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Your eCommerce (Shopping Cart) solution would not be worthwhile without a well rounded arsenal of tools. These tools range from Sitemap Generators, Keyword Generators, SEO Software, Link Checkers, Site Validators and more...
We have searched the internet for the best of breed tools to help you achieve the kind of traffic any eCommerce (Shopping Cart) solution needs.
In 2006, the search engines Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft launched the Sitemap 0.90 Protocol, which would be using the XML format.
A Sitemap works by providing a XML based map for Search Engines to learn content on your site more effectively. eCommerce (Shopping Cart) solutions are a very good example of a website that can benefit from the use of the Sitemap 0.90 Protocol. Links within a shopping cart are often dynamically generated via shopping cart software applications such as osCommerce and AbleCommerce. Both of these shopping carts use different technology to render their products (osCommerce PHP and AbleCommerce ASP) however they still have the same problem. When generating items such as a new special or sale. How will the search engine know when these pages have changed? This is where the Sitemap 0.90 Protocol helps you as the shopping cart owner you can send an XML file to the search engines to let them know that your content has changed. The only alternative is to wait until the search engine spiders come back around to your site and notice that some page embedded within all of your other pages has changed. Now you can notify the Search Engines as soon as the changes have been made on your shopping cart. Keep in mind this does not mean that your site will be crawled instantly. It does mean that you will have specified that these pages have changed on your shopping cart.
Keyword Generators are applications whether web based or desktop applications that help you choose the right keyword phrases to help optimize your eCommerce (Shopping Cart) solution. The way Keyword Generators work is they look at keyword phrases and determine the popularity of the word or phrase. An example would be the word internet. If you type the word "Internet" into Google you will get back 1,510,000,000 results. If you are trying to optimize your site for the keyword internet then you are going to compete with 1,510,000,000 other pages. With a Keyword generator you can type your phrase and the Keyword Generator will return back other suggestions for the keyword "Internet" such as synonyms for the word "Internet" i.e. "Web", "Website", "Web Design". As we can see these words are going to be very tough keywords to compete to get your shopping cart ranked at the top of a search engine. Keyword Generators to the rescue. Lets say you sell Internet Marketing Books simply using the keywords "Internet Marketing Books" brings the results down to 188,000,000 now you have less competition for your keyword phrase.
Keyword tools bring multiple layers of capabilities. You can look at the popularity of a word, synonyms for a word, different phrases that users have used during searches, test your pages keyword density, and more. There are a mix of free and paid keyword tools on the internet. We have worked hard to find Keyword Generators, Keyword Density Checkers, General Keyword Tools, PPC Keyword Tools, Keyword Optimizers, and more. We have found that as a rule the better the keyword tool the less likely the keyword tool will be free. Many Keyword Tools have a trial period helping you find the right Keyword tools for your needs. Be sure to do your homework before signing up for a free trial. Read some of the many articles on the internet about Keywords. Then you will be prepared to get the most out of your Keyword Tools trial.
SEO Software is a relatively new breed of software designed to help optimize your site for better paid and organic search engine rankings. There are many different makers of SEO software ranging from free SEO Software to paid SEO Software. SEO Software often combines tools such as Sitemap Generators, Keyword Generators, Link Checkers, Site Validators, and Directory Submission into one piece of software.
Now you have to make some choices when looking at the different SEO Software available. Budget is always something to think about when purchasing SEO Software, learning curve (The SEO Software you are looking at may be the best SEO Software in the world, however if no one in your organization knows how to use the SEO Software it will be a waste of time and money.), buying an all in one SEO Software package or buying specific tools that specialize in each facet of SEO (Remember the budget part). If you are new to SEO Software READ READ READ about the different versions of SEO Software on the internet or in books. It is a major pitfall for eCommerce (Shopping Cart) owners to get so caught up in the SEO Software buzz that they forget that their eCommerce (Shopping Cart) site sells fish tanks.
If you work for a larger organization and you found your way to ecarttemplates while learning about SEO Software there are a few things you need to find out about your organization if you have been given the task of getting your corporate website ranked higher. Be sure everyone is on the same page!! Your content writers, Web Designers, Application Developers etc... they all play a part in getting your eCommerce (Shopping Cart) site ranked on the first page for a users search.
