SEO Split Test Result: Adding H3 Tags to Product Names on Ecommerce Category Pages

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Before you start: If you are not familiar with the principles of SEO statistical split-testing and how SplitSignal works, we suggest you get started or request a demo of SplitSignal.


First time, we asked our Twitter followers vote:

Here’s what other SEO experts had to say about this test:

Husnain Murtazadigital marketing expert at Intelligent outsourcing:

I will definitely choose the second “after” option with the h3 tag. However, if there is any option in the hierarchy, use h2 instead of h3, as the product title is an important tag.

Baptiste WallerichCEO / SEO expert at uRoot:

I would never say no to adding h3 tags

Craig Martinhead of the SEO agency at Online Asset Partners:

I’m on team h3!
But always checking intuition through experimentation.

Jimmy JensenSEO expert at LynxSEO Marketing:

Why not use H2? WooCommerce categories use this by default. H3 would be a downgrade 😃

Follow us on LinkedIn to share your thoughts on the next test.

A case study

As an SEO, you want to give the right signals to search engines and help them understand what content and topics are important on the page. If you wrote or content optimization from an SEO perspective, you’ve probably already thought about the most optimal title structure for certain content elements. Google recently reaffirmed that to understand the content of a web page, it looks at various things such as headlines to determine what is actually being highlighted. Proper use of HTML title tags can make content more meaningful. In return, it helps search engines understand the page and its purpose a little better.

Addresses are specified in the HTML of the web page via

to

marks. They provide hierarchy and help users and search engines read and understand textual content. Headings show which parts of your content are important and how the elements or parts of the content are related. As an SEO, you want to use it sensibly addresses to highlight important topics. As for the hierarchy,

defines the main and most important title.

specifies the least significant address.

For one of the biggest e-commerce parties in the Netherlands, OrangeValley wanted to test whether adding titles to the product names of listed products on e-commerce category pages would have a significant impact on organic traffic.

Research has shown that websites tend to use different HTML formatting for their product listings. Some use title tags such as tag

:

NfnYQtFoo0x_Posx0v4oQwt7Qp4sYZ-7stYGADzdp-lI-9cN-cwD2y3mrOxl48VWp-ULytm-5K1sFiIQ2vS4eQJlwSaiz3-ultaPdKGwKsjvSiSyMxmn_Om9CD0EatI8ieLbxRwd0207w

Some choose to label the product name inside the label for example:

KUNjEU3j3b-774d2bSHGDDGCStKC_sjsupk4p9eNH1EXsnVmEPk4GqdGA3FMoabzeBZ3I9Z69l4oXe7joZQ_2LKZEOEAHDvu7zaMx8dL7KYRjTH4nbybc-ns2GxDlq65ySi0htqcVVSGHYE8Oqo5l

There are many variations in between, so we wanted to see if it was changing HTML tagging could make a significant difference.

A hypothesis

The website in question formatted the HTML of its product names as follows.

img-semblog

The products listed on the e-commerce category page are the primary content that users come to the site for. Since it is an important content, we wanted to highlight it. We assumed that adding title tags would have

the listed product names have a positive effect on organic traffic on the tested pages.

A test

We used SplitSignal and a small custom script to set up the test. 600 category pages were selected as a variation or control using stratified sampling. We started the test and ran it for 21 days. We found that Googlebot visited 95% of the tested pages.

The result

How to read SplitSignal test results?

img-semblog

After 21 days of testing, we reviewed the results. We saw that the traffic on the version page exceeded the modeled control group, which means that the test is positive. Adding title tags

product names resulted in a 4.3% increase in the number of clicks on the tested pages.

After 12 days, we could tell that the increase we saw was significant. When the blue shaded area runs below or above the x=0 axis, the test is statistically significant at the 95% level. This means that we can be sure that the increase we see is due to the change we made and not to other (external) factors.

Note that we are not comparing the actual pages of the control group to our test pages. but rather a prediction based on historical data. The model predicts the hypothetical response that would occur if no intervention occurred. We compare this with actual data. We use a set of control pages to give the model context for trends and external influences. If anything else changes during our test (e.g. seasonality), the model will detect it and take it into account. By filtering out these external factors, we gain insight into the true impact of an SEO change.

why

We know the user’s search intent; users who land on a category page expect to see a list of products related to their search query. We also know that Google uses textual content in elements such as title tags to determine what a web page is about. By highlighting this primary content (listed products), we could indicate its importance and improve the relevance of our response to users’ search queries.

Data analysis shows that this test had an effect impressions and clicks to tested sites. The tested sites were significantly better in both metrics.

Pages with categories an e-commerce website are often the biggest drivers of traffic. Seemingly small optimizations can have a big impact due to the scale of these pages. So as an SEO, you need to think and experiment with the different elements that make up a category page.

Distributed testing makes it possible to test planned changes at a very detailed level in order to ultimately find the best possible answer for both users and (search) engines.

Remember that something that works on one site may not work on another. The only way to know for sure is to try out what works for you!

Make your next SEO split-test analytical OrangeValley Agency.

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