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Question about SEO

by Collatio
10 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hey Warriors,

I'm thinking of starting an online webstore, and I'm trying to figure out what the best site structure would be (SEO and customer-friendly wise).

Let's say I wanted to sell cat food and that I have over 20 cat-food-related products. In my mind there's two options to get the most traffic and not too miss out on converting traffic.

1. Write 150+ word descriptions for every cat-food-related site, increase the content on the (category/index page) to rank for every individual page and (hopefully) start ranking for the category/index page (catfood) as well.

2. Write a very detailed 500/1000+ words index page (about catfood for instance) and put all the products under it. The idea would be that there's a lot more unique content on the index page so it's easier to rank for ''catfood'' which flows on to getting me to rank for the (better converting) individual keywords as well.


So to sum it up:

1. BIG KEYWORD PAGE -> PRODUCT TYPE KEYWORD PAGES
(IDEA: BIG brings in lots of traffic and also improves product type ranking)

2. BIG PRODUCT TYPE KEYWORD PAGES --> INDEXING (SMALL) KEYWORD PAGE
(IDEA: Lots of content, ranking for every individual product, to (eventually) increase the ranking of the BIG keyword page)


Does anyone have any experience with this? If yes, what is your strategy?

Cheers,
Collatio
#keywords #online store #question #seo #webshop
  • Profile picture of the author AndyBlackSEO
    I think there are a few shopping cart systems that were developed with SEO in mind. Last time I checked ages ago you could buy one for about $100. Worth it in the long term though.
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    • Profile picture of the author Collatio
      Thanks for the suggestion, hadn't thought of that yet.

      One of my friend's has offered his own webshop-system, but I'm not sure if it's SEO-optimized. Since he's ranking for some products and not for others at all.

      He's doing the second strategy I mentioned.

      But AndyBlack, I have another question. Are you saying that if the webshop is SEO-optimized it doesn't really matter if you focus on the indexing page or on the individual product pages?

      Cheers,
      Collatio
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      • Profile picture of the author Glassjaw009
        Collatio,

        Great question! If I had a penny for every time I got an email about this I'd be a millionaire (I wish). Let me humbly offer you my advice.

        First of all, if you're looking for an efficient shopping cart, Magento is the way to go. I understand this is somewhat of a burden in terms of hosting as there are few hosts that offer an auto install of Magento, but if you can use it it's highly unlikely you'll ever need to upgrade carts. SimpleHelix (no affiliate code) offers great Magento hosting and auto-install. I'd recommend them.

        Secondly, you're right on in all of your on page ideas. You've gone to great lengths in researching on page SEO and it shows, however if this is your first Ecommerce site, you might be in for a little bit of a shocker. No matter what cart you use, Ecommerce sites are harder to get ranked then blogs for sure and they're more reliant on off page SEO. For this I'd recommend Blog Comments, Link Emails and Profiles. If I haven't made myself totally clear, please don't hesitate to post again, or post in this thread:

        Your SEO Questions Answered

        Thanks Collatio!

        Best Regards,

        Thomas
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        • Profile picture of the author Collatio
          Originally Posted by Glassjaw009 View Post

          Collatio,

          First of all, if you're looking for an efficient shopping cart, Magento is the way to go. I understand this is somewhat of a burden in terms of hosting as there are few hosts that offer an auto install of Magento, but if you can use it it's highly unlikely you'll ever need to upgrade carts. SimpleHelix (no affiliate code) offers great Magento hosting and auto-install. I'd recommend them.

          Secondly, you're right on in all of your on page ideas. You've gone to great lengths in researching on page SEO and it shows, however if this is your first Ecommerce site, you might be in for a little bit of a shocker. No matter what cart you use, Ecommerce sites are harder to get ranked then blogs for sure and they're more reliant on off page SEO. For this I'd recommend Blog Comments, Link Emails and Profiles. If I haven't made myself totally clear, please don't hesitate to post again, or post in this thread:

          Your SEO Questions Answered

          Thanks Collatio!

          Best Regards,

          Thomas
          Hey Thomas,

          Thanks a lot for answering my question(s). I'll look into Magento and see if it's applicable in my language.

          Now about the SEO. You are saying that it's the best idea to make the eCommerce website work in the style of a blog?

          If you can, could you clarify on how you'd see ''Blog Comments, Link Emails and Profiles'' work on an eCommerce site, while not creating extra distractions for customers and perhaps even INCREASE conversion?

