Raising Ecommerce Site Rank–Key Tips

Are search engine rankings important for me? If your site relies on customer traffic provided from Internet search queries, then the answer is “yes!” If you are an ecommerce merchant with an online shop, and you expect the Internet to funnel potential buyers, then again, “yes,” you need to pay attention to search engine ranking. Search engines are sometimes compared to free markets where the best site rises naturally to the top. I think we are all aware that free markets are not truly free and are in fact influenced by many different factors that are not “natural.” This is true with search engines, as well. Sites occupying high search engine position do not necessarily rank well just because they are the best but because they meet the requirements of the search engine algorithm that allows higher ranking. What this means is that you, as a site owner, can influence and to large degree where your site appears in the search engine pages.

Although no SEO company can guarantee a high ranking for your site, here are some tips for raising your search engine ranking. Using these tips will not get you to the top unless your site is the best out there, but they will at least help put you into the positioning that you seek. After all, the internet is somewhat like a free market. You will naturally flow into the place that you deserve if you meet the requirements of search engines algorithms, and many search engines try to insure that you do not rise above or fall below this position. This is why they are so strict, and this is why you must keep yourself on good terms with them.

Site content is essential to good, on-page search engine optimization. A rule of thumb is that you want as much relevant content on your site as possible. As an ecommerce site owner, your site’s content will probably be driven and to some degree limited by the services and products you sell. If your site is a shopping cart with many products, I would suggest that you try to give each product a description of at least 2 to 3 hundred words (if possible). Try to place the keyword or phrase (or a close variation) that you expect buyers to use in their search queries in the product headline and description. Make the description with the placement of your keywords as natural as possible. Remember, you want your site and descriptions to be natural and pleasing to your human visitors. If you can’t do 300 words then do 200; if you can’t do a natural 200 words, than do 150. If you have a small site and are only selling a few products, consider integrating a blog into your site. This is a very easy and practical way to add hundreds, if not thousands of relevant pages to your site.

When determining an SEO strategy, it is important to be aware those search engines do not “see” graphic elements. In other words, devote your attention to optimizing all text elements and avoid the use of words and phrases in images if you want those words to be recognized by the search engines. Do not misunderstand this to mean that you should avoid images. Images and video are great, especially for an ecommerce site because you want to make your products as real as possible. One way to combine images with text is to take advantage of the Alt tag. The Alt tag is part of the coding of the site and allows you to add a text description (with your keywords) to the image. For an example of how this works, go to site such as eBay and put your mouse cursor over an image. A tiny text box will pop up with a brief description. That is the Alt tag at work. If you site uses many graphic elements and minimal text, use the Alt tag to add (not stuff) additional keyword relevant descriptive text.

The key text elements to be aware of include your site title, article titles, product description titles, menu names, headlines, and any category listings, as well. Keeping in mind that your text should be as natural as possible, you want to try and include your main keywords where it is appropriate. This accomplishes two main objectives–first, it allows your visitors to use your site efficiently and second, it accurately informs the search engines about your site. I also suggest that you pay attention to your site’s organizational structure. As with any site, you want your ecommerce site menus and categories to accurately, efficiently, and logically move the search engines and your human visitors around your site. With respect to your human visitors, you want your product pages to be as few clicks away from the main page as possible. The faster your visitors can get to your product pages, the better.

This next point is probably more important than anything written so far. There is a general consensus in the SEO field that links from other sites leading back to your site are potentially more powerful in terms of SEO than any other factor. Back links are those words and phrases that you click on that take you to some other site. The exact words and phrases you click are called “anchor text.” For the purposes of ecommerce SEO, you want the anchor text of your back links to include keywords and phrases and are highly relevant to your site and products. To give you an idea how powerful this is, it is possible to force a site that has virtually no content on it to rank well on the basis of back links alone. You can actually “trick” the search engines to do this with a sufficient number of back links. Now, you as an ecommerce owner are not interested in tricks; what I want you to understand is that your SEO strategy should include the creation and acquisition of back links.

For you, the goal is to get as many of your product pages as possible ranking well in the search engines. What that means is that when someone types in a search term for a product, you want the search engine to grab the most relevant page of your site and put it as near to the top as possible. The number and quality of link pointing to those pages assists the search engines in accomplishing this. Search engines have their own systems of ranking the value of pages. In Google, page rank runs from 0 to 10, with 10 the highest value. The kind of domains is also important. For example, .com .org, .net, .edu, and .gov are all valued differently. .edu and .gov are considered to be of the highest value, so back links from those sites would carry the most weight. A link from page rank 9 .com sites would be important, but a page rank 9 .gov link would be even more powerful in terms of SEO importance. Common sources of back links include profile pages, RSS feeds, blog comments, press releases, article directory submission, and site submission to search engines. These are just a few examples; there are many sources and many ways to use links to give you the best SEO advantage.

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