Improve SEO

Improve SEO for Category pages

What's inside this article:


Basic information

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing webpages to increase the traffic that comes to your site via the free results section on search engine results pages.

Pangea CMS offers many settings and features to help improve the SEO for different pages on your site. This article describes the settings and features that impact SEO for Category pages.



Open Category settings

To open the Category settings for any Category:

  1. Go to Settings > Categories (Zones) in the primary navigation.
  2. Select the specific Category you want to update.

The remaining sections in this article will describe settings that impact SEO.



Meta title

Under Meta title, it is required to provide a meta title for the Category page.

The meta title might be displayed as follows:

  • As the clickable headline on search engine results pages
  • In the social media teaser for the page
  • In the browser tab for the page

The meta title is your suggestion for what search engines should display as the clickable headline. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee that search engines will always follow this suggestion. Search engines might sometimes display the general page title instead of the meta title.

We suggest following the general guidelines below for the meta title:

  • Use a maximum of 50-60 characters.
  • Use the local language for your site.
  • Ensure the title accurately reflects the page content.
  • Make the title unique. No other page on your site should have the same meta title.



Meta description

Under Meta description, it is required to provide a meta description for the Category page.

The meta description might be displayed as follows:

  • As the description on search engine results pages
  • In the social media teaser for the page

The meta description is your suggestion for what search engines should display as the description. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee that search engines will always follow this suggestion. Search engines might sometimes display other text from the page instead of the meta description.

We suggest following the general guidelines below for the meta description:

  • Use a maximum of 150-160 characters.
  • Use the local language for your site.
  • Ensure the description accurately reflects the page content.
  • Make the description unique. No other page on your site should have the same meta description.



Custom URL

The default URL for all Category pages includes z/ followed by a string of numbers. Using the Custom URL tool in Pangea CMS, you can replace the numbers with descriptive, human-readable text.

This has the following benefits:

  • User experience: Descriptive URLs tell users where they will go after clicking a link.
  • SEO: URLs that include keywords might rank more highly on search engine results pages. Consistent use of effective URLs also boosts the authority of your domain for search engines.

To create a Custom URL for a Category page, go to Settings > Custom URL in the primary navigation.

For instructions and guidelines, see the following article:

We suggest creating the Custom URL as soon as possible after publishing the Category page. The following rules apply:

  • If you create a Custom URL for a published page that did not previously have a Custom URL, no further action is required. The default URL will automatically redirect to the Custom URL.
  • If you change an existing Custom URL, the old Custom URL will no longer work. We suggest creating a URL redirect from the old Custom URL to the new one.



Meta keywords

Under Meta keywords, optionally add descriptive keywords that will be included in the metadata for the Category page. Meta keywords might influence how the page ranks via search engines such as Yandex and Baidu. Meta keywords no longer factor in the ranking algorithms for Google and other popular search engines.

Separate each keyword with a comma.