Product names as H1, why?

[lindapowers]

Hi

VM 2.022a and joomla 2.5.11

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From a SEO point of view the product title as H1 makes sense, however this limits your SEO, having to be really carefull with the product name and ofc you can't change the product name as you would an H1.

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I think there should be an option to enter the H1 of a product in the details page just as there is for the META title. I don't think using the product name is a good idea for the H1.

Our SEO company asked us to change several H1 for products and we realised the only way is changing the product names... thats not good at all + product H1 may not be exactly the same as the product name.


Regards

[jjk]

h1 - h6 is a typography to structure headings and headers in a html document. Search engines use it to analyse the content of a webpage, but more important is that formatting html text as headings will change the display of this text in the user's browser, depending on your template's typography settings (an h1 in template x may look different in template y).

You could i.e. add <h1>Short Description</h1> tags to the short descripton of a product, but I bet it will look pretty ugly. An h2 or h3 would make more sense there.
If you have a heading in your product description, you could assign an h1 tag to this heading with your editor. But again, an h2 or h3 would probably look better.

If you want i.e. an h2 tag for all your short descriptons, you can use a template override or create a renamed copy (including the h2 tag for the short description) of ...\components\com_virtuemart\views\productdetails\tmpl\default.php. The latter would be selectable in Configuration > Templates > Shop Front Settings > Product Layout.

[franzpeter]

lindapowers, you should ask you SEO Company if they did already read, at least one time in life would be enough, a good newspaper. They may see that Google is no witchcraft work. They just follow the idea of good newspapers. So <h1> is the title, <h2> is the subtitle, <h3> for example is used for titles inside an article. You can use <strong> if you like.
The place to change, if you prefer to pleas your SEO company instead of crawlers, is here: /components/com_virtuemart/views/productdetails/tmpl/default.php line 107:
<?php // Product Title   ?>
    <h1><?php echo $this->product->product_name ?></h1>
    <?php // Product Title END   ?>

[jjk]

From the SEO point of view it might make sense to add an h2 tag between lines 141 - 151, i.e.:

Code Select Expand

    <?php
    // Product Short Description
    if (!empty($this->product->product_s_desc)) {
?>
        <div class="product-short-description">
    <h2><?php
    /** @todo Test if content plugins modify the product description */
    echo nl2br($this->product->product_s_desc);
    ?></h2>
        </div>
<?php
    } // Product Short Description END

[franzpeter]

JJK, from the SEO point you could comment the short description and use that, what you put into short_description into the meta_description field. Do not misunderstand me, but those SEO companies do not know much more than you and me. They may be better in keyword optimimized description but they do not know more about the algorithm google or bing use to judge about the relevance of a page than you or me!

[Maxim Pishnyak]

If you want i.e. an h2 tag for all your short descriptons, you can use a template override or create a renamed copy (including the h2 tag for the short description) of ...\components\com_virtuemart\views\productdetails\tmpl\default.php. The latter would be selectable in Configuration > Templates > Shop Front Settings > Product Layout.

Assign default1.php, defaulе2.php etc could be done with CSVI Improved very fast.

You could create, Lindapowers, even special custom fields for SEO purposes and arrange them in your defaultXXXX.php with appropriative html tags. And this (assigning SEO-fields and assigning customized default.php to specific products) could be very easy and fast done with the help of CSVI Improved.

[AH]

Agree with franzpeter completely!

[lindapowers]

Thanks guys for replies.

I'm just saying all of us should have the option to write our own H1 without VM2 taking the the product name as the H1 automatically.

Following your logic franzpeter, which btw is the same as our SEO and many other SEO companies you criticise, the H1 is the title which together with the meta title is the most important part and where you play with keywords. VM2 uses the product name and we can't easily change that.

So sorry but it makes no sense, we should be able to modify that in an easy way.

Yeah I can follow the logic of a newspaper with H1, H2 etc which btw is what we do but what does have to do with the fact that our H1 is already chosen for us when we write the product name.

Is as if you wrote and article and the H1 was taken from the article title, thats optional in Joomla, and you can always decide wheter to use that or write your own H1.

