars' and a product called 'blue toy car racer', both of these could rank for the keyword 'blue toy car'.

How do we make sure the category 'blue toy cars' ranks above the product 'blue toy car racer'? Or is the category page automatically ranked higher because of the higher page authority of that page?

Alex

[LesleyPaone]

Honestly in my opinion you are going to have a hard time making the category rank higher than the product. Especially since things like rich data only supports one offer per page. I have no proof, but I would off the hip say that search engine want to put people on a product page, not a category page.

One thing to take into account to is conversion rate, just about every study says you convert more with a product as a landing page vs any other page in a site.

[Dave_Whitty]

Most category pages are pretty content shallow. They usually just have basic product info that links to the product pages. Make sure you have category pages built out with plenty unique content that would be valuable to your customers and the bots. It seems that people like to link directly to the product page so do your best to acquire links to the category level.

[Davenport-Tractor]

Alex,

I would make the category page Toy cars with the separate product links: Blue toy cars, Red toy cars, Racer cars, etc. By linking one higher category page to a lower product page you are establishing your own page ranking "Score" that is read by the search engines as higher or lower in authority.

Your meta descriptions will further reinforce this higher archery by having the category pages describe most of the terms used in the lower level pages. Then be very specific on the separate product pages.

Now if someone searches for toy cars your category page is a higher result offering an entire selection of toy cars. But if your customer wants to type a longer search term "Blue racer toy cars" they will be directed to your specific product page.

[WebmasterAlex]

Good point. From a conversion standpoint it be much better if people would land on a product page immediately. Although it's almost impossible for people to see our other products when they never land on a category page, and this would mean a decrease in order value...

[EGOL]

If this was my site we would get rid of the product pages and display all of the color choices on one page.  Then you have a product page AND a category page in one.

[LesleyPaone]

Actually have recommended products on page, or other products in the same category. You could have it pop up a fancy / color/ thickbox when people add to the cart and recommend other products, something like this http://module-presta.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/thumbnail/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/i/m/imgforuserguide_popup_cart_02.jpg

There are all kinds of different things that you can do to cross sell. Look at what amazon does and how they operate, they optimize the product pages. On them they have lots of different product offers.

[WebmasterAlex]

Thank you. In my view this would make sense to the users as well.

[AWCthreads]

I'd like to see this in action.  Can you share a link EGOL?

[EGOL]

See how Target gives you all of the colors of this Rachel Ray cook set on one page...

http://www.target.com/p/rachael-ray-10-piece-porcelain-cook-set/-/A-14595398#prodSlot=medium_1_2

I would improve on this by listing the colors in text outside of the JavaScript and adding the most popular colors in the title tag.

Rachel Ray Cook Set | Red Blue Green Orange

[AWCthreads]

One of us is having a senior moment.

You wrote: "If this was my site we would get rid of the product pages and display all of the color choices on one page."

You sent a link to a product page. I was expecting a link to a psychedelic category page saturated with pictures, colors, content and "buy now" buttons with no links to products.

The Target bread crumbs show a hierarchy and presentation as proposed by Allen.

I get it. And agree. With both of you.