6 Steps to optimising your e-commerce products pages

The most daunting prospect for any shopping cart owner is SEO’ing every single product in their shopping cart. If you’ve got thousands of products in your site, you can be forgiven for not even attempting to optimise your product pages. Sometimes when a job seems too big and too daunting it can paralyze all initiative!

So this week’s tips to improve your online sales will be short, easily digestible, and (hopefully) actionable.

1. Break the job down into small, easy bits. Start by targeting and optimising the top 10 best selling products in your cart. Then do the next best 20 and so on.
   
   
2. Make sure you include the name of the product or service in your Page Title Tag. You need to format it so you keep the name of the product or service first, the name of your company second.
   
   
3. The next important page element for SEO is your Heading Tag. Include your product or service name in your H1 tag.
   
   
4. Obviously every product or service needs a description. I’m often shocked by how little effort online retailers take to describe their products. Given that Google needs at least 250-300 words per page to create a complete “relevance” picture, it’s in your interests to make sure your description is fully optimised and that the benefits of the product or service are blindingly obvious. My ten cents; hire a copywriter.
   
   
5. Product images should also be optimised, so name your image with the product’s actual name ie: blue-widget.jpg. Make sure that when you include the picture on the page that you use an image “alt” tag which also uses the product’s name.
   
   
6. If you’re reselling products that are not your own, don’t copy the exact same content from the original manufacturer. Substantially rewrite your copy to avoid having your page penalized by Google’s duplicate content filter. If you have substantially similar content as the original content creator, Google will stop your result from appearing the in the search results.
   

Honestly, if you get into the habit of ensuring your detailed product descriptions are fully optimised with engaging copy which encourages conversions (purchases), you’ll be a long way ahead of most your competitors!

A GlimPSe into the future? GPS and Google

I’ve had a bit more time to digest many of the presentations from the Sydney Search Marketing Expo back in April.

Apart from the usual SEO topics, the major forward looking themes were to do with local search (i.e. Maps), mobile search, social media optimisation and the optimisation of all types of content, not just text.

The folks from Google seemed to offer the biggest clues as to where they’re heading.

Obviously, Google’s Universal Search where images, news stories, video and maps etc can be blended into the Google results pages featured highly.

But I felt there was one important topic which barely got a mention.

It made me suspicious, and when I get suspicious, I start thinking.

Where was GPS in all of this? One of the hottest consumer goods of 2007, GPS sales have exploded with personal hand held and in-car devices almost everywhere.

Every Taxi I’ve sat in recently (thankfully) has a GPS unit stuck to the windscreen. As I sat in the taxi on my way to the Search Marketing Expo I watched the GPS map constantly updating the maps on screen as we travelled along. It was quite mesmerizing.

The next day Marissa Mayer from Google spoke at length about how Google was rolling out streetview in Australia.

Here’s an example from downtown Chicago:

If you haven’t tried Google streetview yet, give it a whirl because it’s quite a fun way to whizz around the streets of a city you’ve never been to before.

So when you combine streetview and local search, what do you get?

At this stage, you get this…

Pretty cool huh!

You get to see local businesses, what they look like and where they are.

But how does all this tie into GPS?

If you examine Google’s previous business strategies (such as investing in Youtube), you’ll notice that there is nearly always a financial return at the end. With Youtube, Google were WAY ahead of the game. They bought it in 2005, but it took 2 years for Google to actually use the videos as part of it Universal results.

Streetview was launched in May last year, and I imagine it’s a big financial investment having cars with 360 degree cameras driving up and down nearly every street of each city.

Look, this is a bit of a long shot but I think Google will probably try and license Streetview to GPS manufacturers. It will allow people to switch between a map view and streetview. If streetview is selected, it will allow Google to highlight local businesses as you’re driving along (in your taxi for example).

You might hear an ad in your cab which say’s something like, “Coming up on your right is Miller’s Pub and Restaurant. Mention this Ad for 20% off your next meal”. The taxi company takes a cut and Google takes a cut from the ad revenue. The local business has an opportunity to stand out in a crowded market place and it can measure (with reasonable accuracy) its conversion rate based on people who mention the Ad.

It’s all there, Google just need to put the whole thing together… If they haven’t already.

My advice?

Move your business to the busiest road to and from the Airport and come up with a compelling offer!

Maximising conversion rates.

When larger companies develop their new websites, they often call on the services of a usability testing company prior to launch. Probably the best known example in Australia is www.usabliltyone.com.au.

I was lucky enough to sit in on a presentation they did at a conference I attended back in February. The case studies showcased were fascinating and demonstrated how designers and developers can sometimes get too close to a project; forgetting how a typical user might interact with their designs.

