SEO and Fry’s Open Commerce Platform

What’s the use in having a great site if nobody can find it? That’s the value of SEO, which we take pretty seriously here at Fry.

And we’re not the only ones. Forrester Research projects spend on paid listings, which includes paid inclusion, and search engine optimization (SEO) to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15% to $32 billion by 2014.

 

Sure, engaging with a knowledgeable Search Engine Marketing firm for paid search is almost a necessity, but what about what you can control from a search optimization standpoint on your Web site? Fry has worked diligently over the years to enhance the search engine optimization capabilities of OCP to give our customers control of a few things and automate quite a bit more to make their jobs even easier.

Fry’s Open Commerce Platform Innate Search Engine Optimization Capabilities:

• Readable and Configurable URLs
  Our URLs include the category or product name, which increases the relevance of the page by displaying searchable text. OCP provides a tag library to easily create readable URLs such as the following, which reads a lot nicer than a bunch of numbers and illegible letters: http://www.sitename.com/Product/Apparel/Womens/Pants/Denim-5-Pocket-Capris/
  Our URL format is configurable too so as search engines continue to modify their algorithms, Fry will adjust the format of URLs.
• Alt Tags for Products
  Alternate text that displays before images load or in lieu of images if there is a problem loading. Testing has shown that Google counts Alt tags as an occurrence of the keyword on the page, which contributes to establishing higher rank when that keyword is searched. OCP dynamically creates alt tags for product images using the product name that is administered in the Site Manager, though users of the management tool can override the alt tag if they would like.
• Consistent Link Structure
  OCP avoids duplicate pages that can hurt search engine rankings.
• Site Maps
  Major search engines have standard formats for listing all the pages on a site. Our auto-generated (and regularly updated) site maps help search engines find every current page on the site.
• Elimination of Broken Links
  Getting indexed by the search engines can take time and changes to the product data can cause broken links and as a result, a search engine links to a page that does not exist. Fry URLs include the category or product system identifier to ensure all links still work, even after a name or key has been changed.
• Product Description Text
  Product descriptions are stored and displayed as text (instead of images or Flash files) making it easier for search engines to read.
• User Generated Text
  Product reviews, such as Bazaarvoice or PowerReviews, add additional text to each page that may also be indexed by search engines. This user generated text also expands the keywords that apply to the page. In addition each user comment contains a date stamp which contributes to the freshness factor that Google uses to elevate page rank.
• Javascript
  Javascript has been moved farther down in the page code since it is not of importance to search engines which are looking for information at the top of the page.
  
  

User Controlled Search Engine Optimization Capabilities Within the Open Commerce Platform’s Site Manager:

• Content Page Meta Tags
  Users can manage title, description, and keyword meta-tags associated with each page.
• Product Meta Data
  Users can manage description, and keyword meta-tags associated with each product.
• Alt Tags for Product Images
  As defined earlier these are auto-populated but can be overwritten by users.
• Alt Tags for Content Images
  Users can create alt tags for content images of various formats.
  
  

Do you currently have the automatic and manual search engine optimization capabilities listed above? If not, we’d like to show you what our Open Commerce Platform can do to help your site get higher rankings on the search engines and found by the people looking for it.