the ultimate guide to seo for e-commerce websitesintroduction - the ultimate guide to seo for...
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The Ultimate Guide toSEO for E-commerceWebsites
| whitepaper
www.| Search
Your WebSite
| - The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce WebsitesINTRODUCTION 1
Introduction
Organic search represents an important source of traffic for
any website. This is why the main role of SEO is to use
common search phrases related to a specific subject to rank
your website among those top results.
SEO has become so important and pervasive that the
website that doesn't utilize its techniques is destined to fail.
Basic SEO can be done by anyone, although for a top
Google ranking, it pays to work with an experienced SEO
service.
97%
of users pick a resulton the first 4 results onthe first results page
So What Does SEO Mean!
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is the process of driving more traffic to your website from search engines. Search engines help
people find information on the web by matching their searches with the most relevant, best
quality results.
SEO is about improvinga site's organic, or naturalranking.
How many of your Google search result pages do you typically look throughbefore choosing a result? Almost 97% of the population click on one of thefirst 4 results on the first page.
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Search queries - the words that users type into the search box
are of extraordinary value to a successful SEO strategy. An important aspect of SEO is making
your website easy for both users and search engine robots to understand. Even though search
engines have become increasingly smart, they can't understand a web page the same way a
human does. SEO allows engines to identify what each page is about, and how it may be
useful.
Your Website
Keyword
button
Why does your website need SEO?
Although social media and other
types of traffic can generate visits to
your website, the major commercial
search engines—Google, Bing and
Yahoo!—drive the majority of web
traffic.
| - The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce WebsitesWHY DOES YOUR WEBSITE NEED SEO? 2
Traffic Sources 51% Organic Search
34% All Other
10% Paid Search
5% Social
Source: Brightedge
- Selecting the best keywords on which to establish each of your pages
- Communicating to search engines that your page revolves around those keywords
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What is On-Page SEO?
IMPORTANT!
Any salesman knows that sales are about numbers. You might only sellone product for every 30 people who visit your website, but if you're bringingin 100,000 unique page views per month, the sales potential of your SEOefforts becomes clear.
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- The title element of a web page creates value in three specific areas -
relevancy, browsing and the search engine results pages - by providing an accurate and
concise description of a page's content. This element is critical to both user experience and
SEO. Google increases the font size of result titles from 16px to 18px and removes underlining,
while keeping the overall container the same size. As a result, the title tags become cleaner
and easier to read. At the same time, increasing the font size reduces the number of characters
that appear before truncation.Look at the following search result both before and after the
new implementation.
The Title Tag
On-page SEO refers to factors that optimize a website or a web page such that it becomes
friendlier to search engines. This technique includes the optimization of texts, images, tags,
URL structures, internal links, headers and other forms of content. Basically, on-page SEO
means:
SEO efforts are critical to the success of the online marketing. Search engine ranking factors
can be divided as follows: On page & Off page factors
| - The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce WebsitesON-PAGE SEO 3
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The title on the top (old design)is presented in full, while afterthe redesign (bottom), the titlehas lost a crucial 9 characters.The challenge is to create a newset of guidelines for title taglength.
- If the title is kept under 55 characters, you can
expect at least 95% of your titles to display properly. Over the years, the most common advice
was to keep title tags under 70 characters. After recent changes, however, it has been
established that title tags are best kept under a width of 512 pixels, which means 55 to 60
characters. Google search results use the proportional Arial font, so that thin characters, like 1
or I, consume less space than fat characters, like 5 or M. Google always uses pixels, but the
character count is an easy way to understand conversion.
Here are the basic best practices for title tags:
- Keep your title tags under 512 pixels in width, generally 55 to 60 characters
- Use your keywords as close to the beginning as possible
- Make your title tags readable
- If you include a brand in the title tags, place your brand at the end of the title tag
unless it is a well-known brand that people seek out
- Make your title tags unique
Optimal Length for Search Engines
IMPORTANT!
The page title is one of the most important objects evaluated by Googleand other search engines in order to determine what is on a web page.Put your keywords or phrases in the title, and keep it as short aspossible.
- Meta descriptions present a major opportunity to separate
yourself from the competitors and convince searchers that your page is worth navigating to.
Having a relevant, compelling meta description can mean the difference between a searcher
who clicks through to your page and one who clicks elsewhere. By writing a compelling text,
you can increase the click-through rate for your organic search results. Also, it is
important to use a short “call to action” in your meta description.
Page Meta Description
Search Results
An Important Title Tag Goes Here In Full
An Important Title Tag Goes Her..
| - The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce WebsitesON-PAGE SEO 4
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Once you've had keywordssuggested to you, and you haveoutlined your informationarchitecture and settled onkeyword targets for a page, youcan receive intelligent ad textsuggestions for a set of keywords.