          With kind regards,
          Collatio
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          • Profile picture of the author Glassjaw009
            Collatio,

            My comments on Link Emails, Blog Comments and Profile are purely based in an Off Page SEO Nature. What I'm saying is that you should focus on these things ad vehicles to build links to your ecommerce site for these reasons:

            1) Blog Comments not only boost ranking but they provide excellent referral traffic if placed on relevant blogs

            2) Link Emails (requesting a link by email) will provide you with extremely powerful links that could not be acquired by other linking strategies. By simply emailing the webmaster of a site and asking for a link to yours, you can tap into the "flattery" aspect of the linking game. Since you've contacted them personally and expressed interest in their site, they might link to you (maybe from the homepage) providing a great ranking boost and referral traffic.

            3) Profile are a highly volatile but powerful mechanism for rankings. I Suggested this as a last step to boost rankings once you've established a base. Hope this helps!

            I wish you the best of luck on your journey!

            Best Regards,

            Thomas Kearo
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  • Profile picture of the author gravtex
    For an ecommerce site, you'll definitely want to look into Google Base Product Feeds and optimizing for them and other shopping search engines in addition to traditional SEO for your pages.

    It's the shortcut ecommerce sites can use to get on the first page of Google through Universal Search.

    Gary
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  • Profile picture of the author RedEvo
    You can always pick the most search friendly platform you can find and simply bolt the ecom bit on using Romancart or similar. Works for me

    d
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    • Profile picture of the author gmiller
      dear All,
      I have few good questions:

      1. What is your favourite aspect of SEO?
      2. What is the most difficult aspect of SEO for you?
      3. What has been your biggest mistake in optimising a website for search engines?
      4. What is the most competitive sector you have worked in as a SEO specialist?
      5. What process do you typically go through when researching keywords?
      6. How could this process be improved?
      7. How do you carry out competitive analysis of keywords/SERPs as part of the keyword research process?
      8. When targeting keywords on-page, discuss some considerations you might make?
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  • Profile picture of the author Andy Fletcher
    Originally Posted by Collatio View Post

    Hey Warriors,

    I'm thinking of starting an online webstore, and I'm trying to figure out what the best site structure would be (SEO and customer-friendly wise).

    Let's say I wanted to sell cat food and that I have over 20 cat-food-related products. In my mind there's two options to get the most traffic and not too miss out on converting traffic.

    1. Write 150+ word descriptions for every cat-food-related site, increase the content on the (category/index page) to rank for every individual page and (hopefully) start ranking for the category/index page (catfood) as well.

    2. Write a very detailed 500/1000+ words index page (about catfood for instance) and put all the products under it. The idea would be that there's a lot more unique content on the index page so it's easier to rank for ''catfood'' which flows on to getting me to rank for the (better converting) individual keywords as well.


    So to sum it up:

    1. BIG KEYWORD PAGE -> PRODUCT TYPE KEYWORD PAGES
    (IDEA: BIG brings in lots of traffic and also improves product type ranking)

    2. BIG PRODUCT TYPE KEYWORD PAGES --> INDEXING (SMALL) KEYWORD PAGE
    (IDEA: Lots of content, ranking for every individual product, to (eventually) increase the ranking of the BIG keyword page)


    Does anyone have any experience with this? If yes, what is your strategy?

    Cheers,
    Collatio
    Ideally you want to aim to target one keyphrase per page. Create a load of links to those pages with the anchor text set to your keyphrase and have them all link up to your index page.

    So if you had five brand names of catfood you'd have a home page targeted at "catfood" then a subpage targeted to each of the brand names eg "Whiskas Catfood".

    Link juice doesn't stop at the subpages so by linking to the homepage those subpages pass on all the link juice and help the index rank for the more competitive root keyword ie Catfood.

    Hope that helps,

    Andy
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  • Profile picture of the author Tom Brimeyer
    Andy is right on...

    You can't expect someone that finds you website through searching the term "cat food" is ever going to buy anything. Instead you have to think like a consumer and think about what you would search for if you wanted to buy cat food.

    So you can structure your site around what you are attempting to sell... If you're going the Walmart route and want to sell the cheapest cat foods then you might want to rank for "cheap cat food", "cheapest cat food", or "best price on cat food". People searching for these terms are much more likely to buy than someone who finds you site while searching for something completely unrelated to buying cat food.

    Then take all of your brands of cat food and create pages for these individual brand names. You should target more of a buying keyword phrase. I just ran a quick check and while there are a lot of searches for "whiskas" but there are people looking for commercials, logos, cat beds, coupons, etc. So "whiskas cat food" would work much better than just the brand name.

    Cheers,

    -Tom
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    I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt. I gsues I wsa wrogn.
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