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Slide 1: SEO Secrets for Online Retailers For live audio, please dial in: North America (605) 772-3434 United Kingdom 0870 352 0482 Access code 671-709-038 Visit the companion blog to ask questions, share experiences or comment: www.getelastic.com/seo-secrets/ SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 2: Today’s Panelists Jason Billingsley Co-founder & VP Marketing Elastic Path Software www.elasticpath.com Stephan Spencer Founder & President Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 3: Google Listings – Your Virtual Sales Force •Savvy retailers making 6-7 figures a month from natural listings •Savvy MFA (Made for AdSense) site owners making 5-6 figures per month •Most sites are not SE-friendly •Google friendliness = friendly to other engines •First calculate your missed opportunities SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 4: So simple even a child can do it! $30/day with Google AdSense. SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 5: Not doing SEO (or doing it poorly)? You are leaving money on the table! Calculate the missed opportunity cost of not ranking well for products you offer? # of people searching for your keywords Engine share: Google = 60% Expected clickthrough rate Average conversion rate Average order value 10,000/day x 60% x 10% x 5% x $100 = $3,000/day SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 6: Key Research Findings • Average merchant profile: – – – – – 73,000 unique pages (210,000 indexed in Google) 14% yield search traffic Each page produced 2.4 keywords which yielded 1.9 visits/month 189,000 brand searches per month Total potential for unbranded keyword traffic exceeds 7,000,000 • Nearly 40 unbranded searches for every brand search • For large dynamic sites, nearly 100 searches for every unique page Research From Netconcepts study: The Long Tail of Natural Search Download it FREE from: www.netconcepts.com/long-tail-of-natural-search/ SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 7: Estimating Your Tail • Multiply brand searches by a factor of 40 Eg. 100,000 brand x 40 = 4,000,000 unbranded searches • Multiply pages of site by 100 searches per page/mo Eg. 100,000 pages x 100 = 10,000,000 unbranded searches SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 8: Freeloaders are on Your Payroll • Most merchants have 80%+ of their pages driving no search traffic • Most don't even know this, or why it is a problem (no javascript based analytics package will tell them this either) • It’s a red light that they lack a Long Tail of unbranded keyword traffic • The # of searches for unbranded keywords is nearly 40x as great as searches for the brand name (put another way, 97x the # of pages onsite) SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 9: Secret #1: Improve Your Keyword Portfolio Tools to check popularity of keyword searches • Overture’s Keyword Selector Tool http://inventory.overture.com • WordTracker.com • Trellian’s KeywordDiscovery.com • Google’s Keyword Tool • Google Trends www.google.com/trends https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal • Google Suggest www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 10: Keyword Popularity According to Yahoo! SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 11: Keyword Popularity According to Wordtracker SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 12: Keyword Popularity According to KewwordDiscovery SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 13: Keyword Popularity According to Google Adwords Keyword Tool SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 14: Keyword Popularity According to Google Trends SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 15: Keyword Popularity According to Google Suggest SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 16: Secret #1: Improve Your Keyword Portfolio Competition for that keyword should also be considered • Calculate KEI Score (Keyword Effectiveness Indicator) = ratio of searches over number of pages in search results • The higher the KEI Score, the more attractive the keyword is to target (assuming it’s relevant to your business) SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 17: Secret #2: How to Make Your Pages “Sing” • Each web page should have a unique keyword focus (i.e. every page has a “song”) • The higher up in the HTML on the page, the more weight the keyword is given – Reorder the content above the nav using CSS • Have at least 200-250 words per page • Title tag is most important element on the page • Home page is the most important page SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 18: Secret #2: How to Make Your Pages “Sing” • • • • • • Heading tags (H1, H2) Contextual links Text links much better than graphic links Alt tags may be mildly helpful, for images that are links Meta tags don’t improve rankings Meta description can influence what’s displayed in the search results SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 19: Secret #3: Build Links, Strengthen PageRank • Inbound links play a key role in determining rankings • It’s not just about quantity (“link popularity”); it’s about quality (importance of the page, topically relevant/authoritative) • PageRank™ – Google’s algorithm for measuring a page’s importance; Yahoo & Live Search (MSN) have similar measures • Each web page (not site) has its own PageRank score • PageRank scores from 0 to 10; logarithmic scale SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 20: Secret #3: Build Links, Strengthen PageRank • Use Yahoo Site Explorer to check link popularity siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com • Check your PageRank with Google Webmaster Central… www.google.com/webmasters • …and/or Google Toolbar… toolbar.google.com • …and/or SEOChat.com PageRank Search www.seochat.com/seo-tools/pagerank-search/ • …and/or SEO for Firefox plugin tools.seobook.com SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 21: Google’s Toolbar with PageRank Meter SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 22: Secret #3: Build Links, Strengthen PageRank • Find link targets – Review links of competitive sites, sites in your keyword market • Again, use the Link Checker tool at www.netconcepts.com/linkcheck • Yahoo’s linkdomain: query operator & Yahoo Site Explorer tool • Run a link: query on www.seochat.com/seo-tools/pagerank-search/ – Check sites with high rankings for relevant keywords – The fewer the number of links on their page, the better • Offer link-worthy content. Keep it fresh. • Consider providing an RSS feed SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 