Questions, web today vs 10 yrs ago, SEO, drive traffic to site, adwords, etc.

I have Zen Cart 1.5. After reading the business issues forums, I decided to post here. I am looking for more general than specific information, and welcome any input on any topic.. I hope I posted in the most appropriate area.

10-12 years ago, there was;.. natural search results, Google Adwords, and a Froogle Feed. And that was pretty much it. URL name and Relevant Content on the site was very important. I would say 75% or more of the traffic on my sites came from people 'searching' for my products. Things are wayyyyyy different now. For example, from what I understand, Froogle has turned into 'Google Product Search' and they are now charging. Bummer.

As of this post I have not taken any special SEO measures, advertising, social media steps, etc. I have done literally nothing to promote or advertise. I can tell you this, for sure. Things aren't like they used to be. Back in the day, if I had these two sites, just like they are, I wouldn't even need to come here and write this post because I would be too busy keeping up with orders.

I would love to get Zen-Folks opinions on the best and most efficient way to drive traffic to my sites, in today's new web. I have spent time reading the Zen forums, and I am still not sure which place(s) to dedicate my time. It would be nice to hear some more real experiences about results. I am working by myself and time is limited; so I want to spend time on the most relevant causes (biggest and/or best), and not everything and every little tool out there. I do believe that if I ignore marketing on Social Media, my business will suffer because of it. In particular my Bodyboard website.. That demographic reeeeally hits the Facebook, Twitter, and talk a lot. Bodyboarders have Bodyboarder friends.. and they txt like crazy too....word spreads; where they got their 'new board' etc.. My Lighting site has Lights for Clubs, Bands, DJ's, but it also has Concert lighting, which I don't know if FB will help with that or not?.. I know that DJ's and Clubs use social media a ton.. I am familiar with Adwords, and used it a lot in the past (is it still the same from 8 years ago, more or less?). Adwords used to work well for me, but is the web too over-saturated now? I know that the products I sell may determine which paths would be best for me, so the two sites that I want to promote as of now are https://www.stageandtheaterlighting.com and https://www.wholesalebodyboards.com .. .. Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated......and that includes criticism. Anything;; input about my sites as well, but in particular SEO and driving traffic to websites .... Perhaps SEO Plugins that will help? Perhaps more than one SEO Plugin?? I am very interested, but not limited to, SEO advice, experiences, etc. I believe that ultimately, SEO is going to be my best tool; but I don't know for sure and that's why I am here, to learn Thanks!! :)

The degree of sophistication of search engine algorithms increases exponentially, and (Google in particular) they are becoming more adept at interpreting page content from a qualitative perspective.

It's been said a hundred times on this forum and perhaps in may millions of posts all over the WWW - the focus must now be on good quality content. Plenty of meaningful information, good structure, logical navigation, and all these sorts of things.

The days of header <meta> tags being "important" are all but over. Google largely ignores everything except the <title> tag.

The world's major search engines have established SCHEMA.ORG whose purpose is to establish the common protocols behind what is known as MICRODATA, or "Rich Snippets".

These are EMBEDDED META TAGS within the content of a web page, that use standardised descriptors to identify the NATURE and PURPOSE of content within a web page.

I have already started to embed the elements into various code files so that it parses the properties of the page into acceptable microdata formats.

This is where I think things are heading...

It appears that header <meta> data will soon be totally ignored - along with many of the other "conventional" ideas on what a page needs to be "optimised". In the very near future, search engines will evaluate content, and rank web-pages based on the descriptors in these in-line meta tags.

Don't make the mistake I made and bum yourself down worrying about SERPs etc. By all means ensure you have relevant pages good unique content and make sure you dont fall victim to duplicate content (which zen mostly now deals with through canonical links).

Concentrate more on your customers, the product you are selling and how your visitors will interact with your site.

Google change their algorythms so often and to such and extent you can go from being raked top 10 to page 100 over night! in other words if you get good ranking think of it as a tempory bonus but NEVER EVER rely on organic listing for ecommerce. Use social networking & ppc advertising to bring visitors to your site so that if you ever loose your position you don't cry when your business goes from booming to nothing.

It really is true, if you build it, they will come and if you build it well they will come again and tell all their friends too!

oh and on the social media side, a little tip, if you use paid advertisng on facebook etc, advertise a facebook page promoting your business, dont just adveertise a link to your website. a visit to your website happens once. a like on facebook etc if poential mulpiple visits for years :o)

@ Schoolboy. I appreciate your input. Checking out Schema.org now. I am going to spend some time with that. Should I start putting these microdata tags in the pages that I can edit from Define Pages Editor? some of the other PHP pages? Since I am going to have thousands of products it would be great to get them into my showbook page,,, but that is way beyond my ability, unless I can do it as I add the product descriptions..... Is THAT one place I would want to put the tags, if at all.
Also, when you said "I have already started to embed the elements into various code files so that it parses the properties of the page into acceptable microdata formats.", are you talking about code for new Zen Cart versions in the future? or are you talking about your own personal sites?

