Search Engine Optimisation is a process which every online retailer needs to apply at some capacity. So it’s no surprise that some projects we manage start with one online service and in many times incorporate SEO work as well. While SEO is very much a learning process based on experience where you never stop learning and picking up great tips (and I guess sometimes not so great tips), I am often quite surprise by some of the myths I hear which I’ve summarized under my top 10 e-commerce SEO Myths and Misconceptions.

Myth 1. If I build it, they will come - Not really. There are some fantastic offers out there and chances are that someone else is offering your products as well. Search engines as good as they are need a gentle nudge in the right direction so built it and they will come won’t work. For example, you’ll find it very hard to rank well if all your product pages have the same or no metadata so by adding unique metadata to each page you’ll be helping the engines make sense of your pages.

Myth 2. I’ll repeat the product title 10 times in the description for better SEO - If it reads bad for users (which it will), it reads bad for the search engine spiders. Keyword stuffing (sorry, keyword density J) will do nothing to increase your ranking so don’t repeat the product name more than three times or so. Place it once or twice in the text, H1 tag, image name and alt text.

Myth 3. I don’t need organic traffic to be successful – In order to keep a sustainable business model and CPAs you can leave with, you’ll need to get some of your traffic from a non paid traffic channel. While it won’t be possible to rank well on the first day, improving your organic ranking must be high on your web KPIs.

Myth 4. Ranking well will happen over night because I’ve hired an SEO guy - If you’ve been promised to rank on Google’s first page within a week by your SEO guy, you might be in for a big disappointment. Search Engine Optimisation takes time, especially if you’ve got a new domain and the bushiness just launched.

Myth 5. Quantity will win over quality so I’ll add the same product under different categories – If you’ve placed similar products under different categories all you’re doing is potentially creating content duplication and spreading your authority to rank well for that product across many page.

Myth 6. I don’t need a customize 404 page – A custom 404 will replace your landing page when users land on a non existent page so invest in a nice design, informative message about the possible cause of the error and fix your 404 pages.

Myth 7. I can do without a copywriter and just copy paste the product description from the manufacturer – Content is king and one of the best ways to improve your SEO is by providing quality content which users (and therefore the search engine) would like. If you’ve got the skills to put together great product descriptions go for it, otherwise consider hiring a copywriter for the purpose of creating great product descriptions.

Myth 8. When a product is discontinued, I’ll just remove it from the site, what’s the harm -  Chances are that the product you’ve just removed has some authority and maybe some links pointing to it. For better SEO and user experience redirect the old URL to the product category or a similar product.

Myth 9. My products are ranking well on MSN / Yahoo so smooth sailing from now on – As most of the organic traffic, at least in the UK is coming from Google’s properties you must invest in your SEO to rank well on Google. In most cases by optimising your site for Google, you’ll also optimise it for other search engines.

Myth 10. To rank well we need to invest in PPC -  There’s absolutely no connection between how much cash you’re spending on ppc advertising to how well you’re ranking. If any, using AdWords you can improve your SEO by testing different text creatives for your metadata page titles using ad variation. We’re big fans of paid search here and even offer a pay per click advertising service, but still surprise that this myth keeps coming up.

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Follow those simple suggestions to improve your website page titles in 5 minutes.

Start with…

Use your Google Adwords learnings

1. Pay Per Click advertising programs which offer ad variations are an excellent platform to test the effectives or the likelihood of your organic listing getting higher click rates. Make sure to target the right keywords for each page, place them at the start of the page title and copy the best performing ad from your campaign in terms of CTR and conversions. In the below example, you can safely assume that ‘Double Sided Photo Paper From £10 & Quick Delivery atExampleSite.com‘ would get  more clicks than ‘Double Sided Photo Paper For HP & Canon at ExampleSite.com

Make it optimise for humans

1. Avoid using buzz words, use plain English everyone can understand and ensure it reads well
2. Just like in the title of a book or magazine, the first letter of each word should be capitalized

Less is sometime more

1. Make sure page title has enough information together with a call to action, but doesn’t look too busy
2. Try cutting the page title off early and add “…” at the end of the title. This triggers a response in a lot of users, assuming there is more relevant information on the page. Curiosity hasn’t killed the cat, just increased your CTR

Lead potential visitors to make the desired action

1. When the goal of the page is to get leads by signing up, consider adding a short call to action at the end of the title, for example “Sign up for free!”
2. When the goal of the page is to create conversions consider adding a short call to action at the end of the title, for example “Free shipping!”
3. Finally, for sales or clearance pages consider adding a short call to action to create a sense of urgency, for example “hurry, limited stock!”

Optimise the page title for one term

1. The page title should only describe that particular page
2. If you must use more than one term to describe the page, the ordering of keywords in the title is important. Start from the most to the least important and  avoid keyword stuffing.

There you have it, 5 minute work.