Aug 27 2025
Product page SEO: 5 things to improve

Having great product pages is important for your sales. After all, it’s where people decide to click that buy button. Besides optimizing your product pages for user experience, you also want to make sure these pages work for your SEO. You might think this is obvious. That’s why we’ll show you a few less obvious elements of product page SEO in this post. And we’ll explain why it’s so important to take these things into account. Let’s go!

Table of contents

1. The basics of product page SEO

First things first: a product page on an online store is a page too. This means that all the SEO things that matter for your content pages matter for your product pages as well. Of course, there’s a lot more to product page SEO. But for now, this will be your basic optimization. Tip: If you offer not-so-exciting products on your site, you may want to read our post on SEO for boring products.

Let’s start with the basics.

A great title

Try to focus on the product name and include the manufacturer’s name, if applicable. In addition, if your product is a small part of a larger machine (screw, tube), for example, you should include the SKU as well. People might search for that specifically.

A proper and unique product description

While it might be tempting to use the same description as the product’s manufacturer, you really shouldn’t. That description might be found on hundreds of websites, which means it’s duplicate content and a sign of low quality for your website (to Google). Remember, you want to prevent duplicate content at all times!

Now, you might think: “But all my other content (content pages, category pages, blog) is unique!” However, if the content on hundreds of product pages isn’t unique, then the majority of your website’s content still won’t be up to par. So make time to create unique content! And if you need help, the Yoast WooCommerce SEO plugin comes with product-specific content and SEO analysis that helps you produce great product descriptions.

An inviting meta description

A product page usually contains a lot of general information, like the product’s dimensions or your company’s terms of service. To avoid Google using that unrelated text in a meta description, you want to add a meta description to your product pages. It’s arguably even more important than adding one to your content pages!

Next, try to come up with unique meta descriptions. This can be difficult sometimes. You might come up with a sort of template, where you only change the product name per product. That’s okay to start with. But ideally, all your meta descriptions should be unique. Yoast SEO has various AI features that will help you with this.

Pick a great and easy-to-remember URL

We recommend using the product name in the URL. However, keep it short and simple so that it is still readable for site visitors.

Add high-quality and well-optimized images with proper ALT text

Include the product name in at least the main product image. This will help you do better in visual search. Also, don’t forget video — if applicable.

Focus on your product page UX

Last but not least: UX, or user experience. This is an important step because it’s all about making your product pages as user-friendly as possible. Plus, it’s an important part of holistic SEO. There are many parts to UX, which is why we wrote a post with product page UX examples. Give it a read!

Read more: Write great product descriptions with WooCommerce SEO »

WooCommerce SEO simplified

Enhance product visibility and drive more traffic to your online shop.

2. Add structured data for your products and get rich results

Structured data is an essential part of a modern SEO strategy. You simply can’t do without structured data for your product pages anymore, because they help your product page stand out. For example, there is a specific Product schema that helps you get highlighted search results, so-called rich results. These are great for your site’s visibility, and they can also increase your click-through rate! And if you mark up customers’ reviews with Review structured data, they will show up in the search results. Seeing those beautiful stars underneath a product page will convince people they should check out your site!

Another reason to add it is to manage customers’ expectations. Your visitors will know your price up front and that the product is still in stock. How’s that for user experience?

Search engines and AI/LLMs will understand your page better

Structured data is also important for your product page SEO because the major search engines came up with this markup, not the W3C consortium. Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex agreed upon this markup, so they could identify product pages and all the product elements and characteristics more easily. Why? So they could a) understand these pages a lot better and b) show you rich snippets like this:

That’s a lot of info in the search results, right?

The Product schema tells the search engine more about the product. It could include characteristics like product description, manufacturer, brand, name, dimensions, and color, but also the SKU we mentioned earlier. The Offer schema includes more information on price and availability, like currency and stock. It can even include something called priceValidUntil to let search engines know that the price offer is for a limited time only.

Add structured data with Yoast SEO

Boost your website’s presence with powerful schema structured data features, included for free with Yoast SEO.

