Tuesday, August 10, 2010
E-Commerce SEO
Search engine optimization is a trick used by webmasters across the world to help boost their websites' rank in a search engine's natural search results. There are two ways that a site can be listed on a search results page, either with paid search or organic search. Paid search involves paying the search engine company to have an ad linking to your website displayed in the special area designated for advertisements. Organic search refers to listings of websites that is displayed naturally when a user does a search for a relevant term. SEO only helps to improve your organic search results.
Unlike paid search, SEO results are not instantaneous, but you will discover that it is very helpful for your website in the long run. Unlike other sites, e-commerce sites are considered the hardest to optimize for in the search engines. This is caused by an inefficient amount of unique content. Search engines focus on sites with a lot of content that is both original and detailed. E-commerce websites are just the opposite of that, they are composed primarily of product images and do not offer a great deal of detailed descriptions. For online buyers, a picture is worth a thousand words and they are more likely to make a purchase based on how the product looks. Product descriptions often lack detail, it is common for most online stores to just use the manufacturer's description when talking about a product. In addition to that, the internal linking structure is weak and more focus is placed on the back end as most e-commerce sites use a shopping cart application to place their products online. Therefore, online stores are not typically ranked very well in the search engines.
If you already have an ecommerce business or plan on starting one, do not lose faith, there is still hope for you. There are actually many e-commerce SEO tricks that will help improve the search engine ranking of your website. Below is a breakdown of all the different techniques you must use if you want to have a well optimized, search engine friendly online store.
E-Commerce SEO Meta Tags
Meta Title - this is the title that only the search engines can see, it can be the same as the on page title or different, but must have the most relevant keywords describing the product
Meta Description - this is the description that only the search engines can see, it can either be the same as the on page description or different, make sure it is detailed and describe exactly how the product looks like and how it functions
Meta Keywords - the keywords that only the search engines can see, it's used as tags to describe the item, use only the most relevant keywords
E-Commerce SEO URLs
Dynamic Static HTML Pages - these are pages that have relevant keywords in the urls instead of generic numbers or product id, make sure that each of your product, category and content pages have their own unique and descriptive urls
Canonical Tags - these are tags which are used to eliminate duplicate content that has been created by having multiple entries of the same page
On Page E-Commerce SEO Elements
Header Tags - use these tags when writing page or product titles, it highlights the keywords to help let the search engines understand that they are important
Keywords - relevant keywords should be used on all the pages so that you are able to describe exactly what is on the page
Unique Description - make sure you have unique content that cannot be found on any other online store which is selling the same exact product
Alt & Title Tags - these tags should be added to all of your images so that not only will you be discovered through regular search results but also on image search
Other Important E-Commerce SEO Factors
Breadcrumb Navigation - on page text navigation that adds internal linking structure that is much needed on an ecommerce site
Google XML Sitemap - informs Google of each and every page on your site and alerts them of new content so they do not forget to go back and crawl your website
It is crucial that you make use of all of these e-commerce SEO elements throughout your online store. Some of these little changes can have a major effect and edge you ahead of your competition so don't overlook their significance. It's a long term strategy that will gradually help to increase your traffic and revenue.
To hire a professional SEO consultant will cost a great deal of money. Doing it yourself is both time consuming and technical. Why bother wasting money and time when you can have your ecommerce website built and optimized without all of the effort or putting a dent in your wallet. Discover how you can easily implement ecommerce SEO into your own online store.
What you need is a full service all-in-one hosting, design, and marketing software made specifically for e-commerce businesses. One that lets you set up your store in minutes, and provides powerful tools to help with SEO, product marketing and mobile commerce. Check out the best possible e-commerce solutions available at http://www.makeanonlinestore.com and try them out yourself absolutely free, no credit card required!
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