Sep 18, 2008

Boost your e-commerce site’s search rankingBy Emily MaltbyMoney.CNN.com

Question: I’ve been learning about SEO and trying to work it into my company Web site, fretzels.com, which can definitely use an SEO makeover. My company, Fretzels by Jill, makes really unique hand-dipped gourmet chocolate-covered pretzels like you’ve never seen or tasted before.

I have Google Analytics set up and notice that most of the traffic comes from those who are searching for my site. What can I do to increase my Web site’s visibility when people are searching for more general keywords related to my product? For example, I’d love for people searching for “corporate gifts” or “unique gifts” to be able to find my site. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. – Jill

Dear Jill: Your Web site designer did a fantastic job with the layout of your site: The colors, text and images are crisp and fun and convey a unified brand image. However, the designer missed out on some back-end stuff that can really enhance your search-engine rankings. We recruited three search-engine optimization (SEO) experts to reveal tips on how to get better rankings – and on how to get visitors to make purchases once they find your site.

According to Chris Padavick, president of Hieroweb Interactive, you don’t have a lot of verbiage on your site that’s working in your favor. “If you are interested in getting people looking for corporate gifts, you must have keywords on your page that relate to that,” he says.

In the same vein, you should be aware that as search crawlers scan your site for keywords, they do not register images, even if the image contains text.

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