Lessons from Google's Penguin update and tips to improve your ecommerce SEO

Google's Penguin update affected 3% of the sites, but the SEO section of the BigCommerce Forum remained quiet. Stores either don't rank that well to feel a change or they are doing something well to remain unharmed after such an update.

The Penguin Update is a new search algorithm meant to do a better against keyword stuffing, link schemes, cloaking and duplicate content. On April 24th 2012 Google has rolled out this update and some businesses, which relied solely on Google, have been thrown to the garbage can. Webmasters even created a petition and others have pointed out the flaws of the algorithm.

Why should BigCommerce store owners care about all these news and fights? Because for Google any ecommerce website is seen as a normal website. Thus, BigCommerce SEO follows the same rules created by the search giant years ago.

Few lessons to learn from Google's Penguin update

Why does Google create bad names for pandas and penguins? Well, they are neat black and white animals and maybe because of that. Google wants to push the spam to the back of the truck and keep the good stuff in front. Unfortunately casualties cannot be avoided, very few good sites get hit, and some spam or low quality sites will still get by.

Danny Sullivan, from MarketingLand.com, remembered the whole SEO world that we should not depend entirely on Google or SEO.

People said last year that SEO is dead, that you cannot have any control over where you'll rank. The changes are so many and sometimes difficult to keep up with solely because Google wants to keep the algorithm secret and shove off the spam.

SEO is not dead, and following basic rules you can still get high value traffic and be prepared for the changes to come. That is lesson number one. If you stick with it and don't get dragged into the dream of success over night you will be just fine.

The small

Second lesson is to NOT depend only on one source of traffic. If you depend 80% on the traffic from Google search then an update like Penguin could ruin your business. Ideally you would want to have an almost evenly distributed graph of traffic sources between search, referral and direct traffic.

The above graph needs to have a more even distribution of traffic sources, but it is good that one in five visitors has the site in bookmarks. Also, paid search traffic should not be dismissed. Yes, paying for ads in Google or Bing can be beneficial if you spend enough money to tweak and optimize our ads.

Third lesson is that spamming is a risky activity. Yes, even after many algorithm updates you may see lower quality sites ranking well. At that point you may think that you should use the same shady tactics as them. Temptation is big, but don't do it. The end result will be a drop in rankings or a penalty just waiting to happen.

I have read a few time in the forums that BigCommerce store owners wanted to use some automatic applications to get backlinks. That is spam also. Those links won't help. At first you will see a bump in the ranking and soon enough you will drop in rankings. You get what you pay for.

As Aaron Wall points out, Google seems to still rank sites that are low quality, but are older or even abandoned. Or, it still ranks big brand sites that have blank pages. Yes, it is unfair that they rank better than you but you need to keep in mind one thing: keep doing the good work and don't use spam. Let me give you a good old SEO tip: spammers cannot afford to go out and get some .edu links (unless they pay college students!) or have a blog post in high quality sites. This is where you come in.

Still not enough of lessons learned? Well, here is lesson number four: if you get hit, take a deep breath and then formulate a plan to solve the issue. It is easy to remain in denial and to cry here and there, but it will be better for you to solve the issues and get as much work done as possible. If you get hit by something like Penguin, then you should look at HubSport's article about recovering and getting a new start.

Fifth and final lesson form Penguin: Google, or any other search engine for that matter, doesn't owe you a living. We are so used of getting many things on the internet for free that we take them for granted. We forget that whoever lets us use the websites, information and apps for free is not required to do so, but they are still offering those to us.

Also, we should not forget that Google depends on the content we all create in order to have what to show in the search results page. It is a somewhat disproportionate symbiotic relationship between websites and Google. Although Google uses your website to show information in the SERPs and in certain areas it has the monopoly, it doesn't owe you a living. There are certain rules to be followed and some can get a piece of the pie, but you can't blame them if you depend solely on it.

So, this might sound harsh, but it is the truth. Keep on creating great work, don't put all your eggs in one basket and don't expect Google to make you king of the hill just because you feel so.

Perfecting on-page optimization for ecommerce sites

That's more like it. I mean, keeping a positive attitude and being proactive towards SEO is a good way to spend the day. Perfecting on-page optimization isn't as easy as we'd like, but BigCommerce has done quite a good job in providing the tools for the job.

"Most?", you would ask. Yes. BigCommerce has still some issues to resolve like: canonical link for home page and pages created in Website Content, sitemaps for videos and images, 301 redirect from /index.php to root, access to .htaccess file, tweaking the sitemap, making the product title a h1 heading, not h2, having the side column titles in h3, not h2 and several other tweaks like these.

But, reading through this comprehensive list of things an ecommerce platform needs to have SEO wise you see that BigCommerce has done lots of things the right way.

Looking at the list of 15 things you need to have to perfect the on-page optimization you will see that most of them are in the BigCommerce platform:

• customer reviews are on the platform - enable them in Settings- Comments and leave even negative reviews out there


• product videos - they can be inserted in any product by editing a product then going to Images tab


• Q&A content - that would be good, BigCommerce doesn't have it


• social sharing buttons - they can be found in product pages and can be enabled in Settings - Store - Sharing. It would be a nice idea to implement them in the Thank You page after a customer had made a purchase.


• page speed - under 2s or 3s i think that ti is good. Make sure to NOT customize your template and use big background files or many image files for the home page. Also, you may want to know that the Facebook like box will slow your site down a bit.


• search in store - usually if you use Full Text and Like in Settings - Store - Search it will show relatively good results. They still have to make a better search for the front end.


• call to action - all template have it, but you may want to use some other more compelling images than the default ones for different call to action (CTA) items


• trust signals - you do not have an simple way to add them, but you have access to the template files. We have a small tutorial to help you add a Visa logo to your template. The same goes for other brand images you may need.


• breadcrumbs - they are there and you can have a single line breadcrumb or multi-line breadcrumb. Simply enable them in Settings- Store- Display, locate the breadcrumb option. It is best to show only one.


• images - product images can be added in the Images tab while you edit a product and you can add a description. That description is, in fact, the alt attribute for the product images. Use it wisely and don't stuff it with keywords.


• meta title and meta description - optimize them for humans. They have a low value in rankings, but if you write a compelling title and description you may increase the CTR - click through rate - meaning that people will click more on your link in the SERPs.


• product description - this is the bread and butter of your site. Make sure to have at least 200 -300 words descriptions, show a history of the product, get some images in the description too. Make it appealing. Of course, having 30k products in store it will be really hard to obtain original content and you will end up with internal duplicates one way or the other. Just make sure you do not have a copy of a text that is already on the web.


• page URL - keep it short. Get out the category and brands form the URL and have it like this: store.com/product-hame.html. For this you can use the SEO optimized short URL in stores. Go to Settings - Store - URL Structure tab and choose optimized short for all your URLs.


• h1 for the product name - now it is h2 and you need to take some steps to change it to h1.


• phone number - put it right up there, in the header. That will show you mean business.


• company details - in the footer or in the About/Terms of service pages it is a sign of trust.

I guess you had enough for one run. Are these basic things? Well, almost. Unless someone shows you that you need this and that you may never know hot complex some things are.

Want to get deeper into the rabbit hole? Simply check our Rand Fishkin's article about keyword targeting for on-page optimization. Some things have changed, but the main idea is the same.

Basically, in one sitting you have learned about Penguin, the lessons form this update and that BigCommerce isn't SEO perfect, but it does a lot of good things. We're waiting for some more changes in the future and hoping to see improvements in the SEO front. Until next time: be safe and rank well.