An Important Title Tag Here
Meta Description lines that should contain
your keywords or a set of keywords.
theweblink.com/ - Cached - Similar
Search Results
We cannot simply use a list of targeted keywords as our meta description, but in creating meta
descriptions, these keywords are a good indicator of what people will be searching for. We can
now use the same language as the searcher in crafting our meta description.
Google and other search engines bold keywords in the description when they match search
queries. Take this into consideration in order to maximize click-through rates on search engine
result pages.
- In its most basic form, SEO is about tinkering with your content to make it
attractive to search engines. That's why page content is an essential factor for ranking in search
engine. The first step is selecting the right keywords—the words or phrases that people are
most likely to enter into a search engine if they are looking for your content—then using them
throughout what you write. When Google indexes your website, it detects the keywords you've
used and how you've used them, and ranks your content (in part) on that basis. That ranking is
what determines if your content shows up on the first page of Google results from keyword
searches, or on the fifty-first.
Relevancy, search volume and keyword difficulty are vital when it comes to optimizing the
most important pages of a site. Search for keywords that are highly relevant to your brand and
products.
Do not use keywords that are too broad or too competitive. Broad keywords can result in a
high bounce rate and low conversion rate because visitors may not find the specific
information they are looking for. Also, using keywords that are widely used or competitive
makes it hard to achieve a high ranking.
Page Content
TIP:
Over-optimization doesn't work!Keyword stuffing is a surefire recipe for SEO disaster.
| - The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce WebsitesON-PAGE SEO 5
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General statisctics for keywords
keyword
search volume
results
competition
keyword difficulty
trends
seo tools
45%
10.100
medium
62%
+
free seo
81%
150.000
high
70%
-
April May June July August Sep... | | | | |
01000
10000
100000
200000
|
|
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-8k
Trends for free seo
Keywords should not be repeated over and over in the content of the page. Using keywords
unnaturally in the content does not increase rankings. The main goal of creating relevant
content is to meet the expectations of the searcher. The quality of your content is why they
clicked through to your page, so don't assault them with “over-optimized” content.
One of the most important aspects of on-page SEO is to use keywords for which users might
be searching. This is how you can attract potential customers that are using Google, Bing or
other search engines.
Check out your competitors. Create a list with keywords that your competitors are using with
their SEO Strategy. Also, check their Domain Authority (DA) and Page Authorities (PA)—you
can do that by installing the free Moz Toolbar. Higher DA's or PA's among your competitors
suggest that focusing can help you identify keywords with a higher success probability.
- The header text, or H1 text, is usually the title of an article or some large,
bold text at the top of your page. Search engines put extra importance on the keywords in the
H1 text. The H2 tag is a subheading, and should contain keywords similar to your H1 tag.
H1 & H2 Tags
- Keywords in the image names and in the alternative text that
appears when the mouse hovers over an image offer more opportunities to help the search
engines understand what the page is about.
Consider the 'search image' feature in major search engines like Google. Images are an
important part of building a successful ecommerce business, most notably for attracting
shoppers searching Google images to reducing site load time. Reducing the file sizes of your
images improves time to load, but you should maintain the quality of the image as well. Most
customers wait about 3 seconds for a website to load on a desktop or laptop, and images
count for most of the downloaded bytes on a web page. Google uses page load time as a
factor in their ranking algorithm; this is why loading time is an important aspect of SEO.
Image optimization
| - The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce WebsitesINTERNAL LINKS 6
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- are links that go from one page to another page within a domain.
Use internal link building because:
- it allows searchers to navigate a website
- it helps establish an information hierarchy for the given website
- it helps spread link juice around websites
Internal links
IMPORTANT!
Don't use internal links for all your pages! Google will see this assuspicious. Place internal links as naturally as possible and use a varietyof anchor text.
What should internal link building look like?
- the anchor text should include keywords that are relevant
to the content.
Create relevant anchor text
Best Practices
- Anchor text should be used both internally and externally and should
be built using a wide variety of words. Try to make those words as natural as possible—they
could be generic (click here); branded (eSkill online skills testing); or generic, with a keyword
(click here for eSkill online skills testing). Try to keep a mixture of these types and cover a large
range of keywords when linking to other sites, or your site's inner pages to avoid getting an
unnatural link warnings.
Use Anchor Text
- provide an in-depth explanation of the linked keyword or phrase
on the destination page of the link. To get the most out of internal linking, you can select one
relevant page for which you're trying to rank in the SERPs, and always link to that page in your
internal links.