Options to add structured data for product page SEO

Schema.org has a lot of options, but only a limited set of properties are supported by search engines. For instance, look at Google’s page on product page structured data to see what search engines expect in your code and what they can do with it.

This is why you want to add Schema.org data for product page SEO: It’s easier to recognize for Google, and it makes sure to include important extras in Google already. If you have a WooCommerce shop, our WooCommerce SEO plugin takes care of a lot of this stuff behind the scenes.

Keep reading: Rich results, structured data and Schema: a visual guide to help you understand »

A preview of how your product might look in Google thanks to structured data

3. Add real reviews

Reviews are important. In fact, 74% of consumers say that they check reviews on at least two sites before buying anything online or locally. Although not everyone trusts online reviews, many do, so they can be very helpful.

If you are a local company, online reviews are even more important. Most reviews tend to be extremely positive, but it might just be the negative reviews that give a better sense of what is going on with a company or product. In addition, getting awesome testimonials is another way of showing your business means business.

Leading Dutch online store Coolblue gives consumers a lot of options to make relevant and useful reviews of the products they buy

Try to get your customers to leave reviews, then show the reviews on your product page. Do you get a negative review? Contact the writer, find out what’s wrong, and try to mitigate the situation. Maybe they can turn their negative review into a positive one. Plus: You’ve gained new insights into your work.

If you’re not sure how to get those ratings and reviews, check out our blog post: how to get ratings and reviews for your business. And don’t forget to mark up your reviews and ratings with Review and Rating schema so search engines can pick them up and show rich results on the search results pages.

4. Make your product page lightning fast

Nobody enjoys waiting, especially when browsing on a mobile device. Many shoppers are now using their phones to make purchases, so speed on your product pages is crucial. Visitors expect instant access to content, and search engines reward that expectation. Compress images, implement responsive design, and streamline scripts to enhance load times. Regularly test your mobile layout to identify and fix problems before they impact your users. Prioritizing mobile performance not only satisfies your customers but also aligns with search engine preferences, potentially boosting your SEO rankings and increasing traffic.

Remember, a fast, mobile-friendly site is a win-win for everyone involved. To get you started, here’s a post about how to improve your Core Web Vital scores.

5. User test your product page

Looking at numbers in Google Analytics, Search Console, or other analytical tools can give you insight into how people find and interact with your page. These insights can help you improve the performance of a page even more. But there’s another way to ensure that your product page is as awesome as it can be: user testing. There are also many ways to get more value from site visitors with A/B testing.

How user testing can help you

Testers can find loads of issues for you, such as terrible use of images (including non-functioning galleries), bad handling of out-of-stock products, or inaccurate shipping and return information, which can lead to trust issues. Now, you might be thinking: Surely, my website doesn’t have those issues! But you’d be surprised.

In their Product Page UX research project, the Baymard Institute found that:

“The high-level benchmark results show that only 49% of e-commerce sites have an overall ‘decent’ or ‘good’ UX performance for their product pages, while 51% of sites have ‘mediocre’ or worse product page implementations. On the extreme ends of performance, only a couple of sites had a very ‘poor’ Product Page UX performance that failed to align with commonly observed user behavior in our large-scale PDP testing. This is a fortunate shift upward from 2021, which previously had 4% of sites with below ‘poor’ performances. At the other end of the scale, there aren’t any sites with an overall ‘Perfect’ or ‘“’State of the Art’ product page implementation (unchanged since 2021).

You can read this fascinating study on their Product Page UX site.

The Baymard report has loads of insights into the most common errors seen on product pages

While you compare your product pages to external user research, don’t forget to do your own user testing! Doing proper research will give you eye-opening results that you probably wouldn’t have found yourself.

Bonus: Build trust and show people your authenticity

Getting a stranger to buy something on your site involves a lot of trust. Someone needs to know you are authentic before handing you their hard-earned money, right? Google puts a lot of emphasis on the element of trust — It’s all over their famous Search Quality Raters Guidelines. The search engine tries to evaluate trust and expertise by looking at online reviews, the accolades a site or its authors receive, and much more.

