"Maximizing ROI in eCommerce with Search" presented on June 12 at SES Toronto 2012, by Guillaume Bouchard, president and CEO at NVI.
This slideshow presents :
- Choosing the right e-Commerce platform
- E-Commerce sites: 2009 vs. 2012
- IP geolocation & browser language detection
- Rich snippets
- Mobile e-Commerce
- e-Commerce site as a destination
- Social signals
1. Maximizing ROI in e-Commerce with
Search
June 12th, presented by Guillaume Bouchard
2. Table of Content
• Choosing the right e-Commerce platform
• E-Commerce sites: 2009 vs. 2012
• IP geolocation & browser language detection
• Rich snippets
• Mobile e-Commerce
• e-Commerce site as a destination
• Social signals
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4. Choosing the right e-Commerce platform
What to look for?
• Proper handling of product images
• Manual control of Head and Meta titles (at the page level)
• Possibility to program dynamic title tags / meta description
• Product review system
• Segmented sitemaps (Video, Images, Text, Mobile)
• 301 redirects and URL rewriting capabilities
• Site speed
• Breadcrumb navigation
• Upon deleting any pages, offer rules to keep acquired weight (link juice)
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5. Choosing the right e-Commerce platform
Magento vs Shopify
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6. Choosing the right e-Commerce platform
Magento vs Shopify
MAGENTO SHOPIFY
Self-hosted solution (PHP / Hosted by Shopify (SaaS)
mySQL)
Open source Shop owner doesn’t have access
to source code
Unlimited customization Core functionality cannot be
modified
Design is highly flexible Design is highly flexible
Tech support is not cheap Tech support is included
Suited for companies with highly Suited for companies without
skilled PHP programmers PHP programmers available
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8. E-Commerce sites: 2009 vs. 2012
Focus on the product page
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9. E-commerce sites: 2009 vs. 2012
• Low-res product images
• Alt Tags are not optimized
• Duplicate content from
manufacturer’s website
• No sharing buttons or
comments section
• Poor product descriptions
• Poor user experience
• External links with same
anchor text pointing only
to category/subcategories
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10. E-commerce sites: 2009 vs. 2012
• Multiple images
• Alt Tags are optimized
• Unique content
• Sharing buttons & FB
comments
• Fun product descriptions
• Great overall UX
• Natural linkgraph, juicy
links acquired via a blog
or high quality content pages
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12. IP Geolocation
Why?
IP geolocation allows you to detect where a visitor is located and tailor their
experience to their geographical needs.
• Global navigation (avoiding the country selector landing page)
• Offer and product localization (geographically-specific)
• Experience optimization (based on internet connection type)
• Multi channel (avoiding steps to find closest store, lookup store inventory)
• Checkout optimization
• Fraud prevention
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13. Browser language detection
What about language on multilingual sites?
• Identify the primary language of users visiting your site from each country
and province
• If the majority of visitors from a province are French, have an browser
language detection to bring visitors from that province to your French landing
page by default (if their browser is in French)
• A cookie would be stored that would remember the user’s choice and still
allow them to change their language preference
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15. Rich Snippets
Use rich snippets to sell directly from SERPs
Rich snippets allow e-commerce sites to markup their HTML and content so
Google can enhance the snippets displayed in the SERPs
What types of e-commerce content are supported?
• Product Reviews/Ratings
• Product Images
• Product Prices
• Product Availability
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16. Rich Snippets
How to implement rich snippets
1) Selecting a markup format: 2) Mark up your products
• Microdata
• Microformats 3) Use Google’s rich snippet testing
tool to ensure your marked-up data is
• RDFa
properly formatted and appearing
• hProduct
Note: while any of the three markup formats can be used, Google
recommends using HTML5 Microdata
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17. Rich Snippets
The outcome
• Rich snippets allow you to attract potential buyers while they are searching
for products on Google
• They increase the CTR from organic SERPs
• They are a visual way for businesses to display their products, prices and
reviews quickly
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18. hProduct
Visual display of product page using hProduct
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20. Optimize your e-Commerce site for Mobile
Mobile usage in numbers (North America)
• 8M (40%) Canadians own a
Smartphone
• 5% of Canadians own a tablet (of
which 88% are satisfied)
• In the U.S., an estimated 77% of
tablet users use it daily for about 90
minutes
• Mobile traffic is projected to surpass
desktop traffic by 2015
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21. Optimize your e-Commerce site for Mobile
M-Commerce 2012
• In the absence of a mobile app, your products and e-Commerce
site MUST be accessible by any type of mobile device
• Ergonomics of the tablet facilitates payment for products with a
longer buying process (i.e. Travel)
• Smartphones as payment terminals will help facilitate the
purchase of products with shorter buying process (i.e. event
tickets, books, music)
• Mobility of smartphones coupled with geolocation can help you
attract consumers to your stores (i.e. location-based coupons,
deals and discounts)
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22. Optimize your e-Commerce site for Mobile
Make your e-Commerce site mobile-friendly
For smartphones
• Mobile subdomain
• Make content visually appealing for limited screen viewing (CSS)
• Avoid using Flash, Java, Ajax and Frames
• Test your site with W3C mobileOK and on multiple
devices/browsers
• A mobile e-Commerce app gives you a competitive edge
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23. Optimize your e-Commerce site for Mobile
Make your e-Commerce site mobile-friendly
For tablets
• Change CSS so your site is optimized for tablet viewing
• Limit the amount of scrolling required (use Previous and Next)
• Optimize checkout process by using cookies, postal codes and Paypal
• Make it touchable – HTML5 and CSS3
• 5 viewing angles: vertical and landscape (in mobile & tablet) and desktop
• Testing
• A tablet app is recommended (though it’s not picked up in organic SERPs)
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25. E-Commerce site as a destination
No longer just a product catalog
• E-commerce sites are no longer just product catalog websites where
optimization requires aggressive category/product page linkbuilding
• The 2012 e-Commerce site must offer users something unique that
competitors cannot offer (unique selling proposition) – something that
provides users with a reason to keep coming back.