Link to strong pages
IMPORTANT!
SERP = search engine results page; is the list of results that a searchengine returns in response to a specific word or phrase query.
Depending on the number of web pages that contain a particular word or phrase, a SERP
might show anywhere from zero (in the case of no matches at all) to millions of items. For
example, entering the phrase "complex-number admittance" into the Google search engine
yields few results. In contrast, entering the single word "hurricane" yields millions of results.
| - The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce WebsitesINTERNAL LINKS 7
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In most cases, search engine users will look at only the first one to three pages of hits (results).
Web designers and site owners use SEO methods to make their sites and pages appear at or
near the top of a SERP
IMPORTANT!
Be engaged in your linking: Be consistent in your efforts to rank for aspecific keyword or phrase by linking to the same page. If you continuallylink to different pages, your link becomes half as useful.
- crawlers read the anchor text and the words
around it. Provide relevant, naturally flowing keywords near the linked copy to optimize search
engine results.
Place relevant content around the link
| - The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce WebsitesSITE ARCHITECTURE 8
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IMPORTANT!
It is essential to organize products in an ecommerce store by categoryand sub-category, based on topics and sub-topics, in a way that isreflected in your URL hierarchy.
Site architecture is a critical component of an ecommerce site and shouldbe a priority from the beginning of your SEO developments.
Site Architecture
This involves designing a site that requires as few clicks as possible from your home page to
your product page. By creating a flat architecture for your website, you'll allow your link
juice—or, authority from your homepage—to be passed to your product page via internal
links.
The process of providing an effective site architecture for an ecommerce SEO project begins
with organizing your URL structure and the manner in which products are categorized and
organized in your ecommerce store. If you don't have a site architecture strategy and your
structure has products arranged in a haphazard manner, as opposed to logical categories or
sub-topics, your link structure will not be effective from an SEO standpoint. Burying products
within multiple sub-categories makes the site both tedious to navigate and hinders search
engine crawling.
Using flat site architecture brings two main advantages:
- Revealing the most relevant content for users and reducing the
number of times they have to click to find it allows you to keep your
potential customers engaged on your site.
- Make potential gains in indexation metrics, such as the number of
pages generating search engine traffic and the number of pages in a
search engine index.
IMPORTANT!
Link juice is a colloquial term in the SEO world that refers to the poweror equity passed to a site via links from external or internal sources. Thispower is interpreted as a vote of recommendation toward your site and isone of the most important factors in determining your site's search ranking.
| - The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce WebsitesSITE ARCHITECTURE 9
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Search engine optimization requires good site architecture. It offers the possibility for both
users and search engines to easily find content throughout your site. Using logical categories
or sub-topics will allow you to link pages to other pages on the same topic.
On the one hand, with a good structure, your effective content and your site's structure can be
used to spread some of that “link juice” to the other pages on your site. The key is using the
quality content you've written to boost the search engine rankings of your sales pages. On the
other hand, creating the right URLs for the pages within the site architecture help people
remember your URL and link to it. This increases the ability of your site to rank more in the
search engine.
A challenge that ecommerce sites encounter is managing the number of levels within the
product catalogue. A balance should be kept between a short-intuitive click path and the
depth of category classification that can allow users to easily find the needed products.
While ecommerce sites with a small product range can more easily find this balance, large
ecommerce sites that have thousands of products require more strategic knowledge. Next we
will take a look at the influence of site architecture.
Homepage
Main Section
01
Main Section
02
Main Section
04
Main Section
03 AC
01 02 03 04
B
C
AB
index page
site index
content
| - The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce WebsitesSITE ARCHITECTURE 10
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IMPORTANT!
Create a flat site architecture that requires no more than3 clicks to reach the deepest level!
Flat site architecture brings
some important advantages:
- It has been proven that pages buried deep in
the architecture are not able to receive enough link juice when ranked by a search engine.
Creating a flat site architecture means increasing the number of links on each page and
reducing the number of clicks to the deepest level of content.
Better strategy: flat site architecture
To get all the way to the end result, users and
search engines are expected to embark on a 6-
click descent. This represents poor site architecture.
Pages that are deeply buried in the architecture are
more likely to:
- have fewer internal links
- be less visible in search engine results,
and regarded as less important
- be low indexed
Poor strategy: deep site architecture Authority 1
Authority 2
Authority 3
Authority 4
Authority 5
Authority 6
Authority 7
0 / homepage
1 / page 1 / page 1 / page
2 / section 2 / section 2 / section 2 / section
3 / content 3 / content 3 / content 3 / content 3 / content
- boosts site ranking
- ensures pages remain in the search engine index
- strengthens the homepage
- allows quick access to any page
| - The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce WebsitesSITE ARCHITECTURE 11
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- Infinite scroll is a functionality that loads content
automatically as the user scrolls down. The page expands vertically until all products are
displayed and the page ends. Pages with infinite scroll are often appreciated by users but not
so much by Google spiders. The problem is that search engine spiders cannot scroll to the
bottom of a page in response to users' habits when searching for more content.
