What tips do people have for implementing SEO strategies for large websites?
-
Hi,
I would like some tips on how to manage SEO on Large sites with limited. For example, I have a client with a large Ecommerce store that wants to rank high for every product and every category.
Obviosly every page has to be keyword optimised, but what is the best strategy for acquiring links and should we target all deep pages or just the home page and category pages, then use good internal linking to pass the link juice around?
All advice welcome!
thanks
-
I wholeheartedly agree. Any efforts made to personalize the pages, engage visitors and not appear like a generic page of a large e-commerce site is a step in the right direction.
-
Although the ideal path is to make each product page remarkable and worthy of generating links, itdepends on how much resources are available. I like the example of Woot who creates really humorous and entertaining product descriptions. You can also create original content like videos and photos instead of just using the boring manufacturer's descriptions and photos. I like how ThinkGeek encourages customers to post their own photos of them using their remarkable products. Creative ideas like that can make you stand out from the crowd and make your pages worthy of generating links.
-
If you have the budget and time then divide and conquer. Attack a set of pages that are high value loe effort. Use the 80 / 20 rule. The advice below is good. If you post the area of your site then specific advice can be given
-
What tips do people have for implementing SEO strategies for large websites?
The problem with large sites is scalability. I am not talking about the hardware or software, but instead the human factor.
Pick an item for sale, let's go with wall clocks. If you have a small site which sells 50 wall clocks then each and every clock would probably have it's own page. Sure you can have category pages but there would probably be some level of intimacy offered. The site might have began with selling a single clock, then expanded with another clock every couple weeks over a period of two years.
Each clock page could tell a story. The page could talk about who designed the clock, the manufacturer, people who have bought the clock, rooms where the clock would look best in, some details about the clock's history, how the clock is the same or similar to the one from a movie scene, etc. Detailed images might be offered from various angles. There is a level of detail and personalization offered when a human being is involved with creating a web page and sharing a high quality experience. These pages offer a lot of value to visitors and therefore search engines.
On the other extreme, there are websites which carry tens of thousands of products. The site owner has never seen nor heard of the item being sold. The product is listed based on a feed, the page URL is clock12z43, the description feels more like reading the Supplement Facts label from a vitamin bottle, etc.
When the owner of the latter style of website asks "why doesn't my product page rank higher" I ask them in return how many hours are they willing to spend on the page building it with quality information to help it rank higher. The response is often none, and there is your roadblock. The explanation is the owner doesn't have the time or ability to spend an hour per page with 10k+ products. Often the e-commerce solution does not have the flexibility to accommodate reasonable changes either. The site is restricted by the gridlock of attempting to allow one person to manage 10k products which simply is not reasonable.
If I could offer one tip for managing a large site it would be treat each and every page as if it belonged to a small site. Each and every page should have a human review it, and it should look like a human was involved with it's development.
what is the best strategy for acquiring links
Again, that human interaction does wonders. If you build outstanding pages, allow user generated content and provide social integration, many links will come naturally. Whenever you feel your linking needs a boost, reach out to the community. For the clock example, there are many types of sites ranging from interior design to arts and crafts. Read their forums and become involved in their community. Participate in sincere, helpful discussions which do not necessarily involve your site. When a topic arises where you can smoothly share a link to one of your clocks, do so in a high quality (i.e. non-spammy) manner. This method is one of many techniques to build links.
should we target all deep pages or just the home page and category pages
A balance works best. All pages would benefit from links.
-
Yes target the homepage and category pages, good internal linking with proper anchor texts. Look into the rel prev and rel next tags instead of canonical as a way of dealing with duplicate content. Make sure all title tags and meta tags are unique. Add enough unique identifiers to ensure uniqueness.
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
-
SEO Value of Google+?
