How to rank an E-commerce site?

[jfoawn]

I'm confused as to the way I should approach SEO on an e commerce site. There really is no where to drop an article unless you do excessive descriptions of the product but even then there is too much product under the same category to know where to target the back linking.

The site is clothing/merchandise about specific comics.

Categories breaks down by comic/superhero(or character)

so should the SEO strategy be to creat a blog within the site and focus on ranking each article for specific character example "Spider-Man shirts" and then link the article to the specific categories of the actual shop?

Im simply not interested in ranking one product and then hoping the user will browse the site.

Best bet would be to have some sort of overview over the specific category on top of all the products related to it?

 

[Laughing-Man]

I may be wrong on this, but i would send the majority of the links towards the root domain. And some towards individual products.

 

[jfoawn]

But how could I effectively rank the sites for all this hundreds of keywords without the right on-page SEO, I would be making my job a lot harder.

 

[subster]

Authority is the simple answer.
A good mix of many different quality link sources spreaded slowly all over your site for a few years and it will be yours...
Very hard to get and a marathon...

That beeing said, I would try to achieve that crowd based, like blogger engagement, competitions with prizes and so on (spent money to make money). Through this you will get a pretty natural link profile.

WHILE that you can go for your own link building campaigns for keywords like "order spiderman comics" "buy comics online" or whatever might fit and has volume. For content creation, I suggest to to use the formula in my sig. A corporate blog will help MUCH, as content is the achilles`heel of every ecommerce store.

 

[Moosey]

On-page has to be optimized just like any other page on your money site, title tags, meta descriptions, h1-6 tags, keyword density, etc. This has to be done for every product and product category page. It can be a very lengthy process depending on the size of the store, but if done properly you will achieve the results necessary.

 

[jfoawn]

On-page has to be optimized just like any other page on your money site, title tags, meta descriptions, h1-6 tags, keyword density, etc. This has to be done for every product and product category page. It can be a very lengthy process depending on the size of the store, but if done properly you will achieve the results necessary.

but how would that make sense for 100 different items that classify under "spiderman shirt" you can't really optimize like that. If you target the top category yes but not each item under it?

Yes optimize them all for the keywords but the off-page is the main thing at question. Focus each campaing for each keyword to the category?

 

[m2bsolutions]

There is only one option. maintain your on page very carefully. it is very important to get a rank in SERP.

 

[MorganX]

I would like you to update and maintain the page regularly....!

 

[Vermino]

but how would that make sense for 100 different items that classify under "spiderman shirt" you can't really optimize like that. If you target the top category yes but not each item under it?

Yes optimize them all for the keywords but the off-page is the main thing at question. Focus each campaing for each keyword to the category?

If it's the same exact shirt style with just a small variation - it would be better to just create variations of that product on the same page. I used to do multiple pages of the same content over and over again but google actually looks the other way plus UX is poor having to click through all the pages.

But you do need to make a compelling title, meta description, description, etc etc containing valuable keywords you researched for. Good reference is to look at the shirt in question, research it and see how your competitors are writing their description. Can you optimize that better? maybe they aren't even use keywords

ie(this was pulled from "spiderman shirt" SERP): product description - "You may be getting a slight sense of Deja Vu. You're thinking 'Hey, don't you guys already have this super soft 30 single t-shirt?' You would be kind of right...but just slightly! The Ultimate Spiderman Thorax Symbol 30 Single T-Shirt looks just like our other Ultimate Spider Man symbol t-shirt except this one has a slightly larger thorax! Yep. That's about it. This one comes from a different manufacturer, but the quality and softness is still exceptional! We like to give you choices here at SuperHeroStuff and the Ultimate Spiderman Thorax Symbol 30 Single T-Shirt is a perfect example! "

re-optimized(just an example): Spiderman Says! - "You looking to become the next Spiderman?! You're going to need to wear the right T-shirt like me! With spiderman surplus, They create the softest t-shirts around. Giving you the superhero powers while still being comfortable in your own shirt. Show off your spiderman brand with this t-shirt while you fight crime in your own city! Spiderman T-shirts come in 10 different colors and styles so you can even be cooler than me, Spiderman!

Keywords I was going for is "Spiderman" and "T-shirt". Definitely get creative so it's compelling to your user and demographic but also still pleasing search engines.

 

[adamprattler]

Properly optimize your onpage factors first. It will take a lot of time if your store is too big. Then go for social share and related bookmarking. You may go for some related high PR paid links too.