@ Schoolboy and philip937.. what about current available SEO type plugins? do you suggest any? any you suggest not to use?

@philip937, thanks for the tip(s). Is there anything specific I need to do when setting up a FB page for my business? Twitter? I don't know anything about this type of site except my personal FB page. What are some specific things I should consider when setting up a FB page for my eCommerce website? Can I make a FB page called stage and theater lighting, for example, and if so, have it showcase my site? Sorry for the somewhat general questions, but this will be my first attempt at social networking for my websites and I would like to get started on the best foot. There is a website that will concatenate all of my social network sites (I don't have any yet) so that I can manage them from a single place; it's really cool. Had a friend show me a while back, but I don't remember the name of it. I'll look it up and post it her for others to benefit from. I'll take your word on the advertising. I used to spend a ton on Google Adwords. That used to pay off... if the ads were done properly. There was definitely a learning curve.

@ anybody else. I would love to hear any of your experiences, suggestions, etc... Like I said in the beginning of this thread, just having a website with stuff on it isn't enough anymore.. Keep the suggestions coming!!!!!!! And Thanks Zen Cart Folks

@ Schoolboy and philip937.. what about current available SEO type plugins? do you suggest any? any you suggest not to use?
There is much debate about search engine friendly urls. I happen to believe they do help, but if they dont they at least get highlighted better in search results where keywords are highlighted bold etc. I use CEON URI mappings, brilliant mod! As for other mods, zen-cart is pretty good out of the box, however some consideration to meta has been made in some other mods like meta tags for manufacturers and EZ pages. I believe you can set these in the META file but is easier though the admin with these mods. The only other things is to ensure that you dont have a ton of duplicate titles and descriptions. if you have categories and products that do not haven’t have meta set, it doesn’t work to well with auto generated ones.

@philip937, thanks for the tip(s). Is there anything specific I need to do when setting up a FB page for my business? Twitter? I don't know anything about this type of site except my personal FB page. What are some specific things I should consider when setting up a FB page for my eCommerce website?
You can set up a facebook page. I think you go to facebook/pages – once you have it set up start by building likes through your own personal family and friends, then perhaps you could send en email to your existing customer base, possibly offer them a discount for liking your page. Once you have a good following you can set up a facebook advertising account where you can promote your posts etc. If you don’t sell a generic thing I would suggest keeping your posts fairly ‘social’ by which I mean encourage discussions and talk about stuff in the news etc. If you have a seasonal type product or something that not everyone wants all the time then no one will like your page if all you ever do is post about widgets every day.. As for twitter, its all about following, retweeting etc, though I don’t rate twitter as an advertising medium as much as facebook. You can also get apps where you can showcase/sell your products straight from your facebook page, you can run competitions etc etc. all advertising can be targeted by gender, age, interest even marital status. Everyone should use facebook. I run adverts and bid just £1 per day, every month I reach more and more people as I gain more and more ‘likes’.

Good luck! :O)

"SE FRIENDLY URL's " There is absolutely no "SEO" advantage in using them with zencart. And they tend to create more problems than they (claim) to solve. I always say to people that if they are competing with my sites, then PLEASE USE SEO URL MODULES !!! It means I have one less competitor to worry about. In 9 years of extensive eCommerce site building, we have never used these modules, and most of the sites we build feature very strongly in SERPS.

On this forum, the threads with the biggest number of problems and issues are those relating to "SEO URL" and I cannot believe how many people out there are like sheep... even when they are TOLD there is no value and even when they are TOLD they put their site at risk - *they still go and install this junk *!

But it's up to you... if your site is in competition with any of mine, then do me a big favour and put "SEO URLS" onto your site.

As I said... the BIG SEO POTENTIAL is going to lie with embedded meta data in the visible page content, because THIS is what human beings will see, and THIS is what Search engines want to evaluate. The microdata will soon be the most critical SEO issue, so get in on the ground floor.

MELANIE PROUGH has produced a very good TUTORIAL on how to embed microdata coding into the PRODUCT INFO page.

I can't recall the URL to her site where this is referenced - but I think its on her blog.

I started to develop a similar method, but as she's done it already, I terminated my work and used hers...

