Below is live coverage of the Driving Ecommerce & Retail Sales Through Search Marketing panel from the SMX West conference. This coverage is provided by Keri Morgret of Strike Models.
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Keri Morgret:
1:04:44 pm
This is the last session we'll be liveblogging for Search Engine Roundtable. It's been a great conference so far!
Keri Morgret:
1:04:58 pm
Alex Edelstein is up first.
Keri Morgret:
1:05:13 pm
He's looking at whole page optimization. All of the things you can do on page that might affect teh algo.
Keri Morgret:
1:05:24 pm
Going to focus on titles and URLs.
Keri Morgret:
1:05:39 pm
It's a pain to focus on the thousands and thousands of titles and URLs in a large scale situation.
Keri Morgret:
1:06:01 pm
Their client Target brought a problem to them. Their products had unfriendly titles and URL structure. They were searching up less relevant pages.
Keri Morgret:
1:07:18 pm
Their URLs were missing the key nouns. For the experiment they rewrote title tags and URLs. Replaced original version with optimized version and measured after 30 days and compared with control group. Did it was 236 long tail keywords.
Keri Morgret:
1:07:34 pm
Most of them were already rankings.
Keri Morgret:
1:08:16 pm
Giving examples of before and after right now.
Keri Morgret:
1:08:48 pm
Impact. Average keyword jumped 20% on Google, 1.6% in same time for control group.
Keri Morgret:
1:09:05 pm
Bing and Yahoo: a 40 position average jump.
Keri Morgret:
1:09:18 pm
Results were actually more relevant than previous results.
Keri Morgret:
1:10:13 pm
Don't leave behind title tags and URLs. There are services to help scale this, including the speaker's company.
Keri Morgret:
1:10:22 pm
Part 2: category page optimization.
Keri Morgret:
1:10:49 pm
Traditionally image-dominated, no text content, underperforming rank.
Keri Morgret:
1:11:50 pm
Client requirements:
Add category text
- Must generous positive ROI
- 913 Categories
- Rigorous Style Guide
- Must create Keyword Interlinks
- 913 categories
Add category text
- Must generous positive ROI
- 913 Categories
- Rigorous Style Guide
- Must create Keyword Interlinks
- 913 categories
Keri Morgret:
1:12:46 pm
Smaller test set for this test.
Keri Morgret:
1:13:02 pm
Focused on keywords in top 20.
Keri Morgret:
1:13:53 pm
Positions improved, didn't get exact information on how much. He's now estimating the ROI.
Keri Morgret:
1:15:38 pm
Five year ROI was estimated at 18x return, payback period of four months. These numbers are conservative.
Keri Morgret:
1:16:07 pm
The keyword set was chosen without regard for search value. In production, they generally focus on the higher search value targets.
Phrase search contribution was not factored in.
Phrase search contribution was not factored in.
Keri Morgret:
1:17:10 pm
The text on categories taps into long0tail keywords, increases page relevance, introduces fresh content, offers interlinking opportunity.
Keri Morgret:
1:17:23 pm
It's inexpensive and scalable, and doesn't require big changes to the site.
Keri Morgret:
1:18:17 pm
Next up is Everett Sizemore from seOverflow.
Keri Morgret:
1:19:06 pm
He's talking about how to build links to product pages. Can be difficult because people don't like to pages selling stuff.
Keri Morgret:
1:20:57 pm
You can put trustbait or linkbait on category or product detail pages. Polls, giveaways, reviews, competitions, etc. Anything you might have previously done a separate landing page for.
Keri Morgret:
1:21:54 pm
He gives an example of Crutchfield, educating their consumers about their products in a way that nobody else does.
Keri Morgret:
1:22:31 pm
Letting customers interact with your brand is another way to build links to product pages and also good branding.
Keri Morgret:
1:23:42 pm
Getting the most out of it:
Make it easy to vote and share
Make it fun (it does help to have interesting products)
Use a product or category page as a landing page.
Make it easy to vote and share
Make it fun (it does help to have interesting products)
Use a product or category page as a landing page.
Keri Morgret:
1:24:48 pm
Crowdsourcing example of Gaiam having a compost-off.
Campaign goals:
increasing social media engagement
improve brand recognition in this space
obtain links into landing pages
funnel PR into new product pages.
Campaign goals:
increasing social media engagement
improve brand recognition in this space
obtain links into landing pages
funnel PR into new product pages.
Keri Morgret:
1:25:17 pm
Link and brand mentions from:
mnn.com
crazyaboutcompost.com
current.com
consumersearch.com
and more
mnn.com
crazyaboutcompost.com
current.com
consumersearch.com
and more
Keri Morgret:
1:25:41 pm
Educational resources.
Comparison charts, information guides, etc.
Comparison charts, information guides, etc.
Keri Morgret:
1:26:27 pm
Examines the crutchfield site because he likes how they do things. They put a lot of great learning information on their product pages.