Infinite scroll will by default serve the search engine spider the first page of results, and nothing
more. This becomes an issue when lots of great content may never be indexed by a search
engine, as there is no other mechanism to serve as a path to that content. The site that uses
infinite scroll has content that is simply not seen by search engine spiders and therefore will not
make it into the respective search engine results listings.
Infinite Scroll Search Issues
IMPORTANT!
Create an infinite scroll page and a series of pages that go along with theinfinite scroll page so search engines can crawl individual items linkedfrom the page. Each component page should contain a full URL that canbe accessed individually.
Infinite Scroll Page 01
The infinite scroll pageis chunked intocomponent pages
Page 02
Page 03
| - The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce WebsitesSITE ARCHITECTURE 12
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- Stagnant and keyword-rich URLs influence their website's search
engine results, so it is important to have an ecommerce site that supports them. Modify those
URLs for better SEO and brand identification.
SEO-friendly URL
- URLs should have keywords in them, and exclude
numbers and punctuation marks. Search engines are looking for keywords in URLs—it's a
known ranking aspect.
Make your URL meaningful
- The sitemap provides search engines with a list of files that assist them with
successfully crawling your website. The search engines can then classify content on your site
that they may not have found on their own. Sitemaps are available in multiple formats serving
different types of content, including video, images, news and mobile.
In not-so-short terms, a sitemap is a page that lists and links to all the other pages on your
website, often providing metadata about each URL. There are two types of sitemaps:
- The sitemap.xml is a complete list of pages on your site that helps Google and XML
other search engines to easily read, crawl and index your website. It also allows you to
crawl your new pages instantly.
- An XML Sitemap should not be confused with an HTML sitemap. The first is for HTML
search engines, while the sitemap.html is designed for users to get information about
your site's pages.
Sitemap
- Utilizing standardized markup for your HTML can provide your ecommerce
website with the microdata needed to facilitate the information on your web pages more
effectively so they can produce results that are relevant to users' search queries. Utilizing
Schema.org frequently will assist in developing a standardized markup strategy, which will align
with your optimization efforts and your traffic goals.
Schema.org is a powerful method of optimization, but the least often used. It can help your
ecommerce site to increase the click-through-rates and provides additional information within
the search engine snippet.
Schema.org
IMPORTANT!
This concept was created at the initiative of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.They collaborated and created standards in website coding which enablesdevelopers to provide additional information to search engines under the form of code.
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| - The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce WebsitesSITE ARCHITECTURE
An Important Title Tag Here
Meta Description lines that should contain
your keywords or a set of keywords.
theweblink.com/ - Cached - Similar
Search Results
The essential benefit of Schema.org is that it extends what you're able todescribe to search engines using structured data markup, especially thingsin the realm of ecommerce.
- schema markup on your website doesn't mean your site will automatically rank better;
it makes it easier for search engines to interpret content and, therefore, become more
likely to be included in the search results for a related query.
- Websites that use schema markup will rank better in the SERPs than companies
without markup. Marking up your pages with schema microdata can be used to define
and display rich snippets of your content in SERPs. Relevant rich snippets can result in
higher click-through rates, as users can quickly and easily determine whether the
content on your site is what they're looking for.
- schema markup makes it much easier to find important information on websites and
point it out to search engines so they can more easily understand what pages on the
website are about.
- it can increase your visibility.
- schema microdata can be used in conjunction with social media tags to provide
search engines with even more detail about a page's content.
What does Schema.org bring for you site?
Video Title About Search Engine Optimization
24 Aug 2011 - 4 min - by UserName
Meta Description lines that should
contain your keywords or info about
the uploaded video.
theweblink.com/
Video Results
video duration
title
video description
thumbnailimage
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| - The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce WebsitesSEARCH ENGINE-FRIENDLY NAVIGATION STRUCTURE
- Duplicate content is a big SEO challenge, and is usually the result of
poor planning, careless information architecture and non-intuitive website structure. When
there are multiple pieces of identical content on the Internet, it is difficult for search engines to
decide which version is more relevant to a given search query. Unfortunately, most
ecommerce websites tend to have every attribute that typically results in duplicate content.
