Yoast meta descriptions for WooCommerce product pages

The meta description is the snippet of text Google shows under your page title in search results. For WooCommerce product pages, it’s usually the first thing a potential customer reads before clicking.

Yoast SEO lets you write a custom meta description per product, or use a template with variables that auto-populate across your catalogue.

Character limit for meta descriptions in Yoast

Yoast’s meta description field turns orange at 120 characters and green between 120-156 characters. Google typically shows up to 155-160 characters on desktop, less on mobile.

Practical WooCommerce guidance: aim for 140-155 characters. Include your primary keyword naturally. End with an action signal (“Free delivery over $100” or “Made to order in Sydney”) if you have space.

Setting meta descriptions for WooCommerce products

Per-product: scroll to the Yoast SEO meta box on any product edit page → “Google preview” tab → edit the meta description field directly.

Using WooCommerce variables in templates: Yoast supports snippet variables for product pages. Useful ones:

• %%product_cat%% — inserts the primary product category
• %%excerpt%% — inserts the WooCommerce short description
• %%wc_price%% — inserts the product price
• %%title%% — inserts the product name

Bulk editing: Yoast’s bulk editor (Yoast SEO → Tools → Bulk editor) lets you edit meta descriptions across multiple products without opening each product individually.

When to write custom vs template-based descriptions

Custom descriptions for: top-revenue products, highly competitive keywords, products with a specific unique selling point to communicate.

Template-based descriptions for: large catalogues (500+ products) where writing per-product descriptions isn’t feasible. A good template: “%%title%% — %%product_cat%% at [store name]. %%wc_price%% · [your USP].”

AI-generated meta descriptions

Yoast Premium includes AI-generated meta description suggestions. Asteris for WooCommerce’s AI Suite module does the same via your own API key (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, or OpenRouter) — no monthly limits from Asteris, you pay the AI provider directly.

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