single product pages..section names

[TraceyHand]

I'm thinking about single product pages and I can see there are 2 ways of doing it.
Either I use the standard product pages as a "listing" pages and the extended info pages as main product information pages... or

I make all my products into section links with one product per section

Now, the latter is preferable to me but, on tinkering, I'm having problems with section names.

There are only so many variations of a short product description I can use and throughout the store I may have 20 or 30 "Mothercare Maternity Jeans" which is how my short product descriptions are set up at the moment.

Question is..if I don't use the short product description as my section name..what do I use? Or can I use the product code (which IS unique) for the section name but ensure that the layout I'm using doesn't display "sectionname" in it? then I can use the page title in place of it which is comparable to the short product description but doesn't have to be unique.

haha...I just answered my own question...and I've done it now!
oh well, I'll post anyway in case anyone else wants to know


ETS...Lee....here's one for the "Tracey" forum

[Duncan Rounding]

What's the first sign of madness again.

The way I do it is to have the short description, the section page name and the section page title to be all the same. That allows me to generate a static (as opposed to cgi) link from the duplicate through to the main product automatically with php in Actinic. The spaces in the product short description are just replaced with underscores and '.html' added to the end to make the link. On this page for example you'll see the cut down duplicates have a static link to the main product: http://fancystuff.co.uk/acatalog/But...old-Rings.html

[TraceyHand]

Thanks Duncan.
My problem is that, with so many items with essentially the same short description, I end up with duplicate section names if I use them.
There are only so many ways you can descrie a pair of Mothercare maternity jeans without waffling on descriptively (is that a word? lol) in the short description.

I sussed out what I was doing though. I've used the product reference from the product inside the section as the section name because these are unique. I've then replaced where this displays in the layout (because it's a bit too abstract to be seen on site!) with the section PAGE name which is the same as the product short description.

As for talking to myself....yeh...it's a habit, isn't it, Tracey

Yes, Tracey....it is..

[Duncan Rounding]

Bear in mind though that when using single product per page that the page name and title are very imprtant for SEO and should relate directly to your product on the page. If it doesn't then you are not making use of the reason for having the single page - being able to fully optomise for that one product.

BTW don't worry about the rest of the forum your very welcom to carry on nattering to yourself if you want. You can even start your own personal thread if you want.

[TraceyHand]

Well, the name and title I'm using are as descriptive as I can be without waffling really. I might, at the same time, add size into the short description (and so the section page name and title) and perhaps colour where appropriate. But there are still only so many ways you can say Mothercare Blue Maternity Jeans Size 12.

LOL @ personal forum...believe me..you'd all fall asleep reading it!

[jont]

Be wary about going the single product per page route if you are really struggling to have different products, details, info etc for each one as it can quickly turn into a duplicated page with only a few minor differences.

I have seen better SEO results with multiple products on a page when products are very similar with low product description differentials.

[TraceyHand]

and this is why I'm dithering about it LOL
I'm playing with a single section at the minute (which I have hidden and unhide for tinkering purposes!) to see how the overall affect is on navigation, layout and how it looks to a shopper.

I'm not overly convinced that it's suited to my products because customers tend to view a WHOLE section and, as my site is, they can do that properly with far fewer clicks.

I didn't want to rule it out though, there are certain products that I probably could use this for.
I'm lucky in that Google (the natural listings) are kind to me..kinda don't want to rock that boat site-wide! (I can't swim )

[RuralWeb]

I have seen better SEO results with multiple products on a page when products are very similar with low product description differentials.

Agreed - i would convert your site slowly concentrating on the products that are individual first and as jont says dont do the others just for the sake of doing it.