The ideal SEO e-commerce site
-
Hi All,
I am currently writing a spec for moving our current e-commerce website and it got me thinking from an SEO perspective.
We are all usually restrained by the current website set-up / CMS and there are things it can never do despite how hard we push for the changes. If you had the chance to start from a blank canvas (like I do currently) what would be on your wishlist?
-
Stephen,
Can you offer recommendations on another solution?
-
I would be interested to hear peoples views on this also. We have a mid size product catalogue, about 5k products, which we are looking at transferring to Magento.
-
Magento is apparently very restrictive and pretty slow. OK if you want the out of the box functionality with a small catalogue, but tough if you want to do something different
Anyone else have a experience with Magento?
-
Yeah, definitely.
Another thing related to this is canonical url implementation - ideally you want a CMS that automatically adds these and, even better, gives you control if and when needed (such as canonicalising to a 'view all products' page for a category).
-Matt
-
Thanks Matt.
The URLs are a great example of something which is easy to do when switching to a new system so have the freedom to specific them but trying to change them on an existing site can sometimes prove a nightmare!
-
Some of the most important things:
- Product Feeds: Most of our sales come from Google shopping - forget this at your peril.
- Search engine friendly URLs (i.e. /blue-widget/ or /categories/widgets/ instead of ?productid=5 or ?catid=10)
- Make sure your CMS works for you - it should help you match the URL, Title Tag, alt tags, H1 and body content with the product targeted on that specific page)
- Social Media integration (a service like addthis will make that easy to implement)
- Ensure that pages load as quickly as possible - use as few js libraries as possible, combined css, etc)
- Not related to your cart but... Use a blog to post good, interesting content and then market it to other blog owners.
I'm sure there're loads more but that's a starter
Matt
-
We are speccing our new site based on Magento.
The main reason behind this is because we need full control but with the option of quickly bringing in external help for advanced developments.
Other than that I believe the SEO features are very strong and the results on sites built on it can be extremely good.
-
I read the other thread and am still wanting to know the community feeling on the best eCommerce platform. If you were to build a new site, what would you choose and why?
-
Hi,
Thanks for pointing me to your thread. I will have a read now.
-
Hello Man,
I already ask this a couple of weeks ago and some guys bring a cool tips about ecommerce SEO.
http://www.seomoz.org/q/seo-for-e-commerce
Hope it helps.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Html4 menu system which is seo-friendly while moving to html5
I have a complex site and very large site that we are moving to html5 as quickly as possible given our resources (long overdue) but I was wondering if anyone knew of a menuing system that would work on mobile that is seo-friendly in terms of do-follow and does not use javascript that the spiders often cannot read. We need code/css that works for both the menu and for select boxes. I know few write such code anymore, and the idea is dated, but it is a temporary stopgap while we move to HTML5 when such tools are available. Does any such code, free or commercial, exist anymore? Thank you in advance as this is very important in terms of not usuing too much mobile real estate with side menus... Best regards
Web Design | | gheh20130 -
Does too much inline CSS impact SEO rankings
Hello, Does implementing a lot of inline CSS have a negative impact on SEO rankings? I imagine it could affect page speed, but any other issues I might run in to?
Web Design | | STP_SEO1 -
Ecommerce site in Europe
A client is looking to expand their ecommerce business into Europe. They have already purchased a number of European brand domain names and want to start their expansion in Ireland. Is it better to have a single website with pages translated for each language or a seperate site for each domain/country? With Ireland the only obvious difference is the currency, language shouldn't be an issue. But if we choose seperate sites for each domain/country will having the same product content/descriptions especially in the case of Ireland be an issue? Thanks in advance
Web Design | | MartinJC0 -
New ecommerce site: Close old site and full domain redirect or keep it linking to new site?
We have rebranded and are working on our new site (B). Our old site (A) has a much higher domain/page authority than our new site. Currently we have the original Site A still there, with all links/pages pointing to the new Site B when people click. I am unsure whether we'd be best to close down the Site A completely and do a full domain redirect to Site B. Site A: 10 years age and has a moderate amount of links to it.
Web Design | | ModowestNZ
Homepage - PA: 24 DA:11 Site B: 6 months age, few links
Homepage - PA: 1 DA:2 My concern with the full domain redirect is that the indexed/ranking pages would dissapear. The benefit is less brand confusion for our niche range of party accessories.0 -
Will having two wordpress themes installed hurt seo?
