What are the Best On-Site SEO Practices before an E-commerce Site Goes Live?
-
Hello,
I’m working on a client’s E-commerce website.
This website is not live yet. Before the site goes live, I am curious to know what the best practices of On-site SEO are.
Please let me know from which factor should I start analyze?
Thanks.
-
All of these are great answers. Below are a few more resources you might want to check out prior to launching:
The 2014 SEO Checklist by ClickMinded: I can't endorse 100% of everything on there (we all have our own opinions, tools and methods) but it is a fairly comprehensive checklist.
The 2013 SEO Ranking Factors Study by Moz: This is from last year, but still relevant and mostly accurate.
The Periodic Table of SEO Success Factors by SEL: I find this visual format very confusing and convoluted, but others find it very logical and easy to interpret. I think it depends on the person. I'm more data-oriented rather than visually oriented. Either way it's a good resource.
The biggest mistakes I see on eCommerce sites are as follows:
- Non-Unique Product Copy (e.g. Content taken from manufacturer or distributor descriptions, or product feeds)
- Internal Duplicate Product Copy (e.g. product variants with their own canonical URLs using the same copy, non-canonical URLs created by query strings, from products in multiple categories, etc...)
- Thin or Useless Product Copy
- Indexable URLs for Filtered/Faceted/Layered navigation
- Indexable URLs for internal search results
- Indexable shopping cart URLs
Good luck!
-
Simply put, make sure you have no duplicate content, including:
Page titles
Meta Descriptions
On Page content
Multiple URL's with the same content (often a huge issue with CMS or cart systems)Screaming Frog seo spider is a good resource to use, and its free up to a number of URL's.
Don't forget to check your robots.txt rules, to filter out anything you dont want showing up. If you are using a CMS, check that the home page isnt being rendered with multiple URL's such as:
YOURDOMAIN.com and YOURDOMAIN.com/index.php. This can be corrected with a 301, unless you are using VirtueMart, which needs the index.php. (there is a custom fix we came up for this to not display) -
I have compiled a list of things that are needed before you launch. Run the Moz campaign mode and see if there are any errors do this by allowing Roger bot to index but not Google - http://moz.com/learn/seo/robotstxt
Allow a specific web crawler to visit a specific web page - Disallow: /no-bots/block-all-bots-except-rogerbot-page.html User-agent: rogerbot Allow: /no-bots/block-all-bots-except-rogerbot-page.html and http://moz.com/tools/crawl-test
Then use https://moz.com/researchtools/on-page-grader and https://marketing.grader.com/
I would buy screaming frog SEO spider to index your website if over 500 pages and be certain there is no possible duplicate content and a simulated Google bot can index the site properly. This is most important. You can also Check the Way, Google would be your website through the eyes of Google bot using http://feedthebot.com or http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/ . This will show you any errors when you run it through all the tools available.
Well this may sound very obvious, make sure no index no follow is in place right now if you do not want to go live & you are using a staging server. If you are using a staging server make sure to 301 redirect that link to your site use a rel canonical link to point to your new domain's site pages that were on the former staging server for instance. If you have an alias/staging server named example.staging–server.com who would want to follow the example below on the staging server to make sure there is no duplicate content. This is rare but does happen - https://example.staging-server.com/shoes/hightops/
You can use this if running Magento - https://yoast.com/tools/magento/canonical/. Everything else is listed below:
- http://www.gpmd.co.uk/blog/onsite-seo-for-ecommerce/
- http://jasonmun.com/ecommerce-seo-best-practices-for-new-website-launch/
- http://www.vudumarketing.com/on-site-seo-guide/
- http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33164/6-SEO-Tools-to-Analyze-Your-Site-Like-Google-Does.aspx
- http://www.prestashop.com/blog/en/10-things-i-wish-i-knew-before-opening-an-ecommerce-site/
- http://onlinebusiness.volusion.com/articles/seo-webinar-follow-up-contest-winners-top-seo-questions-answered/
Sincerely,
Thomas
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
-
When I changes Template, why traffic goes down?
