New website - What can I do to boost SEO?

[JJWinst]

Hi everyone,

I am currently in the middle of a new site build; What can I do to ensure I am one step ahead in terms of SEO?

I haven't added products yet, or added departments. Would you recommend getting an SEO expert in to add Meta data etc to products as they are being added?

And what (if anything) is essential at this early stage?

 

[sambarnes90]

At the early stages the best thing you can do is make 100% sure that you're getting the technical on-site setup right.

There's was a great post recently on Moz that details the process:

http://moz.com/blog/technical-site-audit-for-2015

Make sure you're getting site structure right.

Crawl the site using Xenu (for example) and check there are no broken links.

Get a sitemap.xml file up and uploaded to Google Webmaster Tools.

Just make sure that you're building on a solid foundation really!

 

[JJWinst]

Thanks for the reply. I've chosen a reliable design and development team who is well recognised so I have no qualms that they aren't doing everything they should be at their end.

But the responsibilities that I have like adding products/departments etc, I want to get it right..

I've no idea what to add into the META DATA tabs etc so is it worth employing someone to do it, or DIY it?

 

[HazelC]

Content is King (says Google), aim for 300+ words on each page, including keywords a few time and ideally one landing page per keyword (as a rough guideline)

 

[JJWinst]

Hi HazelC, I'm not sure I have that much space..

Especially in the products section, I have this:

Page Title (up to 70 characters)

Meta Description (up to 140 characters)

Meta Keywords (comma separated, up to 15 keywords)

What would you advise to put in those?

 

[fisicx]

Page Title (up to 70 characters) - the name of the product

Meta Description (up to 140 characters) - your sales pitch for the product

Meta Keywords (comma separated, up to 15 keywords) - nothing

The bulk of the content goes on the page in the product description - that's where the 300+ words go.

A bit concerned you haven't got all the departments and products added yet. This is the first thing you should do BEFORE the design team get to work. You need the product, images and shop structure in place so the designers can put the best framework around them.

 

[HazelC]

Page Title (up to 70 characters) - the name of the product

Meta Description (up to 140 characters) - your sales pitch for the product

Meta Keywords (comma separated, up to 15 keywords) - nothing

The bulk of the content goes on the page in the product description - that's where the 300+ words go.

A bit concerned you haven't got all the departments and products added yet. This is the first thing you should do BEFORE the design team get to work. You need the product, images and shop structure in place so the designers can put the best framework around them.

Thanks Fisicx

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Slight caveat to what has been posted, check with your developers what the internal search facility is checking, as that 'may' use the keywords field.

 

[Rapid Web Designer]

Hi - I've just joined this brilliant forum
The max no of characters you can now use changed a year or so ago i.e. it's max 55 characters for Browser/Page title and 155 (sometime 153 now) for the Description. Keywords (as mentioned in another post are a waste of time) they've been redundant since 2009.

 

[Tin]

Hi there

I've developed a tool that helps you to see how your title and meta description will show in Google's search results once you get some rankings. It's very easy to use but you will need to do a bit of research if you want to make the most of your titles and meta descriptions.

Fisicx above has given you a heads-up on how you want to consider what you write into these areas but essentially, you get just three lines of copy from Google in which to add your first sales pitch to searchers who have typed in a keyword that you rank for.

You already know that there's 10 organic results on page 1 and the thing to remember here is that everyone of those 10 results will be aching for someone's click. You need to get savvy and write a sequence of words that goes into those three lines of text with enough passion in what you write to make some folk who scan read it... click!

You've now got a visitor to your site so make the most of him/her by paying attention to what you're saying on your web page, get that right to turn that person into a customer.

Here's the tool.

http://www.freshbananas.co.uk/serptool.html

To ensure that Google uses the information you place in the title and description areas, you need to incorporate the keywords that are likely to be searched for. If these are missing from your meta description then Google will select random pieces of text from the page which suit the keywords typed in. If this happens then you'll have lost the chance of temptation because the wording Google flushes into your listing won't have the same degree of 'pitch' to it.

