SEO for eCommerce Part Two: Poor Site Structure

September 1, 2010 By Dustin Williams Leave a Comment

You have been waiting for it all summer and now it is finally here! My follow up post to SEO for eCommerce Part One: Content Woes. Before I go into details on the next biggest problem with eCommerce sites and search indexing, I will take a few minutes to reply to some of the questions that were asked after the last post.

Question: Can you copy website content and then edit it?

Yes you can copy website content and edit it. If you edit the content that was copied enough, then it will become unique content and can be used on your website.

Question: What do I recommend for link building to eCommerce sites that don’t have real linkable content?

The trick to getting links is to generate content that is “linkable.” Content can be generated through blogs, articles, buyer’s guides and knowledge bases. These types of features on eCommerce sites are great for building “linkable” content and they can also help you stand out as the expert in your industry.

Question: How different do the descriptions have to be?

Sometimes all it takes is some rewording of a couple of sentences to make product descriptions unique enough. One easy way to get unique content is to read the manufacturer’s description and then write it from your memory. In most cases you will not be able to remember everything word for word and your version will be different enough from the manufacturer’s.

Thank you everyone for your questions and comments. Now I am going to describe the next problem that occurs frequently with eCommerce websites: poor site structure.

Poor Site Structure

The problem of poor site structure occurs with eCommerce sites when the navigation of the site makes it difficult for search engine crawlers to find the product pages of the website. Standard eCommerce website designs will employ a category and subcategory system that helps the visitor to browse by narrowing their options until they find what they are looking for. The flaw in such a system is that it requires that a search engine crawler travel too deep into the site to find the product pages.

How do You Know if a Crawler is Traveling too Deep?

One indicator is the Page Rank score of the page. You can find the Page Rank score of any page on a website by simply visiting the page with the Google toolbar installed on your browser. Pages that are not too deep will usually have a Page Rank score. There are other factors that could cause a page to not have a Page Rank score so this indicator isn’t 100% reliable. My rule of thumb for determining if a page is too deep is to count how many pages I have to visit before getting to the product page. If it is more than three pages deep then it is too deep for the search engine crawler.

How do You Correct the Site Structure?

The simple answer to the question about correcting the site structure is to tell you to make your product pages no more than 3 pages deep. But I know that this isn’t always a simple fix. Some websites are huge with millions of products. Creating a site structure that consists of one level of categories and then the products would create pages with thousands of links. This is where it will require a carefully planned link structure.

  • Code the main site navigation using SEO friendly CSS so that you can include expanding sub-navigation menus.
  • Include featured product links on the homepage and main category pages of the site to promote better indexing of popular products.
  • Use blog posts, articles and buyer’s guides to link to specific product pages.
  • Add a quick bookmarking widget to your product pages so they can easily be bookmarked and shared on social networking sites.
  • Include an HTML sitemap (or multiple sitemaps depending on the size of the website).

The main thing to remember with site structure is that you want to make it easy for both a search engine crawler and a customer to find any product you sell on your website. Go through your site and see how easy it is for you to find your products. Ask friends and other family members to do the same. They can give you good feedback and help you find places you could change to make your eCommerce site both user and search engine friendly.

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4 Reasons Why the 301 is a Must

August 25, 2010 By David Malmborg Leave a Comment

Debate Follow-up: The Necessity of the 301

Photo by B Tal on flickr


Thank you to everyone that participated in my debate. It’s always fun to have people discuss some of the basics.

For those who missed the first post, here is the debate: Are 301 redirects of the non-www version of the site needed, or still considered best practice? If not, what do you recommend? Is the Canonical replacing the need for the 301?

After reading the responses and looking further into the situation, I’m going to share 4 reasons the 301 redirect of the www/non-www is a must.

Get robots to the right address

One of the fundamental elements in search engine optimization is making the indexation of a website as easy as possible. That is why we create the Robots.txt file and the XML sitemap. I think the 301 redirect of the non-www to the www or visa-versa, is on the same level of creating ease for the search engines.

Many expressed this, and I agree that the search engines are getting smarter and don’t need the redirect in place to understand what is going on. However, I am a believer that you are rewarded for making their job easier. There are other ways to help the Google and Bing know which version of the site is correct — Webmaster Tools being one. However, nothing is more telling to the search engine then the 301 redirect. Why make the search engines guess?

Links to the Right Address

There are many who worry about not getting the full link juice of redirected anchor text links. However, I think Kris Roadruck hit the nail on the head in his comment when he said, “Doing [the redirect] can help would-be linkers know which is the proper address to use when linking.”

Many times when I build a link for my blog or for a client, I simply copy and paste the URL straight out of the address bar. If the 301 redirect isn’t in place, there is know way to tell if you should build links to the www or non-www version of the site. Even if you believe the link juice doesn’t get divided between the different versions of the site, getting the right link from the beginning is still ideal and should prove to be more beneficial.