• Push vs. Pull Strategy…
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26. E-Commerce site as a destination
RONA
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27. E-Commerce site as a destination
ThinkGeek
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29. Social Signals
Where do they belong – Where don’t they belong?
The most shareable pages on an e-commerce site are the PRODUCT PAGES
While category and subcategory pages might be the most tempting pages
to rank, they are the least shareable e-Commerce pages
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30. Social Signals
Maximizing social signals
The products themselves can be interesting but the way to maximize
your pages shareability is by having:
• Unique content
• Reviews / Ratings
• Unique and high quality images
• Unique videos
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Images = a lot of eCommerce platforms don't provide the necessary control and commit a lot of SEO missteps (like generating a new URL when the product images are cycled)Sitemaps = monitors indexation of different sections of your website
Magento =
Limit bounce rate by focusing on optimizing your kw research and usability of the siteLimit abandonment of shopping cart by keeping cart active until next visit, add customer service #, propose tracking control, fast conversion funnelLimit page load time by minimizing the weight of images and Flash animations (bad for SEO)
SEO was concerned with first page in SERPs for its category pages and main products, diverse and high quality backlink profile, optimized page elementsSocial was concerned with optimization of content to get links on platforms such as Digg, StumbleUponThese tactics are no longer the winning ingredient – creativity and uniqueness are required to stand out from the competition
This page alone has 515 links from 13 different root domainsProduct page is engaging = allowing customers to submit pictures of them using/wearing products, allows sharing/commentingImproving your product page = improving sales and user experience (retention strategy)It can be a challenge in terms of cost but it’s more than worth the effortAn e-commerce site with optimized product pages that are esthetically-pleasing and user-friendly can generate more conversions
Global navigation = country selector landing page creates a barrier to entry for the customer (and annoys search engine spiders)Offer/Product localization = site can promote winter products to Northeast US shoppers and summer products to Florida/Southwest shoppersExperience optimization = optimize your site by connection type (i.e. mobile connections = mobile store or slow connections = low res site version)Multi channel = the site already knows where the shopper is browsing from so it can find the closest store without shopper having to enter infoCheckout optimization = pre-populate fields (i.e. country, province/state, postal code/zip code, shipping and tax estimators)Fraud prevention = compare the location of the shopper’s IP address to their provided credit card billing address and shipping address
No matter what method of language or country detection you choose, the key is to make sure that it is not only user friendly but accommodating to spiders.
When Google discovers the new markup on your e-commerce site, it will begin reading the tags and displaying rich snippets for your site within the SERPs
Hproduct = root class nameBrand = brand nameCategory = product category namePrice = priceDescription = product descriptionFn = product text name (Gordon Ramsay’s Fast Food Recipes from the F Word)Photo = product photourl = product page urlReview = product reviewshttp://jay.beweep.com/2009/05/14/hproduct-example-of-the-day-gordon-ramsay/
Source: 8M Canadians = Comscore (sept 2011)Source: 5% Canadians (tablets) = CWTA and the Media Technology Monitor (dec 2011)Source: 77% US Tablet Users = http://s3.amazonaws.com/files.posterous.com/deepend/KA43IXPa27TRHmHZ6CGNlkUr17KVNGJ4vIApMPUTSaQQEdM9K1Ma1Cw89JOf/image003.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJFZAE65UYRT34AOQ&Expires=1330627677&Signature=PVAatwAj3wRvpWEKyO6gvQGw3KA%3DSource: mobile traffic 2015 = http://www.slideshare.net/fred.zimny/morgan-staneley-internet-trends-ri041210Table with % in mobile (source comscore US/CAN feb 2012): http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2012/7236/key-mobile-marketing-stats-and-trends-for-2012
A shopper or searcher on a smartphone has markedly different needs and motivations than their counterpart who uses a tablet.
Mobile subdomain = Having one distinct mobile URL keeps your mobile optimization from interfering with your classic optimization (keeping the same experience on the small screen), and allows the GoogleBot Mobile to visit and index the mobile version for mobile searches.Content = Reduce the image sizes and ensure fonts and content are simple enough to quickly scan and understand.Mobile app = keeps your customers from browsing the web and looking at your competition; instead it places them directly in your virtual store via your app.
Change CSS for tablet viewing = limits duplicate contentHTML5 and CSS3 = to create scrolling and horizontal navigation – to put all content on one pageTablet app = connects your products to the instant consumer in one tap. Apps easily store all your information in one place and remove the annoyance of waiting for a page to load. They also make the paying experience more enjoyable.
Rona created a resource for customers to plan and execute their own home renovation projectsRona provides the information and tools to manage your own project from the planning stages to the building stages
ThinkGeek runs contests that encourage their shoppers to submit photos of themselves using/wearing their products (winners are published on the product pages of the products they used)
Within the product page, the social sharing buttons should not distract the user from completing a purchase