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Archive for the ‘Search Marketing’ Category

Get the Most from Product Descriptions

Friday, March 18th, 2011

Posted by: Al Pascale, Dydacomp eCommerce Manager

As a small eCommerce business it can often be difficult to get consumers to find and purchase your products. One way to help increase product visibility and increase online conversions is to carefully construct product descriptions. Time and time again I have seen businesses fail to capitalize on this feature and simply rely on the manufactures product description on their website. These descriptions are already located on hundreds or even thousands of other sites and offer little to no SEO value for your Ecommerce store.

The best option for ecommerce product descriptions is for store owners to create an original description that includes:

A physical description with attention to specific features. Take time to research what product characteristics will be most appealing to consumers and create your product description around these features.
Emphasize product benefits and the experience consumers should expect to have with the product. Give consumers ideas on how the item can fit into their lifestyle or home, but do not simply tell them, dramatize it by showing consumers how your product will improve upon his/her current situation.
Create perceived value of the product and continually expand on it. When writing your product description, remember to write for your intended audience and what value they would find in your product.
Make sure you set your product apart from competitors. The product description is a great chance for you to separate your product from all other similar products.
For search engines, you will want to make sure your product descriptions include your targeted keywords. If you are a reseller of brand names, you can use the brand name recognition, so use the brand as a keyword or as a tag to enhance your product description and SEO. The goal is to carefully add those important keywords but not to write your description for search engines, you need to write them for customers. Use your keyword in the page title, product description, in Meta tags, and also in the ALT tag, which is the optional description you include in the HTML code where you insert the product image.

Your product descriptions can help search engines and consumers find your online store and products. For these reasons, you should take time to make sure you are getting the most out of your product descriptions. Don’t forget to proofread for grammar and spelling, as any mistakes can hurt your professional image in the eyes of consumers.

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Tags: Dydacomp, ecommerce, ecommerce tips, product descriptions, product keywords, product search marketing, product seo, sitelink product descriptions

Posted in Ecommerce, Search Marketing, SiteLINK News | No Comments »

Using Social Marketing to Help Improve SEO

Wednesday, January 19th, 2011

Post By: Lisa Gittleman, Dydacomp Marketing Specialist

Companies, no matter what the size, are constantly working to improve their SEO. One way to do this, which many smaller businesses often overlook, is through social media. Search engines Google and Bing have already confirmed that links shared through social networks Twitter and Facebook directly and positively impact rankings. Therefore, companies should build their social media campaign in order to improve their SEO. It is important to have a plan in place before beginning social media efforts; discover where customers are interacting and focus on finding ways to open up the interaction between them.

Social platforms can help you find what consumers are saying about your company and product. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, online forums, and industry and company blogs are all great places to start the search. Use the interactions to help you understand what keywords you should be focusing in on. You can then optimize your own social profiles to include those keywords and targeted search phrases to boost the visibility of your site on search engines. Social platforms can help to improve your search engine ranking, leading to an increase in traffic on your site and a stronger reputation.

These interactions can also help you figure out what content will be most effective for current and potential customers. The more useful and informative the content you are offering, the more likely it will be shared across various social platforms. This sharing is the key to improving your search engine ranking as it improves the trust search engines have in your site.

There is no guarantee that all of the interactions you find out there in the social media world will be positive. However, the best way to combat the negative reviews and feedback you receive is to actively listen to them and to alter your efforts to create a better experience. Working to combat negative feedback usually yields increased positive results.

Social media plays a crucial and beneficial role in improving your search engine ranking, in addition to the overall image of your company. The more customers are talking about you and sharing information, the better it is for your business.

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Tags: facebook, Search engine ranking, Search Engines, search marketing, seo, social media, Social Platforms, twitter, YouTube

Posted in Industry News, Search Marketing | No Comments »

Want to Increase Your Search Ranking? Take a Look at the Your Product Pages Today!

Friday, November 19th, 2010

Posted by Rob Coon, President of Dydacomp

Google can do a lot but it can’t look at the photos and videos on your website and know what they contain so they can serve your content up when they get a visitor searching for a product like yours. They can count key words on your product pages which was the original premise of Google way back when. So if you are looking to increase your search rankings, let’s start with the descriptions on your product pages.

