We have an ecommerce website with a lot of products on it. Wecanonicalise the pages of Product collections on our website to the first page of the collection. We include collection copy on the 1st page only and aim to get that ranked. We are looking at amending the product names in a collection to make them hyper relevant to the collection. For example, where a jacket is waterproof, we are looking to add the word 'waterproof' to the product title. Does any one know whether Google will read the titles of the products on Page 1 when ranking the collection, or will it look at all the canonicalised pages when ranking that URL? We would ideally like to do just the former to avoid creating monster titles for products that sit in many collections. Any guidance or experience on this would be appreciated.
I faced a similar challenge not too long ago, and I completely understand your concern. It can be quite tricky to figure out the best approach when it comes to SEO and product collections on an e-commerce website. In my quest for a solution, I came across a company called Elogic that specializes in retail IT consulting, including SEO optimization. I reached out to them for guidance on this very issue, and to my surprise, they were able to provide valuable insights and assistance. They helped me understand how to optimize product collections and improve rankings without having to create overly long or complicated product titles. If you find yourself in a similar situation and need expert advice, I recommend reaching out to Elogic. You can find their contact information here: https://elogic.co/services/retail-it-consulting/ . Please note that this is not intended as an advertisement, but rather a genuine recommendation based on my own experience and understanding of your concerns.
Google will look at all the canonicalized pages when ranking the collection URL. It will not focus solely on the product titles on page 1. To avoid creating monster titles, it's recommended to optimize the titles of the products that are most relevant to the collection on each page.