Ecommerce webinar-oct-2010

SEO Strategies for

E-Commerce/Retail Websites

SEOmoz PRO Webinar, October 2010

Keyword Demand in

E-Commerce

Tail > Head, But Hard to Research

Long Tail = Better Converting

http://www.seomad.com/SEOBlog/using-google-analytics-to-prove-the-seo-long-tail-theory.html

Avg # of KWs Sending Traffic

www.kaushik.net/avinash/2009/04/googles-search-based-keyword-tool-monetize-long-tail-search.html

Takeaway #1

More Content/Page, Fewer Pages

Amazon Barnes & Noble

Takeaway #2

Enable + Encourage UGC

UGC (Comments)My Blog Post

Takeaway #3

Devote Effort to Editorial Content

http://www.oyster.com/boston/hotels/the-copley-square-hotel/

Product Categories &

Organization

More Nav Levels = Harder to Get Full Indexation

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/diagrams-for-solving-crawl-priority-indexation-issues

Many Cat/Subcat Pgs Don’t Get Indexed

Internal Anchor Text Can Help (or Hurt)

http://spiderbites.nytimes.com/free_2010/articles_2010_10_00000.html

VS.

Products in Multiple Categories Cause Problems

The iPod Touch is findable in portable

video, but “lives” in iPods

Takeaway #1

Minimize Clicks & Nav Levels

www.1800flowers.com/white-daisy-basket-90917

Just 2 Clicks to Any Product!

Takeaway #2

Build “Content-Rich” Category Pages

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/conservation/

Takeaway #3

Optimize Internal Anchor Text Carefully

http://www.oyster.com/hotels/theme/spring-break-party-hotels/

Doesn’t Go Overboard w/ Anchor Txt Optimization

Takeaway #4

Use “Canonical” Categories + Multiple

Category Listings for Best Results

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geek-kids/7-13-years/bf1b/

Solving Indexation

Hard to Get Lots of Products Indexed

without LOTS of Links

Takeaway #1

Product Feeds Can Help

Takeaway #2

Tweet New URLs from a “Real” Account

Takeaway #3

Use XML Sitemaps Strategically

http://gsitecrawler.com/en/tour/1/

Takeaway #4

Be Careful Using Internal Nofollows

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-says-yes-you-can-still-sculpt-pagerank-no-you-cant-do-it-with-nofollow

Duplicate Content

On-Site Dup Content Hurts

Cross-Domain Dup Content Stings

Takeaway #1

Use a Unique Product Titling Strategy

Takeaway #2

Rewrite the MSRD

Wine.com writes editorial and licenses content from

magazine reviews

Snooth.com marries heavy editorial with user review

“highlights” and tags

Takeaway #3

Outlink the Competition on Deep Pages

Link Building

Link Building for Specific Product Pgs

• License your content, product descriptions, reviews, images or other content with a link-back requirement

• Make your links “absolute” so scrapers will link back to you when they copy your material

• Affililate programs (many don’t link back, but often will use your images/content which then do provide followable links)

• Zemanta – get your product/content in front of bloggers as they compose posts

• Send feeds to shopping sites, feed engines and deal/discount sites• Build partnerships with relevant information/product sites

Link Building to Cat/Subcat Pgs

• Show/share interesting data about sales, interests, stats, etc. that news and reference sites will want to link to

• Sponsor relevant events (online or off) from specific categories• Use public relations and press releases to promote new

categories/offerings• Leverage HARO and other direct-press contact sites to help with

distribution/awareness• Make embeddable content link back to product pages and

category/subcategory pages where relevant

General Link Building for E-Commerce

• Provide donations or samples of products to charities, auctions, events, contests, etc.

• Publish regular “deals” and “sales” that deal sites can pick up and syndicate (builds links to multiple pages regularly)

• Claim social profiles and business profiles on any site that is relevant or at tipping point (e.g. LinkedIn, Manta, Crunchbase, etc.)

• Conduct competitive research on indirect competitors and retailers with similar size, focus or geography

• Get local links from business directories, chambers of commerce, local sponsorships, press, etc.

Shopping Search SEO

Shopping Biased to “Fat Head” and some

“Chunky Middle” but little “Long Tail”

Big Brands Often Dominate Results

Primarily nationally known “brands” with few

specialty/small shops

Reviews: Quantity > Quality

Location Influences Shopping Results

“Nearby” stores get higher placement based

on location

Takeaway #1

Don’t Waste Energy Unless it Matters

Takeaway #2

Feed Optimization Can Help

http://searchengineland.com/how-to-optimize-feeds-to-maximize-your-exposure-in-shopping-engine-results-18505

Takeaway #3

Brand Building Can Win in the Long Run

http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=1408

Takeaway #4

Start Local, then Grow

Remember Risk?Take Australia then build out!

Tracking SEO Value in Retail

Branded Search Sends Most Value

Buyers Search + Visit MANY Times

http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2009/02/paid-search-analytics-measuring-upper-funnel-keywords.html

Takeaway #1

First-Touch Attribution is Essential

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/first-touch-tracking-in-google-analytics

One Final Tip

Takeaway X

Rich Snippets Rock

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=99170

Q+A

Rand Fishkin, CEO & Co-Founder, SEOmoz

• Twitter: @randfish

• Blog: www.seomoz.org/blog

• Email: [email protected]