Social Media, Blogs, MicroSites are all part of your WIDER WEB PRESENCE and you must remember to leverage the purposes of these sites. They are essentially mechanisms to channel your message across many formats. This not only widens the net, but creates better chances of being ranked more significantly in SE results.

Johnnycopilot:

@ Schoolboy. I appreciate your input. Checking out Schema.org now. I am going to spend some time with that. Should I start putting these microdata tags in the pages that I can edit from Define Pages Editor? some of the other PHP pages? Since I am going to have thousands of products it would be great to get them into my showbook page,,, but that is way beyond my ability, unless I can do it as I add the product descriptions..... Is THAT one place I would want to put the tags, if at all.
Also, when you said "I have already started to embed the elements into various code files so that it parses the properties of the page into acceptable microdata formats.", are you talking about code for new Zen Cart versions in the future? or are you talking about your own personal sites?

I am doing the microdata embedding on my sites only (over 200 of them, so I am using a team in Vietnam to help!)

Again... go to melanie prough's blog (her username here is mprough) and seek out that tutorial on microdata. It's quite a finicky procedure and needs great care - but Mel walks you through it very logically.

Melanie prough's blog
http://pro-webs.net/blog/2012/09/25/customizing-google-snippets-with-schema-org-microdata/
and she will install her Google Snippets Microdata for Zen Cart for you.

discoverytdi:

...and she will install her Google Snippets Microdata for Zen Cart for you.

probably a good idea if your site has been heavily customised, or if you are not adept at paying very careful attention to detail...

@schoolboy and philip937. thank you, I will take your advice. Great Stuff.
@discoverytdi thanks for the link. perfect. Schoolboy said it may be a good idea for Melanie to install google snipplet. Do I contact Melanie direct and ask her to install the google snipplet? How does that work? , I mean as far as her doing it for me..

@ Philip937

philip937:

I run adverts and bid just £1 per day, every month I reach more and more people as I gain more and more ‘likes’.
and this quote from earlier...
philip937:

advertise a facebook page promoting your business, dont just adveertise a link to your website.
When you say 'promoting my business', what exactly do you mean? Is this something that is going to be, more-or-less, self explanatory when I set up my FB page? That sounds like good advice, and I would like to try a small amount of advertising.

@ Schoolboy .. I am at Melanie's website now, and I am going to follow her instructions. http://pro-webs.net/blog/2012/09/25/customizing-google-snippets-with-schema-org-microdata/ .. If I understand correctly, these tags are telling the search engines WHAT the content of the website is, item by item, more-or-less, and doesn't involve keywords/phrases that I add; other than the content of the website that is already there ...... ? So, the search engines now have new things they are looking for to identify what they are seeing, instead of (or in addition to) the old 'meta' tags, and this system of tags IS that new thing...? Sorry for the dumb questions, but I like to know what I am doing and why I am doing it. It keeps me from asking as many dumb questions in the future. haha

When you say 'promoting my business', what exactly do you mean? Is this something that is going to be, more-or-less, self explanatory when I set up my FB page? That sounds like good advice, and I would like to try a small amount of advertising.
Your Facebook page will act as your businesses presence on Facebook. And yes once you set in up and start using it, it's fairly self explanatory :)

Cool, so if I understand you correctly; purchase advertising on FB to promote my business FB page, and don't purchase advertisement click-through to my retail/wholesale websites (if FB has click-through).

Johnnycopilot:

Cool, so if I understand you correctly; purchase advertising on FB to promote my business FB page, and don't purchase advertisement click-through to my retail/wholesale websites (if FB has click-through).

You can do either or you could do both, completely up to you. But I suggest the page as people more often 'like' a Facebook page than 'bookmark' a website. So once they like you you have unlimited access to promote your business to them for as long as they like you..
Anyway we are probably slightly off topic discussing marketing strategy here but hope you have got some ideas. :)

Now I get it and understand why you said that; once they 'like' me, I have direct marketing to them. great!

I am REALLY enjoying this thread, and am learning a lot from it. Anyone else that has any ideas or experiences to get my websites out there, please feel free to offer suggestions or experiences..

Thanks

@discoverytdi thanks for the link. perfect. Schoolboy said it may be a good idea for Melanie to install google snipplet. Do I contact Melanie direct and ask her to install the google snipplet? How does that work? , I mean as far as her doing it for me..

Melanie is installing this for me http://pro-webs.net/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=10_17&products_id=390 along with some other work on my site it includes social media sharing buttons and it includes google snipplets and for $100 I think it's worth it

Thanks. I have already started with the snipplets as per her website directions, but I may stop and purchase her package.