Product Titles

Ranking your ecommerce store is a very specific task. Your online store has the same needs…. But in many cases different techniques are used to meet the need. One of these highly important optimization techniques is creating great product page titles. Your page title is the single most important on page optimization element of any page, yet still the technique for creating a engaging and relevant title for ecommerce products is quite different from standard pages.

Take the title of this post as an example, while this is a great title for a blog post, it would be very poor for a product page. In your product page titles there are more possibilities and more specific needs for searchers. Relevancy is still the key, as an irrelevant title will not perform for you. So we have some simple and easy to implement tips below for creating highly effective product page titles which will help you rank and supply the searcher with the proper product information as well.

Product Page Title Tips

1. Relevancy : Everything is lost if your page title is not relevant to the page’s content. The BEST practice is to create great, unique and descriptive text on your product pages and then craft a highly relevant title from the page. So if you want the page to rank for “green bananas”, then you write about “green bananas”…. Not “green tomatoes”. Your page text must be unique, do not copy others page descriptions… Write great content about the product for your customers and you will be right on.
2. Length : Shorter is better…. Avoid stop and poison words like (cheap, and, if, or, the). You need to be 65 characters (including spaces) or less. This is NOT a keyword list. The words you choose should accurately describe the product and be reflected in the page text.
3. Product Info : If your prices are competitive, then including the price in the end of the title is very effective for searchers to pick the best deal directly from the search page. If your products are “Big Brand” and have a well known or searched model, SKU or MPN then include it for specific and high converting searches. Do not include your own product ID or stock number as its clearly not search able.
4. Call to Action : Your products should contain a short and relevant call to action. Adding phrases like “Free Shipping”, “Guaranteed” or even things like “Eco Friendly” are great for a call to action. In lieu of these types of action phrases, phrases like “Buy Now” or “Online Ordering” are good too.
5. Ordering : The most important items are first and less important are last. The search engines read left to right also. So the product name is going to be first… then moving right the information is less important. See example below.

Apple iPod Touch 8GB MP3 Player $229.00 MB528LLA – Free Shipping

The point here is not only to deliver highly relevant title to searcher and search engines alike, but also to choose your searches better.

A great example of this is to search for “how to buy ipod apps”, this is an information seeking query…. Not a good bet for a conversion. So titles like “How to Buy iPod Apps” may bring some traffic they are not looking for your products. These titles are better suited for your information and help pages within your store.

For your product pages you want to use very descriptive information in your page and titles to grab searchers who are trying to buy… or researching prices and options…. Buyers. Your product page titles are the first step and a key element in creating a highly converting ecommerce website. If they land on the right page… they are simply that much closer to buying from you. The right kind of traffic makes all the difference.

Melanie E-Commerce SEO, Zen Cart

Stalled?

On Page Optimization is the most effective and least expensive SEO process you can do for your store. Today, I will attempt to give shop owners a crash course on how to optimize your pages. The elements for optimizing pages in really very deep… But lets scratch the surface and get you started.

First and foremost, toss out your 1997 thoughts on search engine optimization and read the collective wisdom of 37 leading SEO professionals. I promise you will be shocked and educated. I honestly believe the biggest factor holding back shop owners is a mess of misinformation and “good old fashioned” failure to move forward from initial and outdated beliefs regarding SEO. Lets get started.

When optimizing a page…. The single most effective element is your title tag. This is the words between the <title> tags in the head of your page. Yep, really, not the keyword tag. When optimizing your title tags the rules for success are really very simple, so don’t over think them. Keep it short and sweet, avoid junk words like and/or/if and make it relevant. The reasons for each of these metrics is really very logical. Keep it short to help keep it potent, 65 characters or less. Junk words, or words you really have no desire to rank for, have no business here. Lastly, write the greatest page title ever and it means NOTHING if it is not highly relevant to the page’s content.

The next most effective page elements are heading tags. Heading tags are most effective when short and relevant as well. Many people will tell you to make your heading tags match your title tag… But I beg to differ. I suggest your heading tags be relevant to the text following them. The page’s main heading, <h1> should be about the page as a whole. This tag can match your title tag if you insist, but I rather suggest you use a different phrase construction than your title tag contains for maximum effectiveness.

Next, look at your page containers (paragraphs). Are your thoughts logically separated in to these containers? Or are your paragraphs a jumbled mess of tidbits with no real thought process? When writing paragraphs for SEO and users too, the paragraph text should be all about the same or closely related subject. Any decent writer can tell you this. The last thing you should note with regard to your paragraph structure is the first sentence. The first sentence of your paragraph is very important for many reasons, including engaging the reader, allowing scanning of the page by the reader and giving Google a great snippet to display for key phrases in that paragraph. Many times, Google and other search engines won’t display your Meta description as its just not relevant to the search query and they will grab a snippet to display instead.