When it comes to ecommerce sites, many of the products are essentially the same, which
means their product descriptions might be more similar to each other. For this reason, it's
important to understand that analyzing all pages of your websites and identifying ways to
reduce redundancy is crucial. This should be a regular practice.
Google doesn't actively penalize most duplicate content. The worst that can happen to your
ecommerce site, if it suffers from these duplicate content issues, is that the duplicate pages are
ignored by the search engine. This means that your site will suffer rankings and traffic loss, and
the search engine will not provide relevant results.
Your ecommerce site can deal with both issues:
- internal duplicate content
- external duplicate content
Duplicate Content
Content Page
Spain
travel
Content Page
Spain
travel
Content Page
Spain
travel
I’m not going to list all ofyou. I need to figure outwhich one is the original
- There are a few reasons for internal duplicates:
- Different URLs with the same content
This issue can be solved by using canonical tags. “Canonical” means “preferred”
and you should pick a canonical URL when search engines identify duplicate
pages on your site.
Canonicalization refers to those web pages that can be easily loaded from
multiple URLs without creating a duplicate content error. It is a common
problem, especially when multiple pages have the same content, but different
URLs. This is what Google considers duplicate content.
Issues with internal duplicates
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| - The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce WebsitesSEARCH ENGINE-FRIENDLY NAVIGATION STRUCTURE
Canonical URLs are extremely important in the case of tracking URLs, where a
tracking code is added to the end of a URL on the site. Ensuring that the
canonical URL is the same as the base category URL will prevent search engines
from indexing these duplicate URLs.
- One and the same page is available at several URLs
The main solution here is using 301 redirect—this is how you can redirect an old
version of the page to the main one. This is how the link juice form the
redirected page is passed to the chosen one.
Now that’s a page that canrank!
Version 2
PageRank 3
3 inbound links
Version 1
PageRank 5
11 inbound links
Version 3
PageRank 3
2 inbound links
Version 2
301 re-direct 301 re-direct
- Cookies
When we are talking about ecommerce sites, some websites tag each new
visitor with a tracking parameter. Sometimes, it ends up in the URL and gets
indexed. This can easily add many duplicate pages to your index. Remove the
session ID from the URL or store it in a cookie to prevent this from happening.
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| - The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce WebsitesSEARCH ENGINE-FRIENDLY NAVIGATION STRUCTURE
- WWW vs. Non-WWW URLs & uppercase vs. lowercase URLs
Search engines consider http://www.domain.com and http://domain.com
different web addresses. Therefore, it's critical that one version of the URLs is
chosen for every page on the ecommerce website. 301 redirecting the non-
preferred version to the preferred version is the recommended solution to avoid
these technically created duplicate URLs. Uppercase and lowercase URLs need to
be handled in the same manner.
- Shared content between products
It's easy to take shortcuts with product descriptions on ecommerce websites,
especially with similar products. However, consider that Google is judging
content of ecommerce websites similarly to regular content sites. Sharing short
paragraphs, specifications and other content between product pages increases
the likelihood that search engines will decrease their perception of a product
page's content quality and ranking.
- Category pages
Category pages on ecommerce websites typically include a title and product
grid. This means that there is no unique content on these pages. The common
solution to combat this is to add unique descriptions at the top of category
pages (not the bottom, where content is given less weight by search engines)
that describes what types are featured are within the category.
This session ID URLs createmultiple versions of the samepage
Web Page
Title
button
http://www.example/webpage?SESSID=123
Appending a sessionID to the URL createsduplicate content
Web Page
Title
button
http://www.example/webpage
Session IDstored in acookie
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| - The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce WebsitesSEARCH ENGINE-FRIENDLY NAVIGATION STRUCTURE
IMPORTANT!
Intro descriptions on category pages offer a great opportunity to builddeep links to related sub-category pages, related article content thatmay exist on the site and popular products that deserve attention andlink equity.
- Homepage duplicate content
The homepage typically has the most amount of incoming link equity, and this
helps the page rank in search engines. Usually the homepage's descriptive
content is used in directory submissions and other business listings on external
websites. Ensure that unique content is provided to these external websites
instead. If this has already been done to a large extent, rewriting the home page
descriptive content is the easiest way to fix the preexisting issue.
- There are two main reasons for this issue. The first is
when you create a new website and don't pay attention to deleting or blocking from indexing
in the old version. The second is when competitors are copying your content without mention
you as a source.
In order to avoid external duplicate content, you should:
- Be original
and pay attention to content. If you need to describe your website in the other
platform, do not copy the description from your homepage. Spend a few
minutes and create an original one using specific keywords for your site.
