Any problem faced while optimizing yahoo store website?

[jag]

Hi

Am new to yahoo store web site optimization, is this same like other site or it should be optimized with some efforts.

Kindly tell me about your experiance in this area

Thnaks in advance

Jag

[Marcia]

jag, I have never personally optimized a Yahoo store, but basic optimization is the same no matter what. I do know that there have been issues in the past because of links in from Yahoo shopping. You might want to check out Yahoo's technical documentation for their stores, and in particular check into usage of relative and absolute linking in the navigation.

Hopefully someone will come along with specific knowledge who can tell you in depth what to look for.

[jag]

Thanks marica, Hoping so.. some one with specific knowledge will help me

If u come to know from ur friend or any source, kindly help me, i have to report today

Jag

Originally Posted by Marcia

jag, I have never personally optimized a Yahoo store, but basic optimization is the same no matter what. I do know that there have been issues in the past because of links in from Yahoo shopping. You might want to check out Yahoo's technical documentation for their stores, and in particular check into usage of relative and absolute linking in the navigation.

Hopefully someone will come along with specific knowledge who can tell you in depth what to look for.

[Brian M]

One of my clients had a site in the Yahoo store for almost two years, but sales were very disappointing (only one or two orders per month). The site was extremely difficult to optimize for natural SERPs because it was built in Yahoo's internal template system, which is great for a novice with very little HTML knowledge, but frustrating for somebody with experience - you cannot "get" the pages into Dreamweaver or notepad - you must work within the Yahoo template system. This is compounded by the problem that the home page may reside in mydomain.com, but all of the page content resides in a subdomain (store.yahoo.com).

So, I had them move the site to a hosted location outside of Yahoo and create actual HTML pages, but they continue to use the Yahoo backend for order processing, etc. (the client's choice). This is an alternative method that Yahoo offers, and they provide code "tags" for the shopping cart that can be inserted on each HTML page (or ASP page... whatever...).

This allows me to optimize each page in the site for natural SERPs, and the Yahoo storefront remains behind the scenes. The site was re-launched two weeks ago, and less than one fifth of the pages (out of 450) have been indexed (previously - just the home page), but those pages are already showing up on top of the SERPs and the client is now averaging one order per day. It still has a long way to go, but it's getting better every day.

So to Marcia's great point above - Yes, "basic optimization is the same no matter what" but I strongly recommend building the site at a standard hosted location, rather than trying to use Yahoo's store template system.

[jag]

Thanks Brian, i think am gone

Any other exp

Originally Posted by Brian M

One of my clients had a site in the Yahoo store for almost two years, but sales were very disappointing (only one or two orders per month). The site was extremely difficult to optimize for natural SERPs because it was built in Yahoo's internal template system, which is great for a novice with very little HTML knowledge, but frustrating for somebody with experience - you cannot "get" the pages into Dreamweaver or notepad - you must work within the Yahoo template system. This is compounded by the problem that the home page may reside in mydomain.com, but all of the page content resides in a subdomain (store.yahoo.com).

So, I had them move the site to a hosted location outside of Yahoo and create actual HTML pages, but they continue to use the Yahoo backend for order processing, etc. (the client's choice). This is an alternative method that Yahoo offers, and they provide code "tags" for the shopping cart that can be inserted on each HTML page (or ASP page... whatever...).

This allows me to optimize each page in the site for natural SERPs, and the Yahoo storefront remains behind the scenes. The site was re-launched two weeks ago, and less than one fifth of the pages (out of 450) have been indexed (previously - just the home page), but those pages are already showing up on top of the SERPs and the client is now averaging one order per day. It still has a long way to go, but it's getting better every day.

So to Marcia's great point above - Yes, "basic optimization is the same no matter what" but I strongly recommend building the site at a standard hosted location, rather than trying to use Yahoo's store template system.

[sitecreations]

If you want to preserve the simplicity of the web-based editing, you can learn a bit of RTML to get Y! stores to output some pretty well optimized pages.

Yahoo already makes the product name into the Title tag, but the problem is retailers don't always know how to name products so that they maximize their potential. Customers depend too much on the parent category to establish content when creating their data, and so give up the built-in opportunties for the title. They think that the customer will be drilling down so repeating the full context in the product name is not needed. Of course from an SEO or PPC standpoint, that is simply not true.

e.g.

Home Fire Safes > 2 hour safes > BigBrand 2 Hour Rated Beige

...won't cut it.

while:

Home Fire Safes > Home Fire Safes - 2 Hour > Home Fire Safes - 2 Hour BigBrand

...helps both the Title, the ALT, the anchor links, the sitemap (index) and the page keyword density

This is really hard to communicate to merchants sometimes as it's so easy to slip back into the pattern of laziness that comes with entering products "on your lunch break."

