SEO - What am I doing wrong

[webdivas]

:( I have had my store up for almost a year! And I love it but... I submitted my site to the open directory way back then and I still am not being found. Up until recently I thought it must be something with oscommerce that didn't get me in the top couple of pages, especially when the other pages that were there were awful sites. But now another oscommerce site :((( oh coindence???, selling same types of items just now showed up in google as one of the top sites. It's not complete I might add. So what gives, what do I not have and they do to make myself invisable and theirs ranks high.

 

My site is www.toftonline.com and if you type in "rosemaling" you will see the other site that is oscommerce.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciates. My business was just starting to grow and boy my bubble was popped when I saw this! depressed, depressed, depressed!

[1quicksi]

Do you have your meta tags correctly entered? Also you can enter them in the more prominent php files which helps.

[Guest]

Your titles need work

 

"Scandinavian Gifts Toftonline.com" gets repeated twice on the home page title - this might get a spam penalty.

 

The product info page titles would be more focused without prepending them with the same "Scandinavian Gifts Toftonline.com"

 

"Toftonline.com" should be dropped from all the titles - no one's searching for that, and it dilutes the important title keywords.

 

Body Text for index page !!

 

Write a 1 or 2 paragraph description (in bold type) for the top of index.php. Include the words and phrases you want to be found on. Go to Wordtracker and do some keyword research.

 

Body Text for product info pages

Again, a paragraph or 2 focused on the item.

 

I'm assuming you've installed the Header Tags contribution. You can reverse the order that the Header tags controller outputs the titles by editing /includes/functions/header_tags.php. Set it up so the specific title comes before the HTTA (header tags title all) so you end up with "Solje Rings - Scandinavian Gifts" instead of Scandinavian Gifts Solje Rings.

 

More later, much to do on my new Osc shop - best of luck :)

[dyland]

DMOZ are terrible for updating their directory. Each entry is vetted by hand and they don't pay their editors so things are slow. If you want a directory try Yahoo, Gimpsy, business.com or a ton of others. They charge but...

 

Other issues:

No one is linking to you - set up a reciprocal linking campaign - I use linkmanager as its so easy to use

 

The base OSC is not optimized. You need to add meta tags, H1s, body text.

 

Look at a Froogle data feed.

 

Dylan

[webdivas]

I'm using the header tag contrib so how & where would I change it to dynamically add my category names to the title? I.e Rosemaling - Scnadinavian Shop

[dyland]

I cheat and use a SQL command:

 

UPDATE `products_description` SET `products_head_title_tag` = concat(`products_name` ," from Custom Made Crafts"),

`products_head_desc_tag` = concat( `products_name` , " from Custom Made Crafts"),

`products_head_keywords_tag` = concat(`products_name` ," ,hand made crafts, custom made crafts");

 

Just change the text to what you need - it'll update each and every product on your site.

 

Dylan

[webdivas]

yes, I did something similar for my products but what about the category pages before you get to the actual product page? Say you have jewelry as a category and under that your have Silver, Pewter, Solje. How do I get the category name to show up in the title of the default.php page?

[Guest]

I cheat and use a SQL command:

 

UPDATE  `products_description`  SET  `products_head_title_tag`  =  concat(`products_name`  ," from Custom Made Crafts"),

`products_head_desc_tag`  =  concat( `products_name` , " from Custom Made Crafts"),

`products_head_keywords_tag`  =  concat(`products_name`  ," ,hand made crafts, custom made crafts");

 

Just change the text to what you need - it'll update each and every product on your site.

 

Dylan

Wow - I like that one - a lot quicker than hunting through the files for that pesky phrase.

 

I love this board. :)

 

Also, check out the Categories Description contrib. It's a bit tricky to set up, but it lets you define a body text heading title and description for each category. Osc needs all the SEO help it can get, but I couldn't imagine trying to optimize some other cart system. Where else can you get expert software troubleshooting and tweaking advice for free?

[webdivas]

Thanks for all the help today! You have given me hope again that I can make millions with my poor little old osCommerce site.

[Guest]

Kari,

 

That change to the header tags order is done in /includes/header_tags.php, not /includes/functions/header_tags.php.

 

You can change this for each page (section) defined in /includes/header_tags.php - index (or default) to affect the category titles; and then product_info for product pages

 

Find the HTTA_DEFAULT_ON=='1' sections (outputs "Scandinavian Gifts Solje Rings):

 

    if (HTTA_DEFAULT_ON=='1') {
     $the_title= HEAD_TITLE_TAG_ALL . ' ' . HEAD_TITLE_TAG_DEFAULT . " " . $the_category['categories_name'] . $the_manufacturers['manufacturers_name'];
   } else {
     $the_title= HEAD_TITLE_TAG_DEFAULT;
   }

   break;

 

To get "Solje Rings - Scandinavian Gifts" change it to this:

 

    if (HTTA_DEFAULT_ON=='1') {
     $the_title= $the_category['categories_name'] . " - " . HEAD_TITLE_TAG_DEFAULT . ' ' . HEAD_TITLE_TAG_ALL . $the_manufacturers['manufacturers_name'];
   } else {
     $the_title= HEAD_TITLE_TAG_DEFAULT;
   }

   break;

 

I stuck the - in . " - " . - you could put whatever you want in here. The variable used may change for each page defined in header_tags.php, but the priciple is the same.

 

I'm new to PHP and MySQL but "fixing" the layout and display order in Osc is not much more difficult than editing straight HTML as long as you take care with variables and PHP syntax. There's usually an example of the correct " ' . [and ]'s to use somwhere else on the page.

 

Don't forget that keyphrase-rich body text is very important to Google and especially Inktomi (still powering MSN "web sites" results). Osc generates a *lot* of code, comments, and non-ranking text, so you have to get some relevant words in somewhere.

 

Have fun!

[webdivas]

Thanks that code is exactly what I needed.

 

I use the header tag contrib, to add keyphrase rich-text body text, can I do that somehow with this contrib or do I have to manually do this for each page?

[Guest]

For the home page (index / default), you would put a couple paragraphs in the "TEXT MAIN" section of /includes/languages/english/index (default).php.

 

To get category descriptions, you'll need to install the Category Descriptions contribution I mentioned earlier in this thread. Make sure you do a backup of your database and files first - there's a lot of changes to be made, but it's well worth it.

 

You might also consider the All Products contrib that displays a listing of all your products, with the link to allprods.php on your home page. Although not absolutely necessary, it does give spiders an second, easy path to crawl all your product pages.

 

As dyland mentioned, a few directory links won't hurt - try Gimpsy, GoGuides, JoeAnt, and if you can afford it, $299 for a Yahoo listing. An SEO forum you should visit is at ihelpyouservices.com/forums - friendly and loaded with good info.

 

I hope you are encouraged, and I wish you the best of luck.

 

Mason

(PS - you can find my SEO site (#1) with a Google search for 'seo copywriter')