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Optimizing Your Website For Search Engines

Optimizing Your Website For Search Engines Datahost has developed MightyMerchant from the ground up with search engine optimization in mind. Our system makes it easy for you to optimize your keywords, page titles, and descriptive text, which are some of the main elements that the search engines will evaluate when ranking your site. Armed with the knowledge in this article you can do an outstanding job of optimizing your own website.

Keep in mind, that search engine optimization is a time-intensive task that requires considerable thought and analysis. If you want to do your own optimization, MightyMerchant's Site Manager will make the job easy. If you prefer to leave the optimization to the pros, please see our recommendations at the end of this article.

Keywords and Keyword Phrases

Keywords and keywords phrases are the words that someone types in the search field when doing a web search. One of your main objectives in developing your list of keyword phrases is to come up with specific phrases and variations that will separate you from the pack and that will help your site come up at the top of the search engines for shoppers who know exactly what they want and are searching for something specific.

You want to use a variety of keyword phrases that you think people might search for when looking for your products and use them throughout your site. Be creative. You don't need (or want) to use the same keyword phrase on every product. For example, if you're selling suntan lotion, one product may have the keyword phrase "hypoallergenic 30 SPF suntan lotion" and another product has the keyword phrase "15 SPF skin protection".

Here are some criteria to keep in mind when creating keyword phrases:

For category keywords, push your most competitive and slightly more general phrases.
For product keywords, think phrases rather than generic words. For example, "natural treatments for diaper rash" is better than just "diaper rash."
Limit the number of words in your search phrases. Try to keep the combined total to ten or less.
Use both single and plural forms of a word in your phrases. For example, "natural treatments for diaper rash" and "organic treatment for diaper rash."
Think variety. If you have a lot of products that are similar, don't use the same keyword phrases on all of them. The goal is to think of as many possible combinations as possible. Tip: Ask your friends to think of some keywords they might use to find you're products.
If possible, use your keywords in your category and product names and descriptions. The more you can weave relevant keywords into your site, the better your site will be received by the search engines.

How Much Do You Want to Do?

Your Site Manager optimization features allow you to do as much or as little as you want with regards to search optimizing your site. At an absolute minimum, you should set the Default Page Title, Meta Description, and Meta Keywords on your Settings page. We encourage you to go a step further and use the MightyMerchant Optimize function on your Category and Product pages.

It's a Hierarchy

Here's a quick overview on which optimization settings will be used on your site:

Default optimization settings are used if nothing else is set. Be sure you set your defaults!
Category optimization fields will override the default settings.
Product/Item optimization fields will override category optimization fields.

Here are the specifics of how to optimize your site:

1. Come up with a list of generic phrases

We recommend starting off by doing a little brainstorming. Write down a list of what you feel are your most relevant and important phrases. Try to get inside of the minds of your customers and think about what people will really search for when they are ready to buy your products.

2. Set Your Defaults

To set optimization defaults, fill in the following fields on the "settings" page in your Site Manager:

Default Page Title: Customers will likely not search for your store name unless it has strong public recognition. Be sure to lead with the most important keywords in your default title. For example: Umbrellas and Rain Gear from the Rainy Day Store
Meta Description: This is a sentence or two describing your website that is often shown with your link in search results. (You will not see the Meta Description content on your site unless you view the source in your browser.) For example: Datahost creates professional eCommerce websites designed to provide straightforward online shopping, bundled with a simple site management system for website updates. A great all-in-one solution for your online business.
Meta Keywords: These are your top keyword phrases that someone may use to find your site through a search. Example: simple site management system - shopping cart website design

3. Optimize your Categories

The essential categories to optimize are the categories in your Product Catalog. Depending on how your site is organized, you can possibly benefit from optimizing your other categories as well. If a category page shows up on your site, then you will benefit from optimizing it.

In your Site Manager, bring up a list of your main categories by clicking either the "catalog" or "Top" links. Bring up a list of subcategories by clicking "View Subcategories" located next to any of the main categories.
For each category, click the "optimize" link located to the left of the Find field.

Fill in the following fields:

Page Title
This is the browser page title (the one that shows in the blue bar at the top of your monitor). If your category or product names do not include the exact keywords you are going for, you'll want to use this field to set the page title. We suggest creating a phrase that people are likely to search for, using appropriate keywords for the product. Limit the page title to about 6-8 words.

The default page title for category and product pages on your site is "category name" or "product name: category name, respectively.

Keywords
Keywords show on each of your site's pages, usually in the bar above the footer or above or below the masthead, depending on the design of your site. They also appear in the Meta Keyword field that is only visible in your page's source code. The default for keywords is whatever information you have set for the Meta Keywords field on your "settings" page.

Create one or two short keyword phrases. Limit the amount of characters to about 50.

URL Words
This is the URL address of the page. The default is to use the product/item or category name for a particular page, followed by ".html". Some search engines may rank pages higher if the URL contains keywords, although this point is a matter of debate.

If your category or product names don't contain keywords, you can create a new URL using keywords. For example, if you product name is "The Carlisle", you might want to change the URL to something like "carlisle cardigan sweater". However, if you've already put "carlisle cardigan sweater" in the Page Title or Keyword field, you can skip this field.

Meta Description
The default value for meta-description is the product description on product pages and the category description on category pages. If you enter text in the meta description area, it will override the default. The meta description is used by some search engines as the description that shows on the search results. You won't see this on the web page unless you look at the source code (View > Source).

4. Optimize your Products

Follow the guidelines listed above for the category optimization. The principles are the same, but for the products you will likely focus on more specific phrases and keywords related to the product you are working on.

Bring up a list of products/items within each category by clicking "View Items" located next to the category name.
Click the "optimize" link located to the left of the Find field.
Enter the optimization for each product.

5. Refine your Product and Category Descriptions

This step is an important one! The search engines will usually reward you for having a site that is useful and relevant. If you take the time to creatively write product and category descriptions that fully describe your product line, you will have a site that is helpful for your customers as well as easily accessible to search engine spiders.

Go into the text description area for each product and category and make sure you are including your key phrases as you describe your offerings. You want to naturally include your keywords and phrases. They don't need to appear in the exact same order as you have them in your title or keyword field, but do your best to weave them into the descriptions.

6. Add Additional Pages

Once you have completed your category and product optimization, take some time to click around your site. Pay close attention to the titles in the browser title bars and the text that appears on your pages? Do you feel you have covered the range of keywords and variations adequately? If not, you can consider adding an additional informational category to your site. In this category, you can create pages that will contain further information about your products and services. The pages will serve the two-fold purpose of giving your customers more relevant information about your products and giving you the opportunity to create more content on your site in which you can weave in your relevant keywords.

Note: If you add an extra category, you might need to get assistance from Datahost Tech Support to make sure that the new category is correctly linked from your main template.

7. Monitor and Adjust

Search Engine Optimization is an ongoing process. Once you have optimized your site, you want to watch how the site shows up in the major search engines and make adjustments as necessary. How to ensure that your site does get indexed and how to do search engine analysis is beyond the scope of this article, but you can check out our other Website Promotion articles for more information.

We also recommend www.searchenginenews.com . This is a subscription site, but they provide sneek peek articles that you can browse for free.

For keyword research, we recommend:
inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion
www.nichebot.com

There are also companies that will help you optimize your site, but you need to be careful. If a company emails you about search engine optimization and they offer a deal that's too good to be true, it probably is.