Link Checkers are applications that check the for Links that are linking to your eCommerce (Shopping Cart) site. Why is this important? Links are a way of establishing the relevance of your site for a given subject. The more links you have the more relevant your site is considered by the Search Engines. Now don't get any bright ideas and try to go out and have as many links created as possible to increase your rankings. There are some tactics known as Black Hat tactics that can create thousands of links to your site. Many companies that promise to get you on page one of Google are probably using some version of these Black Hat practices. It may work for a little while however if you read the terms of service for most Search Engines you will find that these practices will get your site permanently banned from their indexes.
Now back to Link Checkers. A Link Checking application will allow you to see how your link building campaign is proceeding. You can also check to see how many of your eCommerce (Shopping Cart) sites pages are indexed by the Search Engines. If there is one thing you can be assured of is that if your pages are not indexed no one will find them while making a search for your products. Many of the Link Checking software applications will show you the ranking of the page that is linking to your site for instance if you have one page with a Google PageRank of 9 that links to your site it is worth more than having many sites with no Google PageRank linking to your site. This is where the term "Quality Links" come from and it is very important to understand what it means to your eCommerce (Shopping Cart) site.
There are a few important things to look for when shopping for a Link Checking program. Does the software support API's (Application Interface) for the major search engines. The Search Engines provide these API's to provide relevant results to your Link checking campaign. Another feature is the ability to slow your search request to the Search Engine to avoid having your IP blocked from accessing the Search Engine.
Directory Submission software gives you the ability to get you sites links to be placed on any number of the internets directory sites. The importance of having links is pretty much undisputed amount webmasters. There are some words of caution about getting large amounts of directory links in a quick period of time. Search Engines generally want a site to be popular based on real users or companies linking to your eCommerce (Shopping Cart) site. When you start a Directory submission campaign you need to choose a relevant set of keywords for your site, a good description that describes your site. The Directory submission software you choose will ask for these fields. Placement in relevant categories is important. Placing a link for your golf site under the computer category will probably not serve your site very well. Look for Directory Submission Software that continually updates its database with Directories.
Directories such as ODP also known as DMOZ do not allow software submission to their directory. Use of Directory Submission software can violate some Directories terms of service and rest assured if they find out that you are using software to submit to them they will remove your links. There are Directories that don't mind having submissions submitted to them via Directory Submission software.
Another flavor of Directories are paid inclusion. Directories like Yahoo's Search Marketing Directory are paid submission sites. Yahoo accepts payment for a one year inclusion. However they only agree to look at your site not necessarily that they will include your site on their Directory. Some Directories will guarantee inclusion for a fee and still some yet will provide a featured link on the main page of their Directory site.
Site Validators are gaining popularity as a means of testing your source code (HTML, Javascript, CSS etc...). Site Validators will look at your source code and provide errors if your eCommerce (Shopping Cart) site does not meet W3C specifications. W3C (World Web Consortium) is an organization that has been formed to maintain protocols and guidelines for the long term growth of the Internet. Using a Site Validator has many benefits some of which include clean code writing, proper use of Tags, naming conventions, and many others. These guidelines will allow your eCommerce (Shopping Cart) site to be viewed by a larger audience. All Browser are slowly adopting W3C standards as the standard to build their Browsers. Of course we do have Internet Explorer but even Microsoft with Internet Explorer 7 has made great strides to conforming to W3C standards.
A simple way to sum up the need for Site Validation is that if your site does not meet or at least come close to meeting W3c standards you can loose potential customers because they can't view your eCommerce (Shopping Cart) site.
The final tool you need in your arsenal of webmaster tools is Analytics Software. Their are a wide variety of Hosted and Desktop providers of Analytics Software. This is another application that will require you to do some homework. There are some very nice Analytics Tools on the market. They do have a learning curve to fully unlock the potential of these tools. There are some excellent free Anayltics tools on the market.
So why do I need to have Analytics Tools? I already get traffic and my site does well you say... With Analytics Software you can look at where your traffic is coming from, which will allow you to better understand which of your campaigns are working the best for your website. You can set a funnel to see how users are navigating to your purchase pages. Analytics Software allows you to view the browser type that are viewing your site. This will allow you to test this browser for any issues allowing you to prioritize new deployments. There are many other benefits to a good Analytics program to many to name here. Be sure to get a trial or demo before purchasing any software.
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