Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Cheers. Exactly how I thought it would be.

Hi,

As I await my sitemap to go live, can someone tell me the main benefits of it? A Google sitemap that is .xml one.

I have a images sitemap also as the site is an e-commerce store.

Should I be expecting to see an increase in visitors when I implement it initially?

Thanks

Will

Hi,

I read somewhere that Google reads a page in a certain way.

All my product pages are listed (or most of them) in Alphabetical order.

Now say I am targeting brands named Cruyff and Money Clothing, should I put all the Cruyff and Money products above everything else?

See here for example...

http://www.designerboutique-online.com/jackets/

They are in Alph order, except the sales items at the bottom. So would it be beneficial to do this? To put my targeted brands at the top of the page?

And if not, is there anything I should be doing with the layout of the products to improve/help with SEO?

Thanks

Will

Basically no one wants to touch the site, so were stuck with them for now.

They have come back to me with £100 for an hours work of testing the script, because they do not know what it contains.

How long does it take to install on server and do what you have to do to test it?

They are ripping us off, I know they are.

Cheers

Cheers. Very interesting.

What would you advice be on sites like this: http://sixrevisions.com/css/30-exceptional-css-navigation-techniques/

One of our competitors have a link on this site, it is a PA of 69 and a DA of 88.

I always though guest replies would be ignored by Google, is this the case?

Our competitor sells clothing but has a reply on a CSS site?

Would this be worth doing like this or is it a waste of time?

If you look for the comment from Aphrodite, that links to their site.

Cheers

Will

Hi,

I am in the process of finding blogs to have a few articles published with a couple of links in each. Articles will all be unique and relevant to the link I drop in and relevant in someway to the reader

However I have a few questions.

My site is a designer menswear site, so I have picked fashion and sports sites first and foremost to have the articles published.

Now, I have a guy who owns about 30 different websites. 2 of them are sports based and about 10 are fashion based. Around $10-$15 an article.

I have ran them all through the Open Site Explorer Tool and picked out the best ranked ones.

Now my problem is, how do I know if its a good site to not only list an article on, but to pay for it as well.

The sites page ranks are around the 30-45 range, the domains are around the 35-45 range. What is a good range to have? I know the higher the better but is 30-45 good enough to pay for? (I don't mind paying the $10 each (£7 my money) for each one)

Also as he is quoted me in dollars, I assume there all USA based, so majority of users are USA based. Well I am UK based and only ship to the UK. Will this matter as much if I am trying to gain backlinks? Obviously a UK based site, would be ideal, but is it a case of getting more external links on the web for Google to find, as long as they are relevant to the user?

Any help would be great.

Thanks

Will

Cheers and I will post a new thread. Final Q in here though, how do I get the H1 tags onto the things I want? And what are the things I want it on? As we also have a H1 tag on the line...

Designer Boutique - The Best in Quality and Heritage Menswear

Should we be using only 1 H1 tag and should it really go on something more keywords specific like Designer Boutique - Official Stockists of Cruyff Trainers, Money Clothing and more?

As they are two brands we are targetting?

Thanks.

What I do not get is other peoples descriptions seem to be like ours, short, bullets.

What lengh should i be aiming for here.

20 words, 50 words, 100 words?

Do the content of the descriptions look ok or should I be getting more of the brand/product in there? As I notice it is maybe mentioned once in the description along with the clolour, fit etc...

Within the CMS is a short description section, which is basically text that appears below the price when viewing the overall products. See here: http://www.designerboutique-online.com/all-clothing/money-clothing/ , you will see below the prices is 1 sentance, should this include brand/product/colour again?

I struggle to find what is more important, how would you rank the following in terms of importance, this is how I viewed it.

1. SEO Page Title
2. SEO Description
3. Item Title
4. Item Long Description
5. Item Short Desciption
6. SEO Keywords

Cheers

Will

Thanks. The site was badly designed a few years ago and the compnay who designed it charge us for any updates. So for now the independant pages for Money Hoodies etc... would have to wait.

I am going to fill out each brand page with keywords content.

