October 11, 2008 By 9 Comments

Zen Cart SEO | Create a Customized 404 Error Page

When visitors mistakingly type the wrong address into their browser bar they receive the dreaded “page not found” page. If you check your site statistics you may find hundreds of people are receiving this error message. You need to put a stop to this by creating a customized 404 error page.

How to create a 404 error page

1. Use your hosting administration panel

Login to the cpanel that comes with the hosting package of your web site and click on the icon that’s named “error pages.”

Select “404″ and insert the parameters in the top box ie

referring URL
visitor’s IP address
requested URL
server name
visitor’s browser
redirect status code

Click save

The 404 error page will automatically be created on the server.

2. Create a customized 404 error page

This is the best option because you have control over what to place on the page.
This is what you should include:

* Write the message “Sorry, you have reached this page in error.”
* Direct visitors to your home page or site map by including the URLS.
* Ask visitors to report the error by including your email address.
* Save the page as 404error.html and upload it to the server.
* Test the error page by typing the incorrect spelling for your web site URL

3. Zen Cart – edit: define_page_not_found.php

Zen Cart has an error page built in to it that contains the site map listing all the pages on your site. It still needs to be customized by adding text to the top of the page that explains why your visitor has arrived there and what they should do…return to the home page or click on any of the site map links.

Edit the error page by by logging in to your admin panel-tools-define pages editor-define_page_not_found.php-click save.

Test the error page by typing www.domain.com/define_page_not_found.php

By creating a custom 404 error page, you will stop losing visitors and make more sales.

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Attract 1000s of NEW visitors to your Zen Cart Store by creating
highly effective “Article Marketing Strategies”

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Design, Web Hosting, SEO

Filed Under: SEO, Web Design Tagged With: ,
October 9, 2008 By 2 Comments

Zen Cart SEO | Dynamic URLS vs Static URLs

Online stores and content manangement systems automatically generate dynamic URLs. These are usually very long urls containing a bunch of characters whereas static urls are much shorter. Shorter(static) URLs were considered to be search engine friendly so site owners would convert dynamic urls to static ones. To do this your server would need to accept what’s called mod rewrite. You create a .htaccess file on the server containing code that automatically converts a dynamic URL to a static URL.

Google’s latest announcement

Google recently announced it now indexes dynamic urls. For example if you enter Remington Stainless Steel Sinks in the Google search box you will notice the URL for that web page is extremely long, however it appears on the first page of Google. This means Google now indexes dynamic URLs.

Search engine modification module

If you still prefer to create short URLs install the “Ultimate SEO URLs” mod.

It will transform a dynamic URL from

http://yoursite.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=24

to

http://yoursite.com/disciples-sacred-lands-linked-p-24.html

Filed Under: SEO Tagged With: , ,
October 8, 2008 By 16 Comments

Zen Cart SEO | Optimize Meta Tags

B. How to Optimize the Meta tags of Your Category and Products Pages

ZenCart pulls the database information automatically for each category and product page and places it in the meta tags. The information includes product name, title, model, price, title/tagline. This is fine if you don’t know much about the benefits of optimizing your web site however if you want to make your pages more search engine friendly, don’t just use the default settings.

Zen Cart enables you to define custom keywords for every category and product page.

1. Create optimized text for your product descriptions

If my page is about Remington Stainless Steel Sinks then I need to include this keyword phrase in the content on the page as well as in the meta tags. The content should contain at least a a paragraph or 2 about the product as search engines love well written descriptive content.

2. Customize the Categories Meta Tags

Go to the Categories section of your admin panel. You will see a round Meta Tags icon on the far right under “action”. If the icon is black and white, custom keywords have not been defined. Click on the icon and a page will open allowing you to enter custom Meta Title, Keywords, and Description tags.

* Include your main keyword or keyword phrase at the beginning of your title meta tag, then add your business name at the end.

* Create an attractive description for your category that will entice visitors to look deeper into your site.

* Add approximately 10 of your main keywords to the keywords meta tag.

* Click save

Your category page is now optimized for the search engines.

3. Customize the Products Meta Tags

* The top of each product page displays a box titled: “Mark What the Product’s Meta Tag Title Should Include:”

* Under this line are check boxes for product name, title, model, price, title/tagline. Uncheck price, title/tagline then enter your description and keywords in the boxes below. Zencart will automatically pull the product name, title and model from the database. (You can add your own tags if you don’t want to use these).

* Click preview to preview the changes.

* Click update to make the changes permanent.

Repeat the above procedure for each of your product pages. Make sure you include the name and model number for each product. If people are searching for that specific model, chances are your page will appear at the top of the search engines because you are the only one that optimized a page specifically for that model.

Customizing your meta tags for every page, will boost your rankings and increase your traffic and sales.

