Product filter pages - what is it all about?
Product filters are about reducing the number of products displayed within a given category, according to criteria (filters) available on the website and selected by the user. This filter pages are particularly useful for visitors of online stores because it enables them to find the exact products they’re searching for without the need to browse through the entire offer. The solution not only makes it easier to go through the assortment but it’s also a real time-saver for the customers. In online shops, you can usually filter products according to the following criteria:- color,
- size,
- qualities,
- brand/manufacturer.
The consequences of inappropriate indexing of product filters
It’s been proven that using product filters is beneficial for online stores, thus it’s not surprising that so many online businesses have already implemented this function on their websites. Unfortunately, a noticeable number of online stores isn’t able to index product filters properly and adds too many filters to the page, which consequently not only reduces the usability of the site but also leads to a negative phenomenon of duplicate content on the website. Duplicate content significantly hinders SEO activities and reduces the visibility of the site in Google search results. That is the reason proper indexing of filter pages definitely should be one of the elements of technical SEO services. Read how you can make it by yourself!SEO-friendly product filtering for your website
Remember that not all filters are worth indexing - some of them need to be blocked so as not to lead to duplicate content or other negative phenomena on your site. Properly implemented filters, meaning those that have valid URL addresses or those in whose meta tags and headers you can enter a filter name, may be a source of additional traffic to your website. If it’s not possible to implement newly created filter pages in exactly this way, the filters need to be blocked. Keep reading our article if you want to find out how to block products with filters and how to make sure that a great number of filters doesn’t have a negative impact on your site.- Canonical links
- txt
How to properly implement newly created filter pages?
Each filter placed on the website leads to the creation of several or even hundreds of new URLs. If you want to both accurately index products with filters and avoid duplicate content, you must remember about the proper implementation of newly created pages.- URL
- Meta tags
- H1 headings and category descriptions
User-friendly product filtering
Product filters should be user-friendly and easy to use, as effective product filtering can increase your conversion rate even by 20%. The filters ought to be carefully selected and organized to be intuitive to use. Once the filters are on the site, make sure that their mobile version works equally well, as an increasing percentage of purchases are made via smartphones and mobile devices. Especially for you, we’ve prepared a few tips on how to make the product filtering process user-friendly.- Appropriate number of filters
- Proper filter arrangement
- Displaying the number of products
- Clear display of the selected filters
Thanks for the article Matt. I run online store with handicraft products, so it’s a lot of products to take care of. I always felt like the more we add to the store, the more difficult for our customers it is to find what they look for. I didn’t know what to do with it as I couldn’t come up with more categories at this point. And then the traffic started to crumble – gonna look into the indexing, maybe it’s incorrect, who knows!
Cathy, glad it helped 🙂 I don’t know when the difficulties with the your traffic started, but recently Google introduced a new core algorithm update and it may cause decreases in websites performance as well. We wrote about it here: https://delante.co/google-may-2020-core-update/
If you’d still need some help with your website, feel free to reach us 🙂
vary helpful thanks