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I have a couple of old wordpress sites that are old affiliate blogs. I currently sell products that are on amazon on these sites and sell quite a bit of volume. I have found a source and can afford the inventory to replace Amazon with my own product. So the dilema is how to turn these wordpress sites into ecommerce sites.

The thing I am worried most about is that each site gets about 100-200 visitors a day for great buying keywords. I obviously don't want to lose my rankings.

What are the options of turning a wordpress site into a store. I am not interested in plugins or some of the other solutions that make the store look very cheap and I would assume horribly convert.

If you have inner pages ranking for keywords how does that work? Do the post pages become product pages?

So to sum up I guess I am asking, what are the options that are of the higher quality that will also help me keep my rankings?

Thanks

I would think they do use ctr in their Algo. It would make sense and is an important factor in ppc. If someone searches for something and everyone is clicking the third listing and assuming bounce and re search rate isn't high that would make sense don't you think?

Awesome Ryan! Thank you. This kind of stuff is the part I am SO lost about. I bet I would increase my rankings 500% if I could figure out the technical stuff!

Ok just quick clarification.

So there is no "better" version between http:// and http://www.? That is what I thought but on this guide it says that http://www. is best? http://static.seomoz.org/user_files/SEO_Web_Developer_Cheat_Sheet.pdf
I guess to be safe I could do that but I wonder if it really matters?

Also do you see on there that he says its important to leave trailing / on folders.

I do know how to access my htaccess file is there a simple code I put somewhere in there? I am going to go with http://

Thanks for the awesome help!

Jake

I would like to 301 redirect all the variations of my site to a single url but would like some clarification on some issues. I have always been confused about how to handle cannonicalization and hopefully this can clear it up for me and others.

This particular site is about 1 year old and gets approximately 15k uniques a month in a great niche. I want to make sure I do this correctly as to not hurt my existing rankings which are quite good. Here is is what I am unsure about.

1. Basically I should pick the best url structure to redirect all the others to correct? What determines what url is best to redirect all the rest to? is it www.domain.com, http://domain.com or http://www.domain.com?
2. Is the best one to redirect to always standard and something I should set up at the beginning of my site? Or is picking the best url to redirect to based on what url starts to rank in google and you then use that one?
3. Should I be going through each of my rankings and seeing what url is ranking in google for each page? On this particular site ALL of my urls in google  have no www. or http but instead show up in the SE as domain.com or domain.com/inner-page/html. In that case what do I do?
4. I know the slow way to do redirects. I use my hostgator account and do it in cpanel and do it one by one. Is there a faster way where I can go and make lots of changes at once? Maybe I can choose all the variations and put in the one I want them all to redirect to?
5. After I figure the above out is fixing all of this as simple as redirecting ALL variations to the one I will use moving forward for each page on my site? Then I am done?

Thanks again for the help!

Jake

The more I read the more I become confused lol. I am now considering going with a hosted solution as well as a licensed solution so I can learn for myself which is better.

For my clients sites they will probably need a solution such as Magento as they can hire a team etc.

I however only operate stores that cary 5 to 50 products. I am thinking going with a hosted solution like big commerce or 3dcart will allow me to get it set up worry free and concentrate on my marketing. They seem to tell me absolutely everything can be customized if I hire someone and let them work on the code. Is this not correct?

Any thoughts?

Also, I think that would be a great blog post! There is a real lack of clarification on what peoples options are and what they should be doing based on their situation.

LuxWork,

Thank you as you clarified a LOT for me. I have been considering going with a hosted shopping cart solution for one of my new sites and now it appears that is not a good idea. If you wouldn't mind clarifying a few more things in line with what you said.

1. One thing the hosted solutions lean on is all the added services such as social media integration, amazon/ebay integration etc etc. So if I were to go with a self hosted solution I will have to have a developer create these things for me when he modifies or creates my site?
2. If my stores are generally small 50 products or less and one that is 150 products this still all applies correct?
3. Do you have any suggestions for which shopping cart solution would be best for this situation: I would like something that is fairly user friendly, something that makes seo easy to implement and. Maybe you could give me a list of the top 5 best choices and I can do some research on them.

Thank you

Ryan, thank you for your detailed and in depth answer. I now have more grasp on what is going on. Could you clarify a few things?