If you get a chance this weekend, take a look at your top 50 product pages and see what the words and terms say about the product. Are they very descriptive? Does the description include the way someone may search on that product? Does it link to other pages on your site for more information? We looked at the 200 pages on the Dydacomp website and rewrote most of them using this formula. Take a look at a before and after of one of the pages:

BEFORE

AFTER

Now there are many other things you can do to improve your rankings like naming your pages with the product’s name the page describes, getting more links to your site from reputable third party sources and blogs, but our recommendation is to start with content and by the looks of many of your sites this might be a fast and inexpensive pick up for you. We can help if you don’t have time to do it. We’ll improve the key word density of the top 50 pages of your site for $995. Over a couple of month period as your click throughs improve from this exercise, Google will start to reward you for “being found” and the more Google visitors that click on you the higher your ranking goes as well. Caution: You will also need to continue to refresh this content to remain relevant to the search engines.

All of this information applies regardless if you are using our cloud hosted SiteLINK ecommerce solution or another shopping cart that you have plugged into Multichannel Order Manager.

I didn’t mean to give you a homework assignment for this weekend but it is one that I think will get you a really good grade for your website.

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Tags: ecommerce, google, M.O.M., mail order manager, multichannel, multichannel order manager, product descriptions, search marketing, search ranking, sitelink

Posted in Ecommerce, Search Marketing | No Comments »

Meta Tag Implementation Techniques

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

Posted by Stacy Miller, Dydacomp Search Engine Marketing Manager

There are many types of Meta tags you can implement and utilize on your web pages to help engines digest the most relevant content on your site. Implementing proper Meta tags is an essential component of on-page website optimization, especially when you are trying to sell online goods and services.

More popular tags, such as Meta-titles and Meta-descriptions, are important to implement because they display the content in the search result when that particular web page of your site shows up in browser search results. Once ranking, the description tag content needs to address the searcher for your listing to catch the searcher’s attention. If there is no specified tag, the spiders will pull any text that can be found in the source code and index it for your listing content.

Character counts for Meta data – follow these guidelines for optimized search engine listings:
Meta Title Tag – 65 characters (summarize with most important keyphrases) plus domain address for branding!

Meta Description Tag – 155 characters (marketing pitch with most relevant keyphrases) – capture the click!

Meta Keyword Tag – 4-5 per product, 6-9 per department, 10-13 for the homepage maximum – no spamming!

Below are some examples for a better understanding of optimized meta tag content pulled from a Google search for ‘power tools’ and then just ‘tools’. Please note how the search phrase becomes bolded naturally in the results text:

1. Title Tags – they show in your listing and should be no longer than 65 characters so the verbiage does not get cut off in the most popular Internet Explorer browser page title section. This character count does vary by browser so better to be conservative here and not get your marketing message text cut off.

Listing Example: (ranked but not using full title tag text space for optimal marketing message)

Optimized Listing Example: (utilizing specific search terms plus branded search keyphrase)

2. Description Tags – include your marketing content in the first 155 characters due to the fact that when your site receives a Google listing, the description text will be cut off with three dots… There are character count variations for Yahoo/Msn/Ask, but with Google being the most popular, it is best to optimize to shoot for natural listings with them first. See below…

Listing Example: (the description text does not utilize maximum search marketing content space)

Optimized Listing Example: (utilizes maximum text display for search-friendly marketing pitch for clicks)

3. Keyword Tags – not necessary but they do offer a high level of suggestion if your content relevancy. It is best to keep your keyword phrases specific to the content on the particular web page to maintain the highest relevancy factor. Too many keywords can be noted as ‘keyword spamming’. Depending on number of products, here is a guideline:

Home Page – 10-13 keyphrases at most
Category Pages: 6-9 keyphrases at most
Product pages: 4-5 keyphrases at most

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Tags: Dydacomp, ecommerce, meta tags, Search Engine Optimization, search marketing, seo, seo tags, sitelink seo

Posted in Search Marketing, SiteLINK News, StoreFront.net | No Comments »

Naming Conventions for Better Searchability

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

Posted By Stacy Miller, Dydacomp Search Engine Marketing Manager

More often than not, I visit a Dydacomp client website for the first time to discover that product category naming conventions do not include the most important keyword. Sometimes the product name is also excluding that important keyword. This ‘missing link’ is usually the main keyword that defines the overall site theme which online business owners are afraid to use too much because it will appear too redundant from an aesthetic viewpoint.

