Is Your Store Losing Natural Rankings?

posted on: August 9, 2007

Over the past few months you may have noticed your store dropping in the natural rankings. If you are, you're not alone. We've heard from several clients who have recently found their pages slowly slipping into the supplemental index.

A recent design change, upgrade or redesign should not cause your pages to move into supplemental, but lack of unique content would. It is one of the most common mistakes that merchants make. Many of you are still using manufacturer supplied descriptions, descriptions from another store or information found somewhere else. Don't expect to rank well if you continue to use any of these.

Here are some ways in which you can improve your rankings and get your store out of the supplemental index:

• Write
• WRITE
• WRITE

It may seem like a daunting task, but it can be done. Start with your homepage by adding information about the products you are selling and include major search terms that are related to the product categories. Next, move to your high level section pages and write as much information about the type of products/sub-sections people will find in this category and include relevant any keywords. Continue on to your sub-sections, taking one at a time, and add as much information that you can think of. Don't be afraid to look at similar websites to get some ideas, but avoid copying them outright. (Sometimes it's just too easy)

One of the many hidden gems is to add content to your informational pages, with a lot of keyword rich text and links, without impeding the important contact information.

Last but not least, take a deep breath, rewrite your product descriptions. Depending on the number of products that you have this could be a daunting task, but will be well worth your time in the long run.

PS - Don't ignore important factors such as Title Tags and Meta Descriptions making sure that they are unique on each and every page. If you don't have any, get them! Custom copy is best, but there are many dynamic SEO templates for your Yahoo! Store to help get you started.

PPS - Almost all of these changes can be done in a CSV and uploaded at a later date. Keep that in mind as you plan your next steps.