Hi Mozers, Does having a Google+ page really impact SEO? Thanks, Yael
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | yaelslater1 -
Delay to rank for authority website versus new website
Hello, I have a website that has been existing for years. How long does it take if I have a good content on a page for it to rank ? I read here and that that it can take 4 to 6 months but it never says if it is for a brand new website or a old website that has an authority and some links. I also read that some people publish content and rank within a week on competitive keywords. So who is right, what is there to read in between the lines ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
SEO implication of adding large number of new product pages
If I have an eCommerce website containing 10,000 product pages and then I add 10,000 new product pages using a bulk upload (with limited/basic but unique content), does this pose any SEO risk? I am obviously aware of the risks of adding a large number of low quality content to the website, which is not the case here, however what I am trying to ascertain is whether simply doubling the number of pages in itself causes any risk to our SEO efforts? Does it flag to the Search Engines that something "spammy" is happening (even if its not)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DHS_SH0 -
Link building strategy
Hello Moz Community, For the last couple of months we have been trying to improve our ranking in Google UK for the keyword "church candles" http://www.wattsandco.com/church-supplies/church-candles.html We’ve been contacting relevant interiors/lifestyle blogs to feature our candles including anchor text linking back to our page. Our anchor text has been predominately our brand (Watts & Co) but also other key search terms (Watts and Co church candles, Watts and Co pillar candles). We have been tracking our ranking for the keyword “Church candles” using the Moz “ Rank Tracker” and we started on position 15 in Google UK. We went up to 12 briefly before moving down every week to 15, 17, 19 and 22. We checked today and we have moved back up slightly to 19. Our progress seems to be a bit slow and inconsistent. We wanted to reach out for any advice on how we can move up? If there was any way we can improve our strategy? Here’s the links we have built so far: http://nostalgiecat.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/what-autumn-means-to-me.html http://blog.pollyrowan.com/2015/10/5-small-ways-to-decorate-your-home-that.html http://www.happyhomebird.com/2015/10/watts-co-candles-for-cosy-autumn-home.html http://www.frolic-blog.com/2015/10/beeswax-candles-for-fall/ http://hisforhomeblog.com/lighting/watts-co-church-candles/#axzz3qhqN1wzA http://lorilangille.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/sponsored-post-watts-and-co.html http://www.californiahomedesign.com/product-finds/waxing-poetic-must-have-candles Thanks so much!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | roberthseo0 -
Hypothetical SEO Question
I am running a website for a law firm. It has been running for many, many years and has plenty of backlinks and authority. I then create a standalone website for a specific type of case that the law firm is handling. On that website, I have a page that copies some of the attorney bio text from the main website. How much of a negative impact will this standalone website have on the main website as far as duplicate content issues are concerned? Please explain your answer in detail. Thank you in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | goldbergweismancairo0 -
Purpose of a Blog in a website
How internal blog or external blog is helpful in SEO?why it is good to have a site with blog?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Alick3000 -
Global/international SEO campaign strategy with a single TLD
Hi All, Have 3 seperate questions all relating to global/international SEO from a domain strategy point of view so will try to make them all short and 'to the point'. The current URL is www.example.com. The site's content strategy and all marketing activity has always been for the UK. We're now launching in US with also long term plans to launch in other countries. Each country will have their own webmaster/conternt strategy/marketing team. 1st question Which is better and why? www.example.com/us verses www.us.example.com The US team are leaning towards (and rightly so) the folder approach as it will help the US section of the site benefit from existing domain authority, link profile and off-page SEO work already carried out to a route domain level. This will also not be regarded as a new site as it's www.example.com/us On the flip side however the sub domain option although has no short term SEO benefits; will have a more sustainable SEO campaign for each country as they can be treated as individual sites/SEO campaigns. This also reduces some risk elements involved as each geo-specific team will only be concerned about their own sub-domain and not have route domain level control. I'm also aware that sub-domains will be treated as individual sites and therefore certain updates (such as Panda) will treat each sub-domain individually. So a possible negative impact on uk.example.com would not necessarily have an impact on us.example.com unless content strategy was the same. 2nd question Assuming we decide to go for www.example.com/us (folder option). The site's current geo target market is currently set to UK on Google Webmaster Tools to route domain level. If www.example.com was set to UK and www.example.com/us was set to US on GWT, would there be a conflict? We want to ensure that the route domain level settings does NOT override any settings on folder level within the same domain. Based on an answer from a top contributer of Google Webmaster Central, setting www.example.com/us to US would not be in conflict with settings within route domain level but I would love to hear/read from somebody that had actually gone through the process. 3rd question We're considering implementing geo DNS so a US visitor accessing www.example.com will be redirected to www.example.com/us (or www.us.example.com) based on their location from their IP address. Reason being is we're trying to avoid a splash page with a choice of countries (UK or US) on route level (homepage) which is very commonly used by most sites with multiple geo specific target markets. We would be assuming that somebody from North America would be looking for the US site and therefore redirecting the visitor automatically to www.example.com/us. The SEO implications are however that a 302 redirect will be used and therefore redirects used based on the visitors location will not pass link value from the homepage towards landing pages. The homepage currently has very strong link juice and the site's general navigational structure is pretty good allowing the link juice to flow through from the homepage.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MoRaja1 -
Redirecting my new Website URL to my old Website URL
Hi! OK, I am semi - new to SEO Moz but have been self-teaching for 3 years. However I am stuck.. I have been operating my e-commerce site from www.shopadornonline.com for the past 3 years. I just purchased www.shopadorn.com Right now Shopadorn.com re-directs to www.shopadornonline.com because all my products and links go to shopadornonline.com/productblahblahblah I guess I am stuck. Not sure what to tell my web designer to do? Do I give up on having shopadorn.com OR do I start re-directing customers and doing 301 re-directs? I think from what i have read that it is bad to have traffic going to both shopadorn and shopadornonline as they compete for rankings? Where should I start?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Shopadorn0