photo credit: shutterback

For any e-commerce website, a perfectly optimized product name can be a powerful tool in your SEO arsenal. But how do you satisfy both your human and robotic visitors? Here’s one strategy that can help you get the most out of your product names.

Two Names

For each product in your database, you want to create two name fields. I’ll call them Long Name and Short Name. The Long Name works well for your product pages and title tags, while the Short Name can be used in your section pages and other internal links.

Long Name

In the Long Name field, you want to include as many relevant, searchable words as possible in roughly 65 characters or less (including spaces).

• Start by typing in the “official” name of the product.
• Unless you have a compelling reason to do so — perhaps to hinder comparison shopping in highly competitive niches — add the name of the manufacturer and the part number or model number.
• Using keyword research and old-fashioned common sense, add relevant keywords that your customers are searching for.

For example, my company sells a product that’s officially called the Plum A+ Infusion System. But on our website, we call it the Hospira 12391-05 Plum A+ Pole-Mounted Infusion Pump System.

This product name is great for search engine spiders, but what about your human visitors?

Short Name

In addition to making your customers’ eyes glaze over, super-long product names can wreak havoc on a beautiful section layout, turning lovely white space into a text-heavy mess. By using the Short Name field, you can reduce the clutter to provide a concise, clear and ultimately clickable link to your product.

On section pages, our product name has been reduced to Hospira Plum A+ Infusion Pump. It’s long enough to be descriptive, but short enough that it’s not overwhelming.

Making it Happen

photo credit: abbyladybug

In a perfect world, each product page in your store would be carefully constructed with SEO in mind. In the real world, e-commerce store owners tend to discover search engine optimization later in the game, when hundreds or thousands of products have already been added.

If you don’t have time to rewrite 3,000 product names today, don’t despair. Break the project into small, manageable chunks … an hour here, half an hour there. Start with your bestsellers and work your way slowly down the list.

I’ve found that using the concatenate function in a spreadsheet can save many, many hours of repetitive data entry. And if you lack time but not money, you can always hire a temp to do the grunt work.

Have a better strategy for optimizing product names? Let me know in the comments!

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E-commerce SEO: Optimizing Your Product Names

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For someone who’s not very social offline, social media doesn’t exactly come naturally.

I’m a little neurotic, to be honest. Should I add this person? What if they don’t add me back? Would that be awkward? (And didn’t she blog something last week about “friend whores?”)

Each social media channel has its own subtleties and nuances, which complicates things even more. People tend to be more private on Facebook than on MySpace. Sphinn users engage in heated but usually civil debate; Digg users have no qualms about insulting you, your mother or your genitalia. Or your mother’s genitalia.

StumbleUpon invites controversy by letting you review other members of the community. (I was labeled a “shitbag spammer” by an SEO-hater there. Good times!) You know things have gotten out of control when violent, hostile and vulgar are options in a drop-down list. You know, to save you the time and energy of coming up with your own insults.

On Twitter, the ratio of people you follow vs. people who follow you is a big deal. The web celebrities only follow a handful of people. Or they just follow everyone, and you know they’re not really reading all that. Marketers tend to keep their ratio fairly balanced, in a “scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours” sort of way.

photo credit: drinksmachine

Making the first move can be daunting, but sometimes it’s just as tough being on the receiving end of invites. When you add up all the people in the search, internet marketing and blogging communities, you have a pretty huge crowd. It would be impossible to listen to every voice.

Even if you wanted to. Which — let’s face it — you don’t.

I should probably channel my inner Miss America right now and say something sweet and inoffensive about how every person is beautiful and special. But let’s be honest here. You have to draw the line somewhere, and some people just don’t make the cut.

A few years ago, a bunch of single women went nuts over a self-help book titled He’s Just Not That Into You. The basic premise is this: If a guy really digs you, you’ll know it. If he doesn’t ask you out, he’s not “confused” or “intimidated.” He’s just not that into you.

You see where I’m going with this?

There are plenty of search marketing rock stars out there who don’t give me the time of day. And why should they? I’m just some schmuck who does SEO for a medical equipment store. I haven’t blogged much of value. I’ve never even been to a major search conference (although that will soon change).

If I want to be noticed, I have to do something worth noticing. With so many talented people competing for your attention online, that’s no easy task.

So the next time someone ignores you on Facebook or doesn’t answer your call for Diggs, don’t be offended. Take a hard look at yourself, and ask yourself why you’re disappearing in the crowd.

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Is your Twitter stream a weak trickle or a raging river? Are you impatiently waiting for the next batch of tweets, or are you inundated with far too many messages? Here’s how to adjust your tweet tap to find a happy medium.

By default, Twitter will only show you the @ replies of the people you’re following. So if you’re following Barry Schwartz and Danny Sullivan, you’ll see @ replies back and forth between those two people. But if Barry sends an @ reply to Andy Beal, you won’t see that message.

If you want to see @ replies to people you’re not following, here’s how to change your settings:

1. Go to your Twitter notifications control panel.
2. Find the @ Replies setting.
3. Switch this to all @ replies and press Save.

Be warned: Changing your settings to all @ replies can quickly become overwhelming. I did so a couple weeks ago, and while I found several cool new people to follow, I soon found myself drowning in tweets.

But what about the third option? If you switch your settings to no @ replies, you won’t see any @ replies. This may be useful if you prefer to use Twitter passively (like an RSS feed) and don’t engage in conversations.

Join the 235 other tweeple following SEO Woman on Twitter.

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It’s CSS Naked Day!

The idea behind this event is to promote Web Standards. Plain and simple. This includes proper use of (x)html, semantic markup, a good hierarchy structure, and of course, a good ‘ol play on words. It’s time to show off your < body >.

Wordpress bloggers, go download this plug-in if you want to get naked with me.

