Edit page titles, search descriptions, and image captions

Find the right SEO fields for products, product groups, the home page, and custom pages, and write text that describes the current page.

This guide applies to administrators in Go, Plus, and Pro. Page title, META description, the page's regular content, and the image's alternative text have different purposes. The Keyword field is not a shortcut to a better ranking in Google.

1. Write for the page, not a list of keywords

Choose a clear and relevant title for the specific product or page. Write a unique, natural META description that summarizes the content. Use the customer's words where they fit, including special characters; don't repeat the same words unnecessarily.

META keywords: if you use this older field, the words are entered separated by commas. Google does not use META keywords for indexing or ranking. It is therefore more important to make the page's actual text, title, and description useful.

Google may use text from the page instead of your META description and may show different snippets for different searches. There is no guarantee that the introduction will always be prioritized over the product description, or that a specific number of characters will be displayed.

2. Edit a product group

1. Go to Catalogue → Product groups.
2. Select the product group and click Edit.
3. Open the Search engine optimization tab.
4. Enter the title and description in the correct language. Select manually entered title if you want to replace the automatic title for the group.
5. Click Save.

3. Edit a product

1. Go to Catalogue → Products and select the product.
2. Open Search engine optimization.
3. Change the title and META description for each language. Use manually entered title if you want to replace the automatic one.
4. Save.

A custom META description for the product is used before the automatic fallback text. If the field is empty, Abicart may use a general description or product texts as a fallback. This does not mean you should put all product information in the introduction. Write an understandable introduction and a full description for the customer, and enter a custom META description when you want to control the summary.

Product image alternative text

Open Product properties, expand Image settings next to the image and fill in Alternative text in the correct language. Describe what the image shows and what distinguishes it from other images; avoid lists of keywords. Save.

4. Edit the home page and the global title patterns

Open Settings → Domains and SEO → Title and description. Here you write the home page's title and description per language and choose the basic design for titles on other page types. The fields for an individual product or product group are, however, on the respective object, according to the steps above.

This does not change the domain's DNS records. Do not change the domain or URL structure when the task is only to change a title or search description.

5. Edit a custom page

1. Open the list of Custom pages under Pages. In older menu versions, the main menu is also called Custom pages.
2. Select the page you want to change.
3. Open Search engine optimization and edit the title and description for the correct language.
4. Save.

An image in the page's text editor

1. Open Page properties.
2. Select the image in the text editor.
3. Open the image icon Insert/Edit Image.
4. Write the description in Alternative description, confirm the image dialog, and save the page.

6. Check the published page's content

Open the correct page and language after you have saved. Check the page title, META description, and the image's alternative text in the page's HTML or with the browser's inspector. Also check the visible text and image. A changed admin text is not proof that Google has already re-read the page; the search results are updated later and may use different text.

The image examples contain an older menu appearance and length recommendations. Use them to recognize the fields, not as fixed limits or a promise of Google's display.

Quick start

1. Decide which page and which language to change.
2. Open the object's Search engine optimization, or the home page's global SEO fields.
3. Write the title, description, and relevant image texts and save.
4. Check the correct page; distinguish the saved change from later search engine indexing.

Subscription

SEO and alternative text fields are available in Go, Plus, and Pro. Images in theme blocks may have different editing fields than product images and images in custom pages' text editors; choose the guide for the location where the image is actually located.