In this tutorial we will look at the two WooCommerce taxonomies: Categories and Tags. What they are, how to use them and how to optimize them for SEO.
Categories in WooCommerce
Product categories are very important at the SEO level in any eCommerce, since user searches are usually for categories.
For example, if we have a clothing eCommerce, we can have, among others, the category “Baby clothes” or “Maternity clothes”. Well, that’s what most people usually search for on Google. Hence, we have to work on them in depth to position our eCommerce.
We can quickly locate them in the “Products/Categories” menu, and this is the interface that is shown to us:
This screen shows us a list of all existing categories and subcategories, and a form to create new ones with 6 fields:
name and slug
The first thing we must establish is the name of the category, and the slug. The slug is the word that will be displayed in the URL.
Both fields are very important at the SEO level. The name because it will appear in the title and in the H1 of the category page, and we already know that this is key. You can learn more about this point in the .
The slug will also help us position, but we must be especially careful if we modify it, because if we do it in an already existing and indexed eCommerce, it can generate 404 errors. So if we change it, it should always be with their respective 301 redirects. You can learn more about this topic in the podcast episode.
Superior category
Next we have the top category dropdown, where we can choose the “parent” category of the one we are creating:
This allows us to create sub-categories, since these are hierarchical. Again, this can modify the category URL (in this case sub-category)so we must be very cautious if this value is changed.
Description
The description is another key element for SEO, since what we write here will be what will be shown in the Google results when someone searches for that same category and our website appears.
It is highly advisable to use an SEO plugin to further improve this aspect, since WooCommerce falls short in this regard. It is a very good option, highly recommended, since it will greatly improve the technical SEO of the category pages.
Type of content to display
The dropdown that we have below allows us to choose between 4 options on the elements that will be displayed on that page:
- Default: What we have indicated in the product settings in WooCommerce will be displayed.
- Products: The products that make up that category or sub-category will be displayed.
- Subcategories: Only the sub-categories will be displayed (if any) of that category.
- Both of them: Both the products of that category and the sub-categories will be displayed.
The choice of this option will depend on each case, but in most cases, the most common will be to show the sub-categories, and if there are none, the products, since that is what makes the web more usable.
category images
Finally, we can choose the category image. This will be the one that will be shown in the case that we have selected to see categories or sub-categories instead of products:
Although it does not indicate it anywhere, the dimensions of this image will be the same as those that we have established in the product settings in WooCommerce in the size of the product image in the catalog.
At the SEO level, always think about optimizing the name of that image using a descriptive term, for example “color-shirts.jpg”, “baby-clothes”, or whatever is necessary in each case.
Creating product categories on the fly
Despite having this interface for creating product categories, we can also do it quickly when we create a product, in the
As we can see, this way of doing it is much faster, but also more limited, since we cannot choose the slug, nor the description, nor the content to display, nor even the image.
So, it is a comfortable way to do it on the fly, but it requires a later edition, to establish the rest of the settings.
product labels
We now come to the second of the product taxonomies in WooCommerce. The tags. Unlike categories, which are more general, tags are usually much more specific, and there are usually many more.
Example of nomenclature
To better understand the use of categories and tags, we could go back to the clothing store example. The categories would be few and very generic, for example:
- Clothes for men
- Women’s clothing
- Clothes for kids
- Baby clothes
But the tags go one step further, there are many more, and in this case they could make an impact on topics as specific as:
- Cotton, fiber, synthetic, white, red, organic, offer, winter, summer, classic, modern, alternative, etc.
Let’s see that it has nothing to do with it. It is an alternative and transversal classification, since something “organic” can be for both men, women, children or babies. And the same with the rest of possible labels.
Creating Product Labels
The interface for creating tags is pretty much the same as for categories, let’s take a look:
As you can see, it is a simplified version of the category creation page. Thus, we can create them in the same way, but we will not have any of the following options:
- Dad: In the labels there is no hierarchy, so we cannot create sub-labels.
- show type: As there are no sub-labels, we cannot choose what will be displayed. They will always be products.
- Miniature: You also can’t set images to labels. The terms themselves simply exist, but we will never see them in a list of images, as in the case of categories.
Differences between categories and tags at the SEO level
At the SEO level, the treatment between categories and tags is totally different. While we have already seen that it is It is very important to work on the SEO of the categoriesin the case of labels it is the opposite: We should not index them.
As we have seen before, there are usually many more labels than categories, and on many occasions these will only have a few products. (or even just one). If we tried to index them, we could run into duplicate content problems, since those pages could be very similar, or practically identical to those of certain products or categories.
So, in most cases, and unless you know what you are doing, I would recommend that you avoid indexing through your SEO plugin.
Summary and conclusion
WooCommerce allows us to organize and classify products into categories and tags. The categories are few, generic and hierarchical. The labels are usually many, specific and anarchic.
It is highly recommended to spend time and efforts to optimize and position the categories, since it is a good source of long tail. Instead, in most cases we will avoid indexing the tags.
And you already know, if you want to know more about WooCommerce, online marketing and web development, take a quick look at my courses. More than 6047 videos that will guide you step by step, in real time, to create your online store 🙂
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