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While I’m not actively looking for a new job right now, I subscribe to several “help wanted” feeds in the search marketing industry because I want to stay informed on the current job market. The more I read, the more I realize that many employers have no idea what to expect out of an SEO.

Granted, SEOs and internet marketers are a diverse bunch. Some of us start with a technical background in programming or web design. Some of us have a business degree or a marketing degree. Some, like myself, were once journalists or copywriters. And some of us aren’t even old enough to drink, much less have a degree or an employment history.

But while each of us brings a unique perspective to the art and science of search engine marketing, how many of us can claim to have ALL of the following skills? I’ll break this down personally so you can see how I measure up.

Skills I (Arguably) Possess

• A good understanding of SEO/SEM
• A good understanding of pay-per-click management
• Implementation and use of website traffic/log analysis tools
• 2+ years of experience with HTML and HTML authoring tools
• Experience with CSS and template management
• 2+ years of experience with image creation and editing tools

Skills I Probably Don’t Have

• Excellent organizational skills (I’m OK.)
• Excellent verbal (why not?), written (yes) and interpersonal (*cough cough*) skills
• Minimum of 3 years experience in IT (got root?)

Skills I Definitely Don’t Have

• 1-2 years experience with JavaScript (no, unless “copy, paste, cheer when it works” is “experience”)
• Basic knowledge of relational database programming in an SQL server environment (makes my head hurt)
• Knowledge of full software product life cycle development (do what now?)

photo credit: bjmccray

Believe it or not, all of these required skills came from a single “help wanted” ad.

Now, I’m sure there are a handful of Übermensch out there who meet every one of these requirements. But what are the odds that these superhuman SEOs want to work in BFE, Texas, for $45,000 a year?

Another “help wanted” ad demanded “7+ years of experience.” Dude. Rand Fishkin didn’t start until 2002. Seriously, how many people have been optimizing websites for a full 7 years?

And if you have been optimizing sites for 7 years, do you really need to be “proficient with Microsoft Word and Internet Explorer?” I can’t remember the last time I even opened Microsoft Word.

Am I wrong?

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From: Digg
To: Me

Hey there! [Username] is your latest fan. He became your fan because he likes what you are up to on Digg and wants to see what you think is interesting.

From: Me
To: Digg

Umm, excuse me? How do you know why [username] became my latest fan? Considering that [username] has been a member of Digg for exactly 7 days and now has 975 “friends,” I seriously doubt I hold a special place in his heart.

Just sayin’.

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Micah Owen Doss. Born January 10, 2008 at 7:39 a.m. 9 pounds, 3 ounces. Cutest. Baby. Evar.

So far, he seems easier than his sister was. He sleeps most of the day and doesn’t fuss much. But he also never wants to be put down (hooray, Moby Wrap) and nurses like a madman.

2 kids and a mortgage. Am I really 30 already?

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Don’t get it? Grab your tinfoil hat and and read this article.

About 95% of my RSS feeds are SEO/SEM-related. Of the remaining 5%, most are focused on blogging, freelancing or working online. I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER is one of my few guilty pleasures, along with Go Fug Yourself. I don’t know, I guess it’s a chick thing.

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The dilemma

I’m trying to rank my company’s website for a competitive keyword phrase. According to many search engine gurus, I should try to get links from websites that already rank well for this keyword phrase. Since many of those websites are my direct competitors, my opportunities in this arena are pretty slim.

However, the website in the number-one spot is a shopping portal. They don’t actually sell products … they sell advertising for companies like mine. They’re also a bunch of dirty spamgoblins. Here a few examples I found just on the home page:

• Very light gray (#DFDFDF) keyword-stuffed links on a white background at the very top of the page.
• More keywords stuffed into HTML comment tags.
• More keywords stuffed into file and directory names (”…blue-widgets-red-widgets/buy-widgets/sell-widgets.jpg” alt=”Did I mention widgets?”).
• Links that look exactly like the surrounding non-linked text and don’t change appearance on mouseover.
• Even more keywords stuffed into link title tags and CSS id tags.

But the best example comes straight from an e-mail I received from one their salespeople:

If you are interested in direct links for organic search … please call me.

And while not it’s technically spammy, it’s a little slimy to offer “optimizing every product that you put on our sight [sic] (each product will come up on page one on Google).” Guaranteeing page one Google results is classic snake oil salesmanship in the SEO field.

So many questions

Should I report them for spam? Should I report them for selling organic links? Should I just keep my nose to the grindstone and stop worrying about their shady techniques?

These questions keep running through my mind, but they’re a lot easier to deal with than the next set of questions:

Should I start stuffing keywords into my own pages? Should I buy their organic links? What’s the point of being a white-hat SEO when the spamgoblins are clearly not getting caught?

What would you do (that you’ll admit to)?

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If you can’t beat ‘em, report ‘em … or join ‘em

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Back in my SEO newbie days, I used to wonder why the keyword “Clinton cabinet” had such a dismal click-through rate compared to my other pay-per-click keywords. Among many other things, my company sells cabinets made by a manufacturer named Clinton. It seemed like a perfect match.

Then one day, it dawned on me that people searching the phrase “Clinton cabinet” were most likely looking for Bill Clinton’s presidential cabinet. A quick search on Google confirmed my suspicion, and I dropped the keyword.

Since then, I’ve learned to keep an eye out for double meanings like this. Whenever I see a keyword performing way under the norm, I do a quick manual search to see what comes up.

I thought “power stretcher” was a good keyword for an electric hospital stretcher, but it turned out to be a carpet installation device. “Patrol pump” is a type of medical pump, but “pump patrol” is a way to check for cheap gas prices.

My personal favorite: “green medical stool“. Yikes. It seemed like a good idea at the time …

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Keywords with two meanings? Inconceivable!

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