Monthly Archives: August 2011

Marketing Ecommerce Stores Through Niche Communities

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There’s a saying in marketing that goes like this: go where the people are. It makes sense really, since you want to spread your message in places people visit often. Online, that means setting up camp in Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, as well as a couple more popular sites. But because everyone is on these sites already, the chatter can become a bit noisy and overwhelming.

But there are places where you can talk and be heard loud and clear. There are tons of them around: Ballhyped for sports fans, Dogster for pet lovers, Threadless for shirt designs, the list goes on and on. These sites are termed niche communities, where discussion tends to be tuned into one specific topic like car restoration, gluten-free meals, couch surfing and anything else under the sun. Continue reading →

Technical SEO For eCommerce Websites

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When you are running an ecommerce website, there are some technical SEO aspects that you need to make sure you address properly for the best SEO results. In this post, we’ll be taking a look at some of the most common issues and the best ways to handle those problems.

Urls and file names

Ideally, you’d want the following style URLs (http://example.com/directory/product-name/). Shorter urls are better than longer ones (under 100 characters total, including the domain). Keep the total number of keywords under 5 if possible. Avoid stop words. Avoid parameters, especially ones containing any form of the word “ID” like (http://example.com/product?prodid=12345). Lastly, avoid file extensions like .html .asp .php .jsp or anything else. If you change server technologies, you will have to employ redirects. They’re problematic. Avoid this situation whenever possible.

Duplicate content

If you are getting product descriptions from a vendor or manufacturer, it’s worth the money to have unique descriptions written. If search engines see the same information on your website as it sees on 50 others, it’s unlikely you will rank for any of the products.

Meta Tags

Don’t use information supplied by a vendor or manufacturer for meta tags. Make them unique. If you can’t have unique, click-enticing descriptions written, try creating information-rich ones like this from your data base:

<META NAME="Description" CONTENT="Author: J. K. Rowling, Illustrator: Mary GrandPré, Category: Books, Price: $17.99, Length: 784 pages">

URL rewrites

Depending on your technology (php/asp/jsp), the tool you use to do the rewrites will vary, but the conditions will remain the same. Moving from one URL to another? Issue a 301 redirect and check the header response code with a header checker tool. Avoid 302, JavaScript, or meta refreshes as they are problematic for search engines. If the product goes out of stock temporarily, take orders and leave the page up. If it goes out of stock never to return, redirect to a new/similar product or up to the department page.

Department & Category pages

Ideally these pages should have some editorial text and editorial image if you want them to rank in the search engines. If you have more products than you can fit onto one page, try to create a “view all” version. Let the search engines index that page. Use noindex/follow meta tags for the other conditions. The same is true for price/popularity filters or sorting conditions.

Faceted navigation

Navigation that changes based on user selections/input is called faceted navigation. It’s great for users but bad for search engines. Put “nofollow” tags on the links once they enter the faceted stage. Ideally, you want to have a nofollow/index meta tag as well, so they will crawl the products and not index the “faceted” or “infinite URL” condition that now exists.

Alt tags

Alt tags or the alt attribute is alternative information used by text based web browsers or browsers for visually impaired individuals for an image file.

<img src="http://example.com/images/cheeseburger.jpg" alt="cheeseburger" />

For alt tags use descriptive, keyword-rich words, and allow your images and image directory to be indexed. Don’t overstuff your alt tags with irrelevant keywords.

Breadcrumbs

Use breadcrumbs if at all possible. It helps the users and the search engines. Make the breadcrumbs’ links with good keywords. An example of breadcrumbs can be seen below:breadcrumbs

Common design elements

Google is used to seeing the main content in the largest part of the page, not on the sidebar. Don’t go with an unconventional design that puts the text in a place that Google will have a hard time “understanding”. I have seen this backfire more than once.

Build link hubs

A link hub is concentration of inbound links to specific page or section of your website that isn’t your homepage. Ideally you want to create more than one concentration of links or link hubs to your website. Building deep links to ecommerce website is difficult. Unless you are well known or your products are very unique, you will need some editorial content to build links. Keep the pages commercial free until you get a critical mass of links, then add links to commercial pages, preferably in the main content area instead of in the sidebar.