Where the Link Juice Flows

Having the canonical in place is not a good enough solution to simply replace the 301. If you are skeptical of the link juice being passed through a 301, than I would think that you would be even more skeptical of the link juice that passes through a canonical tag.

The canonical makes for a good safety net overall — if you forget to redirect the /index.html or something to the home page, for example. But when it comes to how the search engines treat a canonical, I tend to be just as leery as Ian Lurie. For one, the canonical tag is newer to search. Not all engines are treating the canonical equally. Sure Google says its almost equal to a 301, but that isn’t how Bing sees it.

And Quick Note on Branding

This may not relate exactly to the debate, but since I received a comment about it from Bill French I thought I would talk about the topic of branding. Although Bill may be correct that the non-www version of the site is cleaner, and the www is no longer necessary, I really believe that having the www in place will be more beneficial for link building purposes.

This is why: like I said before, I copy and paste almost all of my URLs from the address bar. However, when it is a top level domain, and I’m pretty confident in its spelling, I’ll type them out. I am so ingrained in typing the www into the hyperlink, I rarely go back to check if it is right or not. Once again link juice aside, you probably have a better chance of getting exact links to the site when you use the www.

En Fin

Overall, the 301 is such a simple thing to implement, that I can’t see why anyone would not put it in place. Overall, I think the pros of redirecting the non-www version of the site to the www out weigh the cons.

Special Thank You

I wanted to give a special thanks to all those that participated in the debate (Nothing says thank you like a link):
Kris Roadruck
Ash Buckles
Rick Hardman
Matt Siltala
Andy (Didn’t provide me a link)
Jill Whalen
Hugo from Zetaq
David Leonhardt
Sam McRoberts
Jacob Stoops
Kelly Hammer
Bill French
John Andrews
knutselen
Michael @ Email Marketing

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3 Conversion Busters You Can Easily Fix Today

August 5, 2010 By Josh Summerhays Leave a Comment

frustrated man looking in the fridgeI review several websites every week, analyzing them from the perspective of usability and overall ability to converting traffic to customers/leads.

While a fair amount of businesses out there are getting their act together where online user experience is concerned, I’m constantly amazed by the huge amount of low-hanging conversion optimization fruit still out there on the Dubya-Dubya-Dub.

So I wanted to do you all a favor and give you a quick checklist of simple changes you can make this very day to make life a little bit (or possibly a lotta bit) better for your website visitors, allowing them to more easily give you money:

1. Remove distracting internal links

The fun thing about working with a whole bunch of SEOs (I’m the Conversion guy, remember) is that I get to throw out conversion tips that make SEOs nervous. Part of my job is to point out where SEO tactics are snuffing out conversion, and this is a frequent offender in that regard.

Not all internal links are distracting and should be removed. That would be ridiculous. However, sometimes marketers overdo it and start linking instances of their keyword in places where you wouldn’t want people clicking away from a given page.

Unsurprisingly, some of the most egregious offenders are SEO providers. A cursory examination of the top 10 Google results for any SEO-related keyword will reveal some overzealous linking practices that will have the humans visiting your site – you know, the ones with money to give you – scratching their heads.

For example, one company’s homepage (no screenshot – it’s not how we roll) talks about performance-based SEO work, but before you can even finish one sentence, they have a text link (“guarantee services”) to take you away from the page. Are they really in that big of a hurry to usher me off the page? Of course not – it’s for SEO value, but it’s also potentially tripping up visitors and raising questions that don’t need to be asked, like:

  • “Am I not already reading about your guarantee?”
  • “Is this guarantee different than the one you’re telling me about?”
  • “Is this going to be that complicated that I need to read about this now before I finish on the homepage?”
  • “I’m bugged. What should I get for lunch today?”

Here’s a simple test to see if you might have done this inadvertantly on your website: go read your website copy. When you get to a text link in your copy, ask yourself:

  • Is this link interrupting the conversation?
  • Is it well-timed?
  • Is there a more useful place for this link on this page?
  • When I put this link in originally, was I in a linking frenzy?
  • Do my visitors need the information on the other end of this link before proceeding?

The answers to these questions should indicate whether this link might be counterproductive for your visitors.

Once this post makes it through editorial, it may have a bunch of links and make me look like an idiot, but I’m saying it anyway!

2. Strike down the CAPTCHA

The technology exists for you to filter leads in the background and eliminate spammy leads from your database automatically.

So why in the name of the Ringling Brothers are you still making your site visitors – who have money to give you – jump through hoops to prove that they are humans and not spambots?

Take down the CAPTCHA. Now. Please. Deal with a sprinkling of spam leads until you can get a better solution in place. Your conversion rate will thank you.