In the context of search engine optimization (SEO), an optimal level of keyword redundancy must be used for the purpose of targeted search relevancy. Online business owners seldom have the same perception of their product base as their customers, especially when the searcher is not sure what they are trying to find on the internet.

Business ownership implies that you are the product expert in your industry, so assuming your potential customers know exactly what they are searching for is not realistic. As the product expert, you must tap into your educational skills to help your visitors navigate their way through links to find the product they are looking to purchase.

Example 1: Client ABC sells accessories for trucks and has products for ‘truck bed panels’. In this case, the client lists their product as ‘bed side panels’ rather than including the main product keyphrase ‘truck bed side panels’. This client will miss out on the most relevant product search-ability that includes the term ‘truck’ due to leaving out the main product keyword, which ends up creating a URL like this:

http://www.ClientDomain.com/Bed-Side-Panels/products/20

Example 2: Client XYZ sells equipment for a manufacturer who refers to their product as a ‘spine board’ rather than ‘medical backboard’. If both search phrases are not included in the meta data and content, client XYZ will miss out on the search-ability for both search variations of the product search.

My suggestion to all online business owners: make sure to engage yourself in thorough keyword and keyphrase research before you start posting your products on your ecommerce website, otherwise you will soon find out that without the optimal level of keyword usage in your category names and product listings, you will inhibit your product search as well as sales conversions.

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Tags: database naming conventions, ecommerce, ecommerce marketing, search engine keyword usage, Search Engine Optimization, search marketing, seo

Posted in Ecommerce, Search Marketing, SiteLINK News, StoreFront.net | 1 Comment »

Driving Traffic to Your E-commerce Site

Tuesday, April 6th, 2010

Posted by Christopher Lang, SiteLINK Supervisor, Dydacomp Technical Support

The other day I was having a conversation with a client that sells clothing online and in retail locations. Because of the industry they have different sales all the time and are constantly sending out e-mails to their customers with various promotions and sale items to try and drive sales to their e-commerce store. Their biggest pet peeve, however, was that they had no way to track which sales were coming to their site based on the marketing e-mails sent out. Therefore, they had to find a way to determine how much money they should budget for their upcoming sales quarter for more e-mail marketing.

The client was already on our latest version of SiteLINK so I showed him our new e-mail campaign feature. This feature generates a link that you can put into your e-mail blasts that when clicked, automatically adds a specific source key to the customer’s order applying the order promotion without them having to do extra work. Even better, it allows you to have a direct link to the product listed in the e-mail blast!

Needless to say, the very next concern from the client was, “Well that’s great and all, but then I can’t track any of this source key information unless I’m in my office sitting in from of my Mail Order Manager workstation.” I was then able to explain to him that this is one of the reporting features built in to the online admin interface on SiteLINK so he can run these e-mail campaign reports from anywhere he has internet access.

Now the client is sending out even more e-mail campaigns each month and can correctly determine how many customers and how many orders were driven to the site for each and every campaign and they’re saving time and money because they took the guesswork out of the equation!

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Tags: ecommerce, ecommerce marketing, search engine marketing, search marketing, sitelink seo, source key tracking, source keys

Posted in Ecommerce, Search Marketing, SiteLINK News | 4 Comments »

Best Practices: Search Engine Optimization

Tuesday, October 7th, 2008

As more and more business is being conducted online, retailers are looking to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to improve organic search ranking and drive more traffic to their sites.

On the most basic level, as the search engines spider sites, they seek out the density of keywords and relevant content to determine the site’s position in search listings, making it essential that retailers use all the tools at their disposal to make their sites keyword rich and therefore more visible to search engines and consumers alike.

Our newest release, SiteLINK eCommerce 6.0, offers you essential tools to not only conduct online business easily and seamlessly, but to improve your search engine ranking.

• URL Rewrite – URLs for product and department pages are named based upon the product and department titles themselves, making those pages keyword rich and feeding relevant content to search engine spiders

• Dynamic H1 Tags – When products are added to pages, tags within the code flag product identifiers as the most important piece of information on the page.