Could you tell me if the Product Description and Meta Description for the following item is ok? http://www.designerboutique-online.com/all-clothing/money-clothing/money-jeans-blue-ape-outline/0/

Am I going in the right direction? Meta Title, Meta Description, Procut Title and Product Descriptions all look ok to you? If not what advice would you give?

Same goes for my Money Clothing page: http://www.designerboutique-online.com/all-clothing/money-clothing/

Thanks for your help.

Will

Hi Marcus, Thanks for your help.

if you have a look around various product pages here: www.designerboutique-online.com you will see the descriptions that are put on for each item.

I am in the process of working with the lady who inputs the product decriptions to try and make them a bit more fulfilling and decriptive.

As for the SEO decriptions, these can at times be similar with maybe colours and styling changing.

What would you suggest for effective product descriptions and effective SEO descriptions? How long should each be, and what words should I be getting in there?

Cheers

Will

Thanks Shelley, great help.

If I am targeting specific brands, and I am finding sites to submit to under the general terms of mens hoodies, designer jackets etc... is it best to submit and actual product to these pages or should I use like my Money Clothing page, or my Armani Jackets pages?

My site allows you to select the brand or the product type. So do I go with the brand link of www.designerboutique-online.com/all-clothing/money-clothing/ or do I go for www.designerboutique-online.com/tops/money-clothing/

One will give you all Money products, the latter will give you all Money tops including t-shirts, hoodies, jumpers etc... It is not possible to get just a Money Hoodies link unless I use a specific item, which I do not want to do because one we stop selling it, the link will become redundant will it not?

Thanks

Will

Hi, thanks for your advice.

Yes all procuts do have a style and in some case a model number. I am trying to use the following format.

colour, brand, product, model, stle

so Blue Armani T-Shirt Long Sleeve or Grey Cruyff Vanenburg Trainers Leather

Again any further advice on product titles would be great.

Thanks

As much as I apprieciate everyones comments, why does it seem that only in the SEO world do people reply to beginners questions with unhelpful, snide comments that offer no input or knowledge what so ever.

Its like reading a crypic code trying to figure out what people mean.

What problems do you forsee? Do you have any advice, guidance etc... that will actually help me and others who read this post, or is it all just simple one liners that leave the user thinking, what am I doing wrong and what can I do to get better?

I do not simply use the colour, I was more stating that putting it at the beginning allows the duplicate title problem to be sorted in some way.

All product titles will include a colour, brand, model, style etc...

Any help would be great.

Thanks

Would I be better searching for longer terms such as Grey Money Hoodies, Black Cruyff Vanenburg Trainers to get more target specific links.

I am struggling to find sites that have a high authority and will actually be relevant to my site(mens clohting).

If you wouldn't mind, would you do a quick search and show me an example of what you would be doing for the products I sell.

website if needed is www.designerboutique-online.com and I am targeting brands Money Clothing, Creative Recreation and Cruyff Trainers.

Cheers

Will

Hi

Can anyone explain what all the info within the link acquisition tool is all about?

I put in to look for Money Hoodies, Money being the brand name and Hoodies being the product type.

This is what I get back, what do the links mean when I click them? I don't get it?

money hoodies + "submit site"
money hoodies + "submit url"
money hoodies + "intitle:directory"
money hoodies + "intitle:resources"
money hoodies + "directory list"
money hoodies + "inurl:list"
money hoodies + "intitle:list"
money hoodies + "inurl:directory"
money hoodies + "inurl:resources"
money hoodies + "add url"
money hoodies + "submit url"
money hoodies + "suggest url"
money hoodies + "suggest a url"
money hoodies + "submit site"
money hoodies + "submit a site"
money hoodies + "submit your site"
money hoodies + "add a url"
money hoodies + "add a site"
money hoodies + "add listing"
money hoodies + "add your listing"
money hoodies + "submit a listing"
money hoodies + "submit listing"
money hoodies + "submit your website"

Thats great mate. Yeah I understand the problem putting just a colour in front of an item can course. For Jeans I use the following Blue Armani J31 Jeans Classic Fit Straight Leg | Armani Jeans from Designer Boutique. I try to mix the page titles up as much as possible.

