To summarize, between 4/28/2010 and 5/3/2010 Google made an algorithmic change affecting the organic rank/traffic for long tail searches. Head searches are not as widely affected, but some have been reported. This change is in fact a quality update which has passed all the normal Google department approvals and testing. It is not part of or related to the Caffeine update, but the goal is similar, as in any algorithmic change the target is to improve search results. Lastly, this change is not temporary, so if you have lost traffic, you will need to make some changes to recover.... they are not going to just come back.

You will find that solving this issue for your site is going to be primarily accomplished through quality, specifically content quality. With relationship to ecommerce, the longtail keywords will generally exist only in the product/page title. Ideally, this does not provide the relevancy needed to rank this page for the longtail.

Longtail keywords have traditionally been an easy target for ecommerce... Just pop the longtail in the page title and bingo you rank. Easy pickens. However, as many already know, this allowed pages to rank for longtails, which were not necessarily the best result. Essentially, some pretty low quality, content lacking and non-authoritative pages were allowed to rank. Google seeks to now make the criteria for longtails more closely matched to the criteria for bigger box searches.

Ok, so your traffic is way down... You've determined that the majority of the loss is in 3 to 5 word keyword phrases (longtail), what can you do?

While the answers are pretty clear, there is no escaping the hard work and time which will be needed to resolve this issue. As noted before the most effective use of your time will be spent on content, quality content.

Quality Content for Ecommerce Tips

• Write unique, descriptive and substantial product descriptions for your products. Include several variations of the longtail keyword in your copy. For example if the longtail keyword is bright red light bulbs, you might include red light bulbs, bright red lightbulbs, bright lightbulbs: red...etc. These inclusions support the longtail keyword and are adding relevance to the search query.
• Link specific longtail variations in the link text from your other pages, especially category pages above the longtail product. (internal linking)
• Make a concerted effort in your pages to keep the content topical. Unfortunately, for ecommerce this can mean you will need to limit unrelated marketing on page, or wash it with more topical content on the page. For example, a product page for a green banana may be cross selling many other products on the page... These products, even if related, dilute the main theme or topic of the page, the product.
• Concentrate on product pages to start and then work your way towards the top. Product pages inevitably have more ability to rank, as ideally these pages have a more targeted content base. So your time working on these pages is the most "bang for your buck".
• Now might be the best time to consider getting a blog going. A blog hosted ON YOUR DOMAIN (domain.com/blog) will provide additional longtail opportunities, internal linking, popularity and of course help to boost your authority. Post things like reviews, tips, holiday or seasonal trends, product suggestions and even a coupon or 2. Don't forget to promote your Facebook fan page and Twitter accounts as well.
• Make sure products have unique page titles and Meta descriptions. Titles should be short (about 65 characters), relevant, direct and unique to every page. Descriptions should be 100 to 250 characters, relevant to the page and of course unique to the page. While the Meta description does not help you rank, it certainly can cause duplication and quality issues with Google if ignored.

I think the most logical explanation of Mayday is to say that Google finally recognized the fact that longtail searches were slipping through the cracks. Longtail searches have never had even close to the same relevancy, quality and authority requirements as shorter, bigger box phrases do. As a result, many, even if unwittingly, have cheated the system by having low(er) quality pages able to rank fairly well for longtail searches.

Truth be told, as we look through our SEO client's analytics.... The only ones who have dropped, are not creating the quality, unique and descriptive content on their product pages which we have always required. Those sites that are spending the time to have unique, quality descriptions are pulling the same or more organic traffic in their longtail searches.

No doubt that creating this level of content is hard work, but when you think about the increased convertibility of longtail search referrals.... How can you not allocate the time and resources needed to eliminate duplication and create great content.

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.

Bing or Bomb?

This is no in depth study at all... Just some quick thoughts about the new Microsoft Live Search engine BING!. They even have a rather pleasant and upbeat welcome letter attempting to explain the reasoning and direction... Without exposing much. Big surprise for Live.com users who are redirected.

Ok, so I'm no real Microsoft fan... But I have some screen shots and thoughts I want to share with you guys.

