SEO: January 2009 Archives

If you run an Ecommerce website, then you know that it's important to make sure that your products show up in the organic search results ahead of your competitors--especially if your competitor is selling the same products. Optimizing your ecommerce web site for the search engines can be tricky at times, so we'll examine what's really required in order for your products to rank better than your competitor's products in the organic search results.

Optimizing an ecommerce site isn't that different than optimizing any other type of web site. In order for a page to rank well in the organic search results, the page needs a few things: a good title tag that includes the keywords you're targeting (typically the product name), good content on the page that includes the appropriate keywords, and links from other web pages to that web page. And in order for the page to remain in the search engines' indexes, the page cannot be a duplicate of any other page on the internet.

An Search Engine Friendly What does it mean when I say that your site is search engine friendly? I'm referring to a web site that can be easily crawled by the search engines without being restricted by cookies, redirects, session IDs, and long URLs with lots of parameters in them. To find out if your site is already search engine friendly, go to Google and perform site:www.yourdomain.com search. If you know you have 100 product pages on your web site and Google is showing all of them, great. But if Google doesn't appear to be indexing all of your product pages then there's a reason--and most of the time there are issues with the site that can be fixed.

If you have a shopping cart on your web site then you're most likely using a shopping cart that can be changed to be more search engine friendly. Many popular carts like OSCommerce, Miva, X-cart, and Monster Commerce, are already search engine friendly or include some plugin or additional features that can make it more search engine friendly. You'll need to figure out which shopping cart you're site is using and see if you're using the latest search engine optimization-related plugins or add-ons.

The URLs of your site should not include variables, parameters, or session IDs. If you have question marks in your URLs and/or if you have page URLs that change every time they're visited, then that needs to change. You should be able to pick out one product page on your site, visit that URL directly, and that page should come up--and it shouldn't change or give an error or "not found" message. Like I mentioned earlier, many of the common shopping carts include plugins or "add-ons" that will make the required changes. If you're not using these plugins or "add-ons" then you might consider installing them or moving to another shopping cart.

See the full story at: http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/archive/2006/04/10/SEO-for-Ecommerce.aspx

In our online world, a vertical directory is a Web site that focuses on one particular category of products and services. Nearly every niche has one or more good directories serving that industry.

Some simply list names, numbers, addresses, and Web sites. Others provide the opportunity to create fairly comprehensive listings where business owners can share detailed information about their enterprise and what it offers. This kind of sites are often a good place to increase your business exposure in a search engine optimization stand point.

Vertical Directories Often Rank Well

Some of the best vertical directories rank well because they publish plenty of good content on their subject, which appeals to the search engines. Having many similarly themed pages also helps them to rank for a wide variety of long-tail search terms. In addition, these content-rich sites are good resources for their users and, because of the collection of expert information they provide on their topic, people tend to bookmark them, return to them, link to them, and recommend them to others.

Choosing Directories

Choosing the right directories for your business listing doesn't have to be difficult. See which rank well for the top two or three terms for which you'd like to rank (without using location terms). For example, if you have an eye clinic, see which sites rank well for "eye exam," "eye doctor," and "optometrist." Any that appears on the first page of results in Google, especially for more than one term, are sure winners and deserve your consideration.

See which directories bid on those same terms in pay-per-click advertising because being well represented on a site that brings you targeted traffic from their advertising can often be a wise investment. Some directories bid on thousands of location plus keyword terms, so check the AdWords area of the SERPs to ferret out any that may be bidding on yours. If you run your own ads, be careful to consider where you're bidding in comparison to any directories in which you're listed, as you don't want to drive up ad prices unnecessarily.

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/clickz_email_experts/search/local_search/local/newsletter#3632349

"No more design guess." Those four simple words summarize what it means to have a site optimization program leveraging A/B or multivariate testing and behavioral targeting. Now, you can say the value isn't in reducing guesses but in maximizing site performance based on business goals. But the way we do that is to reduce guesses or gambles.

You can even get it down to three words: "no more guesses." No more guesses about design -- and many other things. If we have defined site goals, understand the impact of different behaviors on our sites and are really looking to maximize site performance, we may want to look at reducing the guesses for key pages and throughout the site in a number of areas, including:

• Visual web design

• Layout/information architecture

• Calls to action • Offers • Pricing

• Copy

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3632334

If you're a large media brand, your traffic, especially your search traffic, is probably high. But how's your traffic growth? In other words, your bosses might ask: "What have you done for us lately?" Today's column points out three tips for larger search engine marketing companies and content publishers, including what they can do to increase visibility and properly utilize the assets they've spent years developing.

Pay Attention to the Entire Keyword Curve

If you're in any sort of news organization (hard or soft news, entertainment, sports, etc.), your target keyword spectrum many include any of the following term types, as well as many more

See the full story at: http://www.clickz.com/3632277

Getting higher rankings for your targeted keywords is often cited as the main reason for online success. Here are eight simple SEO techniques that will help you improve your site's rankings in all the search engines, especially Google.

See the full story at: http://www.site-reference.com/videos/Search-Engines/8-SEO-Techniques-Every-Webmaster-Should-Know-29.html