23: Secret #3: Build Links, Strengthen PageRank • Try to get good keywords in the hyperlink text • Types of links that are likely to get discounted: – Reciprocal links – Affiliated sites (on the same IP range or hostname) – Footer links (at the bottom of the page) – Site-wide links • Don’t participate in “link farms” or FFA (“Free For All”) sites – Hallmarks of a link farm = more urls per page & less organization • Don’t link to “bad neighborhoods” SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 24: Secret #3: Build Links, Strengthen PageRank • Sites with higher PageRank get crawled earlier, faster, and deeper by Googlebot • “Google Bombing” – Inbound contextual links alone can drive a site to the top of Google (e.g. “click here”) – Also works on Yahoo, Live Search, etc. SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 25: Secret #3: Build Links, Strengthen PageRank • Create link bait campaigns • Use social media e.g. get dugg and then change your links on the landing page after the Digg traffic dies down • When issuing press releases, embed keyword-rich links in copy • Buy links? If you do, LinkExperts is a reputable broker. • Participate in the blogosphere – – – – Have a blog and deep link to your ecommerce site Let your employees blog. Train them first. Comment on other blogs. Some blogs don't have “nofollow” comments. PR efforts focused on bloggers: send free products/samples/access to influential bloggers FREE whitepaper from Elastic Path: Blogging for Retailers www.elasticpath.com/blogging-for-retailers/ (no registration required) SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 26: Secret #4: Rejig Your Internal Linking Structure • It’s not just about inbound links; internal links matter too • Your home page’s PageRank gets distributed to your deep pages by virtue of your internal linking structure • Links are the currency of the Web as far as search engines are concerned; spend it wisely within your site – – – – – – – Site hierarchy (tree structure) Breadcrumb navigation Site map? Within article copy Related products, Related articles, and Related searches Tag clouds and Tag pages Guided navigation SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 27: How did the NY Times get this high ranking? SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 28: Consistent use of internal links SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 29: Secret #5: Make Your URLs Optimal • SE’s are wary of dynamic URLs for fear of “spider traps” • Complex URLs (multiple parameters, &, =, ?) can decrease indexation and weaken your internal PageRank “flow” • Session IDs are death to search visibility • Options – Recode your site to not pass “query strings” – URL rewriting (using a server module/plug-in) – Remote-hosted “proxy serving” (e.g. GravityStream) • catalogagemag.com/mag/marketing_right_page_web/ SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 30: Googlebot got caught in a “spider trap” SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 31: Secret #5: Make Your URLs Optimal • Canonical URLs & duplicate content issues – Multiple homes for your content – Multiple domains registered and resolving to your site – www vs. non-www (e.g. boston.com/cars/ vs. www.boston.com/cars/) – https:// version of your site – Session IDs or User IDs or superfluous flags in the URL – 301 redirect them all to the definitive version of the page • Removed pages – 301 redirect rather than 404 SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 32: Secret #6: Influence the Click Decision • Zipf’s Law applies - you need to be at the top of page 1 of the search results. It’s an implied endorsement. • Synergistic effect of being at the top of the natural results & paid results • Entice the user with a compelling call-to-action and value proposition in your descriptions • Your title tag is critical • Snippet gets built automatically, but you CAN influence what’s displayed here SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 33: Where do searchers look? (Enquiro, Did-it, Eyetools Study) SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 34: Search listings – 1 good, 1 lousy SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 35: Secret #6: Influence the Click Decision • You may be #1 for some but not others… Search results are tailored to the user – Google Search History, geolocation, etc. • Vertical search results offers multiple paths to visibility – Google Base, Google Co-Op, Google Blog Search, Google Maps (Local),… – This also has translated into visibility in the “onebox” – Google’s new “Universal Search” results SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 36: Google’s “Onebox” SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 37: Secret #7: Check Your Pulse and Benchmark • • • • • • Number of pages indexed (netconcepts.com/urlcheck) Google PageRank Link popularity Alexa (alexa.com) Positions in the search results for important keywords What keywords are they targeting? (check their metatags) SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 38: Secret #7: Check Your Pulse and Benchmark • Measure what’s important to your bottom line – Not “hits” or even unique visitors – Number of orders delivered by search engines – Sales volume delivered by search engines – Profit delivered by search engines – Conversion rate – Cost per conversion, Cost per lead – ROI SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 39: Secret #7: Check Your Pulse and Benchmark • Advanced metrics that most analytics packages don’t measure: – – – – Page yield Keyword yield (keywords per page) Spidering behavior More metrics at multichannelmerchant.com/webchannel/seo/beneath_surface_search_012007 SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 40: Sample KPIs Sample KPIs SEO Secrets for Online Retailers © 2007 Netconcepts
Slide 41: Have Questions? Jason Billingsley VP Marketing Elastic Path Software www.elasticpath.com jason.billingsley@elasticpath.com Stephan Spencer Founder & President Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com stephan@netconcepts.com Blog www.getelastic.com www.linkedin.com/in/jasonbillingsley (Feel free to add me; mention SEO webinar) Blog www.stephanspencer.com For an ebook on Google power searching, SEO checklists & worksheets, and audio recording of an SEO thought leaders teleconference, email seo@netconcepts.com Next Ecommerce Webinar 12pm ET August 16th @ 9am PT/ SEO Secrets for Online Retailers Product Reviews for Online Retailers: The Power of Social Commerce Guest Panellist: Andy Chen, Founder & CEO, PowerReviews Sign up today! www.elasticpath.com/user-reviews/webinar/ © 2007 Netconcepts