Brand perception in AI and LLMs

AI search engines and LLMs also assess these trust factors to shape how your brand is presented. They analyze reviews, schema, and overall credibility to produce an accurate portrayal. A trustworthy online presence can positively influence how these systems perceive and convey your brand to users.

This is why it’s so important that your About Us and Customer Service pages are in order. Make sure people can easily find your contact information, information about returns and shipping, payment, privacy, etc. This will build trust with your customers. So, don’t forget!

Social proof is another way to build trust with your customers. Adding social proof to your product pages can significantly influence buying decisions. Display customer reviews, testimonials, and ratings to build trust and demonstrate real-life experiences. Include trust badges, like security symbols or industry awards, to boost credibility. Encourage happy customers to share photos or videos of your products and showcase this content on your website. These elements help assure visitors that your products are both credible and valued by others.

Conclusion: Be serious about your product page SEO

If you’re serious about optimizing your product page, you shouldn’t focus on regular SEO and user experience alone. You’ll have to dig deeper into other aspects of your product pages. For instance, you could add the Product and Offer Schema, so Google can easily index all the details about your product and show these as rich results in the search results. In addition, you should make your product pages fast, add user reviews, and try to enhance your website’s trustworthiness. And don’t forget to test everything you do!

Need a helping hand? Be sure to check out our ecommerce SEO training course. Learn what ecommerce SEO entails, how to optimize your site, and boost your online presence. Want to get your products ranking in the shopping search results? We’ll tell you how. Start your free trial lesson today! Full access to Yoast SEO Academy is included in Yoast SEO Premium, which also includes all other plugins — including Local SEO for optimizing your performance in local search.

Check out our overview of product page must-haves

To help you stay on top of your product pages, we created a PDF that you can use to optimize your product pages. Most of what’s discussed in this blog post can be found in the PDF, plus more tips! Just click on the image to go to the PDF and download it.

preview product page must haves
Click on the image to download the PDF

Read on: 7 ways to improve product descriptions in your online store »

Avatar of Edwin Toonen


Edwin Toonen

Edwin is an experienced strategic content specialist. Before joining Yoast, he worked for a top-tier web design magazine, where he developed a keen understanding of how to create great content.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Jun 12 2024
Optimize for rich results with the Rich Results Testing Tool

Google has many interesting free tools, but two important ones for helping you improve your site are Search Console and the Rich Results Testing Tool. Search Console helps you get a general feel for how your site is doing in the SERPs, plus keep an eye on any errors to fix and improvements to make. The other one, the Rich Results Testing Tool, helps you see which of your pages are eligible for rich results. Rich results are those highlighted search results like product and event listings.

Rich results are incredibly important in today’s world. Once you add structured data to your site, you might get a highlighted listing in the SERPs. This gives you an edge over your competitor, as highlighted listings tend to get more clicks. For many sites and types of content, it can make sense to target rich results.

Adding structured data to your courses might lead to highlights like this one

This post won’t detail how to get structured data on your site. If you’d like to dive into that, please read our ultimate guide to schema.org structured data, check out our free Structured data for beginners training or our Understanding structured data training course. You can also find out how Yoast SEO automatically applies structured data to your site.

Here, we look at how to verify your eligibility and what you can do to improve on that. Google’s Rich Results Testing Tool helps you check your pages to see if they have valid structured data applied to them and if they might be eligible for rich results. You’ll also find which rich results the page is eligible for and get a preview of how these would look for your content.

Using the Rich Results Testing Tool is very easy. There are two ways to get your insights: enter the URL of the page you want to test or the piece of code you want to test. The second option can be a piece of structured data or the full source code of a page, whichever you prefer.

While testing, you can also choose between a smartphone and a desktop crawler. Google defaults to the smartphone crawler since we live in a mobile-first world, people! Of course, you can switch to a desktop if needed. 

the homepage of the Rich Results Test with a big white bar to fill in the URL to test
Enter a URL or a piece of code to get going. You can also choose between a smartphone or desktop crawler.

