Optimizing Online Catalog Copy for the Search Engines

It only makes sense. You have an e-commerce catalog site. You want lots of visitors to come to your site and buy. The best (and most cost-effective) way to do that is with great search engine placement. However, search engines are text machines, and most catalogs don’t have a lot of text, so herein lies the problem.

The obvious answer is that you need more copy on each page. However, the pictures of your products are just as important as the copy, so they can’t be removed to make more space. That doesn’t leave a lot of room in the product description area, does it? Maybe not, but who said all the copy had to go in the description area? Who said you have to create a site the same way a paper catalog is created?

Sometimes we view our site’s pages with a very narrow vision. This causes us to have an “it’s always been done that way” mentality. While direct mail catalogs may be sorely limited on space and require short sections of copywriting, Web pages have infinite room for copy.

Your Home Page

Most often, online catalogs have a home page that is almost exclusively graphic. There may be short blips of copywriting here and there, but not much. Since your home page is the most important page to have optimized for the engines, you’ll want to include a minimum of 200 words of SEO copywriting there. Don’t panic… it doesn’t have to all be in one place.

You can create a short section of keyword-rich body copy as an introduction to the site. Then, under a graphic of your new spring additions, include some SEO copy explaining why your visitors will just *have* to have these products. You can then add a sentence or two of copy under the graphics in your sidebar. Lastly, give the highlights of your customer-service program or money-back guarantee and an invitation to click further into the site to shop around, and you’re all done.

Obviously, where the copy goes is dependent on your site’s layout, but you get the idea. Spread the copywriting around. You don’t have to put it all in one lump in the middle of the page.

Category Pages

What traditionally happens with online catalogs is that you click from the home page to a “category” page. That category page usually just has links on it to other individual product pages plus perhaps a picture or two. That’s a shame because category pages are another perfect place for SEO copy.

Since keyphrases are often highly descriptive of products (i.e., crew neck sweaters, six-disc CD players, etc.), they work wonderfully on category pages. Because category pages are selective (they only show products within a certain category), they are exceptional arenas for SEO copywriting.

Let’s say you have a catalog site that deals with interior design accessories for the home. One category might be Tiffany lamps. Because the phrase Tiffany lamps is also a wonderful keyphrase, its inclusion in the category page copy comes quite naturally. This means you can create SEO copywriting for the top or middle of the page (just a short paragraph or two) and also write blips of copy for each product description. For example:

===================================
The Tiffany Lamp - A Timeless Masterpiece
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Tiffany lamps have long been considered icons of style. While certain characteristics are constant (that’s what makes a Tiffany lamp a Tiffany lamp), there is also tremendous variety. From Tiffany lamps for your floor to those made to adorn your ceilings, you’ll find one reflective of your own personal taste and style.

Next you could list all the individual products (floor Tiffany lamps, ceiling Tiffany lamps, desk Tiffany lamps, etc.) and give brief, keyword-rich descriptions of each one.

Product Descriptions

When you get to the product description level, you’ll want to include enticing, keyword-rich copy with each listing. However, you’ll also want to include more text on each product page.

Consider that most people shopping online don’t have the benefit of being able to touch, feel, smell, taste, or see the actual products. Use the lack of human senses to develop more descriptive information for your visitors.

You might also want to include any technical information you have for your products on the same product description page. Contrary to Internet myth, people don’t mind scrolling one bit *IF* there is information they want to see on other parts of the page.

By reconsidering your catalog-copywriting techniques when it comes to the Web, you can get your e-commerce catalog ranked highly in the search engines. It just takes a little open-mindedness and a willingness to break free from the ways of the past. When you do, more customers and higher sales levels are bound to follow.

by Karon Thackston © 2004
http://www.marketingwords.com

About The Author
Copy not getting results? Let Karon provide search engine copywriting, catalog copywriting, or other types for you. Just visit http://www.marketingwords.com. You can also learn to write your own SEO copy that impresses the engines and your visitors at http://www.copywritingcourse.com.

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What are the largest & most lucrative online multilingual markets aside from English?

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With Google reporting that over 50% of their traffic comes from multilingual searches, it has become crucial to consider developing a multilingual online presence. However, the question remains the same: Which markets to target? Which ones are the most important in terms of users, etc.?

First of all, let's see which parts of the world feature the most users. Contrary to general belief, it is not North America! With close to 400 million users, Asia definitely takes the lead, followed by Europe with approximately 315 million users, in comparison to 232 million in North America (North America being defined as the U.S., Canada, and Mexico).

In my extensive experience with multilingual online applications, I have learned over the years to differentiate clearly the amount of users versus the market potentiality of a product or a service. For example, the Hispanic online market (between South and Central America, the U.S., the Caribbean and Spain) features slightly more users than the French-speaking market. But when it comes to buying power, countries like France, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada (Quebec) have so much more buying power than Peru, Bolivia or Chile!

