What are your best tips for SEO on a shopping cart?
-
So, I am working on a shopping cart platform (X-Cart) and so far don't like it. Also, the web designer is not someone I've worked with before and he is understandably conservative about access--which limits what I can and cannot do from the back end.
One of the things I like to do is include text for the search engines. However, based on conversion, etc., I think the product images on a landing page (main brand info with specific products that show up) should show up first to move toward conversion first.
I am thinking of adding the text below the product images on the brand pages so the viewer sees the products first while still keeping the content seo. My practice is to use between 300-350 words minimum on a page.
Just wondering what best practices you have for a shopping cart. Care to share?
Any tips or hints? Thoughts on what I might do that would be most effective?
As always, thanks in advance for your sage advice!
-
Thanks Ian...I'll take a look. Nothing I can do but depending what I see I can add it to the "to do" list.
-
Thanks Ian...I'll take a look. Nothing I can do but depending what I see I can add it to the "to do" list.
-
What he is saying (I think) is that sessions can generate a limitless number of urls related to shopping carts. If you use get form actions for a shopping cart the entire form info shows up in the url and can be interpreted by a search spider as a unique site link leading to thousands of products being added to shopping carts by spiders. This isn't anything you can fix but you can test by adding an item to a shopping cart and seeing if you get a url that basically says "viewcart" or one that says "addtocart&item=234235"
-
I'm not sure what you are discussing Highland. It would be great if you could clarify what SEO technique you are talking about.
-
Hi Aron,
Yes, I write original content and am focusing on unique information that has not been given. The big problem on this site is that there is little information, if any.
I think the idea of rating and commenting on products is a great idea for user generated content. Since I cannot do much from my end based on the limited access, I'll suggest it to the client.
He does have social media accounts set up with a couple of icons on the site but I think creating more interactions would be a great idea.
-
One thing we do is we don't give you a session on your first hit. Since your cart is tied to your session, going to the cart without one just generates a "Your cart is empty" page. If you're a customer you'd need at least 2 hits to get to the cart and once you have a session it lasts 30 days. This cuts down a ton on bot problems with the cart. Yes, this is a technical thing (and probably not something your developer can do) but I've always found it useful.
Also, I once made a newbie mistake of making an item that could be added to the cart via a GET. Don't do it! Adding to the cart should always be a POST.
-
My best tip for shopping sites is to ensure your content is unique and well written giving as much genuineinformation on the product as possible. I always like to include bullet points to highlight features too.
Allowing customers to rate and comment on products is a great way to build up some awesome UGC on product pages.
Both of these options will help SEO and potentially help conversion too.
Including social sharing buttons for people to FB Like/Tweet Products cant hurt either.
-
Thanks EGOL, yes I agree. One of the main problems of this site is the lack of optimized links to the categories and to the products. Your point about related links is a great one. If you like this product you will like this...but using the names is a good strategy.
-
One of the most overlooked concerns is the navigation links that will drive power and anchor text into the product pages.
These could be from category pages, related product pages, article pages, homepage, blog pages, sitemap and more.
If you want your product pages to be vigorous in the index you need to drive some linkjuice into them. In addition, on-site text links can work magic for your rankings.
Related links on product pages can also lead to increased sales and larger shopping carts.
-
Hi Stephan...no worries, I am just working on the brand and product pages but thanks for sharing your concerns.
-
Thanks again Ryan. No, the developer will not give admin privileges which is a pain but I do have URL, title, description, meta control and sent over canonical, 404 page instructions, htaccess edits, and a few other requests which he did and then billed the client for.
He actually billed the client for adding me to a non-admin access (which I did not need).
Most of the web designers I work with let me in to do my thing so this is a bit difficult and annoying. LOL I can't get to the images but do have access to some of the alt.
Big issue is that it is costing my client unexpected expenditures but we are doing are best to work around it.
I am heading to the X-Cart forums in the am for some other ideas and appreciate your consistent input--most valuable.
-
If you are talking about the shopping cart itself, after folks put stuff in it: I would make that a noindex. I get paranoid about security and privacy so I would keep anything that is personalized in any way out of the search index. You don't want a link to a shopping cart with specific shopper id to get into Google. Even if the shopper id doesn't tie back to any personal data, you could have multiple people with the same cart id.
Anyway... I would suggest making the cart a noindex... I'm paranoid about it so I'd play it safe.
-
The best practices for a shopping cart would be the same as any other web page. Each cart software offers varying abilities to natively conform to SEO best practices. Many popular carts offer extensions to bridge the gap between the software design and the changes necessary for improved SEO performance.
If I were in your situation I would request control over the URL, page title, header, text, alt text, etc. All the normal SEO factors. If the web developer is not willing to provide you access, then ask the developer to make the changes. Either the developer will likely not be happy with making so many changes and then grant you permission, or the site owner wont like paying a developer to make text changes and he will request for you to be given access. Either way, the result is the needed changes are made.
My best suggestion would be to inquire on the X-Cart software forums as to what SEO extensions and customizations are available.
