Can we really learn from the best?
-
Hi All,
When I started my site (an eCommerce site) I copied (or tried) a lot of things from the best eCommerce sites I thought were out there.
Sites like Zappos, ZALES, Overstock, BlueNile etc.
I got hit pretty hard with latest algo changes and I posted my question at Google Webmaster Help forum I received answers from Gurus that we are keyword stuffing etc. (mainly with internal links to product pages but other issues as well).
My answer was a link to Zappos and other sites showing that what we do is nothing compared to them. I also showed dozens of SEO "errors" like using H1 tag 10 times per page, not using canonicals and many other issues. The Guru's answer was "LOL" - who am I to compare myself to Zappos.
So the question is... Can we take them for example or are they first simply because they are the biggest?
-
Companies that spend more time building their brand are going to be trusted more than companies that spend most of their time on SEO. Companies that have well-known brands and high-traffic websites with hundreds of thousands + quality external links, an aged domain, lots of brand-related signals (e.g. searches for their brand) are going to be given the benefit of a doubt.
The rest of us are S.O.L. until we can build that brand presence. You have to toe the line.
Yes you can learn from the big brand sites, especially when it comes to things like upselling, cross-selling, brand building, email marketing... but having worked with a lot of big brands I can tell you that their SEOs don't typically know anymore than others. They also have to go through a maze of bureaucracy to get anything implemented. As such, I don't pay much attention to what they are doing SEO-wise. If something works for them it probably has more to do with the power of their brand and domain than it does with a particular tactic. Emulating them with regard to SEO is typically useless, at best, and often dangerous.
-
Is there an eCommerce website (or several) you can recommend to look at?
-
In the early days we did what we wanted and had good results. Then we started to read everything out there about SEO & Marketing etc, and started to implement these changes which gave negative results.
We then started to look at what others were doing, if we felt they were the best we tried to emulate them.
What we realised pretty quick is, it doesn't work! We just have the perception they are doing it right, but we don't have access to their analytics to know if they are. You have to try things out and find out what works best for your company. Often this involves asking your customers what they like and what works for them.
I've read so many articles from experts that say don't use "send" on a call to action button. For one client that simple word has worked wonders. For another "read more" had a higher conversion than any thing else we used.
-
Sorry it wasn't clear.
All of our content is unique and we are not in the same industry as they are.
By "copied" I meant concept, structural design, naming conventions etc.
Copied IDEAS...Thanks
-
It's great to learn some new ideas from the best eCommerece websites. I would recommend you to take them for example of the good things on their website and not from the Black Hat part.
Also, it's very general to say that they are "the best", because it depends on the keywords you are searching in order to see them first on Google.
Hope that helps!
-
Hello there,
Being quite new to SEO and also PPC I rely a lot on MOZ blog and Q&A as well as other sources and I do keep an eye on bigger companies (I manage an e-commerce site for a small comapany) to get ideas and also to compare what I do to what they do, where I can improve, where I am going wrong. And I do think you can learn from them, but the way I see it is that you shouldn't be kind of replicating strategies or tactics that others have implemented because they might not work for you, and in this case they didn't.
Some of my competitors have Websites that rank well and better than the one I manage but they have tons of keywords on each page and their sites are optimized for search engines not for humans.
Consider also the link profiles of these companies, I am sure Amazon doesn't struggle in acquiring natural links from relevant and authoritative sites.
My suggestion is that you should optimize your website for your audience using as many best practices as you can and doing it by evaluating your objectives and goals. Also use competitors and bigger companies to get ideas and to differentiate your OVP
Good luck
-
Hi there,
I also run an eCommerce site. And we rank number one for many keywords in the Disco, DJ and Lighting product categories. You have told me exactly why you failed to rank in your first opening line: "I copied".
Google doesn't want content that is identical to an already existing, larger company. Why should it include your website in SERPs when you're just a copy of a much larger website?
I personally don't see anything blackhat about Zappos. But I've literally just grazed over it.
What you need to do is be unique. All content should be unique to your website. No copying manufacturer descriptions, no keyword stuffing your descriptions, using correct title tags, h1 tags and alt tagging your images.
