X-Cart:Configuring Page Titles and Meta Tags

Page title and meta tags in X-Cart

The HEAD section of every page in your store contains elements providing metadata about the page. Some of these elements (title, meta description, meta keywords) have significant impact on how the page is ranked by search engines and how it is described in search engine results pages. In X-Cart, you have substantial control over the meta elements and can use them for SEO optimization.

Title element

The title element contained in the <title> tag defines the page title:

<title>Your Company Name</title>

When a visitor opens the page in their web browser window, the title element appears in the browser title bar. If the visitor bookmarks the page, the title element is used as the words to describe the page in their bookmarks list.

The title element is very important for search engines. The text contained in the title tag of a page is one of the most important factors that determine how the page is ranked. In addition to that, in all major search engines, the text of the title element is displayed as the title of the page in the search results.

X-Cart provides controls allowing the store administrator to adjust the format and length of text used for the title element.

Meta description and keywords tags

The meta description tag provides a brief and concise summary of your page's content. This tag looks as follows:

<meta name="description" content="X-Cart: full-featured PHP/MySQL
shopping cart software & ecommerce solutions for the best ecommerce websites"/>

The description is the text that goes between the quotation marks after the "content=" portion of the tag.

The text used in the meta description tag of a page has little to no effect on the page's ranking in the search engines; however, this tag can still come in handy for SEO, because it allows you to influence the description of your store's pages in the web crawlers that support this tag. Different crawlers use this tag differently, but you should expect that if the meta description of your page is deemed relevant by a web crawler, at least a portion of it will be displayed as the description of the page in the search results. If this description is enticing enough, you may get more targeted traffic to your site.

The meta keywords tag is another meta tag that has some significance for SEO. It allows you to provide relevant keywords for your pages. The meta keywords tag takes the following form:

<meta name="keywords" content="x-cart, xcart, cart, shopping cart, php, php4,
mysql, shop, e-commerce, store, web store, gift certificates, wish list, top sellers" />

Today, very few search engines rely on this tag for information about a page. However, you can still try to use this tag to reinforce the terms you think a page is important for.

In X-Cart, meta description and keywords tags can be defined for each page of the store site.

Roles in page title and meta tags management

If you are an X-Cart GOLD or GOLD PLUS administrator/provider or an X-Cart PLATINUM or PRO administrator:

• You can control the format and length of the page title element (See Adjusting the Page Title Element).
• You can define the meta description and keywords for the pages of any categories, products, manufacturers and embedded static pages in your store, as well as your store's global meta description and keywords (See Adjusting Meta Description and Keywords).

If you are an X-Cart PLATINUM or PRO provider:

• You can define the meta description and keywords for the pages of the products and manufacturers you own (See Adjusting Meta Description and Keywords).

Adjusting the Page Title Element

You can adjust the format and length of the page title element using the 'Page title format' and 'Maximum length of page title element' options on the 'General settings/SEO options' page.

Note: If defined, "Default site 'Title' tag" value is used title for all pages in your X-Cart store, and the "Page title format" option is ignored. In this case, you will need to set a unique "Title tag" for each of your Product, Category, Manufacturer and Static (embedded) pages to be used instead of the "Default site 'Title' tag" value.

The 'Page title format' option allows you to specify the desired page title format for all the pages in your store. At present, you can choose one of the following four formats:

• Shop name :: Category name :: Product name
• Product name :: Category name :: Shop name
• Category name :: Product name
• Product name :: Category name

The elements of which the page title is formed are the same in all cases; what is different is the order in which they appear in the page title. You can use the format that best suits your business needs.

By default, the <Shop name> element is replaced by the value entered in the 'Company name' field on the 'General settings/Company options' page. If you want the <Shop name> element to be different from your Company name, specify the desired value in the lbl_site_title variable (otherwise leave it empty). To change the variable perform the following steps:

1. Log in to the admin area
2. Go to the "Languages" section
3. Select a language in the "Edit language" selectbox.
4. Select a topic: Labels.
5. Find the 'lbl_site_title' variable and edit its value in the input box.
6. Click the "Apply changes" button.

X-Cart 4.4or above

Note: When the lbl_site_title variable is defined, its value is used:

• in the 'Shop name' element of the page title in all your store's pages;
• in the phrase "Welcome to Your Company Name" appearing on the main site page;
• in the breadcrumb navigation bar (for 4.3 only);

whereas the value of the 'Company name' field still appears on other pages and in your store's invoices.

The 'Maximum length of page title element' option allows you to specify the maximum page title length.

See also:

• SEO options
• How to change my site title appearing in the customer front-end?

Adjusting Meta Description and Keywords

Description and keywords meta tags for the pages of products, categories, manufacturers and embedded static pages can be defined when you create or edit the respective objects. To provide meta description and keywords for the page of a specific object, all you need to do is enter the desired description and keywords into the 'META description' and 'META keywords' fields located on the object's Details page and save the changes.

As a rule of thumb, it is best to provide description and keywords meta tags for each page specifically. However, X-Cart now provides an option that allows you to get meta tags defined for a category applied to all the subcategories and products contained in this category. This option is called 'Use the META data of this category for all the subcategories and products contained in this category'. You can find it on the Details page of each category in your store. For more information about the option 'Use the META data of this category for all the subcategories and products contained in this category', see the section Defining Category Details.

If you are a store administrator, you can also define global description and keywords meta tags for your store site using the 'Site META description' and 'Site META keywords' fields located on the 'General settings/SEO options' page. The global description and keywords meta tags are used only for the pages that do not have description and keywords meta tags of their own and are not using any other description and keywords meta tags:

• the Customer area main page;
• the pages of manufacturers and embedded static pages that do not have description and keywords meta tags of their own;
• the pages of products and categories that do not have description and keywords meta tags of their own and are not using the description and keywords meta tags of their parent category.

Examples:

For example, you have a product X in the category Y. The category Y is located within the category Z.

If...	then...
Description and keywords meta tags are defined for: - the product X, - the category Y, - the category Z, - the site in general.	The product X, the category Y and the category Z each use their own description and keywords meta tags.
Description and keywords meta tags are defined for: - the product X, - the category Z, - the site in general, but not defined for the category Y. The option 'Use the META data of this category for all the subcategories and products contained in this category' is enabled for the category Z.	The product X and the category Z use their own description and keywords meta tags. The category Y uses the description and keywords meta tags of the category Z.
Description meta tags are defined for: - the product X, - the category Y, - the category Z, - the site in general. Keywords meta tags are defined for all the above, except for the product X. The option 'Use the META data of this category for all the subcategories and products contained in this category' is disabled for the category Y.	The category Y and the category Z use their own description and keywords meta tags. The product X uses the description meta tags of its own and the keywords meta tags defined for the site in general.
Description and keywords meta tags are defined for the category Z and the site in general, but not defined for the product X and the category Y. The option 'Use the META data of this category for all the subcategories and products contained in this category' is enabled for the categories Y and Z.	The category Z uses its own description and keywords meta tags. The category Y and the product X use the description and keywords meta tags of the category Z.
Description and keywords meta tags are defined for the category Z and the site in general, but not defined for the product X and the category Y. The option 'Use the META data of this category for all the subcategories and products contained in this category' is enabled for the category Z, but disabled for category Y.	The category Z uses its own description and keywords meta tags. The category Y uses the description and keywords meta tags of the category Z. The product X uses the description and keywords meta tags defined for the site in general.