*****************************************
Attract 1000s of NEW visitors to your Zen Cart Web Site by learning
highly effective “Article Marketing Strategies”

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Design, Web Hosting, SEO

Filed Under: SEO Tagged With: , ,
October 6, 2008 By 4 Comments

Zen Cart Search Engine Optimization | SEO

Zen Cart has many SEO features already built into it however lots more needs to be done to help your store get good rankings, attract visitors and begin making sales.

A. How to Optimize the Meta tags

Zen cart automatically pulls information from the database and uses that information for the meta tags. One problem with this is that the default setting places too many words in the title tags and doesn’t fill description and keywords meta tags for the home page and product pages.

Optimize your home page title tag

1. Edit the meta_tags.php file by going to:

includes-languages-english-meta_tags.php

2. Edit the line below by placing your most targeted keywords at the beginning of the title.


// page title
define('TITLE', 'Stainless Steel Sinks | Porcelain Sink | Eco Taps - SinkBiz.com');

3. Edit home page description and keywords meta tags

These tags are also included in meta_tags.php. The description is the small blurb the search engines provide visitors searching for your products. Create an attractive description that gets visitors to take action on your site.

Even though the keywords meta tags does not have much significance these days, include it anyway by adding approximately 10 keywords separated by commas or spaces.

Tip

Don’t place your business name at the beginning of your title tag unless you want visitors to come to your site based on its brand name. Place it at the end of your title tag as I’ve shown above.

*****************************************
Attract 1000s of NEW visitors to your Zen Cart Web Site by learning
highly effective “Article Marketing Strategies”

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Design, Web Hosting, SEO

Filed Under: SEO Tagged With:
October 3, 2008 By 1 Comment

SEO – Don’t Rewrite Dynamic URLs To Static URLs

For several years I’ve always changed dynamic urls to static urls because search engines did not index those types of pages. This meant less visitors and sales because search engines would only index the home page.

This has all changed now according to Google’s updated WebMaster Guidelines:

Here’s a quote from the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog

“We can crawl dynamic URLs and interpret the different parameters. We might have problems crawling and ranking your dynamic URLs if you try to make your urls look static and in the process hide parameters which offer the Googlebot valuable information. One recommendation is to avoid reformatting a dynamic URL to make it look static. It’s always advisable to use static content with static URLs as much as possible, but in cases where you decide to use dynamic content, you should give us the possibility to analyze your URL structure and not remove information by hiding parameters and making them look static.”

What does this mean for the SEO of your web sites?

1. Don’t rewrite dynamic urls to static urls

If you have an online store or a web site that uses dynamic urls don’t convert then to static urls because your pages will now get crawled. This will save you a lot of time creating a .htaccess file and testing all your pages.

2. Leave your old sites alone

If yoo have an old site with old rewrites in place, leave them as they are because the pages have already been indexed by Google and have gained link popularity (other web sites have linked to those pages). If you want to change them back to dynamic urls, use a 301 redirect This will transfer the old URLS to the new URLS and preserve link popularity and rankings.

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Herman Drost is the CEO of http://www.iSiteBuild.com
Affordable Web Site Design, Web Hosting and Marketing.

Filed Under: SEO, Web Design Tagged With: , ,
October 1, 2008 By 1 Comment

List Building – Top 7 Benefits of Creating an Effective Newsletter

What if all your web site traffic relied on getting traffic from the search engines?

It’s fine as long as you don’t lose your high rankings or are making a profit from pay per click campaigns but what if your rankings suddenly disappear and you can’t afford the cost per click?

Building a large newsletter list will safeguard your business because you create long term relationships with your customers.

Here are some other benefits of list building:

1. Make instant sales

With one click you can send a sales message to your entire list and make immediate sales.

2. Allow you to contact your subscribers several times

Most people don’t buy after one contact with them because you haven’t had time to build a trusting relationship. By touching them several times with great information you win their trust so they be more inclined to purchase your products or follow your recommendations.

3. Gain authority status

Providing continuous information that helps subscribers build their business will convince people you are an authority on your subject.

4. Find out what your market wants

Surveying your list enables you to quickly find out the types of information, products and tools they desire. You can then create products that satisfy their desires.

5. Viral marketing

If your newsletter contains high quality information, your subscribers will tell their friends about it. The viral affect of this happening will grow your list quickly. Make sure you ask your subscribers to tell their friends about your newsletter.

6. Build a community

Newsletter readers can receive more in-depth information than people just reading your web pages. They are also the first ones to receive your articles and special discounts. You spend time getting to know their needs, wants and desires to build a community of followers.

7. Generate repeat traffic to your web site or blog

Instead of people only visiting your web site once, you can bring them back repeatedly through your newsletter. People who purchased from you, are more likely to buy from you again than new customers. A newsletter helps you to stay in touch with them.
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Learn how to build a large list by writing and submitting articles
Read my new ebook “Article Marketing Strategies“…

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Design, Web Hosting, SEO

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