Selling Online #21 : Search Engine Optimization : Part 2

Last month I introduced some of the technical groundwork on the why’s and the what’s of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This month I’m going to talk about some of the how’s.

As I have hopefully (and pedantically) beaten into your heads by now, when it comes to SEO, content is king. The merchandising copy and product descriptions should not only sell the product to your customers, but it should be both keyword rich and relevant for your entire business. If you sell authentic Ducati apparel, when you mention a jacket make sure you call it a Ducati Motorcycle Riding Jacket. All of those keywords are very important. And make sure you use keywords that your customers would look for and use. While the OEM may use the term brake friction block, people are going to be looking for brake pads.

If you hope to achieve outstanding organic search results, it’s not just the words that humans are going to see that are important. Search engine robots also read and index every available bit of information on your site. Even though there is considerable debate about the relative importance of a lot of these various “non-human” bits of information, it is understood that they do have a positive impact if you use them right. So here are some tips that can help your SEO above and beyond obvious textual information:

Name the images on your site with SEO in mind:
If you have an image of an oil filter for a Ducati GT1000, don’t just keep the name off your camera (like DSC-2054.jpg) or call it something like oilfilter.jpg, give it a nice descriptive name like 444.4.003.2A_Ducati_GT1000_oil_filter.jpg. If someone does a web search for the part number, the brand, the bike model, etc. they all are supported by a search result that will highlight those keywords in the search engine results page (SERP).

Use all of the “extra” HTML attributes that are available:
Modern HTML code is designed for what’s called “accessibility.” There is extra data that can be inserted into a page to help things like screen readers (programs that actually read everything on a site out loud using speech synthesis) for the blind. You can use these extra bits of data to incrementally help your search results (again, it’s debatable how much it helps, but it’s easy to do and it does seem to make a difference in real world use). Use the ALT (this is short for alternate, typically used to describe what the image is) attribute for image tags. In the above example of the oil filter, the image’s tag should have the ALT attribute set to something like Ducati Oil Filter For Ducati GT1000 - Part Number: 444.4.003.2A.

There is another attribute that most tags also posses, and that’s the TITLE attribute. An example would be using this in a link’s anchor tag to provide extra information about the link. So in your site’s navigation, or within editorial copy, you could have a link to Ducati Riding Apparel with a TITLE attribute set to Ducati Motorcycle Riding Apparel. This will not only provide a tool tip pop up when you mouse over it, but it may help with SEO as well. Of the two (ALT and TITLE), TITLE attributes impact on SERP placement is the most dubious, but it can’t hurt, and every little bit helps.

URL’s:
URL’s are another area of hot debate in the SEO world. Most e-commerce packages will create URL’s for your categories and products that look something like this: http://vroomvroommoto.com/product_detail.aspx?8675309 where 8675309 is the internal ID number of the product. This is totally sub-optimal for SEO purposes. What you want is a URL that looks like this: http://vroomvroommoto.com/ducati_motorcycle_oil_filter.aspx. If your e-commerce package does not support what’s known as re-writing URL’s there are several methods and tools that you can use to do it at the server level or by installing and using various add-ons.

Page Titles:
Page titles absolutely make a huge difference in page ranking. The first and most important thing is that the most important things needs to go first! The most important keywords need to be in the first 5 to 7 words in the title. Most companies will put their company name first, then the other stuff. That’s backwards, unless your company name also has the keywords you’re hoping to promote. Lets say that your company is Vroom Vroom Italian Moto Works and you sell Ducati and Moto Guzzi. It would be pointless to have your page titles read Vroom Vroom Italian Moto Works: Ducati and Moto Guzzi Motorcycles. Instead it should read Ducati & Moto Guzzi Motorcycles, Parts, Accessories, and Riding Apparel from Vroom Vroom Italian Moto Works. Now you’re covering all the bases and getting all the important keywords at the front of the title.

Page titles on your product detail pages absolutely should display a comprehensive product description before anything else if you want the search engines to rank the stuff people are searching for at the product level on the search engines. In the oil filter example, the product detail page should read something like Ducati GT1000 Oil Filter: Part 444.4.003.2A - Ducati & Moto Guzzi Motorcycles, Parts, Accessories, and Riding Apparel, not Ducati & Moto Guzzi Motorcycles, Parts, Accessories, and Riding Apparel from Vroom Vroom Italian Moto Works : Ducati GT1000 Oil Filter: Part 444.4.003.2A. On the product page, the most important keywords are the ones that have to do with that product.

Some of this may have seemed kind of propeller-headish, and hopefully the web developer you are using is up on this SEO stuff, but it’s still a good idea that you have at least some exposure to it so you can manage and verify.

Keep in mind that none of these techniques are a silver bullet, and these suggestions are by no means even close to exhaustive, but when combined with good site design and merchandising copy they can help you get higher up in the SERP’s.

Next month I’ll finish the SEO series on a list of the big no-no’s to avoid at all costs if you want anyone to ever find your site via a search engine!

Tags:Column, DealerNews, dealerships, E-Commerce, ecommerce, internet, motorcycle, powersports, Search Engine Optimization, selling-online, SEO