SEO 101 for Online Merchants. Part 2: Product Pages

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SEO 101 for Online Merchants. Part 2: Product Pages

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We pick up the conversation with John Lincoln, the 2017 Search Engine Marketer of the year, again and take what we learned in Part 1 (Keyword Research) and apply it to a store.

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Transcript

Jesse: Hey guys, Jesse Ness here. Glad to have you back, I鈥檓 here with鈥�

Richard: Richard Otey.

Jesse: Alright! So, if you joined us on the previous podcast, we鈥檙e back again with our special guest John Lincoln. He鈥檚 a CEO of Ignite Visibility, he was named the search engine marker of the year by Search Engine Land and has the #1 SEO company ranked by clutch.co. Hey, John!

John: Hey, how you doing? Good to be back!

Jesse: Good, good to be here. So, last week we talked about keyword research and this is kind of a SEO 101, so is this still an SEO 101 topic? So, you did all this keyword research, what the heck do you do with it, right? So, we鈥檙e going to take a look at 鈥� because this is focused on e-commerce merchants — we鈥檙e going to talk about how do you optimize one page and specifically will a focus on a product page first, because most e-commerce merchants are selling products. Starting with the idea that people already have done their keyword research and have three or four terms that they want to rank for on Google. What鈥檚 the next step for an e-commerce merchant?

John: Yeah. So, when it comes to, you know, actually optimizing a page, there鈥檚 a lot to it and I鈥檒l try not to go into all that with you guys. The way you would do a category is different than the homepage, which is different than a subcategory, and a sub-subcategory. There鈥檚 different things you can do throughout a page and systems that people have to refresh them. All that stuff I said — forget it. I鈥檓 not gonna talk about it. If you want to learn more about it, you can find out about it on our website.

What we鈥檙e going to talk about today is the product page. And the product page should only be optimized for your product name. That鈥檚 really the right way to do it. Usually you target your biggest terms on your homepage or on your category page and those are usually meant for more general terms.

So your product page is actually going to be optimized for whatever your specific product name is. So, if you have a site and you sell tables, for example. You might go after tables on your homepage, then you might have a category for green tables. Then you might have your final inside of that category of your products. Your product name might be specific. It鈥檚 usually shouldn鈥檛 be something, that says “green table” and you want to be unique, you know. It might be “4脳22 table” or something like that.

So, what you would do is once you know what that term is, you鈥檙e going to want to optimize your page for that term. And the way you go about doing that is you optimize the title of your page, the description of your page, also known as the meta description. That鈥檚 only in the code of your page. So, that鈥檚 what Google pulls out and then shows in the search engine. You鈥檙e going to make sure the product name is in your H1, which means “heading 1 tag”, and that鈥檚 something inside the HTML as well as your H2 and then throughout the copy. Then the final element on the bare bones most basic type of SEO you could do is making sure it鈥檚 in the image file name, the image alt tags, and then the image caption. If you can do that, Google is going to have a really good idea that that page should be ranking for whatever that product is. You also want to rank for those other terms to, because probably a lot of people are going to be searching for your product name, unless you鈥檙e a bigger brand. So, you know, the next level up you want to go after the category type of term or you might want to go after on your blog, but that鈥檚 kind of how you do the product page.

Richard: Is there a reason why you keep the green table part separate in the category page? Even though most people might think that including that on the product page niches them down even more?

John: That鈥檚 the biggest mistake most new e-commerce sites make and most websites make in general. They want their product page to rank for green table, right. And that鈥檚 not the right way to do it.

That鈥檒l actually really mess things up, because you don鈥檛 want to see your category page is competing with your product page. So, you want your product page to be the product name your category and rank for green table. You might have more green tables at some point, right. So you want all those to be in there. That鈥檚 really something you got to watch out for. I can鈥檛 tell you how many times I will get a client in and then they optimize all their products for their category names. Then their categories were optimized for the same thing and nothing鈥檚 ranking, because Google gets confused. You can only get one shot on Google to rank a page for one term. They don鈥檛 rank you multiple times. So you really got to pick and choose your battles there.

Jesse: Great. So, I think we will talk about the homepage and category pages on which ones the best to go for. So, sticking with the product page one last time. So, if you have a very specific keyword. You named your product that. And there is inside of 黑料门, it鈥檚 a product description area. So, you can type as much as you want about a product. How many words should a merchant type in order for it to show up in Google?