We have competitors who have been a PR 5 and ranking better with certain keywords for years. Thankfully, Penguin and Panda took care of them and we were boosted to that beautiful number 1 spot in the SERPS.
SEO in ecommerce requires patience, beautiful content, unique descriptions, SIMPLE navigation and customer experience.
You need to find the thin line between a fantastic user experience and a crawlers dream!
I don't take any "examples" from any website. I do my SEO how my website needs to be done. I know my website, I know my products, I've studied the keywords and phrases people give Google to find certain products and I have utilized those keywords to create content people WANT to read as well as content that crawlers are going to love.
Being the biggest does help you rank. However, if they try any blackhat techniques, Google will penalize them just as hard as you or I. But do you need to use Google to reach Amazon? Or do you just go directly to Amazon? They have no problem with paying $$$$$'s a month to sit pretty at the top of the serps sponsored section.
Just my two cents
Tom
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
-
Really struggling with serps....
My website is only a week old or so but I have no pages showing on the serps or at least in the first few hundred results! I have many other hobby websites that had pages in the top 100 results instantly and the niche of this new website is tiny and not saturated so it should be up there already! All pages are indexed but non showing in the results. it feels like I have been penalised or something but I don’t see how or why? my website is www.magnet-fishing.co.uk of anyone can see anything obvious that I am missing regards Andy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Onlytopheadsets0 -
How can I optimize pages in an index stack
I have created an index stack. My home page is http://www.southernwhitewater.com My home page (if your look at it through moz bat for chrome bar} incorporates all the pages in the index. Is this Bad? I would prefer to index each page separately. As per my site index in the footer What is the best way to optimize all these pages individually and still have the customers arrive at the top and links directed to the home page ( which is actually the 1st page). I feel I am going to need a rel=coniacal might be needed somewhere. Any help would be great!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | VelocityWebsites0 -
How to come up with the best title tags?
Hi Guys, I know title tags is one of the most important things that google looks at, any tips or advice around how I can go about improving the ones I have currently? I'm ranking pretty decent for all domains, slowly but surely, my main keywords are online psychics, online psychic readings, chat psychics, chat readings, tarot readings, and psychic readings. Any advice would be much appreciated, or direct me to resources I can look into helping me get onto the right path. my website is http://bit.ly/1KTbWg0 Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | edward-may0 -
Moving blog to a subdomain, how can I help it rank?
Hi all, We recently moved our blog to a sub-domain where it is hosted on Wordpress. It was very recent and we're actively working on the SEO, but any pointers on getting the subdomain to rank higher than the old blog posts would be terrific. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DigitalMoz0 -
Keyword Phrases - Can You Break Them Up?
Can you break up a search query across a sentence and have Google still recognize which query you are targeting? Let's say I'm trying to rank a page for the phrase "best haircuts calgary". Is Google's algorithm advanced enough to look at page title "Best Haircuts - Where To Get Them In Calgary" and know it's targeting the query "best haircuts calgary"? If it can't do this right now, I could see it advancing to this at some point in the future, which would then change the game quite a bit in terms of how creative you can get creating pages for queries.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | reidsteven750 -
Syndicating duplicate content descriptions - Can these be canonicalised?
Hi there, I have a site that contains descriptions of accommodation and we also use this content to syndicate to our partner sites. They then use this content to fill their descriptions on the same accommodation locations. I have looked at copyscape and Google and this does appear as duplicate content across these partnered sites. I do understand as well that certain kinds of content will not impact Google's duplication issue such as locations, addresses, opening times those kind of things, but would actual descriptions of a location around 250 words long be seen and penalised as duplicate content? Also is there a possible way to canonicalise this content so that Google can see it relates back to our original site? The only other way I can think of getting round a duplicate content issue like this is ordering the external sites to use tags like blockquotes and cite tags around the content.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MalcolmGibb0 -
Keyword Targeting Best Practices??
What is the best way to target a specific keyword? I rank well for several of my keywords but want to do better on others. How do I go about doing this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bronxpad0 -
What's your best hidden SEO secret?
Don't take that question too serious but all answers are welcome 😉 Answer to all:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | petrakraft
"Gentlemen, I see you did you best - at least I hope so! But after all I suppose I am stuck here to go on reading the SEOmoz blog if I can't sqeeze more secrets from you!9