We currently have 3 sites built on WordPress that have little to no blogging capabilities. Currently, all published posts show up on a /category page which does not resemble the traditional blog format and is not aesthetically pleasing. We would like to have a more traditional blog and are considering installing a second wordpress theme on the site which will strictly be used for /blog and all the posts. My question is will having the second WordPress installation on the sites hurt us in any way on the SEO front and if we go this way should we place the install in a subfolder or on a subdomain? Is there anything else we need to worry about with making this transition? Thank you in advance for the advice! Patrick
Web Design | | PlanetDISH0 -
My Site Is Using A Lot of Hosting Bandwidth. Suggestions?
My website http://www.socialseomanagement.com/ is using tons of bandwidth. I received a message from the hosting company saying I exceeded my monthly bandwidth and it has only been a few days. Can anyone take a look and make suggestions? Thanks
Web Design | | JChronicle0 -
What Is Our Site Missing Causing Our Former Dominance To Slip?
So we have operated one of our retail sites, BonitaJ.com for many years now. Through a lot of work, link building and optimizing around 2009, we were in a prominent spot on the 1st page in google for just about every main term we were targeting. Towards the end of 2009, nearing December or so, we started slipping here and there, and began being displaced for our main terms by newer sites that according to several factors, don't have near the strength our site holds. And by strength, I simply mean, based on link volume, mozbar stats and many other factors, it seems we should rank well above most, but still find ourselves just hanging to 8-10 positions on page one, and in many cases somewhere on page two for terms it seems like we should be in the top 5 positions for. I believe some of our slippage is due to google's devaluing of many of our incoming links. We achieved our early ranking dominence off a lot of directory links and things like that over time, but ever since 2009 when links began getting devalued we immediately broke into getting quality blog links via LEGIT blog relationships where we'd offer up contests, bloggers would review our products and so on, and these relationships continue through today. We also do a lot of guest blog writing, article postings on various networks, as well as press releases, all with the goal of keeping our link profile happy and healthy. So we still have work to do there, but we're on the right track. So my thought is that to get back over the hump, we simply need to continue with the legit link building methods, but I'm also thinking that maybe we need to improve some things navigationally. Things I was hoping people would chime in on are.... 1. If we're mainly trying to target bridal/wedding related jewelry terms, should we ditch the "Jewelry Sets, Pearl Jewelry & Swarovski Crystal Jewerly" terms from our main navbar. They are featured inside each of the categories, and in the end, we don't rank or pull traffic for them anyway. Would ditching them from the main nav, help pass more juice from home page and other pages to the pages that better target our niche? 2. A while back, we ditched including actual product on each of the main category pages. I'm leaning towards breaking the main category pages up into sections, for instance once on the "Bridal Jewelry" page, it would list each of the sub-cats, with a 5-10 product sampling of the most popular items, with a link that says "view all necklaces" at the end of each sub-section. Do you think that more wise than just trying to direct them into the sub-cats with no actual product offering? 3. Anything else you see glaringly wrong with what we're trying to do? This site is just on the edge of blowing up from a ranking perspective if I can just get some confirmation on some things that I know I should do, but I'm wary due to fear of screwing things up. If I can get some solid feedback, the rest is history.
Web Design | | AarcMediaGroup0 -
Setup of three major retail sites.. need advice.
I recently have taken a new position responsible for three large national retail sites which are all owned by one parent organization. Through a series of acquisitions, these three major brands have been brought under one umbrella and a brand consolidation is likely not to happen within the next 2-4 years. I have a number of questions I’m hoping to get some feedback on, but first a little more background is necessary. A year ago (before my time) the three sites were over-hauled, but were designed to use one common custom CMS and all of the navigation and nearly all the content is the same (with some exceptions, such as tags, url, etc.). All of the brands have identical products and services; however, each one services a different demographic in the US. The design was intended for ease of management, but is terrible for seo. Additionally, without the geographic reference, they all compete for the same keywords. They have now begun a very large ecommerce project utilizing an ATG platform. The initial direction is to use one platform for all three brands, but keep them on separate domains and with the use of basic switching, replace nominal content such as logos and references of the brands for each of the domains. I’m concerned with this approach and would like to hear your feedback.. When optimizing a page for one keyword set, are they likely to be filtered due to dup content? The argument that management has is that all three current sites rank very well for one keyword on all three sites. They feel it won’t be an issue due to this. One option, that is currently still available, is to tri-band one ecommerce site, but it would have to be on an entirely new domain. The other three domains are very well established and are PR6s. Management, and even I, is afraid to abandon these other domains, but having a single domain would allow us to have unique content and really leverage all efforts to one domain. Thoughts? Any knowledge or thoughts what kind of impact having three domains on one ATG platform will be? Thanks much! John If you feel it will help, please message me and I can share the urls... Also, how would you handle a company blog in this case?
Web Design | | kavaliauskas0