- Create a canonical tag
When you have several domains with similar content, you should create a
canonical tag. Choose which URL you want to be the source and redirect the
other URLs to that one.
- Work with the webmasters
to fix that problem if you don't own the domains, then educate your affiliates
and mention your site as the original source if you decide to syndicate part of its
content.
Issues with external duplicates
IMPORTANT!
The solution is ensuring that product descriptions fed to affiliates aredifferent than what is found on your ecommerce website. It'srecommended to give the description to the affiliate shopping websites,and write a more robust, unique description for your own ecommercewebsite.
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| - The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce WebsitesPAGE ERRORS
- Syndicated content
Ecommerce websites that syndicate marketable content to other websites can
result in external duplicate content. If the syndication partner has a higher
authority (according to its inbound link profile), then it's possible that the content
on the syndication partner's website will outrank the original content on the
ecommerce website. There are a few different solutions to prevent this:
- Ensure that the syndication partner canonicalizes the content to the
URL on the ecommerce site that it originated from.
- Ensure that the syndication partner applies a “noindex,follow” meta
robots or X-robots tag to the syndicated content on their site.
- A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect from one URL to another. If you are
deleting pages, perhaps because you have a large range of products that remain out of stock,
301 redirects allow you to retain visitors who are unable to find those deleted pages. 301
redirects can be used in the following ways to protect your ranking:
- When a site is moving form a domain to other domain and you do not want to lose
customers and do not want to make the transition so visible;
- In situations when a home page can be reached in multiple ways. You can transform
one URL as principal (canonical) and use 301 redirections to send traffic from the
other URLs to your canonical URL;
- When you have permanently moved or replaced pages;
- When you are dealing with 404 pages errors and expired content;
- When you replatform your website—301 redirects help handle content migrations
and URL changes.
301 Redirects
301 & 302 REDIRECTS
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| - The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce WebsitesPAGE ERRORS
- 302 redirects tell search engines that a web page has been temporarily
moved, but does not pass any page rank or link juice to the new location. It merely acts as a
diversion to an appropriate location, protecting users from broken links and 404 page-not-
found errors.
302 redirects are typically used by ecommerce sites who may have products that are seasonal
in nature or temporarily out of stock, or for putting your site into maintenance mode. By using
a 302 redirect, the site can direct customers to similar products of interest, as opposed to
sending them to a product page where they cannot place an order.
The value of the 302 redirect is that it tells search engines that the requested content is
temporarily offline, but that they should keep the page rank and link juice of the page intact
and not pass it on to the new URL. When the product, or page, again becomes available, the
302 redirect can be rescinded and the original page's value will remain intact.
302 Redirects
IMPORTANT!
The difference between a 301 and a 302 redirect is subtle, but theyare not interchangeable. Mistakenly using a 302 redirect instead ofa 301 can strip a content page of its value, and can result in the lossof your hard earned SEO juice.
- 404 page errors occur when a page was deleted or moved to another
directory, and inform users that the page they are looking for cannot be found. This may be
frustrating for users, and cause you to lose them.
404 errors are common issues for big ecommerce sites because, in general, there is a wide
range of products that is constantly changing. The most suitable solution is to identify all the
broken links and create a 301 redirect or 302 temporary redirect to the correct page.
404 Page Errors
IMPORTANT!
To retain users, create a custom 404 page with a list of suggestedpages based on the URL of the page the user was looking for.
404NOT FOUND
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| - The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce WebsitesPAGE ERRORS
- Site speed refers to the time your website takes to open. Customers appreciate
a website that can be quickly and easily accessed. Websites that take too much time too open
will hurt your visitors' experience. Customers may navigate back to Google to find a faster
website—which is likely to be a competitor! To avoid this, check the loading speed of your site
using a free tool like Pingdom.
Site speed affects your visitor experience, the duration of time spent on your site and ranking,
among other considerations. Avoid excessive use of images, JavaScript, frame, flash file or
irrelevant links to easily increase the speed of your site. Buying more server space and using a
different CSM such as Magento or Demandware are additional options.
Site Speed
An optimized page shouldload in 2 seconds or less.A slower load means losingpotential customers, andmoney.
Page Speed Test
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1
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loading speed
enter your web-address test speed
IMPORTANT!
To avoid losing users, check the loading speed of your site usinga specific free tool!
For example, large ecommerce sites can outgrow the capabilities of their existing platform.
Replatforming can have a massive impact on organic search traffic, ranking and sales.
Changing or upgrading ecommerce platforms can have a much higher cost than anticipated
when the impact on search engine optimization is overlooked.