There is a difference, of course. It is a good idea to use the URL option if your page is already online. You’ll see if the page is eligible for rich results, view a preview of these rich results, and check out the rendered HTML of the page. But there’s nothing you can ‘do’ in the code. The code option does let you do that.

an example of a valid rich result for courses in the Rich Results Test interface
This particular page has a valid Course list item and Course info and is, therefore, eligible for rich results — which you can see in the first screenshot.

Working with structured data code

If you paste a piece of JSON structured data into the code field and run the test, you get the same results as the URL option. However, you can now also use the code input field to edit your code to fix errors or improve the structured data by fixing warnings.

Did you know?

Do you know Yoast SEO comes with awesome free structured data blocks for how-to and FAQ content?

So, how do you go about this?

  1. Find and copy the code you want to test
  2. If it’s minified, unminify it for better readability
  3. Paste the code in the code field of the Rich Results Testing Tool
  4. Run the test

You’ll get a view similar to the one below.

in orange highlighted fields are optional items that you can add to fill out your structured data to get more chance at getting rich results
Code input is on the left; rich results test is on the right. You can now edit the code and quickly run the test after making those edits to see the changes.

Editing an event page

The page above is an event page; you’ll notice warnings in orange. Remember: red is an error, and orange is a warning. An error you have to fix to be valid, but a warning is a possible improvement to make. Because this concerns a paid event, the page misses an offers property. It also misses the optional fields performer, organizer, description and image. We could add these to remove the warnings and round out this structured data listing — because more is better.

Look at Google’s documentation about events and find out how they’d like the offers to appear in the code. To keep it simple, you could copy the example code and adapt it to your needs. Find a good place for it in your structured data on the left-hand side of your Rich Results Testing Tool screen and paste the code.

You could expand the code until it looks something like this:

Rerun the test, and more sections should turn green. If not, you might have to check if you’ve correctly applied and closed your code.

Once you’ve validated your code and know it’s working, you can apply it to your pages. Remember that we’ve described a very simple way of validating your code, and there are other ways to scale this into production. But that’s not the goal of this article. Here, we’d like to give you a quick insight into structured data and what you can do with the Rich Results Testing Tool.

See a preview of your rich results

The preview option is one of the coolest things in the Rich Results Testing Tool. This gives you an idea of how that page or article will appear on Google. There are several rich results that you can test, like breadcrumbs, courses, job postings, recipes, and many more.

These previews aren’t just for showoff — you can use them to improve the look of the rich results. Maybe the images look weird, or the title is not very attractive. Use these insights to your advantage and get people to click your listings!

an example of a preview for a rich result in Google's Rich Results Test
Get a glimpse of how your rich result might appear in the SERPs

This is a short overview of what you can see and do with the Rich Results Testing Tool. Remember that your content is eligible for rich results if everything is green in the Rich Results Testing Tool and no errors are found. This does not — and we mean not — guarantee that Google will show rich results for this page. You’ll just have to wait and see.

Read more: Rich results are rocking the SERPs »



Edwin Toonen

Edwin is a strategic content specialist. Before joining Yoast, he spent years honing his skill at The Netherlands’ leading web design magazine.

Avatar of Edwin Toonen

Coming up next!

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Feb 7 2024
Local business listings with Schema.org structured data

One of the things you can do to present your local business better in search results is Schema.org data for rich snippets. Adding structured data to your site can help search engines understand your business and how it performs. For this reason, you must add your NAP details, store/location map, reviews, and images. Find out how Schema.org structured data can help your local SEO.

Table of contents

Local customers use search engines

Modern-day customers use search engines to find your specific business and businesses around their current location. Customers using their phones looking for ‘Italian restaurants’ will get rich search results from local businesses. The results will include distance, reviews, opening hours, and possibly making a reservation.

