Dynamic Merchandising: SEO Checklist for eStore product pages

If you don't already have a strategy in-place for SEO (Search Engine Optimization), it should be high on your New Year's resolution list.

Online merchants have a great opportunity to leverage the vast SEO tactics for each product page on their eStore website. We're talking about product pages because most purchases start from a search engine. In the highly competitive Internet search world, online merchants are uniquely positioned to drive individual product page search results (page rank) in addition to bringing traffic to their main website.

We've provided a brief list of SEO tactics all online merchants should be doing to increase the likelyhood of a shopper finding their products. It is important to understand that this level of control and flexibility should be put into the hands of the merchandising team (or marketing team) through easy-to-use web interfaces, not having to proxy requests through a web design team.

Be sure to closely examine the Complete Feature List of your eCommerce Shopping Cart Software to look for these built-in SEO control capabilities.

eCommerce Product Page SEO Checklist (used for each product page):

• Standards-Based Pages: It is very important build your website following HTML W3C Standards which basically means your eStore will be read properly by a search engine and people browsing your website. A great designer isn't typically a great HTML coder. You really do need to think about the performance of your HTML pages to ensure they're error-free with lowest possible load times and that you aren't violating basic SEO rules. Your eCommerce provider should help you implement your eStore website and maintain the eStore HTML. Typically in an On-Demand eCommerce environment the eStore website branding and design is decoupled from the underlying eCommerce software - this means you can easily change your design & structure quickly and easily. For other tips to create high performance pages see Google Web Master Tools.


• Keywords: Start thinking about your keywords right away as this will drive many of the decisions below. Pick keywords and phrases that your target customer will use to find your product. If you're using Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, these keywords and Ads should align. For example: 1960s Rookie Hockey Cards


• Page Content: You've probably heard this a million times already but its key to a successful SEO strategy. If your pages do not have relevant content they will not service your Customers and the search engines will not rank your page effectively against your keywords.


• Title Tag: This is the title of your page and one of the most important factors in SEO. Page titles should reflect the individual product you're selling. Title tags are shown in the search engine results page. For example: 1968 Rookie Card of John Smith - Millioncards.org.


• Page File Name: This is the actual html page name. For example: millioncards.org/rookie-cards/1968-rookie-card-john-smith.html


• Meta Keywords Tag: These are the most likely words or phrases that will help a customer find your product and are embedded in the HTML code. For example: Rookie Hockey Cards, John Smith Hockey Cards, 1960s Hockey Cards.


• Meta Description Tag: This a description of the Product Page and should be a short, 1-2 sentences (max 200-250 characters) that describes the content on the page. It is also shown in the search engines below the page title. This should briefly describe the product and be unique from the page title. For example: Millioncards provides rare Rookie Hockey Cards for collectors or gifts for hockey fans. This John Smith Rookie Card is in mint condition and includes protective case.


• Anchor Text (text links): Anchor text is very important in keyword use. This is the text found on your eStore that appears as a hyperlink. For example, click to learn more about our Enterprise SEO eCommerce Features. You can use Anchor text throughout your eStore to guide shoppers to the product pages, which will also help the search engines understand what the hyperlink is about. Anchor text should be relevant and can be used to link within your eStore to relevant product pages.


• Header Tags: Allows you to organize your product page into relevant sections by topic from the H1 Page topic header, H2 main topic, and H3 and sub topics, and so on. Headers give the search engines and understanding of where the important information is on the product page and allow you to utilize your keywords for topic areas that describe the product.


• Alt Image Attribute: Alt image attributes should be used for every image on your website. Alt attributes, provide a description to the search engine about what the image is (since search engine robots cannot "see") and displayed to the user prior to loading the image. Keep these short and relevant to what the picture is illustrating.

Online merchants must have this level of SEO control and capability at the hands of their merchandising team. With most product purchases starting from a web search and the highly competitive and fast-moving online sales world, you must be able to move quickly optimizing your product pages, keywords, and advertising campaigns to maximize sales.

For those not well equipped, it will be a painful process working through the web designer and basically impossible to deliver effective search engine optimization and advertising expenditures.

The OrderDynamics Team