Here are the objectives for creating a successful SEO migration strategy:
- Maintain / Improve Search Rankings
- Maintain / Improve Search Traffic
- Maintain / Improve Link Connectivity
- Improve User Experience
Search engines should receive exact instructions as to where to find content. By using 301
redirections, search engines have the possibility of identifying link metrics that point to the
original URL to the new one. Failure to have an SEO plan while replatforming can lead to lost
ranking and traffic, as well as frustrated users who had previously bookmarked the old location
of the content, or who try to find it through existing links. Therefore, it's important to set up
301 permanent redirects from old pages to new ones in order to help search engines and
users understand where the content has moved.
To understand how such a move can affect SEO, consider the following experience of a major
online specialty retailer that migrated its existing commerce site to a new one built on an
industry-leading ecommerce platform. Google does not perceive the moved website as being
as good as it was before replatforming. Several errors can arise that cause ranking issues. It is
possible that the new website appears much lower in search ranking results than before.
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| - The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce WebsitesREPLATFORMING ECOMMERCE SITES
Ecommerce replatforming usually happens because there are someirreparable issues to solve.
Replatforming Ecommerce Sites
Platform 1 Platform 2
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| - The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce WebsitesREPLATFORMING ECOMMERCE SITES
Canonical errors and 404 errors are most likely to appear as the new site is being created,
particularly when content is being generated dynamically. Dynamically driven content will
sometimes cause pages with the same text to appear in multiple places across a domain, which
is known as duplicate content. Google discredits duplicate content and will penalize any site
that doesn't incorporate the correct use of canonical tags to indicate which page Google
should attribute value to.
On the other hand, 404 errors will occur when pages are created on the website without a
corresponding update on the site's .xml sitemap. This is a particular issue for online retailers
with a very deep inventory, as they are much more likely to leverage product feeds to drive
content to their site.
There are several processes that can be implemented throughout the design and development
phase to ensure search value, and therefore brand equity, are maintained after the new site
launches. Maintaining specific link equity across the site's entire URL structure is essential, as
well as avoiding critical errors like duplicate content and 404 issues.
As a replatforming process is executed, ensure that the old linking structure has already
rectified any errors, and that it translates across to the new website accurately. Any URL
changes will require a redirect strategy as a matter of necessity.
IMPORTANT!
301 redirects allow developers to connect the dots when it comes tonew URLs. This ensures that the authority attributed to the old pagesis transferred to their new equivalents.
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| - The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce WebsitesOFF-PAGE SEO
- Building online authority—trust and reputation—for your website.
- Defining by the quantity, quality and relevance of links to your website that establish
your SEO authority and ultimately influence your search results ranking.
1
What is Off-Page SEO?
2
Google, in particular, uses links into your site as tools for popularity. The quality and the
quantity of links that are coming from other sites into your own site is how search engines
decide which of two pages should rank relative to one another. So, the site with more links and
better quality links will rank higher.
Often called content marketing, this cornerstone of off-page SEO is in identifying quality,
related external sites that are willing to link back to your web pages. This is a procedure called
“link building.”
Content marketing's purpose is to attract and retain customers by consistently creating relevant
and valuable content with the intention of changing or enhancing consumer behavior. It is an
ongoing process that is best integrated into your overall marketing strategy, and it focuses on
owning media, not renting it.
SHARE
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| - The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce WebsitesOFF-PAGE SEO
- A few years ago, video wasn't a widely used internet marketing tool, but now it is
one of the fastest growing strategies for high search engine rankings. Websites like YouTube
and Vimeo are making it easier than ever for ecommerce businesses to post short promotional
videos with a short description that links to their web page. These video channels allow
potential customers to link back to your site, and the search engines rank video content on
their own, which can get your brand on the first page for targeted keywords even before your
site ranks.
Videos
Google, in particular, uses links into your site as tools for popularity. The quality and the
quantity of links that are coming from other sites into your own site is how search engines
decide which of two pages should rank relative to one another. So, the site with more links and
better quality links will rank higher.
Often called content marketing, this cornerstone of off-page SEO is in identifying quality,
related external sites that are willing to link back to your web pages. This is a procedure called
“link building.”
Content marketing's purpose is to attract and retain customers by consistently creating relevant
and valuable content with the intention of changing or enhancing consumer behavior. It is an
ongoing process that is best integrated into your overall marketing strategy, and it focuses on
owning media, not renting it.
An essential part of SEO, link building is the process of connecting with other high-quality
websites to ensure search engines see your site as authoritative. While these links are integral
to any SEO, consider off-page optimization as part of a content marketing strategy. This holistic
outlook allows ecommerce sites to combine quality link building, social sharing and creative
content marketing to ensure your site is seen as the authority within its industry and
recognized by search engines for being remarkable. Since the content is specific and relevant
to your business and it is what prospects are looking for, content marketing is also great for
search engine optimization. As the content is shared on social media and referenced by
others, it becomes a great tool for generating links back to your website, filling the off-site SEO
void.