The product descriptions are all unique, as we are aware of dup content, however the staff member who puts the descriptions on usually types 4-5 bullet points with about 6-9 words in each point. Is this sufficient?

Are keywords pretty much redundant now? Our CMS let us input keywords, but not sure of the value of these any more.

Cheers, Will

Hi,

I run an e-commerce store and within the CMS I define the SEO title, SEO description and SEO keywords for each item.

I spoke to a SEO firm who advised me to start every product title with the colour, as this will reduce the duplicate page titles and serve me well in the future.

Whats everyones view on this?

Does naming something Grey Armani Jeans | Armani Jeans from Designer Boutique stand up better against Armani Jeans Grey | Armani Jeans from Designer Boutique?

Any help or tips on how to format the page titles and descriptions would be great.

Thanks

Will

Hi, thanks for that. The reason I do not want to go with the company is because I think they are taking me for a ride. The website they designed is a rip off, over paid and under delivered. Something like this should have been included when it was set up, they quoted me £1200 to install PayPal as a checkout option, whereas a highly respected e-commerce designer firm quoted me £250.

It is not 2 hours work for them, no way. I would be happy with just using my defined update schedule, maybe every 3 days would be sufficient, even once a week is fine.

I have asked them can they upload etc.. so I will see what they say. I am more than likely to buy the software, generate myself and then they can upload it.

I mean, what harm can doing it myself do? It will work, it will deliver, just the same as it would if the web firm done it. As I see the only benefit of using the firm is so can put in fancy update features.

Thanks for your input.

Cheers

Will

They said they would be writing a script so the £200 is 2 hours work for them.

They will not provide me with FTP details, so all edits go through them. Only if I take the site away from their hosting will I have access to FTP.

What would you advise? Is the XML completely fine with that software and all the web design company would need to do is have it refreshed every week?

What refresh frequency would I be best having, daily, weekly? We have new products more than likely 1 or 2 times a week.

T

Hi,

I am trying to increase our sites number of backlinks. It has been badly managed in the past so I am trying to fix it.

What I am doing is using Google, Twitter, Facebook and competitor sites to find a whole load of fashion blogs (we sell mens clothing). I am then making contact with the relevant site people to ask them if we can get one of our articles published on their site.

In return we will offer to promote their blog through our facebook/twitter pages and include the blog link as a recommended link within our weekly newsletters. We have over 2800+ friends on Facebook/Twitter and a newsletter that goes out to over 3000+ customers.

Some have accepted and published an article that I wrote around 1-2 brands (eg. their background, their products etc..) Within that article was maybe 300-400 words and about 3-4 links to products on our site. Each article is unique, so no duplicate content is being published by us.

Would it be worth putting their link on our site from a SEO point of view? Or is the link on their site only the best way to do it?

Also as alot of our customer is men, would it be worth moving from the fashion blogs and maybe getting our articles in some football (soccer) blogs, as they are a big part of our fan base and as such are relevant to us.

Let me know your thoughts and any help.

Thanks

Will

Hi, the server is owned by the people who designed the site, so they host it. So I would need to get them to put it up.

How would XML-Sitemaps handle the installation if it is on the web companies server? Would they be able to?

If I can get the XML file ready, then I am sure the web company would upload it for free or maybe a small charge.

Let me ask you this to see if I am reading you correctly.

If I buy that software (of which I used the free version to generate 500 lines), it will create a sitemap for me, then once hosted on the server, will update everytime a new product/page is added to the site? Once updated it pings Google etc...?

Would it be worth including the images in the sitemap, as we have over 1000 images on the site, maybe 3-5 images per product. Would that then enable us to get our images into google images a lot easier?

Do you know what the difference between me using this and uploading it to server and paying a web design company £200 to do everything? Is there any?

Cheers

Will

Hi,

I have a sitemap on my site, that updates but it isn't a XML sitemap. See here: http://www.designerboutique-online.com/sitemap/

I have used some free software to crawl the site and create a sitemap of pages, however I think that if I were to upload the sitemap, it would be out of date as soon as I listed new products on the site, so would need to rerun it.

Does anyone know how I can get this to refresh daily or weekly?

Or any software that can do it?

I have a web firm that are willing to do one, but our relationship is at an all time low and I don't want to hand over £200 for them to do one.

