10 Ways to MaintainYour SEO RankingsThrough a Redesign

Ethan Giffin, CEOGroove Commerce

November 2011

#1Create a Baseline

Report

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November 2011 10 Ways to Maintain Your SEO Rankings Through a Redesign | Groove Commerce 3

WHAT’S IN YOUR BASELINE REPORT?

1. Verify Webmaster Tools Account

2. Submit Your XML Sitemap

3. Spider the Site (Integrity or Xenu)

4. Look for Existing Crawl Errors

5. Total Pages in Index vs. Sitemap vs. Spider

6. Initial Rank Check (Raven Tools)

#2Avoid Canned Descriptions

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November 2011 10 Ways to Maintain Your SEO Rankings Through a Redesign | Groove Commerce 5

NO MANUFACTURERS DESCRIPTIONS!

"The Linksys E2000 offers selectable dual-band Wireless-N technology and extended range to provide wireless coverage throughout your home. Cisco Connect"

#3Audit Your

Information Transfer

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November 2011 10 Ways to Maintain Your SEO Rankings Through a Redesign | Groove Commerce 7

HOW DO WE AUDIT?

1. Create a Content Map

2. Make Pages Sure 1 to 1

3. Unique Page Titles & Meta Tags

4. Define Your URL’s

5. Set Your Canonical Tags’s

6. Robots.txt

7. Data Imports Can Get Messy!

#4Create an Internal

Contextual Link Strategy

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November 2011 10 Ways to Maintain Your SEO Rankings Through a Redesign | Groove Commerce 9

INTERNAL LINKING STRATEGY

1. Don’t Use View or More

2. Create Links to Other Products within Descriptions

3. Create Links Within Category Descriptions

4. Don’t Repeat Same Navigation on All Pages

#5Optimize Your Site

Templates

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November 2011 10 Ways to Maintain Your SEO Rankings Through a Redesign | Groove Commerce 11

WHAT TO OPTIMIZE?

1. Review Product & Category Templates

2. No Missing Elements!

3. Use Modifier Words With Your Images• Buy

• Discount

• Etc

4. Include Microformats on Product Pages

#6Use Indexable Reviews

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November 2011 10 Ways to Maintain Your SEO Rankings Through a Redesign | Groove Commerce 13

INDEXABLE REVIEWS

1. Don’t Use Power Reviews Express

2. Use Internal Review Engine if You Can Set Followup

3. If not, Use Power Reviews Standard or Non JS Based

#7Create Sexy Brand

Pages

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November 2011 10 Ways to Maintain Your SEO Rankings Through a Redesign | Groove Commerce 15

CREATE SEXY BRAND PAGES

1. Panda Loves Brands

2. Make Your Pages Better Than the Manufacturer!

3. Create Unique Content

4. Videos, Etc..

#8Setup Your 301

Redirects

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November 2011 10 Ways to Maintain Your SEO Rankings Through a Redesign | Groove Commerce 17

YOUR 301 REDIRECTS

1. Keep Same URL if You Can

2. If not, 301 Every Page Based on Your Content Map

3. Check Your Server Headers

4. Confirm Any Redirects Done Programmatically

#9Monitor Your Load

Speed

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November 2011 10 Ways to Maintain Your SEO Rankings Through a Redesign | Groove Commerce 19

WHAT CAN SLOW PERFORMANCE DO?

1. Can Sink Your SEO

2. Directly Affects Conversion Rate

3. Lowers Adwords Quality Score

4. Limits Ability to Diagnose Errors

5. Check Your Site with Pingdom & YSlow

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THINGS THAT CAN HELP

1. Turn on Compression

2. Remove Unneeded Code & Files

3. CDN Hosting

4. Use Google jQuery Scripts

5. Caching

6. Track Server Errors & Performance (NewRelic)

#10Post Launch Review

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November 2011 10 Ways to Maintain Your SEO Rankings Through a Redesign | Groove Commerce 22

YOUR POST LAUNCH REVIEW

1. Submit New Sitemap

2. Spider the Site (Integrity or Xenu)

3. Look for New Crawl Errors

4. Total Pages in Index vs. Sitemap vs. Spider

5. Weekly Rank Check (Raven Tools)

6. Hold Breath

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ABOUT GROOVE COMMERCE

Our goal is to bridge the gap between marketing

and technology and deliver a user-friendly, high

converting product to each one of our clients.

Services include:

• eCommerce Website Design• Magento Development & Integration• Social Media Marketing• Pay Per Click (PPC) Management• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)• eCommerce Site Analysis• Conversion Consulting

2400 Boston Street, Suite 320, Baltimore, Maryland 21224

www.groovecommerce.com800.564.9826@GrooveCommerce

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