Shopping cart search engine optimization (SEO) is just as important as SEO for any other website. However, shopping cart search engine optimization can be a little bit more tricky than SEO on other personal or business websites. There are many things to take into consideration when determining the best practices for search engine optimization with shopping cart software. With hosted shopping cart software solution, like BigCommerce or Volusion, the system may be set up to automatically help users create a store front that is search engine optimized or it may make it very difficult to create SEO URLs, title pages, meta tags and descriptions, be sure to find out if the shopping cart software you are considering is SEO friendly.
What is Search Engine Optimization – SEO?
Search engine optimization is a process. It isn’t something you do one time and forget about it. The ultimate goal of search engine optimization is to have a website rank high in search engine results when people search for keywords related to your product or service. Search engine optimization incorporates every part of your website from your domain name and meta information to your content and out and inbound links. Search engine optimization works different with each search engine and changes frequently as search engines are continually working to improve their methods and techniques so that they can return the most useful and accurate results possible.
Search engines have bots or spiders, technology that automatically scans and reviews website when new content is added or changes are made, that will scan every part of your website, both the visible and non-visible, to determine what your website is about and what keywords it is optimized for. This is a major part of determining how your site will rank in search engine results. If spiders find that your site is never updated or talks about many random things and doesn’t have any consistent focus, it is not as likely to rank well. Some of the key parts of a website or shopping cart that a search engine look at include:
- URL: if a websites address contains keywords relating to the products or content on the website it will rank a lot better than a site with a URL that consists of a lot of numbers, symbols, or other random text.
- Title and Meta information. Many people overlook the title of their page or don’t understand how important having keywords in the page title is. This is not only telling users what your have to offer and what your website is about, but also the search engines. Some SEO meta tags and information isn’t seen at all by end users and is only for SEO purposes, other meta parts of a website may be seen on a limited basis by users, such as the short description that appears in search engine results. Be sure you understand which parts are for users to read and which parts of search engine optimization is strictly for the search engine’s information.
- Keywords. Keywords are critical to every website. If you have too many keywords you will not be able to effectively optimize for any of them. If there is too much competition for certain keywords you may be better off using other similar phrases that are searched for but not overly used by competition. Your website may very well offer the very best service and value for what you have, but if the search engines can’t determine that from the information they are able to gather, they will not rank your website very high in their results.
- Links. This is one of the more tricky parts of SEO. There is a lot to be said about buying links, selling links, link farms, and other linking strategies, learn about all of it. If you are hiring someone to do SEO for you, pay very careful attention to what they promise in terms of links and what practices they use in link building. Have inbound links to your site using your keywords can be extremely beneficial because it tells the search engine that other websites are recognizing you as a quality resource for the product or service you offer. But using unethical or “black hat SEO” tactics can also get your website completely removed from search engine indexes, meaning your site will not show up in search engine results at all.
- Social Networking. Social networking is fairly new in the SEO arena, but is becoming increasingly popular because it indicates that real people are having real conversations about your website and what you offer. Search engines are still working on how to best incorporate the data received from social networking into algorithms used to help determine search engine placement.
As you can see, shopping cart search engine optimization (SEO) is no simple, cut and dry matter. It takes quite a bit of knowledge and experience and ongoing learning, as well as some trial and error, to get it all right. Just be sure that if you are hiring someone to do your SEO for you that you check their references, talk to some of their long-term clients, get specific information about what they do and what they provide. If they promise results that seem unrealistic, they probably are. Learn as much as you can and stay as involved as you can to ensure the best results possible for your business website.