Checkout or logged in pages

In almost every case, these pages have content that is unique to each user. They serve very little value to search engines. Block the pages using noindex meta tags.

Indexing new products

The most important links are the links on your homepage. Be sure to link to your best/most profitable products there. You should also link to new/updated products there as well.

Deep crawling

If you have a large ecommerce website, all of the steps above will help with getting all of your products indexed, but it may not be enough. Create an HTML sitemap and an XML sitemap just for products. Update both files and ping the search engines when you update/change your products. If you don’t update anything for over 30 days, ping anyway. Check to see how many of the products they are indexing in webmaster central.

Indexed URLs

If we were to sum all of this up, it would be like this: search engines really aren’t as smart as we think they are. The easier you make it for them to find, crawl, and index your content, the better. The more complicated you make it by expecting them to figure it out or leaving it up to them to resolve conflicts, the more problems you will have.

Is Long Copy Good for Ecommerce Stores?

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The short answer: yes. Surprised? Trust me, long copy sells. I know, I know: “shorter is better” and “less text, better design” blahbity blah. Mile-long websites filled to the brim with text might offend your sense of Internet decency, but the fact remains that those kinds of sites convert visitors to paying customers like nobody’s business. If they didn’t, why would they still be online in this day and age?

While it certainly is true that people nowadays have the attention span of a cocker spaniel (I blame you, television and your Super Bowl commercials), making your landing pages and ads short and flashy doesn’t always mean you will get more sales. Sometimes what you need is 1,000 words to sell your product. Or maybe 2,000.

I know what you’re thinking “Who would read something that long? Wouldn’t that just put my customers in a coma?”

It turns out people do still like to read in this age of Twitter and viral videos. We’ve just been lulled into believing that you need something concise and compact to sell and succeed in the web.

Long Copy Has The Numbers Behind It

Let me show you a couple of experiments that prove long copy works. Aptly named site Marketing Experiments found out through a series of tests that long copy outperforms short copy each time. Basecamp also did a similar experiment and found that a long form landing page netted them a 37.5% increase in signups compared to their original, shorter sales copy.

The results might look amazing but it’s actually not surprising at all. Long sales letters have been used by salespeople and advertising powerhouses for the past few decades now, and to great effect. No less than the father of advertising, David Ogilvy, attests to this. He says in his book, Ogilvy On Advertising, “All my experience says that for a great many products, long copy sells more than short.”

How Does Long Copy Work?

To sell to people online, you need them to trust you. It’s not an easy feat, I’ll give you that. You’ve got all sorts of nasty stuff working against you. There’s identity theft, Nigerian scams and online fraud, just to name a few. But you can earn trust online and one way to do that is to present your case and tell everything your customer needs to know about your product.

Explain all the features and functions of your product, its many benefits and lay out all the facts you can give. This way, you lift a big chunk of doubt from your customer’s chest by giving him all the things he needs to know to make an informed decision. If you do your job well, your buyer will convince himself to buy your product right then and there. As Dr. Charles Edwards of the Graduate School of Retailing at New York University puts it, “The more facts you tell, the more you sell.”

What’s more, long copy actually looks less like advertising and more like something worth reading. We’re bombarded by ads each and everyday and we’ve sort of built up a resistance to it. If it looks like an ad, our minds skip it and move on. Again to quote Ogilvy, “Roughly six times as many people read the average article as the average advertisement.”

Long copy also qualifies buyers. Uninterested visitors will be turned off by the lengthy copy but those who are really interested will consume every bit of information you can present about your product. This means that your audience is already at the tipping point of purchasing and that your copy is the final pitch to seal the deal.

When To Use (And Not To Use) Long Copy

Like all sales tools, long copy isn’t for everything. Based on an article by the founder of Copyblogger, long copy works best for the following things:

  1. High-priced items. Long copy works well if you are selling products that require multi-year payment plans like houses, cars and insurance; or luxury goods like jewelry and designer apparel.
  2. Information-based products. These are mainly education products like online self-improvement courses, instructional ebooks and multi-session seminars. The better informed the buyer, the more likely he will enroll.
  3. New, innovative and unusual goods. If you’re selling something new that answers someone’s need in a different way, you need a long form letter to explain every benefit of your invention. So if you’re selling groundbreaking medical treatments or a new gaming console, this is the way to go.
Of course, there are also products that don’t work well with long copy. If what you’re selling isn’t that expensive like soda or detergent, you’re better off with the flashy ads. It also is less effective for convenience products where the effort of writing a long sales pitch might not outweigh the value of the increased sales it will bring in.