3. Link your header logo to the homepage

I still see sites that don’t do this. Huge mistake.

Clicking the logo to get back to the homepage is a usability convention that people get. It’s big and it’s always there. If a visitor wants to switch gears, it’s the easiest way to reset his/her approach to browsing your site. If someone gets stuck and your logo isn’t clickable, it may be the last straw that gets him/her off the computer and looking through the fridge, muttering in frustration.

You might be asking, “Why is this so important? Isn’t it enough to have a “Home” link in my navigation?”

My reply is, Why not do it? Some people will use the “Home” link, but a large portion of your visitors will expect to use the logo. You win both ways, and your site design doesn’t change a bit.

Don’t let them go to the fridge! Link your logo to the homepage and give them another chance to give you money.

~~~~~~

SEO.com has a crack team of conversion experts that can help you convert more of your online traffic into sales – learn more about our conversion optimization services today.


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18 Simple SEO Items Commonly Missed in Web Development

July 21, 2010 By Dan Patterson Leave a Comment

Web Development SEO TipsOne of the things we constantly have to do as SEO experts is give recommendations to companies on how they need to change their site so that they can be better optimized.

The sad thing is that a lot of the things we recommend should have been done during the Web development phase the first time around.

No matter how much the SEO world tries to get the information out there, a lot of Web developers don’t understand the basic concepts of SEO. This in turn leads to sites being developed that an SEO team will later have to tear apart and fix.

So whether you’re designing a new site in-house, using some kind of template site-building system, or hiring an outside firm, here are 18 things that you’ll want to make sure are in place before you launch your site. It will keep us SEO guys from giving your site an overhaul later. By following these guidelines you’ll have a much more search engine friendly web design from the beginning.

1- Perform Keyword Research Before Developing the Site

SEO starts with keywords. And if you’re planning to market your site in the search engines, you should know what keywords you want to rank for before you even start building the site. Make sure this is done FIRST.

Here are some other posts that talk about how to properly do keyword research:

2- Put Non-www to www Redirects in Place

It amazes me how many sites load with and without the www in the URL. The problem with this is that it creates an automatic duplicate of your site, and can waste a lot of link value as people link to both versions. Decide which version of your URLs you want to use, then 301 redirect everything else to the preferred version.

3- Use a Static, Keyword Based URL Structure

Dynamic URLs can cause a lot of problems if not handled right. So rather than going through all of the headache that they cause us SEO-types, just set your site up with good URL rewrites so that you don’t have dynamic URLs in the first place.

More posts about URLs:

4- Have Unique URLs for Each Product/Service

Even if a product or service can be found multiple ways on the site, make sure that there is only one unique URL for each product or service your company offers. This helps to eliminate unnecessary duplicate content problems.

5- Include Redirect Capabilities

You never know when you’re going to want to take a page down and redirect it to something else. The mistake a lot of sites make is that they just take a page down when they don’t need it any more. When this happens you lose the link value that page may have gained while it was live. So do yourself a favor: make sure you can 301 redirect that old page to a new page that can use the juice.

6- Create a Custom 404 Page

Having a custom 404 page makes it so that if someone lands on a 404 page, they at least know they’ve reached the right site. Without a custom 404 in place, they may just assume the site is down and move on to your competitor’s site.

Here is an example of a custom 404 page:

Custom 404

7- Include Keyword-Rich Alt Attributes

Alt attributes are very easy to overlook. But if you use them the right they can be another signal to the search engines to tell them what a page is about. One quick tip on this one: don’t abuse this attribute by using a keyword phrase on every single bullet point image or stuffing a bunch of keywords into the attribute.

8- Make Room for Sufficient Content

Sometimes designers and developers get carried away with the look and feel of the page and forget to include room for text-based content. That’s what the search engines read, so you have to make sure there is a logical place for that content. Ideally, plan on having at least 150-200 words of optimized content on any page you want to rank well.

You should also make sure that your content is structured right. Have one H1 tag at the top of the main content, and then break out other sub topics with H2-H6 tags as appropriate. Make sure to use your keywords in these headings and in the content, but once again don’t overdo it.

9- Set Up Internal Linking Structure

I think that internal linking is one of the most commonly overlooked things for most sites. In fact, Ken Lyons wrote a great post about it that goes into more detail than I can in this post: Want More Link Juice? Here’s an Easy Way to Get It

10- Decide on a Consistent Title Structure

A site should use the same title structure throughout the site. Pick your convention and stick with it. A good format to follow is to have a phrase that includes main keywords for the page and describes what the page is about, followed by a separator (- or | are common), and then your brand name. For example, “Professional SEO Services for Organic Website Optimization | SEO.com”. Keep these titles to under 65-70 characters so they don’t get truncated in the search results.

11- Include Meta Descriptions on Every Page

Since most of the search engines can choose to use your meta description as your snippet in the search results, you should have a unique one written for every page. Include the main keywords and a call to action to encourage clicks. DON’T just make this tag a list of keywords.