Unfortunately not all of us can afford the luxury of a new website coupled with usability testing.

Luckily there other (and in some cases free) methods you can use to increase the conversion rate of your existing website. Don’t be scared of the big words(!) but the answers lie in ‘AB split testing’ and/or ‘multivariate testing’.

Certainly this week’s interview Amanda Gome conducted with Jason West from Websalad confirms this.

Having enjoyed many conversations with Jason, I wholeheartedly agree with his mantra that there are two ways you can double the amount of conversions; you can double the amount of traffic to your site, or you can optimise your website to achieve the same result. If you do both, you can retire rich.

AB split testing is a method where you create two (or more) versions of a web page and analyse the conversion results to see which one entices your visitors to convert in greater numbers. You then ditch the lower performing page and keep the good one!

If you’re really serious about it, you keep testing. Forever.

Multivariate Testing is similar in concept to AB split testing, but instead of serving up two pages, you serve up just the one page and change and test various page elements to hit upon the best combination.

Page elements you’re likely to test usually include:

• Your page heading

• Your images

• Your body text copy; and

• Your call to action method.

Google explains it all quite well in this video:
http://services.google.com/training/websiteoptimizeroverview/2995095/index.html

Research shows that two elements affect conversion rates the most: your heading and your call to action method.

In one case study, a red “buy now” button was compared to a green “buy now” button. Multivariate testing quickly revealed that the green button received more conversions. Red means ‘Stop!’ and green means ‘Go’.

Surprisingly, images and body text tended to have lower impact on conversions.

Google has a reasonably new (and free) tool called the ‘website optimizer’. You’ll find it inside your Google AdWords account. You get what you pay for though! You’ll probably need a developer to help you set it up as the coding requirements are quite involved. Plus you’ll need a lot of time and traffic for the tool to accurately report back the results.

Of course there are paid tools available which are typically more sophisticated than Google’s free website optimizer tool. I guess if you were to weigh it all up, using a paid testing system set up by an experienced operator might prove cheaper than trying to learn it all yourself.

They typically also use sophisticated mathematical modeling to allow you to test much higher numbers of variations in a much shorter period of time.

Certainly if your conversion rates are static, at say 2%, then doubling that to 4% (or more) might make the $4K or $5K average spend worth the investment over time.

SEO and website design

As they say, a great looking website is no guarantee of success. If potential customers can’t find your website because you’ve compromised its chances of a good search engine rank, you’ll need to resort to expensive Pay Per Click, Banner advertising and/or affiliate marketing campaigns for the life of the design.

When you commission a designer to build you a new website, it’s really up to you to make sure they design your new website with SEO in mind. Obviously design and usability is the designer’s job; they want to make your new site look as beautiful as possible for humans.

But sometimes designers (and I should also mention developers) overlook how a search engine might respond.

You can have your cake and eat it too, so let’s look at the elements involved in website design that really matter to search engines.

1. Textual content
   
   I often see designers create quite ‘image heavy’ designs, particularly on home pages. Remember, search engines can’t ‘see’ or ‘read’ images, so we need to give a search engine some text to hang their hat on.
   
   While you can use image ‘alt tags’ to populate text onto an image heavy site, search engines place less weight on them, so it’s not a genuine workaround. Search Engines typically need a minimum of 350 words per page to get a clear ‘relevance picture’ of the theme for each and every page in your website.
   
   Search engines like key phrases in headings, body text and links (in the form of anchor text).
   
2. Technology - flash
   
   Just as search engines struggle with images, they also struggle with flash. At the moment, search engine robots can’t access and index content from flash files. I would be very wary of a home page (or indeed an entire website) presented solely by a flash file, if you want to rank well.
   
3. Technology - javascript
   
   If you don’t have a sitemap, search engine robots need to follow links within your site (and from other websites) in order to index all your website pages. Search engine robots are unable to follow javascript links (which are often a feature of drop down animated menu systems for example).
   
   If your designer recommends using javascript based navigation, ask if it’s possible to use a CSS driven navigation system instead.
4. Site Structure
   
   I have mentioned this before in a previous blog, but when you’re developing your sitemap, dedicate some thought keyword research for each directory name and file name.
   
   Designers often build your sitemap with quite uninspiring directory names like http://www.autobarn.com.au/products/17/159/.
   
   I often use the example of Seek Learning as one of Australia’s best overall websites in terms of design, usability and search engine optimisation.
   
   Seek Learning’s site structure is something to behold, it’s obvious they had significant input from a SEO specialist during the sitemap creation phase of the project. Given that Google does place importance on keywords is directory and file names, it’s vital you do too!
   
