Is traffic and content really important for an e-commerce site???
-
Hi All,
I'm maintaining an e-commerce website and I've encountered some related keywords that I know will not convert to sales but are related to the subject and might help becoming an "authority".
I'll give an example...
If a car dealership wrote an amazing article about cleaning a car.
Obviously it is related but the chances of someone looking to clean his car will go ahead and buy one now are quite low. Also, he will probably bounce out of this page after reading the piece.To conclude, Would such an article do GOOD (helping to become an authority and having more visitors) or BAD (low conversion rate and high bounce rate)?
Thanks
-
Nice little thread here, read all of it :).
I would be inclined to attach a signup form for a newsletter as the content is good.
Then I would include the latest informative article, tutorial in the newsletter connected with car accessories, link to facebook, plus 1, twitter page.
First to get some social engagement which in turn should help out with SEO but then an added benefit of flogging some accessories (although you would need to sell a lot of smelly trees to make anything) but you get the idea, I would site down and draw it out, give it some serious thought.
-
Philipp makes good points that ads can divert attention from your brand and your sales products. I agree with him.
However, my site is still selling a lot of merchandise. I don't have ads in people's face on merchandise pages. If there is an ad on a merchandise page it is at the bottom - most don't have ads. My ads focus on article pages.
Finally, you can block certain types of ads and also ads from competing domains. Adsense, tribalfusion and most other ad networks have a variety of ad blocking methods.
-
1. Yes, I would put it in a blog section. You might want to call it "tips" or something instead of blog, which is more appealing and - depending on the content - a more precise description. Important is that you have your articles on the same subdomain as the shop (or the same domain in the least).
2. Not that I'm Egol... but personally, I wouldn't put any ads on my ecommerce sites: as I am aiming at high conversions I don't want users to click on ads (unless those ads pay me more than my own sales).
And yes, the ads can potentially hurt your brand, so if you do have them, you must keep a close eye on those in order to make sure they're not out-of-context. But if you don't overdo it with the ads, most users won't even notice.And another word about content: IMO that's the only way to push your ecommerce site and open it up for the longtail - with articles that are helpful but not directly linked to a product you sell.
-
Thank you both for the answers.
In my case the site is more like Egol's first example.I will then add two related questions -
1. Should such related articles that I will use mostly for branding, likes and basically authority be posted in my Blog or Article section?
2. Egol - Don't you feel that putting ads in such article "hurts" your brand?
(making it appear to be smaller - you won't see ads on GAP etc.)Thanks again
-
I Agree with EGOL, however to answer our point on Articles Good or Bad. They're most definitely a good thing.
Attracting clicks, links, likes and bookmarks are great for your seo and attracting mor visitors in. I find for every 100 visitors that visit my article pages around 6% will share the content one way or another and thus drag in more visitors.
If nothing else it builds a bit of brand recognition in my niche and build my SEO.
-
Lots of retail sites have extensive article libraries that attract traffic, likes, links and make the site popular. These articles often describe how the products are used and are especially valuable on sites in do-it-yourself, personal improvement and hobby niches. I have a retail site with a lot of how-to-do-it, historical and review content and those articles account for about 1/2 of the traffic. They also produce some sales. In addition, I monetize them with ads.
On a more powerful scale is an information site with a store. These can be really popular and be monetized with house ads that funnel traffic into the store and third party ads that produce income. I have one of these that is supported by ad revenue and a store that sees revenue growth in proportion to the traffic - as most of the purchases are impulse. In addition, your sales will be tied the the effectiveness of your ads and their placement - experimentation is essential if you want to get the most out of them.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Our new site will be using static site generator which is supposed to be better for SEO?
Hi folks, Our dev team is planning on building our new marketing webpages on SSG or Static Site Generator(we are stepping away from SSR). Based on my research this is something that can help our SEO in particular for site speed (our site has a poor score).
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TyEl
Are there any challenges or concerns I should be aware regarding this direction? If so what are they and how can this be addressed? Thanks0 -
My site shows 503 error to Google bot, but can see the site fine. Not indexing in Google. Help
Hi, This site is not indexed on Google at all. http://www.thethreehorseshoespub.co.uk Looking into it, it seems to be giving a 503 error to the google bot. I can see the site I have checked source code Checked robots Did have a sitemap param. but removed it for testing GWMT is showing 'unreachable' if I submit a site map or fetch Any ideas on how to remove this error? Many thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SolveWebMedia0 -
Site been plagiarised - duplicate content
Hi, I look after two websites, one sells commercial mortgages the other sells residential mortgages. We recently redesigned both sites, and one was moved to a new domain name as we rebranded it from being a trading style of the other brand to being a brand in its own right. I have recently discovered that one of my most important pages on the residential mortgages site is not in Google's index. I did a bit of poking around with Copyscape and found another broker has copied our page almost word-for-word. I then used copyscape to find all the other instances of plagiarism on the other broker's site and there are a few! It now looks like they have copied pages from our commercial mortgages site as well. I think the reason our page has been removed from the index is that we relaunced both these sites with new navigation and consequently new urls. Can anyone back me up on this theory? I am 100% sure that our page is the original version because we write everything in-house and I check it with copyscape before it gets published, Also the fact that this other broker has copied from several different sites corroborates this view. Our legal team has written two letters (not sent yet) - one to the broker and the other to the broker's web designer. These letters ask the recipient to remove the copied content within 14 days. If they do remove our content from our site, how do I get Google to reindex our pages, given that Google thinks OUR pages are the copied ones and not the other way around? Does anyone have any experience with this? Or, will it just happen automatically? I have no experience of this scenario! In the past, where I've found duplicate content like this, I've just rewritten the page, and chalked it up to experience but I don't really want to in this case because, frankly, the copy on these pages is really good! And, I don't think it's fair that someone else could potentially be getting customers that were persuaded by OUR copy. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Amelia
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommT0 -
Does duplicate content penalize the whole site or just the pages affected?
I am trying to assess the impact of duplicate content on our e-commerce site and I need to know if the duplicate content is affecting only the pages that contain the dupe content or does it affect the whole site? In Google that is. But of course. Lol
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjs20100 -
On-Site Optimization Tips for Job site?
I am working on a job site that only ranks well for the homepage with very low ranking internal pages. My job pages do not rank what so ever and are database driven and often times turn to 404 pages after the job has been filled. The job pages have to no content either. Anybody have any technical on-site recommendations for a job site I am working on especially regarding my internal pages? (Cross Country Allied.com)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Melia0 -
On-Site Optimization Tips for Job site?
I am working on a job site that only ranks well for the homepage with very low ranking internal pages. My job pages do not rank what so ever and are database driven and often times turn to 404 pages after the job has been filled. The job pages have to no content either. Anybody have any technical on-site recommendations for a job site I am working on especially regarding my internal pages? (Cross Country Allied.com)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Melia0 -
Does a mobile site count as duplicate content?
Are there any specific guidelines that should be followed for setting up a mobile site to ensure it isn't counted as duplicate content?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
How to best utilize network of 50 sites to increase traffic on main site
Hey All, First off I wanna thank everyone who has responded to all my previous questions! Love to see a community that is so willing to help those who are learning the ropes! Anyways back to my point. We have a main site that is a PR 3 and our main focal point for lead generation. We recently acquired 50 additional sites (all with a PR of 1-3) that we would like to use as our own little back linking campaign with. All the domains are completely relevant to our main site as well as specific pages within our main site. I know that reciprocal links will get me no where and that google is quickly on to the attempted 3 way link exchange. My question is how do I best link these 50 sites to not only maintain there own integrity and PR but also assist our main site. Thanks All!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | deuce1s0