What tips do people have for implementing SEO strategies for large websites?
-
Hi,
I would like some tips on how to manage SEO on Large sites with limited. For example, I have a client with a large Ecommerce store that wants to rank high for every product and every category.
Obviosly every page has to be keyword optimised, but what is the best strategy for acquiring links and should we target all deep pages or just the home page and category pages, then use good internal linking to pass the link juice around?
All advice welcome!
thanks
-
I wholeheartedly agree. Any efforts made to personalize the pages, engage visitors and not appear like a generic page of a large e-commerce site is a step in the right direction.
-
Although the ideal path is to make each product page remarkable and worthy of generating links, itdepends on how much resources are available. I like the example of Woot who creates really humorous and entertaining product descriptions. You can also create original content like videos and photos instead of just using the boring manufacturer's descriptions and photos. I like how ThinkGeek encourages customers to post their own photos of them using their remarkable products. Creative ideas like that can make you stand out from the crowd and make your pages worthy of generating links.
-
If you have the budget and time then divide and conquer. Attack a set of pages that are high value loe effort. Use the 80 / 20 rule. The advice below is good. If you post the area of your site then specific advice can be given
-
What tips do people have for implementing SEO strategies for large websites?
The problem with large sites is scalability. I am not talking about the hardware or software, but instead the human factor.
Pick an item for sale, let's go with wall clocks. If you have a small site which sells 50 wall clocks then each and every clock would probably have it's own page. Sure you can have category pages but there would probably be some level of intimacy offered. The site might have began with selling a single clock, then expanded with another clock every couple weeks over a period of two years.
Each clock page could tell a story. The page could talk about who designed the clock, the manufacturer, people who have bought the clock, rooms where the clock would look best in, some details about the clock's history, how the clock is the same or similar to the one from a movie scene, etc. Detailed images might be offered from various angles. There is a level of detail and personalization offered when a human being is involved with creating a web page and sharing a high quality experience. These pages offer a lot of value to visitors and therefore search engines.
On the other extreme, there are websites which carry tens of thousands of products. The site owner has never seen nor heard of the item being sold. The product is listed based on a feed, the page URL is clock12z43, the description feels more like reading the Supplement Facts label from a vitamin bottle, etc.
When the owner of the latter style of website asks "why doesn't my product page rank higher" I ask them in return how many hours are they willing to spend on the page building it with quality information to help it rank higher. The response is often none, and there is your roadblock. The explanation is the owner doesn't have the time or ability to spend an hour per page with 10k+ products. Often the e-commerce solution does not have the flexibility to accommodate reasonable changes either. The site is restricted by the gridlock of attempting to allow one person to manage 10k products which simply is not reasonable.
If I could offer one tip for managing a large site it would be treat each and every page as if it belonged to a small site. Each and every page should have a human review it, and it should look like a human was involved with it's development.
what is the best strategy for acquiring links
Again, that human interaction does wonders. If you build outstanding pages, allow user generated content and provide social integration, many links will come naturally. Whenever you feel your linking needs a boost, reach out to the community. For the clock example, there are many types of sites ranging from interior design to arts and crafts. Read their forums and become involved in their community. Participate in sincere, helpful discussions which do not necessarily involve your site. When a topic arises where you can smoothly share a link to one of your clocks, do so in a high quality (i.e. non-spammy) manner. This method is one of many techniques to build links.
should we target all deep pages or just the home page and category pages
A balance works best. All pages would benefit from links.
-
Yes target the homepage and category pages, good internal linking with proper anchor texts. Look into the rel prev and rel next tags instead of canonical as a way of dealing with duplicate content. Make sure all title tags and meta tags are unique. Add enough unique identifiers to ensure uniqueness.
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
-
SEO Strategy - Content/Outreach/Links
Hi everyone I'm trying to prioritise my tasks for 2018 & wondered if anyone had any useful templates they use? In terms of SEO tasks, my priority was going to be content/outreach/links - Focusing on user guides/blogs onsite Then outreach articles/some PR that doesn't go against Google guidelines offsite. My struggle with the onsite content/blogs we produce is we have no real social media plan/manager so my content outreach always seems hampered by this. I've tried taking on some of the social stuff, but this ends up being too much for just me to do. I wondered if there were any other SEOs who face this issue and who have found some good solutions? I'm stuck in a bit of a rut and can't seem to effectively push forward with outreach/content writing. Thank you Becky
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey1 -
Recommended SEO Companies
Looking for advice here.... We are a small business looking to secure/increase rankings in the search engines. What are some recommended SEO agencies/companies that are effective with today's search engine optimization standards. _ Thank you_
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wickerparadise0 -
How to properly implement HTTPS?
We are looking at implementing HTTPS for our site. I have done a little research but can't find anything recent, http://moz.com/community/q/duplicate-content-and-http-and-https is the most recent thing I found. Does everything in the answers still apply? Should I just do a 301 redirect to all new https? Or add a canonical tag?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EcommerceSite0 -
Authorship, SEO and implementation at an institutional level
Hi Everyone, Does anyone know of a great case study on how an institution and/or company implemented authorship in an organized manner to benefit their SEO efforts as an organization? Moz, I noticed you guys seemed to have done this? Can you give me some high level guidelines? BTW this would be a great blog post. Thanks Carla
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Carla_Dawson0 -
Ecommerce website consolidation
I have a large ecommerce site and several smaller nitche ecommerce sites. All have the same products, but the smaller sites are loosing traffic. I want to combine all the sites to the larger site so it will be easier to manage, but I don't want to loose any rank on the smaller sites. Example: www.yourpromopeople.com - This is the large site I want to use. www.logocoolies.com www.fourcolormagnets.com - These are a couple of the smaller sites I want to combine with the larger one. Questions: What are the pros and cons in doing this? What would be the best way to do this? Would redirecting the URL's to the larger site's product pages do the trick or is there a better option? Thanks for the help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JHSpecialty0 -
Future-proof website to optimize SEO.
Hi All, This is my first post and hopefully a question that could help others in similar positions. Say we are trying to rank for the keyword "security testing tools". Product name is "Sectest" and its a security testing tool. *We currently have an "SEO" section that is purely good content and the idea with this is to be able to rank for "security testing tools" talking about what to expect and look for in such tools and relevant content - Linking to our product page at the end of it. structure is brand.com/security-testing/tools and that would have a link to brank.com/products/sectest Obviously product pages would get their meta tags and content re-written so we don't compete for the same keywords. Is this approach optimal? or would google want us to link directly to the product page instead of "information" about security testing tools? Nobody in our sector is taking this approach and we have already started it, but I am starting to wonder if I am getting into big trouble further down the line. Thanks and best regards,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JorgeGarcia0 -
Seo for mobile and apps
I have a client with a website who's URL is a very common name (most people say this phrase daily). My questions are: How would you best SEO for this site given the common nature of their URL They want to move to mobile and are wondering if their mobile site needs different SEO then their main page Is there a way to SEO apps?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | StreetwiseReports0 -
SEO Company Referral
I am looking for a great US based SEO company referral. I try to do as much as I can on my end but the more I learn, then more I find I need help to do a great job. Lately running the business takes most of my time, and we need a team who really specializes in SEO. Can anyone recommend a SEO company with a great reputation, someone who has done great work for you in the past? I get many people contacting me with SEO promises, but I need some advice from someone with more experience than me. I appreciate all of your insights.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fertilityhealth0