I've noticed that when I change my blog's template the traffic goes down dramatically, about of 40% decrease. I know that new themes can have some problems but I have tried this with 2 different themes. First try was with genesis framework(Paid one) and just in one day traffic went down and when I reverted the old theme, the traffic became normal. Should I wait for 1 week to see what happens? What could be the potential reason of this?
On-Page Optimization | | hammadrafique0 -
Does anyone know of an api for on site SEO?
I have searched for one, but really cannot find one that fits my needs. I am looking at making an on site grader / service that will check pages and point out SEO problems. One that I have found that I like is seorch.eu but they do not have an api. I do not want to reinvent the wheel if I do not have to. Also, the api does not have to be free, or it does not even have to be an api, it can be a self hosted application too.
On-Page Optimization | | LesleyPaone0 -
Multiple Organization Schema on the same site
I creating a preferred supplier list on my site and wanted to use the Organization Schema for the company details. Is there a issue with having more than one org schema on the same site? or should I just use the one for my company. Thanks in advance
On-Page Optimization | | gregdicksonuk1 -
SEO and PDFs
Hi there, how could I incorpore the PDF's documents of my site to the SEO strategy in order to optimize the page in which is included in? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | juanmiguelcr0 -
Multi-Site SEO using Host Headers
Hi - I'm working on a proposal for a client who runs 3 different career websites. He uses "host headers" to direct the website visitor to the correct website. For example, if the visitor comes from Washington he goes to one url. If he is in Kansas, he goes to another URL. Does anyone have any experience doing SEO with this type of system? What do I need to know? What are hurdles I'll encounter? Thanks, -Hunter
On-Page Optimization | | HunterW0 -
Site Architecture: How do I best Optimize for Similar Keywords?
Hello Moz Community! I'm really struggling trying to decide on an improved site architecture. I run an online proofreading & editing website. This leaves us targeting many different niche keywords. For example: blog editing/proofreading, essay editing/proofreading, book editing/proofreading, resume... you get the point. I feel like editing & proofreading are similar enough to target on the same page(s). However, the issue is that I'm also having to deal with what I'm calling derivative keywords. For example, when I try to optimize for 'essay editing/proofreading', I also have to think about: paper editing, paper editor, paper correction, edit my paper, etc. I would have no problem optimizing the page for 'essay editing' in the title, H1, etc. and then targeting these words as secondary keywords within the body text, etc., however, I keep thinking 'a large slice of a small pie is better than a small slice of a big one.' You see, the keyword 'essay correction' has only about one-third the monthly searches as 'essay editing', but it is 50% less competitive. The same is loosely true for the rest of the 'derivative' keywords. I'd have no problem building specific pages for these derivative keyword groups, however, I'm very concerned how this would effect my site from a user experience perspective. I don't want to have a master "services" page with links to book editing, resume editing, essay editing, etc. and then also show paper editing, essay correction, etc. To me, this would be confusing... "What's the difference between essay editing and paper editing?". Any guidance is much appreciated. This has got my head spinning! Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | TBiz0 -
Drupal SEO Question
Still trying to get a handle on all this...a lot to figure out! My site is Drupal and a few weeks ago I had my developer install an SEO Module so I could add a meta description and keywords for my pages. I have done that for the majority of the landing pages and the product pages as well. Earlier I posted a question about the use of adding the meta description and keywords to each product. The answers were mixed and pointed out the problem of the duplicate content which I am trying to figure out how to fix. BUT...when I went through my On Page Analysis grading for my campaigns one of the reasons my grades were low were because of the use of meta keywords tag. That the search engines ignore them and competitors can use them against you. So now I am thoroughly confused. I should optimize each product page with the meta description and keywords or i shouldn't? Keywords should show up in the title tag and the content....anywhere else? Help! Thanks much, Shara
On-Page Optimization | | Confections0 -
Is having the word catalog in an ecommerce site url detrimental to seo.
IS: www.example.com/catalog/category%/product% better than www.example.com/category%/product% category and product are dynamic values that change with the diff. categ. and products displayed while catalog is constant.
On-Page Optimization | | no6thgear0