1. Will I always need a CMS with a shopping cart platform? So I will need to pick a CMS to go with whether I go with Zen, Magento, 3dCart, Volusion, BigCommerce, Xcart, etc? I am a little confused because don't some of those already come with CMS? Or am I TOTALLY lost here?
2. You said there are basically 2 types of shopping cart software. One where it stays on your site and the other where it is external? Which is an example of an external one? I do know that 3d cart for example if you dont get your own payment gateway you will be using their system versus your own correct? Is that what you mean?
3. You also said- "the cart should provide SEO control over it's pages. The cart should either provide friendly URLs and control over titles, meta descriptions, etc." I am a little confused here. Are you just talking about friendly urls inside the shopping cart or accross the entire site? Does the shopping cart control that or the cms system?

Thanks Ryan!

I have done a ton of research trying to figure this out but still need help and clarification. My strength is marketing and not the technical aspects of ecommerce cms etc. I am ignorant in this area and don't mind if you explain to me like a 5 year old. I am ready to take my marketing knowledge and creativity to ecommerce but this one aspect is stopping me. I really want to understand this and would be appreciative of the option to do a skype instant message session where I would pay you for your time to ask for clarification.

I will explain my situation so you can better understand where I am coming from and can recommend something appropriately.

My ecommerce stores run between my own and my clients range from motorcycle, supplement and fitness equipment stores. None of the stores are very large with the biggest one having about 150 products. Mainly I am looking for a mix between an economical solution combined with being easy to use and great for search engine visibility.

I have a lot of questions here and appreciate in advance anyone reading all of this and helping.

1. Am I correct in my understanding that I basically have 3 options when doing ecommerce. One is I can go to a company like 3d cart or volusion and they can provide the merchant account, ssl cert, the cart and free and paid templates ready to go? Two is getting free cart software such as Magento or OScommerce etc. The third option is paid cart software like zen cart or others. Is that my main options?
2. Let's say I was to use 3d cart. What kind of cart platform will I be using then? One they created? Or do they use a (free/paid) solution like I talked about in question 1?
3. Is the main advantage of using a company like 3dcart and volusion the fact that they integrate many things into one? With Magento would I need a developer to customize my theme to integrate all those things?
4. Are there some major disadvantages to using companies like 3d cart?
5. How does the process and advantages work when using a solution like Magento or OScommerce. So for example I decide to use the Magento free platform. Am I then able to hire a designer to create a site from scratch that will work with the Magento platform? Or I could also go to template monster and purchase a theme already made and have it customized by someone?
6. Also what about paid cart software like zen cart etc? Why would I use that over the others? Would I also then hire a designer to create a site that works with zen cart or purchase a template made then customize?
7. Are you able to create almost ANY structure and design for a site no matter what its cart platform is? For example, although I would make a few changes to this site I think it's very close to a great site from a design/conversion standpoint. http://www.spiderofficechairs.com/ . Lets say for example I was using any one of the options I have so far mentioned. Would I be able to just tell a designer/developer that I have magento,3dcart, zencart etc and tell him I would like that type of layout for example?
8. How would I know how certain cart platforms are coded? Does that even make sense? For example I have created and ranked many sites and tested quite a bit also. I have always noticed that very clean basic static html sites have almost always ranked better and faster for me. Do these platforms come built a certain way such as html or (I don't even know what the names of other options are). Or does it not come as anything and when I have the site built I determine how I want it built?

Also if you have any suggested reading for me I would be appreciative. Thank you for the help.

Jake

Thanks so much Joe. This is awesome. This level of help is incredible. This is the main reason I am staying with SEOmoz. Hope to see you around more. Thank you!

Hmmm, I think all this confused me even more.

Maybe I should give a real life example. Lets say I have only ONE product page and url for the body solid g9s.

Let's say the url is www.site.com/home-gym-equipment/body-solid-g9s.html

There could also be a url that is www.site.com/body-solid/body-solid-g9s.html

Basically you are saying that it is ok to have that product page show up for both categories in my sites category product page. However, I should make sure that I choose only one of those paths to actually serve up as a product page? Also I would assume it makes more sense to serve up this page www.site.com/body-solid/body-solid-g9s.html no matter what path the use to get there as it would make more sense?

Am I understanding this? Thank you

Jake

I am currently building the site architecture for a very large ecommerce site. I am wondering how I should build it out if I have products that I want to include in multiple categories within my site.

For example: Lets say I sell fitness equipment and I have categories for things such as: Treadmill, Exercise Bike, Stair Stepper, Weight Benches etc.

But then I also have specific brand category pages such a: Precor, Life Fitness, Hammer, Body Solid

So my question is how do I structure this so I am building this correctly? If I sell a Precor Treadmill I will want to include that product under the "Treadmill" category page as well as under the "Precor Equipment" category page.

Can I get some advice for the best way to structure this? It's obviously something I want to avoid at all costs of doing improperly and having to fix later.

Thank you

Jake