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
-
Internal links best practices
In looking at the inbound links to a client’s Home page, I see that the link from each page of the website back to the Home page is an image, and the ALT text is “Home.” I have a few questions about this, and would appreciate help understanding best practices: --Does it matter that the link back to the Home page is an image (presumably the client’s logo)? -- If we keep the image link, wouldn’t it be better to use “client’s company name” as ALT text rather than “Home”? --Should I recommend using an HTML link back to the Home page, and using the company name as anchor text? (I don't think it's relevant, but the site is built in Drupal.) Thanks!
Technical SEO | | jrae0 -
Have hostings location an impact on SEO
Hello everybody 🙂 I know, that some years ago it was important that you host your site in the same country where your target audience was in relation to SEO. Because Google used that to find out which country your target audience was. But is this still important and have it an influence today regarding to SEO? Hope there is someone who can help 🙂
Technical SEO | | JoLinda910 -
Off-page SEO and on-page SEO improvements
I would like to know what off-page SEO and on-page SEO improvements can be made to one of our client websites http://www.nd-center.com Best regards,
Technical SEO | | fkdpl2420 -
Double problem: mobile friendly site and shopping cart page duplication
I have a website that has two issues related to SEO: 1) the main website (product.com) is not mobile-friendly and 2) I have a shopping cart site (buymyproduct.com) using Magento that basically duplicates our product pages that exist on the main marketing website. Uses click "buy now" on a product page and are sent to the checkout at "buymyproductnow.com". The company cannot overhaul product.com website right away and our shopping site (buymyproduct.com) uses a responsive theme and works well for iphone and iPad so I am thinking of making buymyproduct.com the mobile-friendly version of our website by using a sniffer on product.com and forwarding users to the mobile friendly version. If I add canonical references from the shopping cart product pages and articles back to product.com associated pages, will this lessen the blow to any seo issues? What other factors am I missing/need to consider Complicated and painful. Maybe doing nothing right now is best. Thanks for any feedback.
Technical SEO | | Timmmmy0 -
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 -
Global SEO Targeting
Hi, I have a website currently on the domain example.co.uk (.com is not available) I'm looking to enter other markets such as Brazil, Russia - obviously content will need to change to suit the desired market / language. I'm looking for some information on the best practice to enter foreign markets. I was thinking maybe to create individual sites for each location eg: example.br example.ru This way I could localise each site in terms of business directories, content, language etc. Or have my example.co.uk with various languages on it Experience, suggestions are welcomed - thanks.
Technical SEO | | Socialdude0 -
Best way to Handle Pagination?
At the moment I my blog is paginated like so: /blogs > /blogs/page/2 > /blogs/page/3 etc What are the benefits of paginating with dynamic URLs like here on SEOmoz with /blog?page=3
Technical SEO | | NickPateman810 -
Add to Cart Link
We have shopping cart links (<a href's,="" not="" input="" buttons)="" that="" link="" to="" a="" url="" along="" the="" lines="" of="" cart="" add="" 123&return="/product/123. </p"></a> <a href's,="" not="" input="" buttons)="" that="" link="" to="" a="" url="" along="" the="" lines="" of="" cart="" add="" 123&return="/product/123. </p">The SEOMoz site crawls are flagging these as a massive number of 302 redirects and I also wonder what sort of effect this is having on linkjuice flowing around the site. </a> <a href's,="" not="" input="" buttons)="" that="" link="" to="" a="" url="" along="" the="" lines="" of="" cart="" add="" 123&return="/product/123. </p">I can see several possible solutions: Make the links nofollow Make the links input buttons Block /cart/add with robots.txt Make the links 301 instead of 302 Make the links javascript (probably worst care) All of these would result in an identical outcome for the UX, but are very different solutions. What would you suggest?</a>
Technical SEO | | Aspedia0