12- Allow Inclusion for Other Meta Tags (canonical, robots, etc.)

If you’re using any kind of tracking codes or other things on your site that create duplicate URLs, you’re going to want to be able to include a canonical tag on those pages. Also, depending on how your site is built you may need to include other meta tags like a robots tag and others. Make sure your site’s back end allows for this when necessary.

13- Incorporate Social Media Sharing Buttons

In case you missed it, social media is a pretty big thing right now. I’m not a big fan of the generic ShareThis button, but you need to have some kind of social media sharing buttons on your products and other important pages. Do some research to decide which social networks are best for your site and then stick with those.

More general information about social media:

14- Install Analytics Tracking

If you don’t have any kind of analytics tracking installed, you have no way to tell where you traffic is coming from, what’s working, and lots of other crucial information. Pick a solution and get it installed. Popular ones include:

Make sure that the software you go with will allow you to block your office IP address, track conversions, ecommerce revenues generated through different online sources, and anything else that will help you to understand what is actually affecting your bottom line.

15- Set up and Verify Webmaster Tools Account

Through Google Webmaster Tools you can find out a lot about how Google sees your site, and can give them indications on how to handle certain parameters, submit your XML sitemap, and be notified of problems they find with your site. Bing’s Webmaster Center is coming along, so it’s worth it to go ahead and verify that one as well.

16- Follow Web Standards for HTML, CSS, and Database Programming

The more you follow standards, the easier it will be for someone else to come along later and make changes or modify the site. It’s a real problem when a site’s backend code or database is so complex that it has to be rebuilt later in order for it to be changed.

17- Generate an XML Sitemap

It only takes a few minutes to do it, but once the site is live make sure you create and XML sitemap and submit it to the major search engines through their webmaster tools accounts. It’s even better if you can set this up so that it automatically updates and pings the search engines whenever a change is made.

18- Create a Robots.txt File

When you create your robots.txt file make sure that you are disallowing any pages or directories that you don’t want the search engines crawling. Standard examples would be login pages, search results pages, and shopping cart pages. You should also include a link to your XML sitemap as well. Also, make sure you test this file in your Google Webmaster Tools account to make sure it is working correctly.

Here’s a great site that talks more in detail about how to create a robots.txt file: About /robots.txt

If you follow these 18 guidelines you’ll launch a site that is in great shape as far as SEO is concerned. If you’re an SEO, feel free to add anything else to this list in the comments.

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SEO for eCommerce Part One: Content Woes

June 3, 2010 By Dustin Williams Leave a Comment

ECommerce website optimization and search engine optimization strategies are very similar to other types of websites. However, there are some common mistakes that prevent eCommerce sites from achieving top search engine rankings for their targeted search terms. The focus of my next few blog posts will be on these common mistakes starting with the biggest one: too little or no unique content.

We’ve Heard it Before — Content is King

Search engines rely on website content to determine what search terms a specific page of a site should rank for. The search engines use “crawlers” to read content in various elements of Web pages, and then use an algorithm to rank the page based on that content. Problems occur when the only content on the site is the generic product descriptions that have been copied from different manufacture sites.

The Conflict

ECommerce sites that lack unique content cause a conflict for the search engines try to rank the pages of the website. The conflict occurs as the search engine crawlers discover several pages that are very similar, with the only difference being the type of products displayed on the page. The images and brief generic descriptions simply don’t offer enough information to help the crawlers know what the pages are about. In the end, the similar pages of the site cause the website to never get top rankings for any relevant keywords.


An end to the Conflict — Unique Content is the Real King

The way to end the conflict is to add unique content to the pages of the website. If you have a product category page with several sub-categories linked from it, a couple of paragraphs of content will be the only thing that will let the search engines know that page is different from the sub-categories.

Don’t be afraid to push the products down to allow space for a couple hundred words of content. Pushing the products down will have little to no effect on conversion. Without the content, the page will not be able to rank well and there will be no visitors to convert.

If you have featured products at the top of the page and don’t want to push them down, then break up your content. Include a couple sentences at the top and place the rest of the content below the products.

Final Thought

It is very easy to copy product descriptions from manufacturer websites and past them on to the product pages of your site. However, if you take the time to write your own product descriptions, the end result is well worth it. Copying product descriptions is quick and easy, but the search engines know which website had the content first. If your competitors write their own descriptions, and you copy the manufacturer’s descriptions, you will never rank better than your competitors for the best converting keywords — the product specific keywords.

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