   
   

Next Thursday and Friday I’m attending the Search Marketing Expo in Sydney, so I’ll report back to you on some of the latest trends and idea’s coming from Google and other industry leaders!

Website relaunch & SEO. Your website re launch checklist

So you’ve built, or about to build a brand new website. It’s exciting and nerve-wracking all at the same time isn’t it!

So let’s make sure it goes as smoothly as possible so that you reduce the chance of a drop in traffic from search engines.

1. 404 Error – Page Not Found

‘Page not found’ errors are really annoying! A good, user-friendly website should handle it by helping your visitors rather than allowing a browser to show the error.

I guess the key thing to remember here is that your existing website has pages indexed by search engines and those pages are bringing traffic to your site. Usually with a new web design you’ll have signed off on a new site map. This means the new site will have a completely different structure.

From a search engine’s perspective, the minute you kill the old site and launch the new one, for a few days at least it’s going to have the old pages still showing in the results. When users click on those results, they’ll be taken to a page that no longer exists. That’s a classic ‘404 page not found error’. Trust me. That’s bad.

I’ll talk about how you can avoid this problem in a minute, but for now you should have your developer set up a custom 404 error page anyway.

I’ve seen two really good custom 404 pages recently. The first is Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre www.MCEC.com.au – they have rebranded (and have a new URL!) from Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre – or www.MECC.com.au. Quite a bit to get your head around, I know.

Let’s have a look at some screen shots to illustrate how a good 404 page should work (especially after a website launch). The first is the old MECC site still indexed over at www.ninemsn.com.au (note this test may not work for you as ninemsn may have re-indexed the site by the time you read this):










The second is a screen-grab of the custom 404 page www.mcec.com.au has created which was shown to me after I clicked on the link on nineMSN. Basically, it’s grabbing the referrer information and cleverly inserting it to connect to the user, helping them navigate as quickly as possible through the new site to the information they’re after.



The other example I like is the custom 404 page at the new www.MembersEquityBank.com.au site. Nice and friendly, and I like the “report the broken link to us“ feature.



2. Permanent Redirects

OK, this could be a bit dry, but bear with me.

Getting this right is critical and virtually guarantees no loss of traffic from search engines, affiliates, online advertisements (i.e. Google Ad’s) and other link partners if your site is restructured. It also means that custom 404 page you’ve just built will hardly get used at all!

The idea here is to compare your existing site map with the new one. Where you have two pages with the same topic, you need to get your developer to permanently redirect the old page address to the new page address (also known as a “301 permanent redirect”). It can be a big job which is best setup in a table, but well worthwhile.

A good developer can write a script to perform this task automatically.

3. Notify your link Partners!

Any decent site has other sites linking to it. Again this can be a big job, but if you setup a Google Webmaster tools account you can see exactly who’s linking to your site and which page they’re linking to. If you can’t setup permanent redirects then it’s a process of contacting them, crossing your fingers, and hoping they’ll modify their links to your site.

If you have an affiliate program, it’s even more important to notify them! Affiliates will be mightily, um, upset if the links and banners they have on their site deliver affiliate traffic to pages which ‘404’.

And don’t forget to update your Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing Ad’s. You’ll be throwing good money away if you don’t sort that out as soon as you launch.

4. Update your Google, Yahoo and MSN Sitemaps!

As soon as you launch the new site, generate and upload new sitemaps for the search engines to re-index. It’ll speed up deletion of the old pages and re-indexing of the new ones. You can use www.gsitecrawler.com to build a sitemap quickly (if your new site doesn’t generate one automatically).

5. Test

Finally, run a broken links tool once the new site is fully uploaded and goes live. A couple of sites to visit include:

http://validator.w3.org/checklink

http://www.dead-links.com/check_links.php

All the best with your re-launch!

Google Local Universal Search gets serious! Really serious.

Ok, today Google's rolled out a big change to its local results. If your a local business & you're not registered for local search - you better get a move on!

Here's what's happened...

Yesterday, Google local map results looked a lot like this:



Today they're looking like this:



Not only that, in the 'old days' the top three results next to the map made up the top 10. Now Google's crammed 20 results onto the search results page!

Now we are seeing all sorts of strange results showing up too...



Then, as we started to wonder just how weird it could get, someone in our office yelled out "try 'brothels!'" as a joke. Sadly, I did and here's the result (I don't think the baptist church will be very happy about their result)....



Honestly Google, you've rolled out this new local box 'algo' update too quickly, and are now potentially damaging the reputation of all sorts of upstanding organisations.

I've also read on another blog how this update has nearly sent an online florist to the wall.