It's also important to make each page's title and description unique, this can be a time consuming exercise if you've many products that are similar but it's an important point and should not be skipped.

Not sure that'll help but the tool is there anyway.

Ray

 

[StevePoster]

It is important to set up first the target of each site pages (different titles and descriptions but related, this is to widen the influence of the product and services) and as mentioned above be guided accordingly with Google. Title will be your first shout in the SERP while the description will be the important supporting cast and must be unique as well as interesting to the targeted audience.

 

[JJWinst]

Page Title (up to 70 characters) - the name of the product

Meta Description (up to 140 characters) - your sales pitch for the product

Meta Keywords (comma separated, up to 15 keywords) - nothing

The bulk of the content goes on the page in the product description - that's where the 300+ words go.

A bit concerned you haven't got all the departments and products added yet. This is the first thing you should do BEFORE the design team get to work. You need the product, images and shop structure in place so the designers can put the best framework around them.

Thank you. In a market where the descriptions tend to write themselves, how 'personal' would you go? I can move words around and add my own text, but in general I will be using manufacturer's descriptions.

The design/development team know the structure of my departments, it's mainly the products which I have the responsibility to do and I know there are SEO related information that can be added.

 

[fisicx]

I can move words around and add my own text, but in general I will be using manufacturer's descriptions.

Nope. Don't ever, ever, ever use the manufacturer's descriptions. Write your own. Make them personal, as if it's you selling the product to me. Lots of products can mean months of writing. Duplicating existing content may well kill off all your other SEO efforts. And depending on the platform the developers are using you may need to create a short and long descriptions.

On the department structure, is it your structure or is it the logical structure your customer's prefer? I worked with a bathroom supplier and they used technical categories because that's how they understood it. Unfortunately that wasn't how customer grouped things, we had to pretty much redesign the site from scratch to get it converting.

 

[JJWinst]

Some of my competitor's (large international brands) use competitor's descriptions, with mild variations. For instance product features or details?

From previous experience of running my site I tried to do some customer research and found most of our customers preferred to shop from a Mens / Womens start point, which goes down to a 2nd Layer such as 'Clothing / Nutrition' and a 3rd layer with more detailed categories such as Shorts / Tops etc..

I think it is the most logical and easy way for customers to find our products.

 

[fisicx]

But those competitors will be spending thousands on marketing and SEO so you need to do something different. If you aren't relying on Google searches for traffric then just copy the descriptions.

I'm not suggesting you don't categorise the products, what I am suggesting is each product may have multiple categories. Don't fix the structure, make it flexible so that you can access products in multiple ways. For example:

Men > Clothing > Running > Extreme Weather
Waterproof Clothing > Running > Men
Breathable Tops > Men > Running

 

[JJWinst]

I will be replying on Google Traffic so I will try my best to include as much content as possible. Would this just be general descriptions with keywords?

The structure will be flexible for sure but the top layer of categories will be Mens | Womens | Shop by Sport | Shop by Brand

I don't have 1000's of products so as you suggest it is essential to try and get relevant item's showing up everywhere. The customer will have to go through one of those routes to find a product however unless he/she searches, or uses one of the graphics/links on the site to go elsewhere.

But it will be possible for customers to click Mens > Clothing and to then filter what they require (Shorts / Socks / tops) etc

 

[fisicx]

Why just those four categories? Use a list down the left and you could offer far more choice and have 'shorts' as a top level category - makes the site much more usable espacially on a touch screen.

This is why I said you need to get the content on the site so you can start testing, until you have all the products loaded you just won't know what configuration works best. You can use one of the many usability testing websites to get some feedback.

Have the developers got you to sign up'agree to a layout?

 

[Martina Wade]

Hi JWinst!
I did this last year - was part of a team completely building a new eCommerce site, and a year later I have learnt a lot! Like someone else has said - don't use the manufacturer's description. Write a description as if you were describing it to a friend. Include details - this way you can get some long-tail keywords which can make you stand out in search. Theres a lot of competition to get on the first page of google, but it can be done.

