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Optimize for colour size and shape - need advise


greasemonkey

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Hi all, I run a somewhat sucessful OsC online store - that is very well known locally... However, I'm strugling to reach into new markets. My competitors have MUCH better google ranking on many of the products we sell....

 

I'm not a coder... although I have been managing and updating my site for approx 2 years... I know my way around... enough to be dangerous.

 

I have recently changed from KISSMT to Header Tags SEO... I have Ultimate SEO Urls installed as well and other SEO contributions installed... And I'm currently working at optimizing my Manufacture, Category and Product Header tags and descriptions... And I presume this is where most of my problems lay... (I'm happy to PM my site details... for anyone willing to take a look).

 

One of my problems, I believe, is a lack of optimization for color size and shape. MANY of the products that I sell - are sold by "color" and then by size... Example;

 

product xyz - white 0.5 oz

product xyz - white 4.5 oz

product xyz - white 12 oz

product xyz - black 0.5 oz

product xyz - black 4.5 oz

product xyz - black 12 oz

 

This goes on and on for 46 colors, each with a least 2 sizes... some are available in 3 sizes for a total of 93 "product xyz". Each is idential, except the color and the size.

 

To make this worse... I have another VERY similar product to "product xyz" - "prooduct abc"... that is available in the exact same sizes and color for an additional 108 "product abc". I have xyz and abc have somewhat diferent descriptions... but share many of the same key words...

 

How does one optimize for this? I've look into attributes... is this the way to go??? ONE "product xyz" with 46 (plus) attibutes?

 

Currently I have it layout like below;

 

From the index page I have;

 

Categories (32)

Subcategories (each has between 0 to 8 subs)

Products (total around 2,000 products)

 

Any advise on this would be great?

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What are your competitors doing? Do they have individual products like you do, or do they have one product with options? If it's the latter, that should tell you something about why they are ahead.

 

There can be many reasons why one page ranks better than another when they are selling the same product. Better descriptions, more inbound links, more keywords in the critical parts of the page. There are far too many to list here.

 

Regards

Jim

See my profile for a list of my addons and ways to get support.

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Thank you kindly for your reply kymation...

 

What are your competitors doing?

 

One is using a volusion site and for the keyword product xyc google hits there "category" - they use an "attribute" like "thing" when you get to there sub-category

 

The other main/larger competitor use individual products like I do (I will have to review what they are using for keywords, descriptions etc...) - what is funny though... google hits a "search result" on their site... "search results for product xyz" - how is this done?

 

When I check the main competitors site for backlinks with google using link:http://www.theirsite.com they have an equal number compared to my site...

 

I guess I will keep trying to optimize my descriptions... Any other clues?

 

Thanks again! Much appreciated....

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You can optimize your category page by adding a text section with a detailed description. Since the products in that category differ only by size and color, this is an opportunity to make one page that is attractive to the search engines. Make this page significantly different from the product pages. Look at what your competitor is doing, but don't just copy them.

 

The "search results" thing is a link to a search page containing the keywords that you want to target. You can do the same by adding search links to the appropriate pages on your site. I have code that does this, but it's for a search engine and not the osC database search, so you'll have to come up with your own.

 

Regards

Jim

See my profile for a list of my addons and ways to get support.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I agree, I would also suggest optimizing the category pages, that is one of the best strategies for an eCommerce website since the products tend to change.

 

I would suggest at least SEO module, we have a few that we use: Header Tags SEO, SEO URL's, and a full SEO module. The full module includes; page control, fill tags, Google sitemap, data feeds and Social eCart. Once we add the modules and the customer creates the suggested content and meta data, we have found that not much else is needed for SEO. When a customer is in a very competitive field, additional on-page and off-page SEO is needed, plus niche feeder sites.

 

Try some feeder websites, something WordPress based that is SEO friendly and easy to manage. eCommerce websites are tricky to optimize, and we have had amazing results with niche feeder sites. Example, if you have an Auto-parts websites, and you are focusing on "brake pads," it is simple to build a niche website with a SEO friendly domain name, something like auto-brake-pads.com. From these niche feeder site, it is much easier to generate traffic and feed them to the main website.

 

The social network action of a company is also weighed and should be addressed for proper credit to be given. This goes beyond simply having a Like/+1 button on your website and includes syndicating specials and announcements across many marketing channels and social networks.

 

The trick is trying many different things and to stay ahead of what your competitors are doing.

Atwoodz

osCommerce Experts

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