Test test test.

Please. Dedicate some thought to SEO before you build

The tips I’m going to give you today will enable you to perform search engine optimisation before your new web site is even built!

I touched on the importance of getting SEO right when I blogged about the Commonwealth Bank’s new website launch a few weeks back.

Just as an aside, Liesl and I met with Adam Farraway from the CBA last week in Sydney. Adam kindly took some time out of his day to chat about the article and the Bank’s position. It was a very interesting insight into the world of big bank websites!

Back to the topic!

In my experience, SEO is nearly always called in after a website has been built. Soon after launch a website owner gives me a call saying they need their site Search Engine Optimised. This usually presents several problems:

1. The site has been built using SEO unfriendly technology like flash, javascript navigation or an ‘el-cheapo’ Content Management System (CMS) that won’t allow you to change meta data or title tags etc.
2. Their directory structure is all over the place (thematically speaking). This is a time consuming problem to fix.
3. Usually little or no initial thought has gone into keyword research while the site’s copy is being written.

So let’s start with item 2. – your directory structure/sitemap, because fixing the issues in item 1. usually means an expensive re-build!

Every website has some kind of directory structure (unless it’s built using flash or just a one page website!). Draw up your site map with all the likely pages and their content. Do this as logically as possible, so you cater for humans and search engines.

Then for each page you’ve created, perform keyword research to find the most popular keywords and phrases. Download this keyword tool.

Here’s a fantastic example from one of the best optimised websites in the country: www.seeklearning.com.au. Look at the way the web builder created the directory structure so that’s optimised for “short course”:

http://www.seeklearning.com.au/short-course/computer-short-courses.asp



As you can see the site ranks really well!

Seriously, this stuff sends a geeky shiver down my spine!

There’s no doubt they were thinking about SEO before (and during) the build. It’s much easier to get this correct at the beginning than to go in and change the structure of your website later.

The benefits are obvious. You get a logical, thematically structured website for humans and search engines which ranks like mad and brings lots of targeted traffic!

http://www.seeklearning.com.au/short-course/accounting-and-finance.asp
http://www.seeklearning.com.au/short-course/leadership-and-communication.asp http://www.seeklearning.com.au/short-course/teaching-English-overseas.asp

When it comes to really competitive key phrases (and all things being equal), Google will rank your site higher than your rivals if you have keywords and phrases in your website’s directory structure.

It’s just one of the 120 or so factors Google takes into account when working out who’s going to rank where when someone makes a search.

Get the foundations right from the beginning and you will be rewarded!

BIG google rank shake-up for the world's most highly prized keyphrase!

Goodness knows what Google's upto this time! Yesterday I blogged about why Australia's top ranking website http://www.webprofits.com.au/ ranked 1st for the key phrase "Search Engine Optimisation".

Today they're gone!

Outta here!

Yep, Google's done a serious little dance and pretty much changed the entire top 10 - BUT FOR AUSTRALIAN RESULTS ONLY.

I haven't had time to analyse the top sites in much detail, suffice to say I can't for the life of me understand why the websites which now make up the top 10 are there. Most of them are barely on topic and seriously thematically diluted.


Here's a screen shot of Monday's results:

Here's today's!

Seriously weird stuff going on!

There are two answers.

1. Webprofits and the majority of top sites were either buying links or simply 'over optimised' and got busted (copped a ranking penalty).

2. It's a ranking anomoly (which can happen on occasion) and everything will go back to normal in the next 48 hours.

Let's wait and see.

Buy me a scotch for helping you with SEO? Sure. Why Not!

Katie May, founder of http://www.seek.com.au/ and now growing http://www.kidspot.com.au/ (at a rate that would put a Japanese bullet train to shame) was interviewed by Online Magazine http://www.smartcompany.com.au/ (coincidentally where I contribute weekly!)

Here's an excerpt of what she said to SmartCo. I love her comments, she's saying all the things I've been pushing for years...

Katie May - permanent marketing priorities.

It’s all about getting the traffic then building the brand. “I don’t want to be a slave to Google for the rest of my life,” she says.

1. Make really, really, really good friends in the area of search engine optimisation (SEO). “Buy them a bottle of scotch,” says May. “If you get that (SEO) wrong, you will have to spend a bomb to get it right.
   
   Build your web pages in ways that are easy to index, have good page titles, key words for each page, all the links you need to boost your Google rankings. Get the basics right and you’ll do fine. We invest in it every month.”
   