The best tip I was ever given to do SEO is to build your site and your content for a human being. Don't build it for google. Make it 100% clear what you do, and what each product is. Try looking at it as if you were someone who's never seen the site before. You want to immediately understand what it's about and how to find your way to the product you are looking for. This means clear categories, internal linking and =, I would suggest, a menu bar either on the top or the side which is visible at all times. I would also suggest having the cart/customer account accessible everywhere, again to make things as easy as possible for the user.

By focusing on logical, easy navigation, relevant and engaging content, internal links to keep the user clicking through and a nice layout you can get far.

 

[JJWinst]

Why just those four categories? Use a list down the left and you could offer far more choice and have 'shorts' as a top level category - makes the site much more usable espacially on a touch screen.

This is why I said you need to get the content on the site so you can start testing, until you have all the products loaded you just won't know what configuration works best. You can use one of the many usability testing websites to get some feedback.

Have the developers got you to sign up'agree to a layout?

Not many of the large players in my field use a left side navigation. And Shorts isn't a top level category for me as it will only have around 12-16 products in it.

I think it will be quite user-friendly to go from Mens > Clothing > Shorts (bearing in mind, Mens is 1st layer, and the dropdown menu displays 2nd and 3rd level categories, so shorts will be seen once the user hovers over Mens.

The developers knew my product range and department layout before a wireframe was selected, but at this stage yes the layout is agreed.

 

[fisicx]

Don't follow the big players! Be yourself.

You consider a three step path to the product range to be OK but that's because it's you doing the navigation and know how you would find things. All of your potential custoimers are not you, they don't do things the same way as you. So don't force your structure on them.

Shorts may not be YOUR top level category but suppose you sell them by the bucket - they could become your most popular product and therefore need to be in the primary category. Does the layout allow for the addition of extra categories in the primary navigation?

Until the site launches you have no idea at all if it's going to work. Which means LH or RH navigation may be what your customers prefer. Or they might like mega dropdowns. Or they may prefer to search. Or they may give up and leave the site.

This is why you need to get the products on the site and do some testing. Agreeing a layout before user testing is pretty much doomed to failure. Sorry to be all negative but I'd put money on your having to redeign the site within a few months of launch. Not because what they are doing is bad, but just because all sites need reworking to make them more effective once you have some user data.

PS: And remember, dropdowns don't ever work well on touch screens so your three levels may well fall over.

 

[JJWinst]

I understand your concerns and appreciate your input; but to re-invent the wheel when it has been proven to work would be a bit optimistic of me. We may have to change our category layout in the future but only time will tell. I am having a mobile site designed so the navigation shouldn't be a problem, but will think about your concerns with the dropdowns not being great on tablet/phone.

P.S I have just written my first description; took me about 10 minutes! Only 200 more to go.

 

[fisicx]

OK. no probs - except don't have a seperate mobile site. You just need one site that is responsive to all devices not just mobile phones. Making a site responsive is easy peasy so hopefully this is what your developers are doing.

 

[InternetMarketingPlatinum]

At the early stages the best thing you can do is make 100% sure that you're getting the technical on-site setup right.

There's was a great post recently on Moz that details the process:

http://moz.com/blog/technical-site-audit-for-2015

Make sure you're getting site structure right.

Crawl the site using Xenu (for example) and check there are no broken links.

Get a sitemap.xml file up and uploaded to Google Webmaster Tools.

Just make sure that you're building on a solid foundation really!

I'd actually say that the starting point would be the develop a SEO strategy?

 

[JJWinst]

OK. no probs - except don't have a seperate mobile site. You just need one site that is responsive to all devices not just mobile phones. Making a site responsive is easy peasy so hopefully this is what your developers are doing.

I've been reading up on a few articles and come across 'NO INDEX' on Meta tags? It said this can be used on products where you can't write unique content. Does this mean on products where I simply want to use the manufacturer's descriptions I simply write 'NO INDEX' in the text box or am I getting mixed up somewhere?

