osCommerce Search Engine Optimization
Who says oscommerce is difficult to search engine optimize?
Just found out I have had a bit of a result with the very generic search term "gifts". Check out a google search. At the time of writing Heritage Gifts is ranked at the top of page 2 out of 313 million results!! On a UK only search, its wavering up and down the front page swapping pages with another online shopping store that goes by the name of Harrods - :)
Not sure how this has come about, it certainly came as a bit of a surprise. I do put a lot of effort into SEO but only in the way of improving my site. I have never followed a link campaign and, generally, the only links I have are internal. I think the main secret is just having a large site. Around 5000 products generates a lot of content and a lot of internal links.
The interesting thing is the amount of traffic I am recieving. To bid on adsense for the term gifts costs..... Well, its superbucks. The amount of traffic I am recieving at present is pretty minimal and the effect on orders is totally negligable. It is pretty early days, afaik I have only just been promoted to this esteemed postition and we are only just into the serious xmas gift ordering season but I still think its such a generic term that it may produce alot of "untargetted traffic". As I mentioned before I really dont have a problem with this.
For anyone wanting to know what my osCommerce SEO strategy is, well here goes. My priorty is site wide SEO. As I have a large catalog, it is important that when entering more products, maybe 100, maybe 1000 at a time, I want all the products to be search engine optimized as best as possible automatically. I cannot optimize each indivdiual product page. For this reason, the following osCommerce contributions are invaluable:- Linda McGraths Header Tag Controller and Chemo's Ultimate SEO Urls. These two contributions are simply the best start to site wide SEO.
Another trick that may or may not benefit the 5000+ pages generated from 5000 products is rearranging the standard osCommerce page layout. This basically moves the product description text (or body) in your source code up above the left column code. The method to carry this out can be found in the tips section of the osCommerce forum, here. One word of warning, prior to carrying out this mod, my site featured best in the MSN search engine. Shortly after carrying out the changes, my site plummeted from the MSN search pages. Whether or not this was due to the change I cannot say for sure but it is worth baring in mind. Of course I would like to think that my plight in the MSN searches has been far outweighed by the positive gains in googles rankings but this again is hard to measure.
There are a huge number of resources/sites with info on search engine optimization but quite frankly, in my opinion, alot of it is pure speculation. Simliarly, there are hundreds of companies out there promising the results you wish for but, again, in my opinion and from what I read, all they provide is short term quick fixes. Probably using a fair few black hat techniques.
If you are setting up an osCommerce site, or already have a site in place, and cannot afford the time to read through pages and pages of what may or may not work with regards to oscommerce search engine optimization, there is one very highly rated eBook that will put you on the right track. You can find the book at oscbooks.org.uk and it will save you a whole lot of time and wasted effort. The site also has other very useful eBooks available on setting up your osC store, including guides on design, the simple template system, how to speed up oscommerce and more.....
Just found out I have had a bit of a result with the very generic search term "gifts". Check out a google search. At the time of writing Heritage Gifts is ranked at the top of page 2 out of 313 million results!! On a UK only search, its wavering up and down the front page swapping pages with another online shopping store that goes by the name of Harrods - :)
Not sure how this has come about, it certainly came as a bit of a surprise. I do put a lot of effort into SEO but only in the way of improving my site. I have never followed a link campaign and, generally, the only links I have are internal. I think the main secret is just having a large site. Around 5000 products generates a lot of content and a lot of internal links.
The interesting thing is the amount of traffic I am recieving. To bid on adsense for the term gifts costs..... Well, its superbucks. The amount of traffic I am recieving at present is pretty minimal and the effect on orders is totally negligable. It is pretty early days, afaik I have only just been promoted to this esteemed postition and we are only just into the serious xmas gift ordering season but I still think its such a generic term that it may produce alot of "untargetted traffic". As I mentioned before I really dont have a problem with this.
For anyone wanting to know what my osCommerce SEO strategy is, well here goes. My priorty is site wide SEO. As I have a large catalog, it is important that when entering more products, maybe 100, maybe 1000 at a time, I want all the products to be search engine optimized as best as possible automatically. I cannot optimize each indivdiual product page. For this reason, the following osCommerce contributions are invaluable:- Linda McGraths Header Tag Controller and Chemo's Ultimate SEO Urls. These two contributions are simply the best start to site wide SEO.
Another trick that may or may not benefit the 5000+ pages generated from 5000 products is rearranging the standard osCommerce page layout. This basically moves the product description text (or body) in your source code up above the left column code. The method to carry this out can be found in the tips section of the osCommerce forum, here. One word of warning, prior to carrying out this mod, my site featured best in the MSN search engine. Shortly after carrying out the changes, my site plummeted from the MSN search pages. Whether or not this was due to the change I cannot say for sure but it is worth baring in mind. Of course I would like to think that my plight in the MSN searches has been far outweighed by the positive gains in googles rankings but this again is hard to measure.
There are a huge number of resources/sites with info on search engine optimization but quite frankly, in my opinion, alot of it is pure speculation. Simliarly, there are hundreds of companies out there promising the results you wish for but, again, in my opinion and from what I read, all they provide is short term quick fixes. Probably using a fair few black hat techniques.
If you are setting up an osCommerce site, or already have a site in place, and cannot afford the time to read through pages and pages of what may or may not work with regards to oscommerce search engine optimization, there is one very highly rated eBook that will put you on the right track. You can find the book at oscbooks.org.uk and it will save you a whole lot of time and wasted effort. The site also has other very useful eBooks available on setting up your osC store, including guides on design, the simple template system, how to speed up oscommerce and more.....
posted by richandzhaoyan | 11:07 PM
1 Comments:
Hi Rich,
I don't have a left column so one of your ideas doesn't apply to me. Ultimate SEO URL's is a great contribution and Header Tags has been greatly improved over the past year to make it more user friendly.
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