• XML Sitemaps – SiteLINK offers 1 click sitemap generation using the software protocol common to Google®, Yahoo® and Microsoft®, streamlining search engine submission to make it faster, easier and more effective

• Fully Editable Meta Tags – Meta tags are another excellent source of relevant content and keywords for SEO. SiteLINK features fully editable meta tag descriptions and keywords for every product and department

• Customizable Page Titles – Every department and product page can be customized to reflect page content and utilize keywords

• Alt and Title Tags – Two of the most important tools for improving search engine ranking, SiteLINK allows you to create alt and title tags for every image and link pulled from stock and department information. These tags allow search engines to determine the content of the images and present an important opportunity to incorporate brand/company names and keywords

Our SiteLINK staff is available to answer questions about how to use these and other tools to help drive more customers to your site. They can be reached by email at sitelinkadmin@dydacomp.com or by phone at (973) 237-0300, option 2.

Not using SiteLINK? SiteLINK is the only 100% customizable eCommerce solution tailor-made for and completely integrated with M.O.M..For a complete list of SiteLINK’s features and benefits visit http://www.dydacomp.com/sitelink-features.asp. To schedule an online demo, contact your solution specialist at (800) 858-3666.

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Tags: ecommerce, Search Engine Optimization, search optimization, seo, seo best practice, seo best practices, sitelink best practices seo, sitelink seo

Posted in Dydacomp News, Ecommerce, Search Marketing, SiteLINK News | 2 Comments »

Will Meta-tags allow better search ranking results for your e-commerce site?

Wednesday, October 31st, 2007

Will Meta-tags allow better search ranking results for your e-commerce site?

Yes, it will. Especially for those e-commerce websites that currently do not employ meta-tags at all. Be aware that meta-tags are not the cure-all to boost your website to the top ranking on all search engines. Depending on the search engine, meta-tags are just part of the formula they use in determining page rankings. Inclusion of meta-tags will separate your website from the ones that do not use them.

Question: I still don’t understand why I would need meta-tags?

Let’s compare search engine page ranking to looking for books in a library. The ultimate goal for the higher page ranking is to get customers to visit your website if you are the merchant. If you are the customer looking for a particular product, websites with appropriately chosen meta-tags will have a higher chance of meeting your search query. When searching for books in the library, you may want to visit the card catalog and look up based the author, title, or subject. These criteria will allow you to narrow your search down to a specific section of the library.

Likewise using meta-tags will more specifically define your website to potential customers. It’s not going to guarantee customers will visit your site but it will increase the chances because your website will better match the search query entered by the customer. The better the match the higher the page ranking will be. As an internet customer, wouldn’t you be more likely to click on one of the first ten search result links instead of the 30th or 59th link?

Two of the most common meta-tags are keywords and descriptions. I’m sure you have seen the meta-tag description when doing a search on Google.com. For example, if you did a search for “Mail Order Software” one of the links you see would be for Dydacomp’s Mail Order Manager software. Directly underneath the link to the Dydacomp website is a small description. That description is the meta-tag description.

The meta-tag description is entered within the “head” area of html source code for the Dydacomp webpage. Below is the meta-tag description at www.dydacomp.com:

Please Note: I have replaced <> with {} respectively

{html}
{head}
{TITLE}Mail Order Software for Order Entry and Ecommerce – Mail Order Manager and SiteLINK – Dydacomp{/TITLE}
{META NAME=”DESCRIPTION” CONTENT=”Mail Order Manager’s Mail Order Software and Order Entry Software is specifically designed to address the unique needs of today’s multi-channel retail, wholesale and distribution businesses. Also use SiteLINK for your e-commerce web store.”}
{META NAME=”KEYWORDS” CONTENT=”Mail Order Manager, Mail Order Software, Order Entry Software, SiteLINK E-Commerce Software, Shopping Cart, Point of Purchase, Point of Sale, “}

As you can see, for each meta-tag it starts off with “{META NAME=”. After the equals sign is the type of meta-tag. The first meta-tag entry is for the “DESCRIPTION” meta-tag. The next parameter that is passed is the contents within that meta-tag.

