Macalua.com

This site threw some e-commerce SEO questions Aaron Wall’s way. Some of the questions were just too close to home, I couldn’t resist not answering…

Q: Typically, eCommerce site owners have a harder time generating incoming links than say a blog would. What link building strategies do you recommend for eCommerce sites that have hundreds or even thousands of products?

M: E-commerce sites aren’t link-handicapped. True link building for thousands of SKU pages is a challenge but most of the techniques that work for non-e-commerce sites still prove effective for shopping sites. Here are a few:

1. Push press releases to syndication sites - when launching a new product category or high-margin SKU, when you’ve won an industry award (Internet Retailer, Forbes Top 50, etc.), when you’ve partnered with a new site search, email service, ratings&review or payment service provider — let the whole online world know about it via an optimized press release. Optimized PRs alone already have some inherent link value but it is when they’re syndicated by mainstream media that their real worth is realized. Also, make it a requirement for the service provider to add your site to its client page.
2. Do social womm - ship 5 pieces of the product instead of 1 especially if you’re shipping to linkhappy geeks like me. If you really have something to show, invite a prominent blogger to your office to have an insider’s look into the magical warehouse. Btw, after you’ve read the warehouse story, you’ll have a clearer picture on whether the Engadget post was paid for or not.
3. Make your store a research center - how can we not include our all-time favorite “content is king” tactic here? Resist the urge to just republish the same product information from your supplier’s data feed. Enrich it with more product photos, more product information, links to manufacturer sites, etc. Enable customers to leave ratings and reviews, and to ask and answer questions. Services like BazaarVoice get your UGC store strategy up and running in days. If you keep the signal level up and the noise level down, the linking crowd will notice and will link to your SKU page for the product information and UGC alone.
4. Drop that coupon - If you haven’t sent out a press release or dropped an innocent comment in a high traffic blog about your latest coupon code, consider manually alerting all the coupon sites out there about your time-bound outrageous discount offer. If you can, make custom coupon codes and make it site exclusive. Coupon sites rank high for a lot of long-tail product searches (some even rank for company brand searches) so that’s one more reason to not forget this emerging channel.
5. Under promise, over deliver - This has to be my personal favorite. When your fulfillment department is second to none, you will be rewarded with a lot of real, organic, link-laden positive reviews on third party sites like blogs and forums. The reverse is also true. Kill the post-sale customer experience and you will still attract links, albeit the negative kind.

Aaron suggests using affiliate programs, contests and company blogs for link building. Two things: I have yet to see an affiliate program service provider that counts passing on link juice in its product feature list. Also, using company blogs as a link building source for an e-commerce company isn’t really a proven link building tactic yet. Note to self: get on a call with CJ and ask them why the hell have they not included this in their features list.

Q: What type of keyword strategy would you recommend for an online retailer with a large product catalog? Should the focus be on a few, larger volume keywords or a long tail approach?

You need both traffic and quality, so long-tail and short-tail keywords should be part of your keyword selection strategy. The value isn’t only for organic SEO…these same keywords will power your PPC and DFO strategies. The other selection criterion would be keywords that are driving traffic to your competitors. If you can steal traffic off those keywords, you kill two birds with one stone.