Improve local rankings

Getting a good ranking for your local business means offering search engines as much data about your business as possible, which local SEO helps you do. Besides that, you need an excellent, fast, and mobile-friendly website, quality content, links, and reviews.

You should focus on being the most relevant result for a specific query to improve your rankings. In addition to that, your business has to be the best result. One way of getting this kind of recognition is by asking your customers for reviews. Reviews help search engines and potential customers determine which business is legit and which isn’t.

Why Schema.org

The main thing to remember is that Schema.org describes your data and content to search engines. Search engines can find out a lot about your site by crawling it. However, if you add structured data, you can give everything meaning. This way, search engines instantly grasp what the content means and how they should present it. In addition, Schema.org is a shared initiative by the big search engines, so using it will lead to consistent results in the respective search engines. Yoast SEO automatically adds structured data with much information about your site.

Rich search results for businesses

So, when we mean rich search results, we are talking about the information about a business you can directly see in search results without clicking a link. There are a few different results here: a regular organic search result for a business can feature breadcrumbs, highlighted pages, or even a search box. In Google, there’s also the Knowledge Panel on the right-hand side. Here, you’ll find lots of metadata about a business, from opening hours to photos. Finally, the results you see when you search for a specific term rather than a business. See the screenshots below for the different results for a particular or generic search.

Search for specific clothes store in Burbank
Looking for a local business using a specific term

Why you should use JSON-LD

To get rich results, you need to use structured data like Schema.org. In the past, adding Schema.org data to your post was pretty tricky because you had to embed it in your HTML code. With JSON-LD, you can add a JavaScript code block to your page. Plus, the code is readable and easy to change. Also, there are tons of helpful tools to do it for you.

With JSON-LD, you no longer have code wrapping around your HTML elements, with less possibility of messing things up. In addition to that, Google advises you to use it. Now, let’s see how it’s done.

How to add Schema.org to your local business listing

Since LocalBusiness is a subtype of Organization, we recommend implementing the fields for Organization in addition to the ones specific to your business.

When working on your listing, the most important thing to remember is to pick the correct business type. Make sure to choose a specific one, not a broad one. So, if you own a barbershop, you can use the LocalBusiness type HairSalon. You can find hundreds of types of businesses on Schema.org, so you’ll probably find one that matches closely. If not, try using the product types ontology. This site uses Wikipedia pages for describing products or services with GoodRelations and Schema.org. Here, you can get more specific information if your listing is too broad.

Generate and test

While you can write Schema.org JSON-LD code by hand, it’s not recommended. Use a generator like this Schema Markup Generator or Google’s Structured Data Helper — you can even ask ChatGPT to code structured data for you.

The Yoast Local SEO plugin is the easiest option to add proper local-oriented structured data. It also ensures that it plays nicely with the rest of the structured data generated by Yoast SEO.

Always validate your structured data in the Rich Results Test Tool. Using Schema Markup Validator, you can check your site to see if the structured data is implemented correctly. Or use Classy Schema to visualize your implementation.

Don’t forget to add your site to Search Console so you can check how Google presents your site. If you want to learn more about Google Search Console, read our beginner’s guide to Google Search Console.

Quickly add structured data for your local business

The Local SEO plugin by Yoast gives you everything you need to do well in the local search results pages!

Required properties for local businesses

There are two main Schema.org at play here: Schema.org/LocalBusiness and Schema.org/Organization. Here, you’ll find everything you need to inform search engines about your local business. To get started, you need to define at least the following properties: the name of your business, its postal address, a URL, and a logo. Here’s what a simple address looks like in structured data:

"address": {
  "@type": "PostalAddress",
  "streetAddress": "9901 Union Street",
  "addressLocality": "Simi Valley",
  "addressRegion": "CA",
  "postalCode": "93065",
  "addressCountry": "US"
}

The properties mentioned in the previous paragraph don’t get you far. You need to go further to make the most of structured data for your site. Be sure to add the following properties as well, if applicable. This is just the beginning, on Schema.org/LocalBusiness you’ll find loads more. Google also has a long list of supported properties.