As you see below, the interface is rather inviting... Mousing over the balloons will give you trivia to search and guess the location of the scene.... Pretty neat. Ohhhhh, don't miss the icon in the lower right to install Microsoft Silverlight™ if you want to see other images --- UGH!

This is interesting.... Sitelinks?? Ermmm Sitelink search. Okay, thats pretty cool and useful. But is it for everyone? Or just Microsoft?

Nope, Google has one too!

The relevancy and understanding of search terms seems to be hit or miss... We think this one is a hit. But Make sure you checkout that Microsoft is STILL using the WWW in pro-webs.net which is in fact NON canonical.... Matter of fact they have both www and non-www in 2 different SERPs..Next to each other

But this www page doesn't load for 2 years as the www is permanently redirected to the NON-WWW... Here check it http://www.pro-webs.net/ 301 redirects to http://pro-webs.net/.

So where the hell do you suppose they are get the cached page from?? ....

Good Question, Huh??

Ok moving on, the little pop up for the SERP's orange dot is neat, but does this give searchers enough info to stay the need for them to visit your site to get the answer?

Not sure the Japanese version of the Zen Cart page is really relevant... You, know... Here in Ohio

Searching for Green Bananas produces mostly relative results.... Except maybe the #1 listing (apparently organic?) which is for a beach cottage community in the Bahamas....

The local results are ok.... In searching for sunny Mogadore, Ohio... way below the normal local flair... You get this. Yep, they dropped the ball on this... Google is way better here for certain.

Yep, click it and get a Wiki http://www.bing.com/reference/semhtml/Mogadore%2C_Ohio?fwd=1&qpvt=Mogadore%2C+Ohio&q=Mogadore%2C+Ohio

Wondering about product search???

Look Familiar?

New search engine... Yes. Some improvement.. Yes.... Google Yet? No way!

Protecting Your Rank

So you have worked hard, and are starting to see some good results from your shop's SEO campaign.... Only to find that your #4 SERP (Search Engine Result Page) is now buried below the fold and your traffic has taken a huge hit. Or... Worse yet, you just made page 1 in #9 slot and now you are on page 2. What the heck is going on anyhow?

There are actually a couple of new Google "improvements" at play here.

1. Longer Snippets : Google is now showing an extended snippet for search queries consisting of three or more keywords. The thought process behind this change is that these multiple worded queries are very targeted and and a bit complex. So by that right, a normal shorter snippet short snippet may not be enough information to cover the bases in the searcher’s query.
2. Expanded Related Searches: Google has expanded in to technology that can better understand query/word associations and other venues related to your search. Google is now using additional related searches in the search results.

These innovations from Google are designed to make life easier for searchers... and I'm quite sure they do, however, maybe not so good for shop owners. The issue here is that BOTH of these new innovations do two very bad things for us...

1. Searchers can often find what they seek without ever leaving the search results page with longer snippets, thus never paying us a visit.
2. The search results pages have less room now for results. So many searches have fewer results like 8 for example instead of 10... and many upper middle results are now pushed below the fold.

So if your best SERP got slammed what can you do?

Ideally, you will be checking your search results and you know where you have lost ground. So once you know what searches need help you can then begin to fix the issue.

Building links to the ranking page using the exact search query is always going to be helpful. Remember, even a nofollowed link provides relevancy for the anchor text and surrounding text. While you are out there building these links to save your SERP, remember to use some variations of the text as well. Not only is this a great practice, but it can yield other longtails that can support the original phrase.

Re-evaluate that ranking page. Make sure that the content is exactly what you want, then spend some time optimizing the page as a whole. On page optimization will be very effective here. The increased snippets make the structuring of your content more important than ever. Make sure you are trying to provide Google a great snippet for your longtails. Additionally, while we generally use longer Meta descriptions at PRO Webs in any case, at SEO Scoop, the discussions reagarding the possibility of a longer Meta description to combat this Google phenomena is a very good read.