John: Good question. So, the highest ranking pages on the internet are 1500 to 2200 words which is a lot of words. But you don鈥檛 need to do that for the product page. You do need to do that and maybe even more for a term, like, “table”, or “green table”, or something “outdoor table” or whatever. So those type of pages have an entirely different strategy than the product page. The product page is less competitive, because it鈥檚 just you, you came up with the name, there鈥檚 not a lot of competition for it, unless you have a competitor that named their products the exact same thing or there鈥檚 some overlap in some weird way. Usually for the product page it鈥檚 usually a 150 to 300 words. There鈥檚 other things you can do on that page to. A lot of people like to get reviews on those pages. So you can get the “five stars” in Google or however many ratings you have. Fresh content allows that page rank hires as well as the website as a whole. But, you know, it鈥檚 kind of a delineation, and that鈥檚 really the main way to think about just keyword research and an optimization and generally. Start at the top, that鈥檚 the most authority, and that鈥檚 the most content, and you kind of go down in a pyramid like idea until you finally get all the way down and drop off on the product page.

Jesse: Okay, perfect. So, I know we probably started at the bottom of this pyramid!

John: But that鈥檚 okay, it鈥檚 good to get that out of the way first so people understand the whole context, so they don鈥檛 make that very common mistake of starting with optimization for a broader term on a product page.

Jesse: So don鈥檛 name your products a very basic name. Name them very specifically. Use the same keywords in the description on the product and then maybe save some of those terms for more of a category page or a homepage. We don鈥檛 have much time left here. So, you have a very specific product name on your page. Let鈥檚 go back to the homepage. A lot of people don鈥檛 like to put a lot of content of their homepage, and I get that. What is a way to work in some content into a home page, so you can talk about your main keyword?

John: So, the homepage is usually the most authoritative page on the side. That鈥檚 because all the other pages relate to it and it has the most links from other websites. The two most important things for ranking inside of SEO are the amount and quality of links that you have and then the quality of your content. So, the homepage almost always has the most links, and so because of that you can sometimes get away with a little bit less content. So, people don鈥檛 like that, a lot of content on pages. But, basically as long as the keywords inside of the title it鈥檚 throughout the page a little bit, you鈥檝e got a pretty good chance. And you want to at least get a couple hundred words on that home page, if you can. If it鈥檚 further towards the bottom, and an FAQ format or something like that, that鈥檚 okay. But, it doesn鈥檛 need to be five thousand words. So that鈥檚 kind of how you want to think about that.

Jesse: Got it. Especially for e-commerce. You want to show the products ireally as soon as you can, you don鈥檛 want to have paragraphs of text, you know. Sticking with our example of concrete tables. Can I give my mom an example like “let鈥檚 make sure in the headline here you鈥檙e using, you know, ‘fiber optic concrete tables’, you show some images and then on the bottom, you know, maybe there鈥檚 an ‘About Us’ or paragraphs in the bottom. Is that a place where you can work in your keywords?

John: Yeah that is a place you can do that. For your mom, for ‘concrete tables’, I think you just gotta say: ‘Hey, look. This is a really competitive term.’ So, I think we want to kind of theme aside from this and over time, as we build up authority and stuff like that, you know, eventually you will start coming on more and more. I would be really looking for a more niche term. And, depending on the number of products you optimize a category for it. If there鈥檚 not a lot of products that you have, you can also think about going after that in content marketing. So, that鈥檚 a big shift today in SEO. It鈥檚 like, what are you target on the blog and what鈥檚 a category. That鈥檚 something that we can talk about in the future episodes, it鈥檚 a lot to think about. But really I think, you know, for most people just kind of coming on and getting started in SEO, try to build a good foundation, some simple keywords in the right place with the clear delineation from top to product, and you鈥檒l be in a pretty good shape.

Jesse: So maybe, in a homepage we鈥檙e talking about 200 words or so, 300?

John: Yeah, couple hundred words on the homepage.

Jesse: It鈥檚 not too over well for a new user to look at that, but you鈥檙e still getting your words in there. And then for a category page, you know, do you want to start on top of a category with a paragraph?

John: Here is how the perfect category page looks to me. There鈥檚 a lot of different ways to do it. But you come in, it鈥檚 the keyword in the title, it鈥檚 in the description, it鈥檚 in the heading. There鈥檚 a little image thumbnail and the thumbnail has the file name, and the alt tag, and he caption that are optimized for that keywords, right. And then what鈥檚 really important, is as Google crawls the page they see that the products are also green tables. They relate to whatever that category term is, so that Google can pick up on that. And then there should be little descriptions for each of them as well, so that there鈥檚 some texts on that page. Then you usually will put a little bit of text and description at the bottom. And that鈥檚 going to get you in good shape. You can get a little bit more advanced than that. And that鈥檚 for another episode, but that鈥檚 the basic optimization there.

Jesse: Got it, perfect. So that鈥檚 even more than 101 for a beginning merchants!

John: It鈥檚 102 at least!

I hope we didn鈥檛 scare everybody away with some little more advance, but we want to make sure we cover some ground. So, John, thank you for visiting the 黑料门 podcast.

John: Yeah, thanks for having me, appreciate it!

Jesse: Hey guys. Jesse Ness on the 黑料门 E-commerce show, and check out ecwid.com for more information and ignitevisibility.com for more information from John.