How To Start Writing Long Copy

I’ll be honest, writing long copy won’t be quick. Let me help you out by sharing some steps to get your writing juices flowing:
  1. Gather and absorb all the data about your product. If it’s something you can hold, whip out the spec sheet and measurements. If it’s a service, jot down how you go about it from start to end. You also need to compile information like package contents, third-party reviews, testimonials, pricing details, and others. Of course, you also need to consume all this information, since your copy will flow from it.
  2. Find out who you are talking to. A good salesman researches his prospects and you should do that as well. Learn who your ideal customers are and appeal to them directly and answer their needs. Talking about yourself and your product is fine, but write it in a way that the reader knows what’s in it for them.
  3. Create an outline. Long copy looks daunting but if you create an outline, even a rough one, you will have something that will help you move from one part of the copy to the next. Here’s a good guide on how to make a copy outline. One way to go about it is to think about all the questions your customers might ask about your product and craft your outline so that you cover them all.
  4. Start writing! As you write, you’ll be building momentum and you will probably wonder how you got to 1,000 words (or more) once you’re done. So just start writing and think about fixing it up later. Also, don’t put a word limit to your copy. The publisher of Better Homes and Gardens used to mail six-page letters out because they made more sales with longer copy. As long as you have something to say and you talk about it well, you can go on and on and on. Just remember when to stop.
  5. Go over your copy. Once you’re finished, there are some points you need to remember to ensure that your long copy will work well:
    • Like any good pitch, your long copy needs to be have an attention-grabbing headline.
    • If you haven’t done one yet, add an informative and enticing summary at the top to let people know what they can expect from your article.
    • Make sure to state your case in a very engaging and persuasive manner. It needs to capture the attention of the reader, making him read on until the last period of the last sentence.
    • To cater to people who like to skim, split your long copy into readable chunks by adding headers, bullets and highlights. This is actually where your outline will help; you’ve already written most of the headers beforehand.
    • Add a good call to action, one that will close the deal and make them click that Add To Cart button. Also, don’t forget to add those positive reviews and testimonials.
    • Have someone go over it for comments and feedback, if possible.
  6. Add some good design to make it attractive. Writing long copy doesn’t mean you have to stick to just words. Many web designers abhor long copy because of its lack of web aesthetics. Add an attractive background template, some good product pictures and a nicely crafted layout. Make sure the design doesn’t distract from your content though.
  7. Test and test (and test). Probably the most important thing you need to do is to test your copy to make sure it appeals to your audience. You can create shorter versions of your copy and even mix up the content to see what works the best. This is why I urged you to write as long as you can because you can better mix and match (and splice) copy that already has everything in it.

Some Final Words

You can think of long copy as your salesman in a 1,000-word suit. If written in the right way, it will do the job for you by answering all the questions that your customers have, convincing them how good your product is and closing the deal with a firm checkout handshake.

In closing, I leave you with this gem from David Ogilvy himself:

“Long copy sells more than short copy, particularly when you are asking the reader to spend a lot of money. Only amateurs use short copy.”

Sources:

Do long copy ads work?, Reality Marketing Associates
Anatomy of long sales letter, Visual Website Optimizer
The Key to Effective Long Copy, Copyblogger.com
Long Copy vs. Short Copy Tested, Marketing Experiments

ECommerce Websites & Recommendations for Dealing With Google Panda

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About Google Panda 

As a search engine, Google aims to provide the best quality results in response to its users’ queries. Panda was an update to Google’s search results ranking algorithm.

When the algorithm changed (think of it as having a different “person” doing the ranking, with a different “personality” and different “preferences”), it was inevitable that some sites’ PageRank suffered collateral damage. (Check out the epic hit that HubPages took. Ouch!)

How do you avoid (or repair) that sort of damage? Let’s address the issues you might face, and what you can do to correct them.