Keri Morgret:
1:27:34 pm
Gaiam example of having a category page.
Gave them opportunity to get people earlier in the buying cycle.
Gave them opportunity to get people earlier in the buying cycle.
Keri Morgret:
1:28:03 pm
goapr.com is another good example.
Keri Morgret:
1:28:26 pm
He doesn't like the design of the site, but the amount of information that it has.
Keri Morgret:
1:28:52 pm
Offer product-specific coupon codes. You can get great links from frugal-living, personal finance, etc. sites.
Keri Morgret:
1:30:14 pm
Everett has a lot of great resources, ask him for the information.
Keri Morgret:
1:32:22 pm
Next up is Lisa Williams.
Keri Morgret:
1:33:06 pm
Five strategies for standing out in search: how to win a supporting role.
Keri Morgret:
1:33:49 pm
Ratings review. Supporting role for paid, natural, and local listings.
- Paid search
- natural search with rich snippets
- can affect ranking
- local search
80% of shoppers are influenced by negative reviews.
- Paid search
- natural search with rich snippets
- can affect ranking
- local search
80% of shoppers are influenced by negative reviews.
Keri Morgret:
1:34:38 pm
How to get reviews:
Google reviews
BizRate
TripAdvisor
Integrating reviews and consumer data into other sites (tripadvisor announced review collection solution with easybooking.com yesterday)
Google reviews
BizRate
TripAdvisor
Integrating reviews and consumer data into other sites (tripadvisor announced review collection solution with easybooking.com yesterday)
Keri Morgret:
1:35:55 pm
What to do with a bad review? It's important to respond to that one person, but remember you're not just speaking to that one person, but you're showing your potential customers how you react and treat people.
Keri Morgret:
1:36:00 pm
Data Feeds!
Keri Morgret:
1:37:29 pm
Internal site search is an awesome thing.
You can find:
related keywords
misspellings
alternate names
competitor keywords
plurals
synonyms
legacy phrases
synonym phrases
You can find:
related keywords
misspellings
alternate names
competitor keywords
plurals
synonyms
legacy phrases
synonym phrases
Keri Morgret:
1:38:38 pm
Woops, instead of "you can find" that should be "how to customize". Customize with all of this type of stuff so people can find the green yarn even if you call it something different.
Keri Morgret:
1:39:09 pm
Designing the site search box.
Keep it simple and easy to find. Make sure that it works, customize it.
Understand searcher intent
Learn from queries
Make iterative improvements to navigation.
Keep it simple and easy to find. Make sure that it works, customize it.
Understand searcher intent
Learn from queries
Make iterative improvements to navigation.
Keri Morgret:
1:40:23 pm
Understand user intent. Guide them through the sales funnel.
In this case study, only 3.66% use site search, 26% of revenue from site search.
In this case study, only 3.66% use site search, 26% of revenue from site search.
Keri Morgret:
1:40:59 pm
Product recommendation tools.
Richrelevance, strands recommender, 4tell.
Richrelevance, strands recommender, 4tell.
Keri Morgret:
1:42:33 pm
Automate rather than doing your own manual recommendations if you can.
Keri Morgret:
1:43:14 pm
Ask for the sale. Sign here, add to shopping cart, sign up free.
Keri Morgret:
1:43:49 pm
She'd love to hear if you decide to use any of these strategies.
Keri Morgret:
1:44:03 pm
Q&A time!
Keri Morgret:
1:47:49 pm
Everett: if a product is out of stock, he'd just put up a notice saying it's out of stock and have people sign up to be notified when it's in stock. If it no longer exists, consider 301 redirect to closest page. Don't redirect everything to one page (like the home page) on the site.
Keri Morgret:
1:49:42 pm
Disa is discussing 301 vs 302 redirect.
Keri Morgret:
1:52:38 pm
How does multiple languages with reviews affect things?
Keri Morgret:
1:53:20 pm
Lisa: make sure that you have someone in that language that can respond to the reviews.
Keri Morgret:
1:55:19 pm
Before going live, here are some cautions.
Avoid duplicate content. Don't just copy the descriptions from the manufacturer. That's being treated as duplicates.
Avoid duplicate content. Don't just copy the descriptions from the manufacturer. That's being treated as duplicates.
Keri Morgret:
1:56:40 pm
Make a project plan that is scalable.
Keri Morgret:
1:58:05 pm
Everett suggested an SEO audit before the customer's site goes live (it's been built but not live yet).
Keri Morgret:
2:03:23 pm
Question for panel: a favorite out of the box ecommerce platform. Lisa like Magento. Everett likes Magento and Volusion for medium size ecommerce sites.
Keri Morgret:
2:06:20 pm
Interesting discussion about daily deal sites and how there may be an increase in negative reviews on social sites. This may be the article they're referencing. http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27150/
Keri Morgret:
2:12:12 pm
And the session is over.
