SEO before products on ecommerce site
-
Our company plans to quickly launch an e-commerce site to sell religion themed banners (religionbanners.com). We'll have our products up on the site in about a week.
-
Should I block Google from accessing the site during this period?
-
Is there anything wrong with starting simple SEO tasks such as submitting the site map on Google Search Console prior to us having the products on the site?
-
-
Thanks for the help!
-
Thanks for the help Mike!
-
Yes, URL Structure is a huge issue and make sure you nail it right away. Changing it is the longest and scariest process you can go through. Here are 4 main things to look into when figuring out a url structure.
URL Uses Only Standard CharactersIf you only use characters that are common in URLs, it makes it easier for more users to access and interpret your URL. Not all users have keyboards that can easily enter less common characters, or browsers that support the display of these characters, and some special characters can look spammy. Using only standard characters can also avoid potential problems with your search engine ranking.
Use Keywords in your URLUsing your targeted keywords in the URL string adds relevancy to your page for search engine rankings, assists potential visitors identify the topic of your page from the URL, and provides SEO value when used as the anchor text of referring links.
Minimize URL LengthSearch engines often truncate the URL display at 75 characters and appear to pass less keyword value in longer URLs. We also recommend using fewer than three subfolders in your URL to make it easier for search engines to parse.
Use Static URLsUsing a static URL can improve your performance in search engine rankings. Moz's correlation research shows that URLs with dynamic parameters have dramatically worse performance in the rankings. Using dynamic parameters does not necessarily cause worse rankings, but there does appear to be a correlation, and they generally do lead to lower click-through rates. Dynamic URLs are also a common source of duplicate content.
(straight from On Page Grader)
-
From my experience, change always happens..
- People might request a change in URL structure (then it will lead to 301 redirects and setting them up)
- It's better to let Google crawl a rich page than a weak page. When it comes to ecommerce sites, you don't want "page not found" as the product hasn't been published but its category page is done. If the sitemap leads to broken pages - well, customers won't like it, so don't expect bots to do either.
- I would work on your ecommerce site, get it done in preview and all ready to go. You can also setup things like Google Webmaster Tools, Bing Webmaster tools, ensure your sitemap is ready, url structure is fine and get it ready.
So my advice is to set it up and then launch. You don't want to end up "fixing" your website post launch. Here's another way to look at it.. your credit score - it's easier to work on building a good credit score, than having to fix a bad one. SEO is the same.
-
-
Should not be necessary.
-
You have to take everything one step at a time. Start with what you are comfortable with and then learn the things you are not.
-
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
-
Will it upset Google if I aggregate product page reviews up into a product category page?
We have reviews on our product pages and we are considering averaging those reviews out and putting them on specific category pages in order for the average product ratings to be displayed in search results. Each averaged category review would be only for the products within it's category, and all reviews are from users of the site, no 3rd party reviews. For example, averaging the reviews from all of our boxes products pages, and listing that average review on the boxes category page. My question is, will this be doing anything wrong in the eyes of Google, and if so how so? -Derick
On-Page Optimization | | Deluxe0 -
Can the Lightboxes on My Site be Crawled?
I'm trying to optimize my site, but I have lightboxes and I don't know if they are visible to the search engines. If they aren't, could you suggest something that I could do? THANK YOU so much!!!!! My site is lymphexpo.com
On-Page Optimization | | bosleypalmer0 -
Infinite scroll SEO
I was curious about the implications of Infinite scroll homepages on SEO, and more specifically, no-indexing subpages of the homepage (ie www.homepage.com/page/2/ ). I know its often a good practice to noindex subpages of archives, but in this case, would it be a bad idea? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | stackstreet0 -
Product page reviews issues
Hi, We've implemented pagination on the reviews with rel=next/prev, but have seen no improvements since this. An example page with reviews is here. Can you see any issues on this that would be causing the problem? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | pikka0 -
Site Duplicated despte redirect
Buon pormeriggio from I can smell Whaler Chips Through the window Wetherby,
On-Page Optimization | | Nightwing
When you Google Thakray Medical Museum 2 sites appear in the SERPS, yikes! Now the .org site is no longer hosted & point to the .co.uk site when clicked on but in a nutshell I wantto get rid of the .org site
as illustrated here: http://s216.photobucket.com/user/zymurgy_bucket/media/two-versions-same-website-yikes_zps182e6e12.jpg.html Actions taken so far:
1: Wembaster tools re index request for the .co.uk site
2: Redirect configured to point .org site to the .co.uk What else is left apart from updating the xml site but ultimating i do not want to see the the .org site but it doesnt exist (well id did a few month back but is no longer hosted so i am told) Any insights welcome,
GRazie tanto,
David0 -
Multi-Site SEO using Host Headers
Hi - I'm working on a proposal for a client who runs 3 different career websites. He uses "host headers" to direct the website visitor to the correct website. For example, if the visitor comes from Washington he goes to one url. If he is in Kansas, he goes to another URL. Does anyone have any experience doing SEO with this type of system? What do I need to know? What are hurdles I'll encounter? Thanks, -Hunter
On-Page Optimization | | HunterW0 -
Why is this site 1st in Google??
Hello The site www.woodensigns.net is 1st in google for the keyword "wooden Signs". All seo indicators are poor except keyword in url; wich, i thought, was not a + for google anymore. Could someone help me to understand here? Thank you Emmanuel
On-Page Optimization | | manu450 -
Site Wide Link
I have just run up the link explorer on my site and discovered that every page home page link points back with the text home - I assume this is bad in terms of SEO , my site name is ccie and I assumed that it put the site wide link of ccie to the entire site, however it seems to be the breadcrumb default of home which is doing it/. www.rogerperkin.co.uk/ccie Should I be looking to change this so my top keyword points back from each page to the home page. I am running wordpress and assumed the site name was the home link on all pages. Can anyone advise the best practice? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | rogerp0070