SEO for dummies ...

[Kent Multer]

Hi folks,

Recently one of my clients mentioned that his site isn't getting very good search-engine rankings, and a couple of "IT experts" couldn't figure out why. I took a look around the store, and it seems that he isn't doing any of the basic SEO techniques. I'm a software engineer, not a marketing expert; but after many years of working with e-commerce, I think I've learned a few things. But I wanted to ask this group before I make any recommendations to the client.

Most products in the store have very short descriptions, just one line of text. There are no meta-tags. They don't submit any data feeds. They have an XML sitemap, and they have some custom code to regenerate it once a week, but they don't ping Google to notify them of the update.

My impression is that all of these things are considered the basics to get good search-engine rankings. But again, that's not my specialty, and I do know that the ranking strategies change over time. Should I recommend any or all of the above to the client? Any other ideas that I should pass along?

Thanks --

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Three easy steps:

#1 Good Content
#2 Good Content
#3 Good Content.

Anything else is just miniscule in terms of results. That being said. Some are easy. I.e, Meta Titles (and lesser degree Meta descriptions), Alt text, using terms in cat hierarchy like

Shoes
Men's Shoes
Men's Work Shoes

Instead of

Shoes
Men's
Work

(oh, and sitemaps only need to be submitted ONCE.

[Dan - Glendale Designs]

While basic on-site SEO techniques are good practice, and set the foundation for good SEO/Marketing, that is just a small sliver of a much bigger pie and simply having titles, descriptions, content with targeted terms in it and an XML Sitemap is not going to provide meaningful results in terms of improving overall rankings. Most of these elements are covered in an initial technical SEO audit.

In order to properly advise a client like this on realistic, long term SEO strategies, you first need to look at the market they are in, the level of competition, client expectations, their marketing budget, keyword research, link analysis and a number of other factors, many of which are off-site. You really have to dive into their business and determine the resources they have at their disposal to compete within their market. From there a strategy should be developed consisting of things like actual marketing, customer engagement, branding, social, possibly pay per click, quality content, landing page and usability optimization and so on. I will also say that the definition of "quality content" often gets lost in translation. A landing page stuffed with with a bunch of targeted keywords is not quality content.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

While basic on-site ... etc.

In other words; there is no SEO for Dummies :)

[oliverands]

There may be no SEO for dummies, but there are some really basic things that can be done to dramatically improve rankings on search engine results pages.

The Moz Beginners Guide to SEO is about as SEO for dummies as it gets.The things detailed here are relatively simple to do and to fix if a site isn't already doing them. I would recommend giving this a review and looking at the client's site and making recommendations to pick off the low hanging fruit first--things detailed in this guide that aren't currently being done.

https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo

Once those issues are taken care of (content, content, content basically) then look to some of the more difficult things to do.

Once the low hanging fruit is picked, I would recommend adding schema.org tags to product pages. Having this data on the pages does seem to give a slight boost in search engine rankings. And it provides potential customers with more information in the search engine result (price, availability, customer ratings, etc.) that encourages them to click your link rather than another in the results page.

[Dan - Glendale Designs]

Once the low hanging fruit is picked, I would recommend adding schema.org tags to product pages. Having this data on the pages does seem to give a slight boost in search engine rankings. And it provides potential customers with more information in the search engine result (price, availability, customer ratings, etc.) that encourages them to click your link rather than another in the results page.

Schema/structured data is a perfect example of what I was trying to get across in my response above. Just to clarify, structured data for Content/CMS vs. Ecommerce/Product Type are two completely different worlds and I am primarily referring to the Ecommerce side of things with this response. (the two should really work hand in hand in the grand scheme of things, but that's another story)

Just like an XML Sitemap, structured data sets a good foundation for "SEO". I would argue that simply having it in place does not directly increase rankings, but as you noted, the primary benefit is the potential to improve click through rates on your Search Engine listings against your competitors, which over the long haul could improve rankings assuming there wasn't a high level of immediate bounces because the resulting landing page didn't deliver. I should also note that Product Listing Ad services such as Google Adwords will often verify/validate submitted product data against structured data as well. With that said, should it be there, most definitely. Does that necessarily mean it will improve rankings, not guaranteed.

We have a number of clients in relatively competitive markets with MAP pricing being enforced by suppliers/manufacturers. In this particular instance, there comes a point where everyone is basically submitting the same Ecommerce/Product structured data, outside of some minor variations in user generated reviews. When it comes to this situation, structured data is simply going to level the playing field and the store in question is really going to have to dig deep and push hard in order to compete.

On the flip side, we have seen structured data greatly help early adoptors, niche entities and/or those with competition that is behind the times, however that can quickly change as more competition enters the market or the existing catches up with the times.

My main point here is that a good "SEO" consultant, or internal employee for that matter, is going to set realistic expectations based on the specifics of a given business within it's particular market and lay out how all of these tools, best practices and quality content play into the much bigger picture. I can't tell you how many times in recent years I have heard "I was told to add structured data or X, Y, Z to my site, but it's still not ranking any higher". Client simply added structured data and waited for those rankings to start moving up, all while they could have engaged in a number of ongoing processes to truly improve rankings against their competitors over the long haul. This immeditately tells me that expectations are completely off and there is a good chance that no research was performed to get an overall view of things before diving in. ("SEO" tools and the many articles floating around out there often drive these types of misconceptions as well)

To circle this back around to Kent's original question, if this were our client, we would immediately dive into getting an understanding of the business, where it currently sits within it's market and it's value to customers. Otherwise sitemaps, title/description tags, structured data and even content are most likely not going to drive real results.

[lesliekirk]

Schema/structured data is a perfect example of what I was trying to get across in my response above. Just to clarify, structured data for Content/CMS vs. Ecommerce/Product Type are two completely different worlds and I am primarily referring to the Ecommerce side of things with this response. (the two should really work hand in hand in the grand scheme of things, but that's another story)

Excellent point Dan. I have store owners that participate in SEO classes only to come back pulling their hair out because everything had been geared to WordPress. Same thing seems to apply to a "hired SEO gun" who doesn't quite understand Miva.

[Kent Multer]

Hi folks, thanks for all the advice.

I was just about to ask about structured data, when I saw it was discussed in the newest posts. I think I'll go ahead with that. For one thing, it's relatively easy; you just have to edit a few page templates, instead of entering or importing thousands of descriptions or meta-tags. Also, it occurs to me that increasing *rankings* is not the same as increasing *sales.* If structured data will help close more sales, that's certainly worth doing, even if the rankings don't change. Make sense?

[Dan - Glendale Designs]

Excellent point Dan. I have store owners that participate in SEO classes only to come back pulling their hair out because everything had been geared to WordPress. Same thing seems to apply to a "hired SEO gun" who doesn't quite understand Miva.

It's funny Leslie, as I was typing that response I got a newsletter email on "Why the Semantic Web Will Change the World!", all examples being WordPress/CMS type content. There is a time and a place to add additional schema/structured data to an ecommerce site, a good example be if they have a brick and mortar location, which opens up a number of data possibilities, but again that gets into doing the proper research up front to determine needs.