Labels: SEO, Traffic, Web Development
Over the past year or so, we've taken large strides at MCM to optimize our site for search engine optimization. I'd like to share some of the steps we've gone through to get to where we are today. Obviously, optimizing for an ecommerce site is a bit different than optimizing for a blog, but there are a lot of similarities. Each week, I'll cover a different portion of this process.
Most of the work we did focused on our product detail pages, as our primary goal was to get better coverage of our site and increase our indexed page count. We have something like 250 thousand product pages and a fraction of that number make up the rest of the site. Because our product detail page is technically only one page of code and affects hundreds of thousands of pages, it's the best "bang for the buck", so to speak.
I think its important to point out that there are several elements that comprise a search result, and that they all come from different places on your page. There is the title, the body and the destination url. These are all important in their own ways.
The first item on our product page that we addressed was probably the most important item; the title tag. This populates the title of a search result. We originally had something like this:
<title>MCM Electronics | 58-10665 - 12 Ft DVI-D Home Theater Cable</title>
So there are a few problems with this. Initially, when browsing search results, your store brand is pretty much irrelevant. Sure, brand will play a small part in whether or not a searcher clicks on your result, but a relevant page title will go a lot farther towards getting a click. If you do your job and actually show relevant data in the title, people will notice your result, then see your brand in the url line below, or once they click through and visit your site.
Thinking like a potential customer who is searching, lets define what terms they are likely to search. Using the example from above, which is a Monster Cable cable, by the way, the searcher may search for "Monster Cable". They may search for "DVI400-4M", Monster's part number. They may search for "DVI-D cable". Out of all of this, the only bit in our original title was "DVI-D cable"; no manufacturer info at all. The truth is, when dealing with branded products, there are only a few bits that are universal; the manufacturer part number, upc and a few other identifiers. Therefore, it's more relevant to put these important bits in the title. MCM's sku is pretty much worthless unless someone knows they want a 58-10665 from MCM Electronics, but chances are, if they know that much, they will be visiting our site directly and not through a search engine. Hence, there is no real point in including MCM's proprietary sku in the title.
Putting all of the above together, we reach the conclusion that we want to include the manufacturer part number and the best title or description of the product we can come up with. Additionally, many people will search for the manufacturer name in conjunction with the manufacturer part number. Combining these two fields in a search query is a sure-fire way to get relevant data, and will rule out the possiblity to get results for a "DVI400-4M" from some other company, should they have the same term in their title. Now we have something like this:
<title>12 Ft DVI-D Home Theater Cable | Monster Cable | DVI400-4M</title>
This is far more relevant than what we first started with. It combines three model specific attributes that searches will be searching for, if they are searching for this product.
It's important to remember that search engines have limits to number of characters they display. Google limits their titles to 66 characters, including spaces. If your title is longer than that, it will get cut off and Google will display a '...' at the end of the line. You can do some coding behind the scenes to cut your long title down to size, or simply let Google do the work for you.
Next week we'll discuss META tags.
Labels: SEO, Web Development
Recently, a coworker and I discussed having a friendly competition to see who could drive more traffic to their blog. We are both starting from scratch, essentially, with low, low traffic. Both of us are in marketing, but in different areas. It would be interesting to see what avenues we both took to get to the same destination. It seems like this competition won't be happening, but the question still remains. What is the best way to drive traffic to a blog, or any site, for that matter?
Obviously, content is king, but even if you have a site filled with awesome content, the word still needs to get out. Without visitors, page rank won't increase and without page rank, visitors won't appear. It seems like a real chicken-or-the-egg predicament. This is why it's crucial to take the initiative to drive traffic yourself; not waiting on your favorite search engine to do all the heavy lifting for you.
With ecomm sites, or sites that may show a return, either by sales or by turning traffic into revenue with AdSense, spending money to get traffic is warranted. Chances are, at some point, you will see the investment return. But what happens when you just want traffic for the sake of getting traffic? Maybe revenue isn't the ultimate goal, but promoting/networking yourself is. Yes, one should put a value on promoting/networking them self, but if traffic can be had for little investment, wouldn't that be better?
First thing's first. Submit your site map to Google and every other search engine you desire. They should have tools available for you to submit a site map. Google uses 'webmaster tools'. Additionally, optimize your site for search engines. Learn about meta tags and keywords, then put it all into place.
There are several ways of attaining free traffic. Posting your site on social networking sites like Digg, Reddit, Del.icio.us and Twitter are all free, and can provide traffic. Don't forget your Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn profiles. The larger the friend list, the more possibility there is of recruiting traffic.
Do your part to be an ambassador for your site. Learn and live your site. Is it about electronics? Join and contribute to electronics forums. Add valuable content by discussing relevant topics with others in the community. Place a link to your site in your signature (if allowed), or reference your site in discussions. In addition, guest blog on other's sites, or have others guest blog on your site. Generally, this will include a link back to your site, which will increase the user base for both parties.
Now more than ever, the internet is a community. As a site owner, embrace your site's visitors. Ask questions. Task them with writing product reviews. Create polls. Throw competitions. Create email lists and RSS feeds. Make them feel like a part of your site, not just a inconspicuous passer by. Users should feel as if they have invested in the site; given time to the site and added value to the site.
All of the above solutions are free and are by no means the complete solution to out-trafficking all of your friends, but are a good start before getting into paid advertising. How do you plan to out-traffic your competition?