SEO Disaster

[jguliano]

We hired an SEO company in April to do some work on our site. They promised to finish in June and are still not done. After paying them in advance they will no longer return our phone calls or our emails. We are not happy with First Class SEO or Jennifer Sullivan Cassidy. Does anyone out there have any suggestions on an SEO company that will not rip us off and is familiar with Shop Site?

[Jeff]

What steps did this company intend to employ to boost your search engine positioning?

We've always done well in search engines using common sense methods that are easy to do-it-yourself in Shopsite:

1) proper naming of each page (ie /blue_widgets.htm)
2) using the all important page title
3) making sure appropriate key words appear a few times in page text
4) using meta keywords tuned for each page (doubt whether that does anything these days)
5) SE friendly naming of graphics (blue_widget.jpg)
6) using a lot of text rather than graphics on each page.
7) having site architecture that is "wide" not "deep."
8. maximizing for actual customer product searches
9) using static pages, not dynamically generated ones
10) ignoring silly SEO fads (ie. link farming)
11) understanding that good placement takes time and is dynamic

And
12) realizing that we're now living in the world of PPC

[jguliano]

If you take a look at our site you will find we use a canned ShopSite template called Matte. Our header contains a drop down menu that has about 90 links in it. I am told this is not helping us and we should have text links on the page for the most common brands instead of the drop down window in the header. The one thing the SEO people did do is suggest a Google map be place on all pages. We did implement the file they created for us by placing a link in the footer of all pages. That file has been updated by us several times using some canned software. I am far from a code expert since my field of expertise is the product we sell. I do a lot of on line reading on the tricks of SEO but much of it is geek speak so I get lost in the forest. I love ShopSite and the people in this forum are just great. If we could find someone to edit a few pages and explain what they did I think we could do the rest.
1. Most of our pages consist of a jpg and a short product description. Our site is probably on the opposite end of the spectrum of a text based site.
2. All our pages are static but I do not know about the architecture being wide not deep. In my eyes it is not deep.
3. All graphics are part numbers but no name or description tied to it. Page titles make sense but do not have - or _ separating the words. Similar to www.ontimemall.com/honeywellparts.html
4. We have done and still do many thousands of dollars in PPC advertising per month and it is tough to recommend it to anyone in my industry since our average sale is about $85 and the PPC fees are up to $3. Since the close rate is not 100% on PPC that fee is too high to absorb.
5. I would much rather spend some money and time on SEO work once and pay a monthly maintenance fee afterward than to pay thousands to Google each month without a good payback.

[Oldedit]

Our store home page gets top ranking and has for years, and I use pay per click advertising to direct customers to specific landing (product) pages.

I decided that we needed to change our product mix to get better sales, and I'm brushing up on SEO myself. We were talking about how to put better title html in our pages this morning. There are a few hundred of them.

So basically, I'm counting on continuing top rankings in organic search for our key search term, good links in and out and ppc. At the same time, I'm tweaking both the meta and the ppc.

Are you paying close attention to ppc and bidding only on the terms that actually bring you sales. I added some generic terms that brought lots of clicks but no additional sales. So I dropped the generic terms like "car battery" and went to specifics like [battery for Lexus]. I also use search only ppc, no contexual, which only brings browsers in my experience.

I'm currently reading two new books that are pretty good: YourSEOPlan (see my blog for a link) and Search Engine Marketing.

I'm also looking for more ideas about how to optimize Shopsite since our whole Twinsmagazine.com site is in it. Take a look, we just redesigned the home page.

[Jeff]

WebmasterWorld is a wonderful free resource on just about anything to do with the internet.

Here is a link to a remarkable discussion about the all-important Page Title.
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum78/10443.htm

---
Note that Shopsite 8.1 now allows custom titles and Meta tags on more info pages and, most important, a title tag on regular store pages. (I complained about that deficiency last year) :

"Title/Meta Data Tags in More Info Pages (Pro, Manager)
More Info Pages now include fields to indicate HTML Title, Meta Keyword, and Meta Description tag content. Store Pages also have a field for HTML Title tag content."

[Jeff]

jguliano, I looked at your site and it's not too bad in terms of SEO.

I've heard that search engines can crawl drop down menus of links. 90 may be a bit off-putting to some robots. LOL

We use "_" or sometimes "-" between words in page names and graphics. I've heard that Google can handle either and can often read words run together. Main thing is to use meaningful words; it surely doesn't help to have numbered pages or graphics (.../32256.htm)

You must agonize over whether to aim for a longshot SE homerun ("air conditioner parts") or play lots of small ball ("Carrier belt 1072"). Shoppers are getting better at using search engines and I'm told that three-word searches are becoming more common. As for PPC, single keywords ("Carrier" ) are outrageously expensive while two and three word phrases offer vastly better ROI. A few year ago we had some keyword homeruns but have mostly lost them. Yet our sales remain strong due to our top ranking in many three word phrases.

You should look at adding more text to your main page which is highly graphical. I'm always looking at Amazon or Walmart.com for ideas, and they have plenty of text.

[andrea]

Hello jguliano,

I got on this forum by chance today for the first time since my host suggested I propose a product enhancement to the Shopsite team.
I saw your post and took a look at your site.
I am a site owner, but after a few years breaking my head on SEO, I am also offering some SEO consulting.
I believe you do have some problems as far as SEO is concerned.
For instance you can get to your site both using http://www.ontimemall.com/ and http://ontimemall.com/. This is bad because Google sees it a two separate, but identical sites and does penalize you for duplicate content. In fact if you do a "site:" query on Google you have several pages in the supplemental results. (I am just getting out of that same problem for my own site).
Also I believe you can do a lot to render your pages/site more search engine friendly.
I believe I can be of help. If you are interested please send me a private message and we can discuss your situation.

[Jeff]

For instance you can get to your site both using http://www.ontimemall.com/ and http://ontimemall.com/. This is bad because Google sees it a two separate, but identical sites and does penalize you for duplicate content.

I've never heard that. In fact most sites including Shopsite's exist with and without the www.

I checked several highly Google-ranked sites in our field and they are available both ways.

As is Amazon's.

[stitches]

For instance you can get to your site both using http://www.ontimemall.com/ and http://ontimemall.com/. This is bad because Google sees it a two separate, but identical sites and does penalize you for duplicate content.

I've never heard that. In fact most sites including Shopsite's exist with and without the www.

I checked several highly Google-ranked sites in our field and they are available both ways.

As is Amazon's.

This has been a hot topic for awhile with Google since the beginning of the Big Daddy update.

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advic ... alization/

From reading that I have done you pretty much need to pick one or the other and stick with that choice either with "www." or without. The only real way to fix this is with a .htaccess file that redirects all of the requests for pages without the www to the www version.

[andrea]

Hi Jeff,

You can and should be able to reach your domain using both versions of the domain (with and without the www). It is important though that in both cases Google (and the other search engines) recognizes it as one site. I never heard about it either untill I found myself in the supplemental results in Google and for the first time I realized I had more visitors coming from MSN than Google. I was obviously penalized.
This was a couple of months ago, and I must not have been the only one, because recently Google addresses the problem.
You can tell a search engine that both versions of the domain are actually one site (they are smart programs but sometms they just glitch), including some simple directives in the .htaccess file (as stitches says), but regarding Google you should open an account with them and in there you can choose your preferred domain (with or without www).

[Jeff]

WebmasterWorld has an energetic discussion on the subject now.

http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3094363.htm

[andrea]

And if someone wants some clarification can check this thread:
http://www.searchengineforums.com/apps/ ... 143472885/
where you do not have to be a paying member to view