1. DUPLICATE CONTENT: Panda hates it, so get rid of it.

Many retailers simply copy and paste data feeds from their suppliers or vendors into their database or CMS, and leave it at that.

Here’s the problem: If Google detects that large portions of your website are duplicated across the web, it will most likely think of your site as a “copycat” site rather than a source of good, original content. This will hurt your rankings.

Ultra high-profile websites might get away with this, but it’s a losing game for the mediuM and little fish.

2. “Let’s Rewrite Everything!” is a tad unrealistic. Use the 80/20 approach.

Ideally, you’d rewrite every single product name and description to make them all unique. That’s the “perfect solution”. It’s also highly impractical. You’d almost certainly have better things to do with your time.

Start by focusing on what you consider to be your best products. (You’re measuring that, aren’t you? Sales volume? Profit?) A fun rule of thumb – if you were only allowed to sell two or three products and you had to ditch everything else, what would you pick? Focus on those. Make those products shine.

3. Hire a professional if you have to.

There are many different copywriting services available even for those on a tight budget, including ODesk, TextBroker, MadContent, ELance, and MTurk. (If you don’t have the budget to create unique content for your “best” products, you may have to get a little existential: Is there something wrong with your business model?)

4. In the meantime, cover up with noindex/follow meta tags.

Even if you can afford to have all your content rewritten, it’s going to take some time. What do you do between now and then?

If something isn’t being rewritten, “hide” it using the noindex/follow meta tags. (Google approves of this, which isn’t the case for unethical practices like cloaking.)

By doing this, you avoid accumulating “negative points” in Google’s eyes – which is ultimately better for your overall SEO. A few highly ranked pages will get you far more mileage than many poorly ranked ones.

5. Make your pages unique by adding customer reviews.

The best reviews are usually those submitted by actual customers. A good time to ask for it is a few days after you know the product has been delivered. Otherwise, simply reach out to your customers through email or social media, whichever they’re most receptive to.

How do you get a good response rate? Use incentives! (Free shipping, discount on future orders, a chance to win a gift certificate… be creative. You know your target audience best.) This small outlay will be outweighed by the additional legitimacy it adds to your business. If you have a large email database of existing customers, fans on Facebook, or followers on Twitter, you can use these methods to get customer reviews as well.

It’s worth taking the trouble to use Schema.org review markup in your formatting, so that search engines  give you rich snippet listings.

6. Add reviews directly to product pages, NOT on separate pages.

If you use separate pages for your reviews, you won’t for “<product name>”- instead, you’ll rank for “<product name> reviews”.

If you only have a few reviews, put them on your product page.

If you have lots of reviews, you can have your cake and eat it too. Display the 5 -10 most recent or most helpful reviews on the product page, and create a separate page with all of the archived reviews. That way, you’ll rank for both the product name and the review searches.

Each situation is different, so you’ll have to decide which works best for you depending on how many reviews you have.

7. Kill disused and discontinued pages.

Some retailers grow rather attached to their discontinued products, and “bury” them deep on the website. Some might even think that it benefits them – a larger site with more pages can seem “more impressive”.

Here’s the problem: Each website has a finite number of links, and those links each pass along a little strength to the website they link to. If you take a finite amount of link equity or “link juice” and divide it up among an “infinite” number of pages, you’ll end up with a bunch of pages that aren’t “strong” enough to rank for anything.

So when you have products that you don’t carry anymore and aren’t coming back, remove them. In the meantime, you could set up a 301 redirect to a similar product or category. In the long run, cull them completely. Keep your site elegant, not bloated.

In Summary:

  • Kill The Clones. You want your product titles and descriptions to be unique. If they’re duplicated, start rewriting them, with your best products receiving top priority.
  • Use noindex/follow meta tags to avoid being unnecessarily punished by search engines while you’re cleaning house.
  • Use customer & expert reviews to make your product pages unique. If you’re overwhelmed with reviews (a happy problem), keep the best on the product page and archive the rest on a separate “reviews” page.
  • Remove discontinued or under-sold products. They dilute the value of your site, and consequently, your SEO. Both customers and search engines prefer lean, elegant sites.
If you’re looking for more information about Panda, we recommend reading this post from Google or this Interview with Vanessa Fox.

Image credit: Photospin