ECOMMERCE SEO
AVOIDING COMMON PITFALLS
Jon Quinton, Senior SEO Consultant, SEOgadget
WHY TALK ABOUT ECOMMERCE SEO?
SIMPLE: LOSING OUT TO COMPETITORS
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QUESTION: HOW CAN YOU AVOID MISTAKES THAT
EVERYONE ELSE MAKES?
GHOSTS OF LINK BUILDING PAST
YEARS OF THIS:
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Time spent clearing up junk is time not being spent acquiring
new links
AND THIS:
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If your link profile is full of links like these, you need to learn how to analyse your profile
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Identify who is linking to you, then make a judgement call on
which links should stay
ANCHOR TEXT DISTRIBUTION
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Evaluate proportion of commercial anchors vs. brand
and noise
SEARCHING FOR OTHER RED FLAGS:
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suspicious links can be incredibly easy to spot.
WEENING OFF THE ‘GOOGLE CRACK’*
*THANKS TO @BADAMS
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Having a strong brand with diverse traffic sources will negate the risk of ranking
fluctuation
Traffic
Organic Search
PPC
Social Print
Press
Events
Conferences
Meetups
Brand
Non-Brand News
Landing Pages
Shopping
Targeted Campaigns
Deals and Offers
Competitions
Ego Bait
Advertising
Editorial
Interviews
PR Stunts
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birdsong
Want to know what content might work well on social?
http://birdsongdtt.com/
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NOTE: Influential fashion blogger
IGNORE CUSTOMERS AT YOUR PERIL…
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Marketing a crap product and service gets you nowhere
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The smart money is in building a ‘tribe’ that will promote your
products for you
NOT MAKING USE OF DATA
USE INTERNAL SEARCH WISELY
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Internal search = insight gold
CUSTOM VARIABLES – STOCK INFO
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Dynamically add:
_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','Out of stock items','Samsung Series 7 Chronos 15.6 Touchscreen Laptop Silver','1099',true]);"
TRACKING HIGH CONVERTING PRODUCTS
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PAGE VALUE VS. TRAFFIC AND SEARCH VOLUME
Category Main Term Search Volume Rank Page Value
/gibson-guitars/ gibson guitars 22200 11 $1.60
/strings/ guitar strings 18100 8 $4.95
/fender-guitars/ fender guitars 14800 18 $2.10
/acoustic-guitars/ acoustic guitars 4400 12 $0.50
/electric-guitars/ electric guitars 3600 13 $1.50
/guitar-amps/ guitar amps 2900 17 $0.70
/bass-guitars/ bass guitars 2900 18 $1.25
/sheet-music/ guitar sheet music 2900 3 $3.80
/accessories/ guitar accessories 2400 11 $2.10
/guitar-cases/ guitar cases 1900 6 $1.90
/effects/ guitar effects pedals 1000 10 $1.90
/bass-amps/ bass amps 1000 12 $0.10
/marshall-amps/ marshall amplifiers 880 10 $0.11
/fender-amps/ fender amplifiers 480 9 $0.15
/acoustic-bass-guitars/ acoustic bass guitars 170 21 $0.00
/practice-amps/ practice amps 58 13 $0.00
/starter-kits/ guitar starter kits 22 7 $2.50
Using revenue metrics makes ‘SEO’ data instantly more
powerful
LETTING OPPORTUNITIES PASS YOU BY
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
4500
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Match keyword data with crawl data to find keywords not yet
being targeted =COUNTIF(Sheet4!$A$1:$A$2,"*"&B3&"*")
HOW DO PEOPLE SEARCH FOR YOUR PRODUCTS?
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Understand if people search by brand, product, category or
other
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If demand exists, don’t waste the potential on filters – create
sub categories
UNDERSTAND YOUR SEASONALITY
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Demand for motorcycle helmets spikes in the spring – optimise
in the autumn
LOSING OUT TO TECHNICAL NIGHTMARES
ARE YOU MAKING LIFE HARD FOR GOOGLEBOT?
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Quick check – how does the size of your site check out with the number of discovered URLs?
UNDERSTAND HOW CRAWL BUDGET IS BEING SPENT
61%
39%
Parameter URLS vs. Clean URLs
57%
43%
Total Crawl Budget Wastage:
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Use log-file data to identify where you might be losing
valuable crawl budget
POOR HANDLING OF PAGINATION
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Implement rel=“next” and rel=“prev”
CONTENT = YOUR CHARACTER
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If your content is good enough, show
it off. If not, rewrite it and then show it off
WEAK PRODUCT DESCRIPTIONS:
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Question: does this give me enough information to make an informed
decision?
Product descriptions provided via a feed equates to inviting a panda round
for dinner
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If you want to know what good looks like, take a look at wish.co.uk
WEAPONS TOOLS OF CHOICE
• http://birdsongdtt.com/ • http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/ • http://majesticseo.com/ • http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-
spider/
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