Apples and oranges. Pages are documents, not books. So if your product pages, for example, contain too much unrelated text about other products or subjects, then you have not only confused your visitors, but likely Google as well. Simple rule of thumb…. If you are getting off topic on a tangent, then create that copy on a different page and link to it.

Link text is a very sore subject for me. I see shop owners spamming directories with 5 word, completely useless spam titles for their link, but very commonly fail to link well to themselves on site. So spamming is out, keep your link text short simple, descriptive and relevant. Do not link to your pages with link text like “here” or “click here”. At least use a proper link text when linking to yourself.

The amount of content on a page is a constant struggle for shop owners. We know that many times too much text can harm the page real estate and flow… But we also know that doesn’t matter if visitors never find the page either. Add the fact that shopping cart software predominantly uses a dynamic template to display pages, creating mass duplication for pages lacking the proper amount of unique textual content and we really have a paradox. My suggestion is that you create the most unique content you can, without damaging the shoppers ability to shop. Only you can decide this ratio and it will likely be different from page to page. Quick hint here…. Copying manufacturers descriptions is duplication as well. So, no excuses, to rank well and provide the necessary content to be successful…. You will have to write it.

Optimize your images for search and load speed. The web is very unforgiving with regard to slow pages… Lets face it, if you visit a restaurant and have to wait, you are not likely to chuck the idea and leave to find another… Web pages, not so much, they do not have to get in their car and drive away… CLICK and Goodbye. Keep images as small as possible (file size) and make sure you limit the images on your pages to a reasonable number. Name them logically without spamming and set them to display the size they are or thumbnail.

Lastly, I suggest you use a unique and helpful Meta description for your pages. This description should be relevant to the page’s content and contain less than 200 or so characters of natural language to help generate a click through from search results. Your Meta description is your opportunity to get that click. This text is not used to rank your pages, and has no bearing on SEO in that manner… But, this can be the saving grace for any page. We know that people click in to pages from search results which grab their attention…. So here’s your shot.

Notice I didn’t mention your Meta Keyword Tag? Well, okay to be fair use it… But limit your hungry spamming tendencies to 10 keywords or less.

I know I say this all the time, but if you answered our phone here you would understand…. Your online store is a business, it requires hard word and dedication. You are not entitled to search rank and success, you must in fact earn them.

Melanie E-Commerce SEO

Economic Stimulus for Shop Owners

Its very easy to become discouraged when times are tough and sales aren’t where we want them to be. Many shop owners will reach out for additional paid advertising, get rich quick schemes and other means of promoting their stores. While I have no desire to judge anyone…. Are you using your time, energy and marketing dollars wisely?

How Does FREE Sound?

Yes, I said that magic “F” word. Lets just relax a minute and go over some free marketing and optimization techniques and venues for shop owners.

Sure, free sounds good… But is it really free? My dad said never to answer a question with a question… But here I go. What have YOU done for your store lately? This sounds so simple to most, but all to often I deal with shop owners who have not even taken the time to EVER even open their hosting control panel. So in addition to some free marketing ideas, today I am going to help you make your Internet store…. Better.

Managing your shopping cart software, products and marketing in house (this means you!) will not only save money, but expand your skill set to save you long term money. Sound good?

No matter what you know how to do, there is ALWAYS more to learn. So whether you take this time to add great content to your pages, attend Google’s Conversion University, learn some SEO or just learn to code a hyperlink and make CSS changes… You will be advancing your skill set and saving money!

The first step in any good idea is a plan of implementation. Decide what you need to do for your store… Sounds easy enough, let me give you some ideas.

