Maximising your internal linking structure really does make a huge difference to your “On Page SEO” efforts. Each page on your site passes a certain amount of PageRank through to every page that is linked to from that particular page.
Theory goes that the more often a page is linked to the more important it must be.
Taking this theory into account means we must hand out “link equity” fairly conservatively when putting our pages together, making sure you only link to pages that you have to, or are of utmost importance ie categories and products pages.
Now taking “link equity” into account, one thing that continues to bug me (and some may think that I am a bit pedantic) is the way that Interspire/BigCommerce have set up their templates to handle all these “Add to Cart” and “Choose Options” links that are scattered throughout the site (see image below).
Unfortunately each of these links will pass a little bit of PageRank through to the Shopping Cart Page, which is really not a page that is likely to bring in a lot of search engine traffic. So it makes sense that we really don’t want to link to this page unless it’s absolutely necessary (i.e. the product page).
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It’s no secret that using heading tags (<h1>… <h6>) is one of many tactics used to successfully optimise a webpage for search engines. While the overall impact using heading tags has on your rankings is somewhat debatable (mostly due to terrible misuse), it is certainly a best practice and you should be using heading tags where appropriate.
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Good-quality SEO knowledge is without doubt one of the most highly sought after skill sets of anybody that is looking to promote their online store.
Understanding the basics of SEO can save you a ton of cash, whether it be via performing the tasks yourself, or by having the ability to sort through and find an SEO consultant that knows what they’re talking about.
Unfortunately over the years there has been a lot of terrible SEO information dished out by a bunch of self-proclaimed experts, a lot of which I am sad to say has been aimed at leading newcomers up the garden path and into their greedy mits.
Now don’t get me wrong not everything you read about SEO is unreliable, once you start understanding the process you soon realise who knows what they’re talking about and who doesn’t. The misinformation problem will generally only affect you if you are a SEO newbie and still not sure who and what information to trust.
Fortunately if you are reading this and find yourself in the SEO newbie category you might be in luck. Starting mid-January I will be accepting applicants to a beta version BigCommerce SEO Training Course which will be aimed at:
- helping you better understand the SEO process, and
- give you confidence to perform the basic SEO tasks on your BigCommerce store yourself.
This course will cover the bare basics of BigCommerce SEO and will be delivered online via an as yet to be released members portal.
As a totally new course it will initially be made available to a limited number of people totally free of charge, all you need to do is get on the waiting list with a valid e-mail address to be notified to sign up when the first few lessons are ready.
If you are at all interested in learning more about how to optimise your BigCommerce store please click here to add your e-mail address to the waiting list.
