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Posts Tagged ‘SEO’

Best SEO Practices For Ecommerce Websites

Thursday, July 28th, 2011

In its simplest form, ecommerce is the buying and selling of products through websites. This is an excellent way to improve sales, boost traffic to the site and make a name for your company. Search Engine Optimization or SEO is needed to capture and grow organic traffic that is related to the success of your ecommerce business. There are many ecommerce SEO techniques that will benefit the natural search traffic and interest of your target audience.

First, you will need to optimize the distribution of your ecommerce homepage Rank. Since your Home page most likely has the highest ranking; the rest of the pages should link directly from the home page. You should also keep the pages within 1-2 clicks of the homepage. The pages that most consistently link from your home page will also rank higher in organic search results.

To benefit your ecommerce SEO home page, be sure to use a pure CSS based design instead of nested tables. This will allow pages to load faster and is better for ecommerce SEO. Place H1 and H2 around headings and subheadings, and use the keywords in the page titles. When evaluating the most popular site searches, place these terms around the search box.

Next, you will want to focus on the proper linking and redirects for your ecommerce SEO. Ensure that your homepage is linked to your site root folder “/”. (Sometimes, it can be linked to a default or index page instead.) You’ll also want your page to be easy to find, so if your site is www.roguemediaonline.com, you’ll want to make a 301 redirect from roguemediaonline.com to www.roguemediaonline.com. Avoid using sessionIDs in URLs and keep your URLs written in descriptive formats that keep consistent with relevant keywords.

Once you have established the linking and redirecting, you can rest assured that online users will be able to find your ecommerce site rather easily, plus be directed to the right pages. Now you will need to work with your Product Page, which should be built around targeted keywords that will help you in ranking better.

To assist with this, ensure that proper meta-keywords and descriptions are included for each product. Also add an H1 header in the product title, use the main product keywords in the page title and URL, place keywords in italics and bold and add keywords in the last paragraph of the page.

Finally, make your ecommerce SEO authentic, never duplicating the content from the manufacturer. If you do this, your website may be devalued for duplicating content. By taking the time to ensure everything is linked properly, the proper keywords are targeted and organic search results are directed to the right pages, your ecommerce site will be well on its way to success!

Outsourcing SEO To A US Company

Thursday, March 10th, 2011

If you own a business, you probably know how important SEO is to the success of your website. This is what drives traffic to your site and what pushes you upward in the search engine results. Most people will never look at any of the results that are not on the first page. If you run a site that needs SEO content to be written in US English, you should really consider outsourcing SEO to a US company. You will find very quickly that there are a lot of advantages.

Native Speakers
First off, you can be sure that the people who do the work will be native English speakers. This is important to consider when you are outsourcing SEO because you want to get content that is readable and that makes sense. You need content that will bring people in, but it then needs to be coherent and to convince them to make a purchase.

Save Costs
You will also find that you can keep your costs down by outsourcing SEO to a US company. You will not have to pay your own employees to do it, and you can get the work done when you need it. You will not have to pay someone to be a full-time writer, giving them a salary, if you only have work for a part-time writer.

Save Time
You can also save a lot of time by outsourcing SEO because you will not have to have your own employees do the work. Instead, you can allow your employees to keep doing the jobs that you hired them to do. You can then hire a writer for all of your SEO needs so that he or she can do the work at a much faster rate than someone who is not trained or experienced in the field.

Best SEO Practices For Ecommerce Websites

Thursday, February 24th, 2011

Ecommerce SEO is a science. Those who are who are well educated in it, know not only how to build traffic, but what the ground rules are before they begin. There are a variety of ecommerce SEO tactics a business can use to grow their online audience, it’s worth it to research which are truly effective and which are just the stop-gap measures that won’t work in the long run.

Sticky ContentOne old-fashioned traffic building strategy that’s often overlooked, but can’t be under-estimated is offering content that people want to read and will recommend to their friends. Thousands of links are shared across the Internet every day just because they lead to reading material that’s interesting. Spam-like content, however, does not generate visits, as obvious as a fact as that may be. Setting out to provide content that’s ‘sticky’ is putting the cart before the horse. Being entertaining and informative isn’t a trick. It’s simply a matter of having talented writers onboard who can generate great content.