 

[jfoawn]

If it's the same exact shirt style with just a small variation - it would be better to just create variations of that product on the same page. I used to do multiple pages of the same content over and over again but google actually looks the other way plus UX is poor having to click through all the pages.

But you do need to make a compelling title, meta description, description, etc etc containing valuable keywords you researched for. Good reference is to look at the shirt in question, research it and see how your competitors are writing their description. Can you optimize that better? maybe they aren't even use keywords

ie(this was pulled from "spiderman shirt" SERP): product description - "You may be getting a slight sense of Deja Vu. You're thinking 'Hey, don't you guys already have this super soft 30 single t-shirt?' You would be kind of right...but just slightly! The Ultimate Spiderman Thorax Symbol 30 Single T-Shirt looks just like our other Ultimate Spider Man symbol t-shirt except this one has a slightly larger thorax! Yep. That's about it. This one comes from a different manufacturer, but the quality and softness is still exceptional! We like to give you choices here at SuperHeroStuff and the Ultimate Spiderman Thorax Symbol 30 Single T-Shirt is a perfect example! "

re-optimized(just an example): Spiderman Says! - "You looking to become the next Spiderman?! You're going to need to wear the right T-shirt like me! With spiderman surplus, They create the softest t-shirts around. Giving you the superhero powers while still being comfortable in your own shirt. Show off your spiderman brand with this t-shirt while you fight crime in your own city! Spiderman T-shirts come in 10 different colors and styles so you can even be cooler than me, Spiderman!

Keywords I was going for is "Spiderman" and "T-shirt". Definitely get creative so it's compelling to your user and demographic but also still pleasing search engines.

i see! thanks for the awesome advice guys!

 

[Vermino]

yup on-page optimization will bring in the users while link building will happen naturally. I found it e-commerce to be a lot easier compared to blog/article sites because if you have an MSRP and a wholesale amount - you can always build out links with shares,likes, or even creating small articles (on niche oriented sites) with coupon codes. I much rather give away $5 for a like than having to create a unique article or guest blog and hope someone will like it for free.

at the end of the day, on-page optimization is your keyfactor - it's really the only control you have. Off-site optimization is google's playing field and they can change the rules at anytime which could help or hurt you.

 

[serpwizard]

You can use pagination and faceted navigation technique to give more flexibility to the users and drive more traffic on your site.

 

[pxoxrxn]

What CMS are you using?

 

[mudbutt]

Are you looking to do the SEO yourself? Would you be willing to outsource the work to someone that has experience in ecommerce SEO?

 

[media20]

We had a client like this years ago, you write content rich for every single product, and seo is just after analysis then you do root and select products

 

[accelerator_dd]

I'm confused as to the way I should approach SEO on an e commerce site. There really is no where to drop an article unless you do excessive descriptions of the product but even then there is too much product under the same category to know where to target the back linking.

The site is clothing/merchandise about specific comics.

Categories breaks down by comic/superhero(or character)

so should the SEO strategy be to creat a blog within the site and focus on ranking each article for specific character example "Spider-Man shirts" and then link the article to the specific categories of the actual shop?

Im simply not interested in ranking one product and then hoping the user will browse the site.

Best bet would be to have some sort of overview over the specific category on top of all the products related to it?

That's not true for onsite. You have reviews/descriptions/editor's opinion/related products/FAQ - take a look at amazon and all the stuff they have as content on their product pages.

For offsite - primarly going for the category pages is what I would do if i were you.

 

[jfoawn]

What CMS are you using?

Wordpress + wooCommerce + elegant themes

 

[jfoawn]

That's not true for onsite. You have reviews/descriptions/editor's opinion/related products/FAQ - take a look at amazon and all the stuff they have as content on their product pages.

For offsite - primarly going for the category pages is what I would do if i were you.

Yes but It Still has THE Challenge when there are 30 almost identical items. But at the end of all it can all be the same story articulated differently. I did like how Verminos example site (I googled his keyword to find it) approached the story telling way. Even I was getting a little excited about the Spider-Man shirt.

I think the plan is going to be to use substers idea of contests (which we already do) but to create the type of (extra) on-page (make them do reviews or opinions) content ypu mentioned. Plus the usual share like etc and then target root categories.

 

[pxoxrxn]

Wordpress + wooCommerce + elegant themes

I have a bit of experience in e-commerce. I am currently working on an adult product site an that is arguably the barest niche to crack. We are quiet successful, mainly due to the time the company I work for has been in the industry. If I can offer one piece of advice it would be, don't use wp. Use something like drupal 7 with commerce kick start. It is extremely complicated for a cms but with that you get an easily manipulated cms. It will be worth spending the time to set that up.