7 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
7 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

on-Site SEO - Complicated Case

by dexmari
6 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I have a SEO client, known offline brand. Lat's say automotive parts manufacturer and seller.
They have robust custom coded website/app primarily used by offline shops, retailers and wholesalers in several deifferent countries. Website is a custom solution that provides all functionalities their business need in real time.

As they are well known in offline world, there is a growing online demand to buy their parts directly by end customers. Customers search them on google via their brandname keyword. Their custom coded website has all options needed for online sale and catalog display, they have sett it up, but it's a very Google unfriendly solution. And they have problem ranking their own brand name keyword.

So here's the problem.
Main website domain (example domain):
no1carparts.com
Comes with landing page that detects your geo IP and displays welcome massage on your local language (almost no text content on landing page), on top left of landing page you have a country flags selector to choose your county/language.

So when you choose desired flag/language you are directed to:
no1carparts.com/index.aspx
This URL is same for all languages. So if you click US or German or Italian flag target URL will be the same: no1carparts.com/index.aspx, and content will be generated in selected language.

So you have different content (languages) but absolutely identical URLs. All inner URLs and inner pages have the same problem. For example:
no1carparts.com/group.aspx?id=1 is URL for engine parts for all different languages they have.


In some countries they are poorly ranked on local Google (for their brand name), this needs to be fixed, so they decided to buy local domain and test it. So they bought:
no1carparts.DE for Germany, and they copy-pasted content of main website (main cms generates content for all websites, it just uses different domains).
But they did it wrong, because currently they have no1carparts.COM/index.aspx with German content, and no1carparts.DE/index.aspx with identical German content.
.DE domain is ranked +50 although it has some nice backlinks, but here we have absolutely duplicated content on two different domains.

Bonus problem with duplicated content: They do business in one English speaking country using different brand name, and domain name, example:
ozziecarpats.com
Again it has absolutely the same content and URL structure as main website but different domain name, because content is generated by main website.

Solution ? What would be your approach in this case ?


Important thing:
-you cannot change inner URL structure on websites, this is the way their custom cms works, changing it is not an option

Things we can change on site:
-websites have no meta data (description, tags, etc) this can be added
-we might use link rel="canonical" and/or rel="alternate" hreflang="x" in <head> (how ?)
-we can add some text content to landing pages
-we can suggest domain name usage
#case #complicated #onsite #seo
  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Originally Posted by dexmari View Post

    Solution ? What would be your approach in this case ?
    If they're not ranking for any keywords the hack job on the URLs isn't even giving a ROI.

    My solution would be to decline the job because there isn't enough Tylenol to deal with those type of clients.

    Doubtful they will change their on-page SEO because they've already got it in their head that they've spent money on the current front end & database.

    They will tell you 100 times they want to rank for keywords but usually fall back to not wanting to let go of horrible eCommerce site structure.

    Good luck.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10033796].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author patadeperro
    I think Yukon is right, BUT if for whatever reason you decide/need to keep working with the client what you need to do is to make a good use of the canonical tag, amke sure the page you want to rank has the canonical tag, and the rest of the pages are pointing out towards that url AND in your XML sitemap just add the url that is the canonical
    Signature
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10033840].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author dexmari
      Originally Posted by patadeperro View Post

      I think Yukon is right, BUT if for whatever reason you decide/need to keep working with the client what you need to do is to make a good use of the canonical tag, amke sure the page you want to rank has the canonical tag, and the rest of the pages are pointing out towards that url AND in your XML sitemap just add the url that is the canonical
      Thank you for advice. To be honest I worked on many projects and never gave to much credit to xml site maps. My experience and A/B tests showed me they are not important factor when you have good url structure, internal linking and onsite optimization.

      I usually create them only if client insists, and I do it via some sitemap dedicated plugin for opensource cms I'm dealing with (I usually deal with open source cms platforms).

      Can you recommend some good xml sitemap gen ?
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10033897].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author dexmari
    Thank you, I know I'll need luck on this one.
    Rejecting the job is not a solution.

    They primarily do business offline, offline stores are the main source of profit. They have strong offline marketing, so people manage to find them online by typing their URL directly in address bar or in search bar.
    They are making some decent profit from current online store/s, but it could be much better if they would rank no1 for their own brand name keyword.

    In some countries they rank no1 for their brand keyword, in other countries they are ranked really poorly.
    Unfortunately custom coded asp website, ( actually it's the giant integrated system for complete business managemnt, stock, sales, b2b, b2retail) is not something they will change easily. Not only money it would cost a lot of time and resources they are not willing to spend right now.

    Their online sales will grow, that's fact, and online demand for their brand keyword is constantly growing so they have to do something to fix current rank status, and to fix zero onsite seo optimization.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10033859].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by dexmari View Post

      Thank you, I know I'll need luck on this one.
      Rejecting the job is not a solution.

      They primarily do business offline, offline stores are the main source of profit. They have strong offline marketing, so people manage to find them online by typing their URL directly in address bar or in search bar.
      They are making some decent profit from current online store/s, but it could be much better if they would rank no1 for their own brand name keyword.

      In some countries they rank no1 for their brand keyword, in other countries they are ranked really poorly.
      Unfortunately custom coded asp website, ( actually it's the giant integrated system for complete business managemnt, stock, sales, b2b, b2retail) is not something they will change easily. Not only money it would cost a lot of time and resources they are not willing to spend right now.

      Their online sales will grow, that's fact, and online demand for their brand keyword is constantly growing so they have to do something to fix current rank status, and to fix zero onsite seo optimization.
      That's typical with eCommerce sites, they usually build a poorly designed site & think they'll rank pages, SEO is mostly an after thought.

      Hope you have a source for strong backlinks, you'll need them If they can't rank for their own business name. Ranking for a brand/domain name is about as easy as it gets.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10033884].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author dexmari
        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

        That's typical with eCommerce sites, they usually build a poorly designed site & think they'll rank pages, SEO is mostly an after thought.

        Hope you have a source for strong backlinks, you'll need them If they can't rank for their own business name. Ranking for a brand/domain name is about as easy as it gets.
        All true.

        On good side I'll be able to use their current marketing efforts and PR's to get some relevant and good backlinks.

        Still there's a big issue of terrible onsite SEO and my strategy to fix it. As you said ranking business name is easy as it gets, having problems as they have points to big on site issues.
        This keeps me sleepless these days.

        I'll be able to generate different meta data for different languages, but I doubt it'll help me a lot when different languages/contents share the same URLs.

        I'm thinking to push the root domain landing page (.com where you choose country/language). To enrich it with some text content and make it as much international as possible.
        Second to insist on using only TL country domains for specific languages and to stop serving different language content on .com, so we can cut duplicated content and urls. Then I can push country TLDs...
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10033914].message }}

Trending Topics