The meta-tag keyword is coded in a similar fashion. Take a look at the meta tag keywords. One of them is “Order Entry Software”. If I go to www.google.com and enter in “Order Entry Software”, one of the links will be for Dydacomp’s website. Be aware some search engines take a look at the meta-tag keywords and compare them to the actual content on the website. Why? To prevent keywords that has nothing to do with the content matter on the website. Those keywords are used to bring additional traffic to the website. Don’t you think searches for Britney Spears or Paris Hilton would be more popular than direct marketing solution or multi-channel e-commerce integration?

Let’s remember that meta-tags are not the only criteria the search engines look at. They also compare the location and frequency of content related keywords on the webpage. Some of these parameters can be manipulated by the webmaster. To offset the weight of meta-tags and other user-defined criteria, most search engines take into account other factors like visitors clicking through to access the website. Other search engines develop additional methods to help determine page ranking. A link analysis tool called PageRank is the basis of the Google search engine. This tool looks at the different links from one website to the next. This method then calculates a value based on the number of links pointing to the different web pages on a particular site. Links from more popular websites will have more weight than ones from less popular ones.

If you are a current SiteLINK store owner, the SiteLINK team will be able to assist in applying meta-tags to your website. If you do not have an internet presence, feel free to contact the Dydacomp sales teams for further information on SiteLINK (the only true 2-way e-commerce designed exclusively for Mail Order Manager) or other direct feed order management modules for Amazon, Miva, or Shopsite.

Michael T

Dydacomp Rep

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Tags: ecommerce, ecommerce tags, meta tags, search ranking results, sitelink meta tags, sitelink search results, sitelink seo

Posted in Dydacomp News, Ecommerce, Search Marketing, SiteLINK News | No Comments »

Should You Ship Free for the Holidays?

Friday, October 19th, 2007

The holiday shopping season is starting early this year with more competitive offers from online and catalog merchants. An article in The New York Times on October 8, 2007 points to free shipping offers as the key to winning holiday gift business. The article points out that L.L. Bean got out ahead of the pack with an early offer of free shipping without a minimum purchase. Although customers are drawn by the savings, making the leap to unconditional free shipping requires careful consideration on the part of the merchant.

The biggest objection to unconditional free shipping is that it severely diminishes the profit margin on purchases and average order size drops. As a high volume and profitable company, L.L. Bean can afford to take the hit, in hopes of attracting new customers. The “must ask” question then becomes, if your free shipping offer does not grow your customer base significantly, providing long term ROI, can your business afford the loss? Noting the metric that “54 percent of online retailers had tried unconditional free shipping offers, but fewer than half said they would use the tactic this year,” the statistics don’t inspire a great deal of confidence.

For many, conditional free shipping and limited time offers on free shipping may provide a safer field for experimentation. To create an offer that protects your business:

List which items carry the highest shipping costs. Consider excluding these items from the offer – see the article’s example of L.L. Bean excluding items like canoes and couches.
Use your web design and navigation to lead customers to the items you want them to buy. Choose products that both perform well and carry lower shipping costs and place them on the front page or in a special holiday gift section.
Let cross-sells help increase average order size. Look at popular product offerings and match them with items that either match or are in the same interest area, like a sweatshirt and matching pants or a fly rod and tackle box.
If you offer free shipping for a limited time only, choose the period wisely. Shipping ground will take some time, especially as holiday shipping volume increases, so ideally your free shipping period should be well before Christmas so you don’t lose the goodwill you’ve created with late deliveries.

Do you have any great holiday strategies you’d like to share or perhaps your experience with free shipping offers? Post a comment to share them with us and with other M.O.M. and SiteLINK users. We look forward to hearing from you!

Al Pascale
Director of SiteLINK Services

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Tags: Free Shipping, holiday free shipping

Posted in Dydacomp News, Ecommerce, Search Marketing, SiteLINK News | No Comments »

Archive for the ‘Search Marketing’ Category

Get the Most from Product Descriptions

Want to Increase Your Search Ranking? Take a Look at the Your Product Pages Today!

Meta Tag Implementation Techniques

Naming Conventions for Better Searchability

Driving Traffic to Your E-commerce Site

Best Practices: Search Engine Optimization

Will Meta-tags allow better search ranking results for your e-commerce site?

Should You Ship Free for the Holidays?

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