Anyone with any ideas or advice?

Thanks

Will

Could they be archived links from years ago?

I have the same problem. Products we used to sell but either no longer sell or are out of stock (they are made inactive in the CMS and do not appear on site) show up in some google searches and in the crawl test.

Any ideas?

Cheers

Will

Not an expert but from what I have ready I would say it all depends on the site in question. Maybe Yahoo answer isn;t that good as it can be spammed alot.

If you link for say Clothes appears on a Database forum, then it might not get that much athority because the site is off topic and the users are not really there for clothes.

However if your Clothes link appeard on a Armani forum, it might be relevant to the users and as such hold a bit more weight.

Thats my take on it.

Anyone else know more/better?

Will

Hi Anthony,

When you say top quality content, what do you mean?

I run a designer menswear e-commerce site, currently have 2700+ friends on the page, yesterday I started a LIKE page about the company as well, only 20 likes so far.

What can I produce on these sites to get the LIKEs etc..? Is it just a case of posting good posts and including links to my site or a mixture of good posts and good linking posts?

I find that we put up 1-2 posts a day with a link to a maybe the new stock arrivals etc... but no text to follow it.

What would be the best way of getting the most out of facebook/twitter?

Also could you define social bookmarking?

Thanks

Will

Cheers.

I would use an SEO company but as a small business and brand owners requiring payments, it will be a few months before we have the cash to do so. So I am trying to learn myself as I have a fair bit of web knowledge and it is something that interests me, so learning SEO would be good for me.

I understand the spammy directories etc... but what I am asking is what methods are out there for finding these quality links?

Do I just google them, tweet them, facebook them and then see if they rank highly with the mozlabs tools?

How do people go about finding them and then getting the owners permission? Whats your email text to them?

Cheers

Will

Cheers.

I have started a campaign for a subfolder www.designerboutique-online.com/all-clothing/money-clothing/

and

a subdomain www.designerboutique-online.com, should I have chosen root here for designerboutique-online.com?

Cheers

Will

Hi,

I am trying to improve the SEO our my website which sells mens designer clothes.

I know the huge value of backlinks on relevant, high ranking/authoirtive sites.

Problem is how do I find these sites?

I am currently using twitter, facebook and google to find relevant blogs, websites, forums etc... (ones in the fashion, menswear, designer clothing field) but it is a slow and tedious process.

I there any tools, that I can use that find these high ranking sites or is it a case of me searching, searching and requesting to have an article published from blog owners with a link to one of my product pages in etc...?

Any help on backlinking and best way to approach would be great.

Thanks
Will

I agree about the /all-clothing/ part, and is something I am working on getting changed. I never set it up like this, a web design company did.

All my subfolders come off the root domain (i.e designerboutique-online.com/all-clothing/cruyff-trainers/ which is a brand of trainers we sell.

Do you therefore think it is the wrong type of campaign to look at subfolders? I only chose a subfolder because it is a brand we will be targeting.

Would it be more beneficial to campaign on my root domain first? Does this include sub folders when doing the analysis?

Basically what I want to know is how to I use SEOmoz Pro for my e-commerce site, what tips, guides etc... do you have?

My SEO campaigns will be targeting 2 brands, money clothing and cruyff trainers, within each category I want to be optimising models of each brand, eg. money jeans, money t-shirts, cruyff vanenburg trainers, cruyff boxtoe trainers.

How best is it to go about it?

Cheers

Will

Hi there,

New to Moz and have just signed up to the pro package.

I run a menswear website in the UK, and I want to start a campaign looking at 1 or 2 brands (Money Clothing and Cruyff Trainers).

What I would like to know is, when starting a campaign for say Money Clothing, should I use my root domain www.designerboutique-online.com/ or should I use my Money Clothing domain (www.designerboutique-online.com/all-clothing/money-clothing/ ?

Then once I do this, do I use my competitors subfolder pages or do I use their root domain? I tried to use 1 competitor as a subfolder and I think it gave an error saying I cannot use / after the domain?

Any help on what would be the best approach for me to begin targeting my specific brands and how to compare them against my competitors.

Cheers
Will