Regards

[AH]

lindapowers

Override the view to get what you want, I am sure you do that anyhow.

Most people will be happy with H1

[Maxim Pishnyak]

... and we can't easily change that.
...
Regards

Seems that you ignored my post.

Regards.

[lindapowers]

... and we can't easily change that.
...
Regards

Seems that you ignored my post.

Regards.

Hi Maxim, no I didn't ignore it, I read all replies however using CSVI improved to obtain something that should be an option right above the title metatags is not what I will call "easy". But yeah is a solution, same as overrides I guess.

Yes there are work arounds for this issue, yes I can do it, but that makes it correct? maybe others don't know how to and they have to deal with product names as H1, so still makes no sense this setting.

I'm not saying ok let's ruin everyone's page and remove the H1 from the product titles but instead making an option to easily change them from the backend (like in Joomla)

Most people are happy with product titles as H1, probably, until they realise they can't change them and if you care for your SEO (not your SEO company but yourself) this is something that you will want to tweak.

Anyway made my point clear.

Regards

[Maxim Pishnyak]

Hi Maxim, no I didn't ignore it, I read all replies however using CSVI improved to obtain something that should be an option right above the title metatags is not what I will call "easy". But yeah is a solution, same as overrides I guess.

Nice to know that I was wrong.

I'm simply didn't believe that using CSVI Improved couldn't be called easy solution. Excel built the world after all. Why using Excel-like techniques couldn't bу strong support in some cases?

Personally I like how stuff is made:
1. VM supports customizing by using overrides.
2. CSVI Improved supports product management.
3. Main project has own goals.
4. Child projects follow own goals.
5. Both of them try to help each other in this wild world.

[franzpeter]

@lindapowers,
if you need to change it so it is not a <h1> tag, you can simply remove it in default.php (it is in components/com_virtuemart/views/productdetails/tmpl/default.php) or inside the template folder as an override. I think VM is a project to make it as easy as possible for all shop owners to have a default seo optimization. Template providers should have the knowledge, if they think that it is still necessary, to override the predefined settings. How do you think that it should work? Adding an additonal row inside the database to show a dropdown in the BE near the title, where you can select h1, h2, h3 a.s.o.. What Google and some other crawler produce is like a hamster wheel. They tell you about h1, h2, content and a lot of other things. I have the impression that they do that to keep their own business going. You have to pay for want you want. If their crawlers read something about product or shop, a light goes on there (add words, merchant center and all the other nice things they offer if you pay). You can set as much h1 or h3 tags as you want for a good product placement you have to pay.

[lindapowers]

@lindapowers,
if you need to change it so it is not a <h1> tag, you can simply remove it in default.php (it is in components/com_virtuemart/views/productdetails/tmpl/default.php) or inside the template folder as an override. I think VM is a project to make it as easy as possible for all shop owners to have a default seo optimization. Template providers should have the knowledge, if they think that it is still necessary, to override the predefined settings. How do you think that it should work? Adding an additonal row inside the database to show a dropdown in the BE near the title, where you can select h1, h2, h3 a.s.o.. What Google and some other crawler produce is like a hamster wheel. They tell you about h1, h2, content and a lot of other things. I have the impression that they do that to keep their own business going. You have to pay for want you want. If their crawlers read something about product or shop, a light goes on there (add words, merchant center and all the other nice things they offer if you pay). You can set as much h1 or h3 tags as you want for a good product placement you have to pay.

You know what template providers say about this? VM shows it as H1 so we do the same. IMO this is not the work for templaters so they are right saying that.

What I will have is just an empty field near the meta title that says:

H1: with a tooltip or text that says: leave empty to use product name.

That way most people will be happy with their product names as H1 by default and others will have the option to change it per product.

To write H2, H3 etc you have the description box already.

[Maxim Pishnyak]

What do you want, Lindapowers, is a custom field.
YOU want this field, you could do some custom work and create such custom field either in backend aread (custom hack), or with help CSVI/overrides (regular custom field).

The second one option is supported for you by VM Team and CSVI Improved Team.

The very close to yours case happened recently on forum and my advise remains the same for every feature whiners

Why not create civilized petition about this elsewhere?
Ofc if you so inclined about this.