More than just buying power, we need to look at the cultural ramifications involved in internet behaviors. In other terms, is a specific market used to ordering & transacting online? For instance, compared to its amount of users, France is extremely active online, while French-speaking countries in Africa are proportionally inactive. The same applies when comparing Spain and some South American countries. If you were to compare the online buying habits between 100,000 users in Spain and the same number of users throughout South America, you would notice that people out of Spain order products and services at least 5 times more than their South American peers.
In many cases, it is not a matter of buying power, but rather mail order habits based on the country's postal delivery system. In fact, in many countries where the postal system is unreliable (not to say flaky!), online users were not "groomed" with mail order habits prior to the internet. As a result, although such markets will look for products and services online, they certainly are not as mail order oriented as other countries featuring more efficient mailing systems.

Therefore, it is impossible to rely solely on the amount of users when considering establishing a multilingual presence online. Another good example to illustrate such fact would be China and Japan. China currently has almost 145 million users and it is one of the fastest growing markets on the internet. Japan, with 86 million users, has nearly reached its maximum potential with almost 70% of its population online. A very small proportion of online users in China own a credit card or even have the right to order what they want, while in Japan it is exactly the reverse.

Once again, no one should confuse the amount of users versus the buying power of a given market.

On the other hand, one needs to consider the worth of Third World markets/economically disadvantaged countries. For instance, countries like Bangladesh, Mozambique, Somalia, etc., might not seem very attractive at first. However, in Third World markets, those online are affluent and wealthy. In those countries, there is no middle class. Basically, you are either dirt poor or filthy rich! Online users in those countries belong to the the second category. Many online gambling portals and entertainment websites of all kinds have found high spenders in economically-disadvantaged-markets. In fact, wealthy individuals in Rwanda or Chad do not have many entertainment outlets in their homeland! Furthermore, most everything is lacking within their country infrastructure: clothing, electronics, etc. Online applications have therefore become a form of "entertainment salvation" for the wealthy minorities of third world markets.

Online multilingual markets are complex, and instead of looking at languages/countries just by their buying power or number of users, one should evaluate what they have to offer and define the marketability of their products and services accordingly.
Are you looking for end users to buy your products? Then look at the buying power of the targeted markets along with the reliability of their postal and transportation services. Are you a manufacturer looking to find more distributors/to increase your exports? Then chances are that the world is your oyster.

I advise you to perform a meticulous evaluation of your market potential when developing a presence on multilingual search engines. So many factors need to be taken into consideration...Do not look at Japanese, French or Spanish just as country specific, but rather online language market shares! Just as an example, aside from all countries where Spanish is spoken, one of the most active Hispanic online markets is in the U.S.!
WWW = World Wide Web. Is your website really reaching worldwide?
The time has come to implement action on a global scale!
For fun, test your global knowledge by taking the following quiz: http://www.mseo.com/quiz/quiz.html

Article Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com
About the Author:SEO Consultant Mathias Levarek is talking about Multilingual Online Market. They provide Advanced Link-Building Solutions covering almost all kind of off-page seo activities.

Blogging Success: Make Your Blog Look Unique

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Many blogs display the same boring templates or skins for the layout. While the template does not affect readers who enjoy your blog via RSS feed (unless they click through to the blog), but it really affects any other blog visitor who reads the blog from the web browser. The more unique looking a blog design is, the easier it is to build brand recognition and a good name that gets you into viral marketing. If your blog looks like dozens of other blogs, your own blog will not stick out from the crowd and you will lose out on visitors. In the past I have been using free Wordpress templates myself. I applied minor modifications, but it never really separated my blog from others enough to be really unique.

The problem with so many blogs is to find out what is their main specialty. What is the main topic a blogger is writing about? Often there is no way to tell what a blog is about - especially if you enter a blog from an older posting through a search engine listing. The homepage might eventually have a small snippet of text explaining the topic of a blog, but archived articles do not show this normally. Or the blog owner does not even bother at all to tell what his main intent for the blog is. By using a custom blog design this can easily be integrated and helps to make the blog look different from anyone else.

By using a custom header as an example it helps to get the unique look you are looking for. First of all if it is completely unique it makes my blog stick out more. Second it can help you to show what your blog is all about and therefore get people to come back. Make your Blog look unique + make sure your visitors know what your blog is about. Just because they find a (one) posting of your blog that matches their search term, it does not mean that your blog is really of interest to them. But you might be able to catch their interest by pointing out what your blog is really about. If you catch their interest you might gain a new reader that a) comes back to read more from your blog and b) eventually tells others about your great blog.

Article Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com

About the Author:Christoph Puetz is a successful author and Internet Entrepreneur. He is writing about Search Engine Optimization, PPC Marketing, and other related topics at his Make Money Online blog.