Also the same article said it is imperative not to copy other sites/brands descriptions. Does this apply if I was to do this:

Brand site: Brand XYZ increases performance and endurance whilst still being comfortable.

My example: Brand XYZ increases performance and endurance and still remains comfortable.

Would that work or would it be penalised?

 

[Annoying Donkey]

No Index means your product listing will not be found when someone searches in G. That's not what you want, is it?

Duplicate content penalty is a myth, or at least misunderstood. You will have no issues with G having the manufacturer description. Try any product search, and you'll likely find many similar descriptions in the SERPs. Though it is better to rewrite it, this is because the manufacturer description just describes the product, it doesn't "sell the sizzle".

 

[fisicx]

I agree it's not going to get you penalised but if you want to sell the products (and not have people use a cheaper supplier on Amazxon) you need to make the potential customer confident you know what you are talking about., This means making it personal. Tell people why you would wear this top or those shoes.

In your example you need to explain how it increases performance or endurance and why it remain comfortable. Compare it to other similar products and explain the differences. Even better tell us how it perfoimed in a race or running event or whatever.

Which brings us back to your site organisation. If people are looking for performace enhancing products how does your structure help them?

 

[Tin]

I've been reading up on a few articles and come across 'NO INDEX' on Meta tags? It said this can be used on products where you can't write unique content. Does this mean on products where I simply want to use the manufacturer's descriptions I simply write 'NO INDEX' in the text box or am I getting mixed up somewhere?

If by 'text box' you're referring to the Meta Description field in your content management system then don't do it.

'No Index' is a piece of code that's added into the meta area of a web page, you may not find where you add that in your admin area so might need a developer to do it for you.

Folk here have given good advice but you seem to keep wanting to cut corners on either your understanding, or your time. Sorry, that's how it looks to me.

 

[JJWinst]

If by 'text box' you're referring to the Meta Description field in your content management system then don't do it.

'No Index' is a piece of code that's added into the meta area of a web page, you may not find where you add that in your admin area so might need a developer to do it for you.

Folk here have given good advice but you seem to keep wanting to cut corners on either your understanding, or your time. Sorry, that's how it looks to me.

That's not the case at all. Forgive me for not wanting to write over 200 unique descriptions if it isn't going to get me noticed.

 

[JJWinst]

I agree it's not going to get you penalised but if you want to sell the products (and not have people use a cheaper supplier on Amazxon) you need to make the potential customer confident you know what you are talking about., This means making it personal. Tell people why you would wear this top or those shoes.

In your example you need to explain how it increases performance or endurance and why it remain comfortable. Compare it to other similar products and explain the differences. Even better tell us how it perfoimed in a race or running event or whatever.

Which brings us back to your site organisation. If people are looking for performace enhancing products how does your structure help them?

'Performance' will be a filter option, so for example the customer chooses Mens > Base layers > Tights

His filter options would be performance / recovery / compete however a lot of products tend to sit across 2 or 3 of those anyway.

In my example I was asking whether that had enough differences for it to be rewarded? Of course I can go on about other attributes but would changing sentences slightly like that make a difference?

 

[Annoying Donkey]

Forgive me for not wanting to write over 200 unique descriptions if it isn't going to get me noticed.

Rewriting to avoid duplicate content is pointless. "Spun" content will essentially be treated the same way by G.

Rewriting to attract customers is highly advised and can give you a big advantage over competition. You just need to take the time to understand your customers and their real needs. Hint: nobody buys products, they buy the results they think they'll be getting from that product (hope that's not too patronising!).

 

[JJWinst]

Rewriting to avoid duplicate content is pointless. "Spun" content will essentially be treated the same way by G.

Rewriting to attract customers is highly advised and can give you a big advantage over competition. You just need to take the time to understand your customers and their real needs. Hint: nobody buys products, they buy the results they think they'll be getting from that product (hope that's not too patronising!).

Not at all, I appreciate the help. My products all need to have at least some of the original descriptions as the features they have simply cannot be forgotten about and replaced with me singing a merry dance of how much better a runner x product will make you..