Ecommerce SEO also involves site design. A site should not be bland or ugly. Using colors and images that visitors find attractive should be the number one ecommerce SEO priority of every business. Just as pedestrians on the street, stop to look in the window of stores that have engaging window displays, a website’s ecommerce SEO has to operate the same way. Navigability is just as important. If a site is difficult to move around or has too many pop-ups obstructing a visitor from experiencing it the way they desire, they will leave.

Getting search engines to notice sites to the extent that businesses need them to, is the essence of what ecommerce SEO is all about. It’s also about remembering that behind all the strategies and techniques being employed, are human beings hanging out on their computers. Once companies lose sight of this basic premise, ecommerce SEO can become abstract and disruptive to the natural flow of content online.

Ecommerce ReviewsOne process that is absolutely essential to the conversion of eyeballs to actual buyers, is building community. A site should not feel like the unknown. A site visitor contemplating making a purchase is inevitably more confident about doing so if they can read what other buyers of the same product or service have to say about it. While allowing a disgruntled customer to post a bad review can also drive away a sale, when that negative feedback is stacked against other positive reviews, the fact that opinions are being openly shared on a site brings credibility. Ecommerce SEO is about credibility. Credibility drives sales.

What businesses unfortunately rely on, too much, as they try to drive traffic to their sites, are non-organic considerations. The Internet is not a mall. Like the real world, it’s a space in which billions of people collect to do a multitude of things, some entertainment others business related. Abusing backlinks won’t get a website high ranking for long. Search engines are increasingly punishing companies trying to dominate the Internet using methods that devalue its overall experience.

Rogue Media Achieves ‘Best E-Commerce SEO’ Ranking

Monday, January 10th, 2011

Earlier this month, TopSEOs.com published their updated list of “Best Ecommerce SEO Companies“. The 2011 January update includes increasing Rogue Media’s position from #9 (August 2010) to our new standing at #4.

TopSEOs.com ranks online marketing companies on five separate areas of achievement incorporating needs analysis, on- and off-page optimization, keyword analysis and reporting methods employed by the companies to be ranked. TopSEOs.com has offered independent rankings of SEO firms since its inception in 2002 to provide business owners with objective reviews, allowing them to make informed decisions when selecting a company to handle their SEO and online marketing needs.

We strive to deliver the best SEO services for all our e-commerce clients and are more than thrilled with the continued recognition from TopSEOs.com!

SEO vs PPC Advertising

Friday, June 18th, 2010

Search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) advertising are both extremely popular forms of search engine marketing. Both can generate some excellent returns depending on how well they are executed. So what makes them different and what else do they have in common…besides three-letter acronyms?

Many search engine users (and even marketers) still don’t know the difference between the two set of results, so lets take a quick look:

SEO vs PPC

The search engine results on the top and right sidebar are part of a pay-per-click campaign, so the advertiser is charged a fee every time someone click on one of these links. The search engine results in green are considered “organic” or “natural” results and can be influenced by SEO. While many internet users still aren’t aware that some of these Google results are sponsored, more people are becoming savvy to this and come to trust the organic listings over the paid results. Because of this, the natural listings often have a much higher click-through rate than the sponsored ads.

Let’s take a look at some of the other differences between SEO and PPC:


SEO Advertising Campaigns:

  • Can take weeks or months to generate traffic
  • Provide permanent (owned) rankings
  • Often less expensive over time
  • Organic results generate more clicks

PPC Advertising Campaigns:

  • Generate traffic immediately
  • Provide temporary (rented) rankings
  • Often more expensive over time

Generally, the two differ in three areas…time, permanence, and cost:


Time – When it comes to the times it takes to see actual traffic from a campaign, PPC is the winner by far. PPC campaigns can be launched within a day where SEO results can take weeks or months.

