Magento was developed as the “next big thing” in ecommerce and shopping cart solutions. Unlike the shopping cart services that came before it, Magento has nearly limitless customization. This is very important for developing websites that will succeed in today’s crowded marketplace. With this level of customization comes the ability to utilize search engine optimization (SEO) within your shopping portal. SEO can help attract not only more traffic, but also the right kind of traffic — consumers most likely to make a purchase from your website. When you start setting up your cloud-hosted Magento marketplace, keep the following tips in mind to build the traffic you obtain from organic searches.
- Enable SEO within the Admin Panel:
This is essential – you will not be able to complete the other steps until you take care of this simple change.
- Titles:
It is important that these are created to work within your SEO plan. Make sure you give each page a unique title as these are held in as being very important by the algorithm of most of the major search engines.
- Descriptions:
Avoid anything that is automatically generated. Write content that is targeted to the users, not the search engines. Use the targeted keyword once in each description. More than that and not only will your wording look clunky, it could set off red flags within the search engines.
- URLS:
These are important, too. Use short URLs, but make certain you take advantage of keywords when at all possible.
- Headings:
Properly using the H1, H2, etc. headings within your content can make it easier for your customers to read, plus it is an important part of your SEO plan. Keep them at an appropriate size and don’t use more than one H1 header per page.
- Speed:
While it may not directly impact your SEO plan, it is still important that you create webpages that load quickly. Optimize your images and provide alternate text that fits in with your SEO plan — this is a great way to sneak in a few extra keyword phrases.
- Generate a Sitemap:
With the Magento program, you can generate a sitemap and upload it directly to the search engines. This can help the search engines crawl your page more quickly and get everything properly referenced.
- Internal and External Linking:
Links are one of the most important and often overlooked aspects of SEO. Create useful in-page links as well as building those ever-important offsite backlinks.
As you can see, it is possible to use SEO within a Magento-powered ecommerce site. A Blue Acorn article explains that while Magento may not be completely SEO-friendly, it is more than possible to utilize the benefits of optimized pages within the Magento system. Like all types of SEO, it really is about trial and error. Therefore, do not be afraid to try something new, see how it works and make adjustments. Ideally, you wind up with a page that is user-friendly, looks great AND drives more traffic to your ecommerce portal.
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