Ecommerce Pro-Tips from Middle Fork Software

Below are some of the things Middle Fork Software thinks you should know about your ecommerce web site and how to optimize it. Check back regularly for more Pro-tips!

Warm regards,
Matt from Middle Fork Software

P.S. Don't forget to tell your brick and mortar customers the address of your online store, and remind them of it!

META-TAGS: WHAT ARE THEY? HOW CAN MY SITE USE THEM?

Pro-tip Category: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Meta tags are placed inside the HTML Head tag and are used to provide information about your web page to search engines and web browsers. You may have heard that Meta-tags aren't used anymore by search engines. This isn't true. Certainly, Search engines have evolved to use meta tag information in new ways, and search engines no longer rely on the meta keyword tags to categorize web pages. But the title and meta description tags are more important than ever. The information inside the title tag is used, along with the content in the web page, to categorize the web page, so make sure your title matches your content. And, the first 150 characters of the web page's meta description tag is displayed verbatim in search results page of Google, Yahoo and Bing, so make that discription count!

A side note on the 'Meta' Keywords tag. This tag used to be very important as a way to help search engines categorize your web site's content, but that is not the case today. Actually, most search engines largely ignore the information contained in the Meta keywords tag. Instead, search engines will focus more on the content of your web site. So spend time on your title, description and content, and don't worry about stuffing your key words tag full of descriptions.

BE SPECIFIC - GET MORE WEB TRAFIC FROM SEARCH ENGINES

Pro-tip Category: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

So you want the search engines to drive more traffic to your web site? Focus your page, title, and content on specific topics. This works for a couple of reasons. First, web pages that target seemingly popular and generic search teams have loads of competition from large, medium and small web sites, many that are well established and well funded. Trying to go head-to-head on these types of search term such as'shoes', 'bikes', 'antiques', etc likely won't be effective for a new small business's online store. Instead, focus your web sites' content on what makes your business unique. This can be specific products and expertise, specific regions where you do business, etc. This leads into second reason you want to focus your web site content, more than 2/3rds of web searches use specific search terms. People want to cut through the clutter and they use specific searches to help them do it. So when your specific web site is paired with a specific search, then you have a quality web hit.

WATCH OUT! - BUYING LINKS CAN DRASTICLY REDUCE YOUR RANKING IN SEARCH ENGINES

Pro-tip Category: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

So it may seem like a good deal to pay some company to set up links back to your website. This should increase your search engine ranking and help your company become a top listing in Google, Yahoo and Bing right? Well, not actually. When search engines discover your site is trying to game its page ranks (in this case by paying for popularity), they may actually penalize your site and reduce its ranking dramatically. Google doesn't like feeling tricked.

DID YOU REGISTER YOUR WEBSITE WITH GOOGLE, YAHOO AND BING?

Pro-tip Category: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

So you want even more control over how Google, Yahoo and Bing index and display your web site on their search results page? Of course you do! If not, you are relying on the search engine's best guess to catalog and index your site. Plus there is valuable analytics data available to you once you register your site with these major search engines. Don't wait, make sure that your ecommerce web site has been registered with the major search engines ASAP!

GET FOUND BY GOOGLE, BING AND YAHOO

Pro-tip Category: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Start a Blog and post often. Blogging keeps the content on your site fresh and puts you in position to earn links from other blogs and web sites. It's these links from other quality web sites and the additional content that will help drive up your ranking with the major search engines.