Should I change my product titles from singular to plural to satisfy optimisation?

[Towelsrus]

At present most of our products are listed in the singular form.

http://www.towelsrus.co.uk/towels-bath-towels/aztex/turkish-cotton-bath-towel_ct473bd182pd2744.htm

However we are optimising for the plural form after carrying out keyword research

The question is should I update the product title to reflect this change? This would then change the URL of the page, H1 tag, H2 tag (both auto generated from the product title)

My concern here is that these pages will then become "new pages" and will need to index and rank, albeit they don't rank well as they have never been optimised until now. I could put 301 re-directs in place on the old URL's or i could just let the return a 404.

What do people think?

[matbennett]

You have both in the page title there anyway, so it must literally be the product name you are considering changing.

I really, REALLY wouldn't do that. You already have a product image showing multiple items. If your product name was also the plural I think you'd risk upsetting quite a few customers - you don't exactly make it clear looking at the page.

Customers first. Always. What's the point otherwise? Higher rankings, but less sales.  In fact if I were optimising that page my first step would probably be to use that default overiew tab to ensure that everyone knew exactly what they were buying.

I think that your product pages are also a bit heavy on the keyword stuffing. I'm all for making things clear, but there are a lot of uses of the key terms going on.  Maybe run some key pages through the onpage optimisation tool as well: http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/on-page-keyword-optimization/new

[Towelsrus]

Hi Mat

Thanks for the response. I have run all pages being optimsed through the on page checker and am getting A results for those pages optimised.

In regards to keyword stuffing, the issue I have is a lot of the keywords are dynamically generated by the system we use which is frustrating, I will be discussing this with them as I will regarding alt tags (40 instances of our keyword on 1 page in alt tags seems strange). We are about to have the product page redesigned to remove all tabs and have a 1 page affair so all the information is right in front of the customer without them having to click all over the place for more information.

Any further comments greatly appreciated.

[matbennett]

You didn't get an A grade when I checked it I am afraid.  However results will depend on what keyword you enter. When I used the URL you gave above plus the keyword "towel" that gives you a B - mostly downgrading due to keyword stuffing.

The word towel is mentioned 105 times on that page.

This is clearly too much. Who ever put the CMS together probably read something about SEO written in 1998 and thinks that is the way to get results. Definitely get this addressed.  Getting your CMS output correct on those template pages is vital.

Tabs can work well. However they do have to be thought about.  At the moment it seems that the main purpose of the tabs is to hide keyword stuffed content - which doesn't help anyone.  I actually quite like tabs for product pages, however I'd still have the most important information visible on the default page. However, that is personal opinion.  A single page can work equally well and can actually be useful in terms of forcing you to edit and prioritise the information on that page.

[Towelsrus]

Hi Mat.

OK I had optimized this page for "Turkish cotton bath towels" and "Turkish bath Towels". That said, it still had 47 instances of the keyword in alt tags and a further 16 instances on the page. I can see why and where the extra instances are being generated unnecessarily which can be addressed when the product page is redesigned. As for the lat tags this is beyond me as to why its generating these so many times.

BTW, your helps really been useful. This is relatively new to me (2 months working on this site actively) and so much has come to light that you just wouldn't ever ask unless you get "hands on".