Social media can really help you out here as well. Many people have Stumbles or other social media tags that are displayed right next to their search result. This is an attention grabber for searchers. With the added link bait opportunities and traffic, now is a good time for you to get educated about social media.

Lastly... Use internal linking with your search query as the anchor text. Now, don't go crazy with this, but if you can provide useful internal linking for your shoppers and great anchor text for yourself at the same time... Can't be a bad thing, right? I have often scolded webmasters for linking to themselves with terrible anchor text... Geez, the least you can do is give yourself a good link!

Links?

We all realize that link building is a never ending need for our websites.... But, do you know what a "Great Link" is? Today we are going to delve in to the ingredients of great links and the qualities that make them great.

Let me start by saying, that no link is a bad link and inbound links cannot hurt you. However, not all backlinks are created equal. There are some easy to identify and specific things beginners can look for to help maximize your link building efforts. Before we move on, just to be crystal clear, the links we are discussing are inbound links or backlinks, which are other websites / web pages linking to your site / pages.

Link Quality Factors

1. Relevance: Relevance with relation to backlinks is really very simple and intuitive. Does the link donor page have anything in common with your page which its linking to? Again, links are all good, some are just better. So with regard to relevance you need to be able to discern the content on both pages is related in some logical way. A "Green Widget" page linking to another "Green Widget" page is obviously, highly relevant.... But what if its linking to a "Red Widget" page, still relevant? Yes, related products and services are great links and aside from the relevancy factor can create a new set of related phrases (Longtails) for your own page as well. So related items and item variations are in fact great pages to have a link from.
2. Quality: Quality really encompasses a great deal of metrics with regard to links, but lets point out a few you need to know. Is the website / page linking to you trusted, indexed, ranking and do they maintain their website well. You see, even a link from a related website isn't much help to you if that website lacks the quality and index score needed to perform well. For example, a link from a killer looking page which hasn't been updated in a year or has severe duplication isn't much help. Did you know that Google for example sometimes goes many months without crawling pages which are duplicate or have become stale?
3. Reciprocal: Reciprocal links are devalued... Period, they are not as good as a one way link and this is why search engines, Google specifically has a algorithmic theory regarding reciprocal links. Google believes that when a site links to another that this is in essence a "Vote" for that website. Having said that, I am certain you can clearly see why Google devalues reciprocal or traded links.
4. Link Text: Link text is the textual and click able part of the link. Search engines use this text to help them determine the content of the resulting page and then measure the relevance as well. So if your link is an image or the link text is something like "click here", the weight and quality of the link will be tremendously less than something like "Green Widgets" in the link text.
5. Variety: Many times I see webmasters engaging in huge link building campaigns using one set of link text/textual descriptions. This is not nearly as effective as using a variety of link text on your inbound links. The same sediment can be accomplished in a natural looking way by reordering the keywords and using plurals and synonyms. This also creates a larger pool of relevant keywords and phrases for your page... In turn more rank opportunity.
6. Surrounding Textual Content:  If your "Red Widget" link is buried in a sea of text about "Sea Horses"... You still lose as the on page relevancy sucks and Google thinks your link is in fact out of place and irrelevant. Not a good link. By the same token, links residing in lists and menus are not as effective as a link inside a paragraph of related text.
7. Advertising vs. Linking: A link is a link and should be clean (un nofollowed) unless its advertising. Google despises paid or purchased links... and rightly so. Buying links and not preventing them from passing both PageRank and link juice is manipulating the system. My theory here is simple, take it or leave it.... Advertising links should in fact be nofollowed as they are not links which are intended to lend the true nature of an organic link to the site's visitors.  So, save yourself a huge headache and costly re-inclusion by nofollowing advertising links. Keep it clean!
8. PageRank: PageRank or PR has NOTHING effectively to do with search rank. A great example of this is Googling a term to find a PR ZERO outranking a PR 5 on the search results page. While PageRank has its value, relevancy is far more valuable. So if you take our "Widgets" example from above.... Would you rather have a link from the PR5 "Seahorse" page or a link from the PR2 "Green Widget" page? That is up to you, but I would go with the one that pays the bills.