Permanence – The downside to this “instant traffic” is that it’s temporary and rented. The advertiser has to pay for every click and the traffic disappears as soon as they stop paying. With SEO, once top rankings are achieved much less (if any) ongoing maintenance may be required.

Cost – Many times, this is the first question we get from clients…”How much does it cost?” Initially, SEO is more expensive but has a better ROI in the long run. Think of it this way…would you rather rent an apartment or buy a house? We highly encourage all our clients make SEO their long term goal. PPC is quick and easy , but SEO allows you to build equity in your website and marketing.

So which one is better….SEO or PPC?


The real answer is “It depends.” They’re both tools for achieving success online. PPC is fast and agile, where SEO is slow and methodical. We’re definitely biased toward SEO as a long-term strategy for any business, but for clients that “need sales yesterday” PPC can make it happen overnight.

Link Building Fundamentals

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

When the term “SEO” comes up, people often have very different concepts of what SEO exactly means. If you refer to a web designer’s website, it’s often limited to title and meta-tags. Sometimes we have businesses contact us upset that they’ve already paid a designer to have their website “SEO’d”, but it still isn’t ranking. Unfortunately, many people refer to onpage optimization as “SEO” in general. In reality, this is only the beginning. Onpage SEO is meant to lay a solid foundation in preparation for offpage optimization, or link building.

Search engines view backlinks (incoming links to your website) as a vote of confidence from the referring site. Your portfolio of backlinks tells a story about your website and in turn, your company. The quantity and quality of backlinks to your site plays a tremendous role in your search engine rankings.

So what makes a good link?  Here are a few of the big factors:

Authority – As mentioned a link is like a vote of confidence from a site.  If that site is only voting for you it looks much more serious to the search-engines then if that site is also voting for an additional  hundred sites.  On a similar note, one-way links (where a site links to you, and you DO NOT link back to that site) are very preferable over two-way links. The site linking to you is in essence giving you a vote of confidence, and the value of that vote is determined largely by that site’s reputation.

Relevance – If your site is focused on gardening tools then a link from a well respected gardening site will carry more authority then a link from a site about hot dogs.

Exclusivity – So, now that we know that a link is like a vote of confidence, it is easy to understand the concept of exclusivity.  If a site links to only a couple sites those links are more valuable then if a site links to hundreds of sites.  In a sense, a website only has so much authority, and each link draws from that bank of authority.  The more links the less the value of each.

SEO is a constantly shifting sea.  Strong link building is one of the most effective tools for sites organically trying to make their way to the coveted first page.  If you are looking into SEO service make sure that link building is a part of your campaign and that your provider is well versed in the current tactics.

SEO’s Aren’t Snake Oil Peddlers. SEO’s are…

Friday, January 29th, 2010

Some people seem to think that search engine optimization is some kind of frou-frou nonsense they have to be weary of. Perhaps they’ve been duped by unscrupulous “SEO’s” before or know someone that has. Unfortunately, this is all too common as fly-by-night SEO companies promise the world and then come up empty when rankings tank. Perhaps we can shed some light on what it is that real SEO’s actually do.

SEO’s are…

…Publishers. SEO’s work with your company to publish the best content in the best places. Like a public relations specialist, SEO’s serve as a liason between you and your public (search engines) to present your company in the best possible light.

…Analysts. SEO’s analyze your website’s traffic patterns and industry statistics to determine what areas of your website are excelling and where your website falls short. Accurate and actionable data is critical for a successful search engine optimzation campaign.

…Navigators. SEO’s keep their eyes open and ears to the ground about future changes in the search engine environment, providing you with important information about how to react BEFORE problems arise.

…Architects. Most importantly, SEO’s develop strategic search engine optimization campaigns in order to create the greatest return on investment and establish long-term rankings and a solid online presence.

Should you be weary of SEO consultants and Internet marketers that seem to pop up out of nowhere? Of course! When looking to develop a relationship with a search engine optimization firm, always do your due diligence. Find out what their experience is. Ask for results on previous campaigns. Above all else, if it sounds too good to be true…it probably is.