• Learn to optimize your pages content, coded elements and page titles. On page optimization will freshen stale content and has a great return for the time invested. Small SEO Touches with BIG Results.
• Got Link Bait? Do you know what link bait is? Well, you should as great link bait can easily make you a success.
• Do a usability study…. Use real people to shop your store and REALLY LISTEN to what they have to say. So often we are so familiar with our own sites… we lose sight with what the rest of the world sees. Grab 5 or 10 friends, kids and co-workers and enlist them to find and buy something on your site. I promise you will find some pretty amazing things you have been to “involved” to see. I had a customer point one out to me today!
• Get really in to Analytics…. It is a endless goldmine of information to make your store successful. Where is your traffic from, what sells best, who spends more time on site…. Which visitors are converting better than others. Are shoppers bailing on your checkout?
• Read, read, read and then read some more. Read about your niche, about SEO, about marketing and most of all read to learn and expand your own ability and increase your own positive impact on your business. Don’t know where to start? Google for blogs and other niche related forums and groups. I also highly recommend you checkout the Google Webmasters Blog.
• Do you have duplicate content, which is suppressing your ability to rank and be successful? Find duplicate content and fix it. Let’s face it, if Google was your business, would you deliver your shoppers to a page with 10 duplicate items? Hell no… Get your head around the user’s experience, roll your sleeves up and create great unique content.
• Link building… Do you do this? Well, link building, like most SEO… NEVER ends. Very simply, to sum this up, Google and other search engines follow links around the web to find and understand pages. Link building is really a pretty complicated issue… But I will give your some pointers. Don’t buy links (Google does not allow this), link out from your website with great link text and to related sites, forget about PageRank (it won’t pay the bills)… Instead solicit links from other quality websites that you would be glad to be associated with. So whether you are writing articles, participating in a community forum, blogging or just doing manual link building… Think about it like taking this person to meet your mom, are you going to be embarrassed? If so find a link you are proud to have.
• Learn about and use social media religiously… Start here with Tim Nash. Tim can bring you fully up to speed and get you started. Social media, when used correctly can provide links and qualified traffic… Best of all, its FREE.
• Pick a page a week and learn to fix the errors and check for misspellings and such. Valid pages are happy pages.
• Sometimes even just a nice fresh, fast and updated redesign of your store can breathe new life in to it and YOU.
• Checkout free shopping feeds and comparison shopping sites that will list your products for increased exposure.

I guess my point here is that you are your own most valuable asset…. If you’re not learning you’re dying.

If your answers here today are all about what you don’t know… Then you have arrived here my mistake and should likely leave.

Melanie So you want to be a Shop Owner Series

Many strange things really turn in to great things. Web pages all have a unique ability….. Even if its ability is nauseating the visitor. Anyone who has built a few websites knows that these little freak happenings of the Internet are happening everywhere.

A great example is a site we have which serves up free content in exchange for clicks on our Adsense Ads. This being its only source of income, you can certainly imagine a great deal of thought went into add placement and landing page optimization. After a few weeks of putting our heads together we came up with a layout for the ads on every landing page. These ads all perform well, but the most effective one is the one we stuck in to simply fill a void! This ad was bringing in an excellent amount of click, so I set out to find out why. I tracked analytics, click thrus, times of day and location only to find that indeed the ad performed well simply because it was rather close to a VERY popular link. So you never really know when the next great thing or hidden success you will find in your website.

My personal opinion is that, if you own an online store and you are not spending 20 minutes a day per site in Analytics, doing frequent usability click thrus (including checkout) have used the heat maps to optimize your site’s flow… Then you will likely suffer from failure to thrive in your web business. Fact is, it’s hard work…. Sure some have made fortunes overnight, and you might hit the lottery too! Nope, really it’s hard work and the same level or more of dedication and work ethic is needed to run an online business as a brick & mortar business.

So after you’ve started your business and your website is built…. Then what?

Then you must decide to be successful. Make a daily schedule of things to DO to build your business and succeed. Things like link building and adding fresh content are like the electricity bill for your website. Very likely starting out there will be many things you aren’t skilled enough YET to complete. Don’t let that be a crutch…. In time you can learn all of these things. So let’s make a new shop owner maintenance plan for success.

Things to do to make your web store successful

1. Get in to your site’s stats and analytical information. Really study your traffic, flow conversion opportunities and keywords to start. Just a note that the really valuable keywords are at the bottom of your list… Look in to longtails.
2. Study… This is your business. Learn how to promote your store, how to make small edits and how to convert visitors to start.
3. Shop at your website. Seriously…. Do this alot and have your friends do it to! You will NEVER get every single bug worked out… But finding them brings you one bug, mistake or misspelling closer!
4. Keep control of your own business. Make sure you have full access and control of  your website, your hosting, your domain and any accounts related to your business at all times.
5. Deliver customer service and build trust. Believe it or not, word of mouth on the Internet is even bigger on the web than in our daily lives. Our fingers now have hundreds of ways to share thoughts and links worldwide, don’t miss this.
6. Build links every week, optimize a page every week, build a new page every week and update your products everyday.
7. Look and explore marketing opportunities within your budget. Pay per Click or Pay per Lead are usually very good to get started with … I prefer the latter for shopping carts as the shopper has already seen, read about and knows the price of the product before you pay for the click.

Most importantly, plan to wok hard and build your business… No free bus rides on the net either.

Melanie E-Commerce SEO, So you want to be a Shop Owner Series