- url (unlike the @id, should be a working link)
- geo
-- geo.latitude
-- geo.longitude 
- telephone
- aggregateRating
- openingHoursSpecification
- openingHoursSpecification.opens
- openingHoursSpecification.closes
- openingHoursSpecification.dayOfWeek
- openingHoursSpecification.validFrom
- openingHoursSpecification.validThrough
- menu
- department
- servesCuisine
- priceRange (how many $?)

Recommended properties for Organization

As LocalBusiness structured data is heavily tied to the Organization structured data, so it’s necessary to focus on that. There are loads of options to help Google understand your business better. Below is a list of recommended properties. Remember that Yoast SEO Premium and the Local SEO add-on make it easy to fill these in.

name (Text: name of your business)
alternateName (Text: other name you often use)
legalName (Text: the registered legal name)
description (Text: describe your business)
logo (URL or ImageObject)
url (URL)
sameAs (URL: links to other online services or social profiles)
telephone (Text)
email (Text)
address (PostalAddress)
 - address.streetAddress (Text)
 - address.addressLocality (Text)
 - address.addressRegion (Text)
 - address.postalCode (Text)
 - address.addressCountry (Text)
contactPoint (ContactPoint: how can a customer best contact you?)
 - contactPoint.telephone (Text)
 - contactPoint.email (Text)
numberOfEmployees (QuantitativeValue)
foundingDate (Date)
iso6523Code (Text)
duns (Text)
leiCode (Text)
naics (Text)
globalLocationNumber (Text)
vatID (Text)
taxID (Text)

Example code for local business Schema.org

To clarify how this works, we will use a real local business: Unique Vintage in Burbank, CA. This makes it a bit easier to validate the data we enter. In the code below, you’ll find all the NAP details, URLs, geolocation data, and opening hours you might need.
The LocalBusiness code above gets perfect scores from the Rich Results Testing Tool

Reviews

Reviews are a significant driver for new clientele. Scoring well in Google means your business provides quality, which can eventually lead to better local rankings. Think about how you pick the next company to visit. Will it be the one with three two-star reviews or the one with eighty-five-star reviews?

In the example above, we’ve added a review section. If you want to use reviews in your Schema.org data, remember that these reviews must live on your site. You cannot use sites like Yelp or TripAdvisor to generate reviews to show in the search engines. Ask your customers to leave a review. Make a review page, collect the reviews, and present them to the world.

Social

Another element to add to complete your online profile is links to your social media accounts. To do this, you must specify an organization or a person. The URL has to lead to your main site, while the sameAs links lead to your social media profiles.

Google My Business

There is another way you should add your local business to Google. By opening a Google My Business account, you will be able to verify that you are, in fact, the owner of your business. After that, you can add or edit all relevant information about your business, such as address information, opening hours, and photos. In addition to that, you can even manage the reviews people add to Google and see how your local listing performs.

Conversely, this only applies to Google. Every search engine can interpret Schema.org, so adding structured data to your site is still advisable. Additionally, Schema.org can do much more than add relevant local business locations. Therefore, Schema.org should be your main focus.

Despite all this, you’re still very much in Google’s hands. Some businesses appear in the Knowledge Panel, while others don’t. Some products get rich listings in the search results, including prices, reviews, and availability, while identical products from different vendors don’t. It’s hard to predict what will happen. However, don’t let this stop you.

Structured data for your local business

As we’ve shown, Schema.org can play an important part in the optimization of your site and your SEO strategy. Structured data can do much more; look at all those properties on Schema.org. We’ll keep an eye on what structured data can do for your site and keep you in the loop!

Don’t forget that if you want an easier way to add your local business and organization data to your pages, you should check out our Local SEO plugin and Yoast SEO Premium.

Read more: Structured data with Schema.org: the ultimate guide »



Edwin Toonen

Edwin is a strategic content specialist. Before joining Yoast, he spent years honing his skill at The Netherlands’ leading web design magazine.

Avatar of Edwin Toonen

Coming up next!

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments