10 replies to this topic

[tambre]

hi,

i'm not sure where to ask about optimization for an e-commerce site and i'd like to make sure i ask in the right place.

[cre8pc]

Fire away...we can always move it later, but here seems like a good place to start

[tambre]

sorry for the late reply.
is there a certain way to optimize an ecom site? considering content is huge and ecom sites don't generally have a lot of content what else can i do?
image alt tags? good cross linking? titles?

[A.N.Onym]

1. Use words your customers use (from keyword research)
2. Write customer-focused, benefit-driven descriptions.
3. Have unique page titles, precisely describing the pages
4. Link to related products, products customers also bought with this one, etc
5. Provide useful articles, posts, audios, videos and link from these pages to the shop

[Jeccles]

A.N.Onym points are all good, but you were also right in that Image Alt Tags help.

[tambre]

thank you both for your input and help

[Black_Knight]

The IMG ALT attribute isn't always a ranking factor for web search. At various times Google have been shown (in testing) to completely ignore the ALT content of an IMG tag except where that image were a hyperlink, such as with a navigation button.

The ALT attribute is therefore not at all reliable as even a contributing factor to web result SERP optimization, let alone as a central part of the entire strategy.

Anchor text of links to the page is far more important than the Alt text will ever be. Page Title, as ever, is the single highest-value 60 characters you have to fit keywords into, but aiming for 5-8 words really does tend to be optimal. An on page H1 tag, and a good description text (not meta tag, on page) that really sells the item is not only great for SEO but also is one of the biggest on-oage conversion factors there are.

There is no rule that eCommerce sites, even ones that look like catalogs, have to be devoid of text. It is called laziness in entering descriptive data. The sites that inves the effort always do better. It is called a 'value add'.

[Respree]

An ecommerce site has somewhat different characteristics than your garden variety site, although from an optimization standpoint, they are similar.

Product pages (a separate page where the product for sale is displayed) are one of those distinctions. Lazy (and non SEO oriented) E-tailers tend to post generic descriptions provided by the manufacturers, adding very little else in a majority of cases. If you've got a smaller site, adding your own high quality product description can help to increase the likelihood that someone will find your product page worth linking to.

On my art prints and poster site, on some of the higher profile artists, I've added mini biographies about the artist, linking it to a full blown biography. Not only does it provide the potential for getting found on 'alternate' search words, but it provides are more useful and enriching user experience for your potential customer.

This technique may work well with smaller sites (or similar product groupings) who offer maybe 100 or so products, but what if your site has 500,000 products or a million? It's a near impossibility to accomplish, especially if you don't want to go broke paying copywriters to provide good product descriptions for you.

I've noticed that, often times, larger sites employ the use of the community they've worked so hard to build, asking people to submit their reviews on the product. Seems to be a popular trend, although I've got mixed feelings if this content is actually helping a great deal with their rankings. It also has the potential for a bunch of people saying (yelling), "Whatever you do, don't buy this product!"

You could also upload your inventory database to places like Froogle or set up an Amazon shop (or similar), where an opportunity is provided to link to your product pages.

In short, employ whatever technique you can think of to get people (or sites) to link to your product pages.

Also, don't under estimate the power of internal linking. Create a well-written and informative page about a certain subject, one that relates to your product. Then start linking those products to that newly-created page.

I've have only a paultry few people (seven, I think) who link to my page about "canvas transfers." But I have linked more than 150,000 of my product pages to the 'canvas transfers' page. Using this technique, I've been able to achieve some decent ranking in the SERPS (my domain is the same as my nick).

Additional reading on internal linking here.
http://www.jimboykin...ternal-linking/

Hope this helps.

Edited by Respree, 24 July 2007 - 11:25 PM.

[bookworm-seo]

I was just thinking about this issue myself... Perhaps your content management system can help you out by automating some of the code-based optimization. For instance, getting the title and header tags set by pulling your product's name and category. I could see automation for the related products, and people who bought x, also bought y features.

IMHO, that would also not be too difficult to program (although i am a newb). I just mean conceptually, u have a database listing what people bought, and your php script asks what other things people bought, who bought what ur looking at. n the database answers...

[helruna]

We found using upcoming items on the front page helped with SEO as well as posting customer reviews or comments for new items. You will need an admin based CMS to edit the views of commentors, but it worked well. Having PDF's and your brochure and copies of your newsletters on your site somewhere is a benefit, especially if there's articles contained within the newsletter.

We used OS Commerce but we had to do a lot of development around it, including security patching but it's a recommended basis for simple ecommerce sites.

Otherwise the advice above is very good!

[tambre]

i know this reply is late and probably bad form to revive the topic, but i lost track of it and i wanted to say thank you to Black Knight, Respree, Bookworm-seo and helruna whose input was all very helpful for me.

thanks again guys!