Would it be useful to add 1/2 paragraphs to each description, to maybe focus on some keywords and search terms?

And apart from Product pages, what would be a good example of the Meta Description for a category page? Would the Page title simply be 'Mens' or 'Company Name > Mens > 2nd layer categories?

 

[MattDV]

I will try to summarise things in a clear way which you can develop by reading more, and pondering more.

1. You need your pages to be focused on specific topics, with clear distinction of which part of the site addresses which concern. That is for users, and for the Google crawler to identify the quality of targeted services you are providing people searching for specific queries.

2. Google nowadays appreciates brands, so do whatever big brands do. Rather than go hunting for links, sign up to UKBusinessForums ... create a linkedin page, speak to people in your industry who would want to write about you, approach journalists, bloggers, the whole shebang.

These are more things in the realm of product and marketing, and they will serve you SEO. Good luck.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

My advice would be to keep the manufacturers descriptions, but place above them a small paragraph to 'sell' the item and make the page unique.

For the record, I am talking about simple stuff like '

'With a flat seam construction these mens base layer skins are ideal for rugby football or other contact sports as well as for running and general uses as it reduces chaffing. '

Note I used the term 'skin' as many people refer to them as skins as well as base layers. including some sports will help it rank for 'rugby skins' football skins', rugby base layers, football base layers, mens base layers, mens skins etc.

No need to rewrite, keep the original content which means you have the same as all your competitors, THEN give that little bit extra

 

[JJWinst]

Thanks OldWelshGuy. That is something I could definitely do in the hope it will improve my site!

Do you have any tips for category pages?

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Just the same really, look at what you have in the category, and add the semantic terms sports etc to the category content. Don't compete with your homepage, try to use longer tail terms for the cat pages. think of what the product does rather than what is has (benefits instead of features)

 

[JJWinst]

Just the same really, look at what you have in the category, and add the semantic terms sports etc to the category content. Don't compete with your homepage, try to use longer tail terms for the cat pages. think of what the product does rather than what is has (benefits instead of features)

Shall do. I've noticed a lot of sites seem to BOLD keywords..Does this actually do anything? Also can # be used in meta descriptions to push twitter hashtags?

 

[Codefixer]

These days Google doesn't show up to 70 characters in a page title.
Look in the search results and count how many characters (including spaces) Google shows.

 

[InternetMarketingPlatinum]

These days Google doesn't show up to 70 characters in a page title.
Look in the search results and count how many characters (including spaces) Google shows.

It's 55 to 60 characters. Best to keep it under 55.

 

[InternetMarketingPlatinum]

Hi HazelC, I'm not sure I have that much space..

Especially in the products section, I have this:

Page Title (up to 70 characters)

Meta Description (up to 140 characters)

Meta Keywords (comma separated, up to 15 keywords)

What would you advise to put in those?

Correction with Page Title - it's 55 to 60 characters. Best to keep it 55 characters or under for a better chance of it all being shown in the SERPs (a 95% chance I believe).

 

[Tin]

Google stopped using character counts circa 2012 and moved over to pixel widths.

Originally, the width it allowed for title space was 512 pixels (including the ellipsis), it then went down to 503 pixels and is currently around the 494 pixel mark. The number of characters that can be fitted into a title depends upon the pixel width of all the characters when placed in a row of text (including spaces) so, this title...

Tis a silly little ditty, I'll sing it till I die; silliness I'll sing till I dies

is 82 characters wide including 16 blank spaces and fits into 494 pixels - while using a title with wider characters like...

While Willy Wonker Was Watching White Wellies With Wibbly... etc will reduce the character count considerably, 44 characters and 8 blank spaces. But, Google doesn't allow all titles to use 494 pixels of space, it's dependent upon the width of the first word after the ellipsis.

Google also bolded words in titles if they had been used as a keyword search and when it bolded words it took account that the bolding process reduced the character count down because characters were wider when bolded. It's stopped bolding keywords in title tags but still bolds the keywords in urls and meta descriptions.