2. Try and cut a deal to reduce search engine marketing costs. To avoid those 15% commission fees on search engine marketing, try and negotiate a deal to grow the fee as you get the results. Kidspot buys 100,000 keywords (some keywords cost 1c, others a lot more), often buying expensive keywords for a day or so, then concentrating on cheaper, related search terms.
   
3. Build links. Use contra to build links, affiliates and online partnerships.
   
4. Get outdoors to build the brand. Billboards are the best way to build a brand, May says. “Experience and research tells me this works to build a brand,” she says.
   
5. Cultivate word of mouth. “Everything we do, we ask ourselves ‘Can we get word of mouth?’. Anyway to get people to send information about us on to friends and colleagues, we do it — and it’s free.”

SEO and Australia's Biggest Bank - Which Bank?

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia launched it's new website recently. Full marks on the design. It looks good! But if we take a peek under the bonnet, there are some search engine optimisation basics which have been completely over-looked.

First of all, the home page title tag reads "homepage". Bit of an oversight there.



Secondly, they have no meta content description tag, or meta content keywords tag. Unforgivable.



Thirdly, none of the images on the home page have been alt tagged for usability (and ethical seo).

Coming up next is the old DMOZ issue! Read this carefully because it could be affecting you too!

Look closely at the following images and compare:

This is the DMOZ listing for the Bank...


Next: Google's result...



What's happening here is Google is using the DMOZ editor description (if your site is listed in DMOZ), replacing the Meta content description tag from your own website! Google doesn't always do it, but if you don't have a Meta description tag, the DMOZ description is better than nothing!

What the Bank needs to do here is place a command in its header tag which tells Google NOT to use the boring old, unoptimised, DMOZ editor description.

meta name="GOOGLEBOT" content="NOODP"

(Note: please encase the tag in <>'s - Blogger software won't let me put the tag around!)

DMOZ is the world's largest human edited (volunteer) directory. You've got to be good to get included! Google likes websites listed in DMOZ because they've been evaluated for quality by a human (something Google doesn't do with its spidering technology). Once you're in, your rankings will improve. But don't hold your breath, it can take years to be included once you've made your submission.

Finally, a quick look around the site, and none of their pages have had much thought to the most important aspect of Search Engine Optimisation. Title tags and Meta tags.

To their credit, there's pretty good content on most pages, with search engine friendly navigation, the site works fine with javascript and stylesheets turned off.

I'd be optimising their anchor text if given the chance. Often I see juicy links like this:

Home Seeker Approval - that's a link on their home loans page. I don't think there are many people searching for "home seeker approval". It should be changed to "Home loan pre approval".

Of course I couldn't help myself, I sent a note to the Bank with a few suggestions. Here's a excerpt of the form submission...

.... Your home page title tag reads "homepage". Change it to something like, "Commonwealth Bank. Home loans, Business loans, Bank accounts, Credit cards, Insurance, Personal loans" etc, etc.

Add meta content/description and keywords tags to the home page.
Add image alt tags - describe your images for usability and Search Engine friendliness.

Do a site wide review for keyword popularity - i.e. on your home page you use the word "super". In fact "Superannuation" is more popular and is typed in more than 15,000 times a month at Google.

All pages need keyword analysis followed by on page-optimisation, with clever but subtle anchor text optimisation for cross linking.

Hope this helps,

Cheers

Chris

Today is Tuesday 23rd of October. I wonder how soon it will take to get fixed? Click here to see if they've made the changes I've suggested have been implemented.

It never ceases to amaze me how much effort businesses put into their website design, usability and content. SEO is often 'called in' as an after-thought! Big business often spends huge amounts of cash on a new website, getting them up and hosted, along with hefty monthly maintenance fees too.

It's amazing how they balk at allocating a small part of their initial (and ongoing) budget to SEO and SEM advice and optimisation. A good seo provider will always bring ongoing value, long after the web design company has disappeared.

Reputation Management

It's interesting how the Commonwealth Bank has also tied up most of the top 10 at Google with their own results and business divisions if you search for "commonwealth bank". I've got hand it to them, that's very good reputation management!

Online Reputation Management is a whole other topic for another day, but basically, businesses like http://www.websalad.com.au/ help large brands with their online reputation; amongst other things monitoring blog posts (like this one - who says I'm paranoid?) and helping them to tie up the top 10 spots at Google. By doing this, whenever bad news hits, often people will turn to Google for information, but only get the company message, so to speak because no one else is in the top 10. It's a form of reputation damage control.

However, now that Google Universal results are hitting home - showing up-to-the-minute news stories in the Google results - online reputation management will become increasingly difficult.

So to finish, the lesson is this. Before you launch your site, step back make sure you've checked everything off the list and get the whole package right before launch! (or indeed, lunch).