Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Plan B with a left nav color filter if you have it or are capable of implementing it.

In the first and last name fields I thought of entering the first half of the company name in one field and the second half of the company name in the last.

But then it wanted a photo so I left.

Maybe I should've snapped a quick pic of the employee of the month and put it there.

Why do about half of the business directories on getlisted.org want a personal profile when creating/claiming a business listing?

Why would a medium to large business need personal profile content on the listing?

Anyone know of good photography sites set up on Wordpress with an eCommerce plugin used for selling photos or services?

Just looking for ideas. I've found good referrals in the Moz archives for Wordpress eCommerce plugins.

Now I'm looking for WP photography sites employing eCommerce.

Thanks for sharing.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to dig in the page and give me some actionable feedback.

I appreciate it!

Thanks Mike. I'm looking into the issue on our forums at Convergent 7.

I don't want you to go out of your way. Just thought I'd ask in case you knew off-hand.

I don't have the developer/tech acumen.

Thank you Mike.

I follow you on everything except the tables. I'm assuming our CMS eCommerce software generates these tables automatically (Volusion).

Is there any way to strip those tables or will that foul the page displays across the site?

Hi Mozzers,

I can't rank (the page is nowhere on the Google grid that I can find) and I've not been able to move the needle at all on it.

The page is http://www.lumber2.com/Western-Saddle-Pads-s/98.htm for keyword "western saddle pads."

I'm inclined to think I'm cannabalizing the category with the products so I removed the word saddle from the majority of the product names on page.

However, saddle pad or saddle pads is in the meta title for most if not all of the products.

Do you think I'm cannabalizing with the product titles or is there something else going on?

Thanks for any help.

I wondered the same thing and probably could have emphasized the landing pages better.

Hi Todd,

Since we've got a brick n mortar store we're big on winning local first and competing nationally second. In general, here's what works for us in local (no particular order):

1. One website.

2. Name, address and phone number in the footer.

3. Local directory submissions.

4. Always use city and state in page title (and additionally sometimes in meta description and category/product page content).

5. Beefed up content on landing pages for the very competitive local categories and products.

We have a retail store and ecommerce performance is judged by the month, quarter year etc.

I focus on local long tail first followed by the short tail with goals of winning the 1-3 spot (lots of 1's) for both.

Then I want to win long tail national followed by short tail national (national meaning nationwide outside of our state).

Shorter tail (category) type keywords are difficult for us to rank for but we are gaining on it over time as our domain authority improves.

Link building is high on our agenda for 2013.

I've not heard of an SSL certificate being used as a ranking factor by Google. If that's true, I'd like to know more.

Your intent here is disingenuous. Secure socket layers are meant to provide users a layer of protection for whatever services they are using on the site.

Displaying a SSL seal without actually doing so is deceitful to users and should not be condoned.

If your site does not need an SSL, your SEO efforts should be focused elsewhere.

List your site in local directories as it is good practice and worth it.

Don't pay anyone to do it for you.

What's your budget for an SEO consultation?

I'm not sure you can cover every angle or scenario.

We've found our data to be reliable enough to make good decisions.

Yes. Then you'll have to factor in the other costs associated with the sale like shipping, handling, discounts, etc.

There are some unknown variables such as repeat sales that are acquired from the initial conversion and/or volume purchases made after the initial conversion (assuming there are any).

Know your margins and watch the cost per conversion for your products.

Eventually, you'll get a good idea of what I call a "conversion threshold" which tells me what I can expect to spend to convert that product to a sale. From my experience, once the conversion threshold is determined, it won't deviate far from it over time.

If my net on the product is $20 and my conversion threshold is $12 then I'm making money (excluding cost for shipping, handling, promo discounts etc).

If the threshold his $18 or $22 then I re-think what to do with the product.

I'd put together a report that shows product cost, retail price, margin, net and cost per conversion. It should be quite telling.

We use Volusion. The SEO delivery aspect of their software is excellent.

You do not have to purchase their SEO package to rank. I don't know where you heard that, but it is categorically false.

We closed one of our Volusion sites and redirected customers to our 2nd site. Everything has been fine in that regard.

There are currently many reasons to leave Volusion, but in my opinion SEO delivery is not one of them.

If you'd like to share links or a look under the hood of your store, feel free to pm me.

Hi Ben. We use a combination of both bullet points and paragraphs. Personally, I like bullet points when looking at products because typically they highlight the features, benefits another other specifications that sometimes get lost in paragraph text.

From my experience, it doesn't matter from an SEO perspective whether paragraph or bullets are used.

From a user perspective, I'd suggest using whatever format helps the user get the most information the quickest that helps them make a "conversion" decision.

Should price be included in rich snippets?

Is there any research supporting inclusion or exclusion of prices in snippets?