Thread: Need Some Help
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Old 04-18-2008, 10:19 PM   #9 (permalink)
Vanessa
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Lightbulb SEO Suggestions for your Zen Cart site

I did a short analysis of your site and found some glaring things that will help your rankings.

You're default urls in the Zen Cart store are not search engine friendly.

Your url looks like this:
/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=2629

The #1 PR for wicca supplies looks like this:
/16-ounce-cast-iron-cauldron-without-lid-p/wwritcld003.htm
#2 looks like:
/RitualCauldron.asp

All links go to a page to buy a cast iron cauldron but google will put more relevance to the ones with a friendly url.

Looking around at the top organic search results for your keywords show that their shopping carts are better optimized than your installation of Zen Cart.
I've done a some SEO work for eCommerce sites and was reminded of this article on Zen Cart and SEO .
Here's an good nugget that describes exactly what I thought when I saw your urls.
Quote:
Zen cart’s URLs are ugly as sin itself. Clean them up. Use them for competitive advantage (think:: keywords). Manage your search engine spider exposure..use that product-category symbolic link feature to your competitive advantage. It’s search engine optimization involving Zen Cart, plain and simple.
It's a fixable problem. I'd recommend some URL rewriting software for Zen Cart like Magic SEO URL.It will cost about 90 bucks. There are a few others out there but I dont know their names offhand.

Second thing I noticed is that you dont have a sitemap on your site. The top organic results have some kind of index or sitemap on their sites.

I generally use the Google Sitemap tool, Google has some great Web Developer Tools for free. Here's the link to a Zen Cart Google Sitemap integration Also, Magic SEO URL has a free plugin to build sitemaps too.

I did a keywordspy on your site and saw your google ads and variations. I'd recommend changing them to have relevant links associated with your ads instead of just linking to your homepage. If someone clicks on your Colored Crystal Balls ad, take them to your page that sells colored crystal balls, dont make them click any more than they have to find what they are interested in.

I hope these suggestions help you along your way to a successful online store. There's more you can do but these improvements will make big leaps in your traffic and conversion.

Please keep us updated on how you progress with your site!
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