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
-
# Tag - opacity and SEO impact
Hello,
Technical SEO | | Tiffany_Barn
I have a query animation 'fade-in-up' on my website: tiffanybarnard.com which moves the H1 tag slightly and fades it in from zero opacity to 1. Will this affect the SEO value of the H1 tag?
Thank you!0 -
Global Product Tabs and SEO
I am looking at a site that has global or duplicated content in 4 tabs for things like shipping, quality etc on tabs on each product page. The content is very good for UX and helps conversions but poor for SEO. Each product page has unique and tagged photos, unique title and a unique description. Is there away to specifically tell search engines that individual parts of a page are duplicated for good reason? Linking to the content to a single page decreases conversion dramatically but having it on tabs could effect ranking and quality as it is duplicated. Can anyone offer any advice with this?
Technical SEO | | Ian_W0 -
Using Web Applications for SEO
I am in the sign/banner business, for years I have had a flash based web application that I developed which allows customers to design their own signs/banners online. With the demise of flash i am prompted to begin developing an HTML5 based application to take it's place. Developing this software is a rather expensive endeavor so many local sign shops, which don't sell on the web, don't bother to develop such an application, but what if i gave it to them? I assume a fair amount would find great value in such an application thereby allowing their clients to communicate a design idea without having to drive to the store front. The application would actually run embedded on my site thus earning me a link back to my site. Question is this: Is this a bad idea. If dozens of sign shops are running my application embedded on their sites will the help or hurt me? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | RocketBanner0 -
Monthly SEO contract or dedicated employee?
Have one more question. There are people offering monthly SEO contracts like this http://www.link-building-strategies.com/monthly-link-building.html My question is that is it worth it for $199 a month? Though its reviews are good on freelancing sites but I can also hire a full time employee for that cost. Is there anything a dedicated employee cannot do that these guys are offering? Only drawback I see is I dont know the links where these guys are submitting but I am ready to spend much more time (my employees time) to get the things done. Please suggest. Your valued opinions welcome 🙂 Following is the detailed offering 1. 300 links submissions = 180 Guaranteed One Way Theme Links - The links are built by manually publishing 3 Original Articles on 75 different article sites, each published article will have 2 back links to your site. 70% of our Article Sites have PR 2 to 6; all with different C classes IPs.
Technical SEO | | geekwik
2. 60 links submissions = 30 Guaranteed One Way Theme Links – The links are built by manually publishing 1 Review for your site fromon** 30 Social Bookmarking sites, 90% of the sites have PR 2 to 8, all with different C classes IPs.
3. 160 links submissions = 100 Guaranteed One Way Theme Links – The links are built by manually publishing ** 2 Original Press on 50 Press Release sites, each published article will have 2 back links to your site. All our Press Release Sites have PR 2 to 7; all with different C classes IPs.
4. 80 links submissions = 40 Guaranteed One Way blog links – These links are built by publishing** 1 article **(300 words each) with 2 back links to your site on 20 different free blog sites. These free blog sites are our sites (new sites with PR 0) which we are promoting to get the highest PR for them and your blog back links too. - All the submissions are 100% handmade, NO automated software is involved. You can check this by looking at our over 1000 GOOD SEO REVIEWS made during the past 5 years on 4 freelancing sites. The links will not appear all at once to your site. The indexing process of all the links will take between 1-3 months. The links will appear gradually to your site and everything will look naturally for all the search engines0 -
Free Joomla SEO Extension?
Hi all -- all along, I have used Tag Meta as a super simple Joomla extension to manage page titles. The most recent Joomla site I manage is using K2. The Tag Meta extension will install, but something with K2 is overriding the page titles that I put in. Thus, I am simply looking for a free (if at all possible) Joomla extension that will allow me to enter unique page titles for each page of the site without changing the Joomla page title of each page. Or, if anyone has had the same problem, I'm looking for a solution to make Tag Meta and K2 play nice. Any suggestions?
Technical SEO | | Bandicoot0 -
SEO impact of overseas data center
Hi there, I currently host a number of sites from data centers in the UK and Hong Kong but now have the need to develop a site specifically for an Australian audience. While our server in Hong Kong can probably provide an acceptably fast service to Australia i'm concerned that its location outside of Australia will negatively affect our local SEO efforts. Am i right to be concerned about this? Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks, Dave
Technical SEO | | evidentlydavidm0 -
Planing Seo For New Seo
Hello; I have the domain which registerd in 2006 and i opened website 1 months ago and i start to do some seo like bought links pr1-pr7 50 links and 2500 social bookmarks 2000 blog links and also some wiki links am i doing good or bad ?
Technical SEO | | Sadullah0 -
Does changing nameservers negatively impact SEO?
Had to redirect the nameservers to the hosting account in order for the domain email addresses to work. Since then, search results have dropped from the first page to second and much lower with the same keywords. Does that make sense? Another change was redirecting approx 10 parked domains to the main site, was that a mistake?
Technical SEO | | reeljerc0