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6 SEO Tips: How to Boost Your Product Page Rankings
Category: ComputersAs an SEO consultant and blogger, I enjoy sharing case analyses with my clients and readers. Heres a recent one. A flower shop owner in the Midwest found SEO Trump on Google two months ago and contacted me. Her story: frustrated about sagging sales, she had hired an SEO company to optimize her web site. More than $ 3,000 later, SERPs had barely improved and traffic was still stagnant. She was disappointed and asked me to check what was wrong.
Was she on the right track when she looked for an SEO consultant in the first place? Sure. The question was only why the SEO efforts hadnt succeeded. So, after a good look at the website, we had a lengthy discussion and she asked me to take over the job.
Now a thorough diagnosis was indicated. I dont want to cover all the problem areas and will single out only one which is quite typical of e-tailers: while some important pages were decently (though not exceptionally well) optimized, all product pages were literally devoid of optimization. Unfortunately, the SEO professional she had hired failed to address that mistake.
So after some detailed SEO work on the index and other key pages (you wont believe this, but there were key spelling mistakes!), I focused on revamping the product pages. The results came surprisingly fast: within a month, many of those pages began to show substantially higher SERPs. We arent yet where we want to be (remember: the name of the game is Patience!), but the trend is most encouraging. Currently, the site has Page 1 and 2 Google rankings for several highly competitive keywords and longer-tail phrases and I am confident well go higher yet.
Heres how I helped this e-tailer achieve it:
Dont neglect Meta Tags
Im not trying to beat the same old drum, but in my (pretty solid) experience, Meta tags, while not as crucial as content or titles, are more important than many of my colleagues realize. Just check relevant SEO tips and articles.
Meta tags got a bad reputation mainly via the Meta keywords concept which had been used to death, abused beyond recognition and was consequently trashed by Google. But good Meta descriptions can be very helpful, especially as they provide the first impression about your page.
By the way, if your items have brand names, product names or serial numbers, dont forget to include those, because specific model searches could be a big bonus for you with little competition and a high conversion rate.
Use Breadcrumb Navigation
This trick is quite helpful. Its called breadcrumb trail and shows where the current page is located in site hierarchy. Generically, a florists page trail could look like this: Home > Products > Roses > Sweet Dreams Bouquet This is more or less generic, but try to use a keyword-rich trail which is both user-friendly and good from an SEO point of view!
Create unique and detailed descriptions for each product
The sites original product pages had almost no product description. So I asked the florist and her store manager to create detailed descriptions for all products.
Tip: avoid using the same description for similar products. Unique product profiles that are rich in keyword and phrases not only increase traffic from searches, but also improve conversion rates. They enhance user experience because the more information you provide, the more your customers will know about your products, and the easier it is for them to make a decision. Sounds logical, doesnt it?
Use keywords and phrases in URLs
Most e-commerce sites are using dynamic scripts because manually updating dozens or hundreds of product pages is a huge task. The problem is that database-driven pages (dynamic URLs) contain strings that are disliked by search engines. Furthermore, keyword-rich URLs can dramatically boost a sites rankings for those specific keywords and phrases. So, here was my solution for this flower site: since it was running on an Apache server, I used the Mod_Rewrite Module to redirect dynamic URLs to optimized ones. That helped the site achieve coveted rankings for several long-tail phrases.
Optimize product images
No one can deny the increasing importance of image results on SERPs because its estimated that by now, 15% of all searches are for images. Thats why many retail sites have developed strategies for image optimization. The step I took was simply adding keywords including locations (the florists area and the main areas bordering it) with hyphens in Alt Tags. Then I used robots.txt to eliminate possible duplicate content issues caused by different versions (thumbnail and full-size) of the same images. Remember: search engines cannot read images, so Alt Tags are a good way of image optimization. (By the way, Alt Tags are also useful when added to links).
Try Google Base
Googles Product Base is a free tool to publish products. I logged in, chose the matching type, created and registered data feed and submitted it. Done! Currently only a small percentage of this clients referrals are coming from Google base searches, but she actually likes this tool because its quite easy to handle and updates can be completed in minutes.
For the past several months, we have received a flurry of inquiries from retailers. Thats not surprising because, in todays tough economy, more and more brick and mortar shops shake in their traditional foundations and are increasingly turning to the internet (and a good thing, too). Every e-tailer wants to set itself apart from his competitors, but most are not able to make money the turbo way due to fierce competition " unless their site is well optimized and thus visible against that fierce competition, and can attract the kind of attention needed to haul in new customers.
So, try these tips and if you apply them on each product page, your store will definitely benefit from noticeably higher visibility.
Author's Bio
Ernie Schwarcz, Founder of seotrump.com
– Grew up in Vienna, Austria.
– Studied at the famous University of Vienna;
– Reluctantly discharged with a Masters in Economics, Business, Statistics ;
– Lives in Montreal, Canada.
– Independent SEO Consultant.
– Makes a living from pretty decent SEO work but will give free and helpful hints.
