Category Page Content

[ATP]

Hey Mozzers,

I've recently been doing a content audit on the category and sub-category pages on our site. The old pages had the following "profile"

Above The Fold
Page Heading
Image Links to Categories / Products
Below the Fold
The rest of the Image Links to Categories / Products
600 words+ of content duplicated from articles, sub categories and products

My criticisms of the page were
1. No content (text) above the fold
2. Page content was mostly duplicated content
3. No keyword structure, many pages competed for the same keywords and often unwanted pages outranked the desired page for the keyword.

I cleaned this up to the following structure

Above The Fold
H1 Page Heading 80-200 Word of Content (Including a link to supporting article)
H2 Page Heading (Expansion or variance of the H1 making sure relevant) 80-200 150 Words of Content
Image Links to Categories / Products
Below the Fold
The rest of the Image Links to Categories / Products

The new pages are now all unique content, targeted towards 1-2 themed keywords. I have a few worries I was hoping you could address.

1. The new pages are only 180-300 words of text, simply because that is all that is needed to describe that category and provide some supporting information. the pages previously contained 600 words. Should I be looking to get more content on these pages?
2. If i do need more content, It wont fit "above the fold" without pushing the products and sub categories below the fold, which isn't ideal. Should I be putting it there anyway or should I insert additional text below the products and below the fold or would this just be a waste.
3. Keyword Structure. I have designed each page to target a selction of keywords, for example.
a) The main widget pages targets all general "widget" terms and provides supporting infromation
b) The sub-category blue widget page targets anything related and terms such as "Navy Widgets" because navy widgets are a type of blue widget etc"
Is this keyword structure over-optimised or exactly what I should be doing. I dont want to spread content to thin by being over selective in my categories

Any other critisms or comment welcome

[Hutch42]

Most blog platforms offer the ability to not index various conglomeration pages (category, author etc.) I would recommend using those options so only the actual article page gets indexed.

[ATP]

Its an eCommerce platform the blog side is a feature where introducing separately so no worries on that front. These will only be one copy of these category pages but they are essential to be indexed and they generate our revenue.

[katemorris]

The one overall suggestion is to test your new layout for conversion. Content is good, but is not 100% needed in the amount you have on what seems to be ecommerce category pages. Focus on the conversion and having some content.

1. The new pages are only 180-300 words of text, simply because that is all that is needed to describe that category and provide some supporting information. the pages previously contained 600 words. Should I be looking to get more content on these pages?

No, I've seen categories with less content rank very well. Remember, names of products and other supporting text on the page is content as well. Don't worry about the length.

2. If i do need more content, It wont fit "above the fold" without pushing the products and sub categories below the fold, which isn't ideal. Should I be putting it there anyway or should I insert additional text below the products and below the fold or would this just be a waste.

Nope. Not unless the user needs it.

3. Keyword Structure. I have designed each page to target a selection of keywords, for example.
**a) The main widget pages targets all general "widget" terms and provides supporting **information
b) The sub-category blue widget page targets anything related and terms such as "Navy Widgets" because navy widgets are a type of blue widget etc"
Is this keyword structure over-optimised or exactly what I should be doing. I don't want to spread content to thin by being over selective in my categories

What you are doing sounds reasonable in theory. Stick with that and keep in mind that you only need to worry about specific terms like navy widgets if there is more than one navy widget and there is a high volume of demand for that. There is a lot that goes into this, but try to keep the category page focused to 1-2 terms.

[ATP]

Thank you, your clarification backed up my theory for most things. The changes I am making also impact design to hopefully increase conversion and userbility at the same time so I think ive got things right.

Cheers for your time.