Consider SEO When Reading Shopping Cart Reviews

SEO, or "Search Engine Optimization" is one of those phrases you always hear about when starting an online business, but you might not know what it means or why you need to consider SEO when reading shopping cart reviews. Almost every ecommerce software provider and shopping cart solution will tell you that they have good SEO support. They may even brag about how "SEO friendly" their product is, but at the end of the day (somewhere around 2:00 am), you are the one who is going to have to deal with those SEO capabilities. Here are things to think about when you are weighing the SEO elements in a shopping cart review:

1. Title Tags: While Title tags are not the end all be all of SEO, they are one of the most important elements when laying your SEO foundation. They serve double duty, both informing search engines about your site, and being displayed in the search results that users will actually click on to go to your site. It's important that the shopping cart or ecommerce software you pick tells you up front that you can control the Title tags. If you can't control these tags, then you are at a disadvantage right out the gate.

2. Static URLs: URLs are also an important factor for ranking well in search engines. If you are trying to rank for "hiking boots," then having the term hiking boots somewhere in your URL will help drive traffic to your pages. However, your shopping cart software may not always display the same page the same way (this is called a "dynamic" URL - because it's constantly changing). Be thorough when reading shopping cart reviews. There should be some mention of the ability to create static or custom URLs. Keeping a tight site construction doesn't hurt either. Your content needs to be organized, but having the final page closer to the domain (www.domain.com/category/product1) will get you better results than a deeper, longer URL like www.domain.com/category1/subsection1/product-type2/product4.

3. Rich text (vs. JavaScript or Flash): Figure out how heavily the shopping cart you are looking at relies on JavaScript and/or Flash. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with these utilities, but pages featuring rich text (especially rich text with the keywords you want to rank for) high up on the page will rank higher in search engines. Search engine spiders still can't read Flash or JavaScript, so make sure your ecommerce solution doesn't lump all of your content into one or the other. When reading shopping cart reviews, look for sections that mention "the ability to add rich text" or "add unique text."

4. Image attributes: If you are trying to sell something online you are going to definitely need images to show people what they are buying. The more pictures you have, the more attractive you can make the item, and the more information you can impart to the customer. These pictures can also be valuable to your SEO if your shopping cart software allows you to adjust their attributes (like alt, title, description, and caption). If done correctly, this kind of SEO tactic can help the images rank in "Google Image" searches, as well as straight up "Google" (or Bing! or whomever), driving traffic you might not even expect. Make sure that somewhere in the shopping cart review there is mention of this kind of control.

5. Support and shopping cart reviews: How eager is the ecommerce software company when it comes to providing you with SEO support? Volusion has a weekly SEO video series on their blog that mirrors the SEOMoz "Whiteboard Fridays," which makes them seem like they really know their stuff when it comes to SEO. This is the perfect place for them to try to draw in SEO business from merchants using their ecommerce solution. BigCommerce is well known for having an extremely optimized hosted shopping cart. In fact, BigCommerce had SEO expert Aaron Wall review their ecommerce solution to make sure it was up to expert SEO standards.

Only you will be able to determine if the SEO services that the company is pitching are worth the price, but beware of "pay walls." Some shopping carts will throw out a few low level SEO features with little advice on how to use them effectively, then charge you for added features to level your site up. You can't always go it alone, but if the shopping cart review mentions SEO features at a pay premium or seems to be setting you up to dip into your pocket somewhere down the line, be cautious.

If you don't know a lot about SEO going into your ecommerce venture, then you're probably going to feel like you need to learn everything about it, and quick! It can seem overwhelming at first, especially since the state of SEO seems to be changing every day. Take some deep breaths, find some free SEO articles written by people who aren't trying to directly sell you something in the article, and just start absorbing the basics. If you keep the few points in this article in mind, you'll be one step closer to choosing a shopping cart solution or ecommerce software that will position you for SEO success.