There are so many techniques for link building and at the most simple level. Here are some
useful strategies that work effectively:
Videos BLOGS SOCIAL ARTICLES
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| - The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce WebsitesOFF-PAGE SEO
- Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and many other social media sites are invaluable
for developing strong SEO. These allow you to network, gain a following, and connect with the
millions of people who visit these sites each and every day. Posting a link on your Facebook
Page and Twitter Page that points back to your content can be helpful in building a following
and increasing the popularity of your pages.
Social Media
- Articles are one of the easiest methods for giving your website targeted backlinks.
Strengthen the quality of your inbound links by submitting article directories and using that
domain. Links that come from respected, aged domains count for even more points.
Articles
- It is an advantage to have access to traffic statistics
for your site, to track your audience and measure the quality of your page rank. The most used
and effective tool is offered by Google, called Google Analytics. By using a code in the HTML
of your website, you can view incoming traffic, pageviews, search phrases, individual pages
viewed and more.
Implement Ecommerce Tracking
- Blogs can be used to direct back to your website. There are two ways to use blogs:
create your own or comment on other blogs. You can create your own blog by using platforms
such as WordPress or Blogger. Then, create a series of short blog posts using keywords as the
anchor text linking back to your site. A blog brings fresh content constantly to your site and
you have consistent new information to share within your social platforms. This strategy brings
more inbound links to your website, raises your authority and boosts search engine ranking.
Leave engaging comments on other blogs that receive a lot of traffic, also with links back to
your site.
Another strategy to drive traffic and grow your brand is using guess posts. Post articles on
relevant sites and it will help with your overall site authority. If you want to obtain links from
high authority blogs you'll have to:
- Write high quality content that actually interest the reader.
- Avoid using anchor text that is not relevant.
- Link to your own website only when it is relevant and helps the reader.
- Link out to other sites, including your competitors, if it helps the reader.
Blogs
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| - The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce WebsitesWEBMASTER TOOLS
Webmaster Tools - is the most used SEO tool by ecommerce marketing
professionals. It is offered by Google for free, and helps marketing professionals to identify
issues with your site and check your indexing status. GWT is a source of information that can
guide webmasters to improve your Google traffic. It shows traffic for each keyword separately
and it gives more information about website performance according to Google search query.
Google Webmaster Tools (GWT)
- is another search engine that offer free tools that provide valuable
information to use and address potential SEO issues. Bing Webmaster Tools automatically
generates SEO reports every week for improving your website. Other than checking the
reports for what should be looked at or worked on, there is nothing to do, as the Bing
Webmaster system takes care of scanning all pages (that appear in our index) and reporting
automatically.
Bing Webmaster
- Google Analytics is a free Web analytics service that provides statistics
and basic analytical tools for search engine optimization and marketing purposes. It is a tool
that can be accessed by anyone through a Google account.
Google Analytics features include:
- Data visualization tools including a dashboard and motion charts, which display
changes in data over time.
- Google Analytics ecommerce reporting that can track sales activity and performance.
The ecommerce reports show a site's transactions, revenue and many other
commerce-related metrics.
- Integration with AdWords – online campaigns can be reviewed by landing page
quality and conversions. Conversions might include sales, lead generation, viewing a
specific page or downloading a particular file.
Google Analytics
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27| - The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce WebsitesCONCLUSION
Conclusion
The main goal of any ecommerce site is to sell. Unfortunately, traffic growth is not a sign that
your site has good results. The important fact is that your traffic converts into sales. To review,
take the following into account:
Your SEO strategy should
get your content to rank for
targeted keywords. Also,
track your site's rankings for
the specific keywords on a
monthly basis to measure
the progress you are
making.
Rankings
Visits are only valuable if
they produce calculable
results. Google Analytics
allows you to track the dollar
sales of visitors who entered
by searching on a specific
keyword—the true measure
of your ecommerce SEO
success.
Sales by keyword Your SEO should be driving
traffic to your site. Google
Analytics allows you to
measure traffic generated
by specific keywords, and
this is where you can really
gauge the effectiveness of
your campaign.
Website visits
Experienced marketers are using these tools every day to generate real interest and
measurable returns on their companies' ecommerce investments. But at the heart of each of
these strategies is the deep consideration of the nature user habits. Set forth with this all-
important consideration in mind and carry these tools with you for a truly successful
ecommerce website.
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