Next comes the H1 tags. This requires a bit of a template modification to give you a decent looking header. Depending on the look of the site, you'll probably want to use an external CSS referred to within the HEAD TAGS variable and stored in your Yahoo Hosting Space. That lets you tweak it with the built in file manager without mucking around with the store publish function much.

Lastly, Yahoo recently instroduced the ability to create compatible sitemaps on stores...
http://ystoreblog.com/blog/2006/06/n...or-your-store/

I know this isn't a full SEO program, but it does make a big difference with only a little work.

The nice thing is that from that point on, the SEO is built-in a bit. As long as the merchant continues to use good product naming strategy.

Scott

[jag]

I have optimized the site successfully, now am into froogle.google.com

Jag

[jag]

Hi

How to give unique meta descriptions for pages generated by yahoo store

Thanks

Jag

[customystores]

Originally Posted by jag

Hi

Am new to yahoo store web site optimization, is this same like other site or it should be optimized with some efforts.

Kindly tell me about your experiance in this area

Thnaks in advance

Jag

Hi Jag,

Contrary to what you may hear, the Yahoo! Store platform is very efficient and optimizing for search engines can be accomplished with the same amount of effort as any other platform. Actually, because Yahoo! Store outputs static web pages, they are even "better" than a lot of other "database driven" ecommerce sites.

Additionally, the most recent release of the (3.0) editor addresses many points that had to be addressed by someone familar with Yahoo! Store templates in the past. Things like text menu links, alt-image text, breadcrumbs, etc. are all easily created with the user friendly editor. You even have an integrated web blog and site map creator available to you now!

Bottom line... you CAN get a Yahoo! Store to the top of the search engines rankings. [edit] It is not much different than any site off of the Yahoo! Store platform... a little know-how, lots of hard work, relevant content, and patience.

Best of luck to you,
Jeff Fagan

[Marcia]

This is an 11 month old thread so I'm sure that the issue has been long resolved, but as long as it was bumped up to the surface, I'd like to comment on a point:

all easily created with the user friendly editor.

Granted that the editor is user friendly and more than likely useful for non-webmasters and non-SEOs, many of whom probably haven't had any experience with SEO or desktop site construction and optimizing, as are the usual online editing systems, which are many. But for others, who have had experience with both, there's a huge difference between being able to work in desktop applications and the necessity of logging in and working with a web-based editing system.

Even doing some minor editing online using Cpanel, which involves regular HTML pages, it's far more cumbersome to work online, and do the testing that's sometimes needed before going live with changes, for anything extensive. Most is much more easily done desk-top.

same amount of effort as any other platform.

Any other web based platform maybe - but not what's most usually used, which doesn't require working online or the need for anything "special" that's platform dependent.

Of course, everyone has to work with what's available for a particular project so it's a moot issue. But everyone should thoroughly learn to use the system their site is on themselves, as is the case with any system, online or desktop.

[customystores]

Originally Posted by Marcia

But for others, who have had experience with both, there's a huge difference between being able to work in desktop applications and the necessity of logging in and working with a web-based editing system.

Actually, as someone who has worked on just about every platform out there, I am partial to the web based editing system myself. I can't tell you how many times I have had to respond to a -perceived- client crisis while out of the office. With access to the Internet from just about anywhere these days I can easily log-in and work on even the most involved sites under that platform.

With regards to posting to an old thread... I actually stumbled upon this discussion and as I was reading through it it occurred to me that no one really addressed the original question. In my opinion, based on many years of experience on a variety of platforms, a Yahoo! Store can be optimized all the way to the first page with about the same amount of effort as any other web site. That said, it's getting harder and harder to do anywhere these days

-Jeff Fagan

[Marcia]

partial to the web based editing

I'm partial to having a choice, web-based for on the fly changes or minor tweaks. But I'm in the process of completely revamping the navigation on a couple of client sites, and on one it's taking major page structure and massive on-page modifications. That would be horrendous done using an online editor, running TF checks and testing prior to going live.

Of course, when clients have a platform they're using there's no choice, but hopefully the architecture will have been set up to begin with. I'm familiar with several Yahoo stores that rock at the engines, and you would never be able to tell they're Yahoo stores, they're completely custom and don't look anything like Yahoo stores - yet they are.

[ymerchanthelper]

Marcia,

Jumping in late on this thread but actually Yahoo! Store has you covered as well if you wish to work offline. Most of the SEO work beyond editing of templates which is done infrequently, is around writing content (unique descriptions, titles, headers, product specs, etc...) and cross-linking within your site. All of this can be done offline in a spreadsheet which you can then log in and upload (or FTP) to your store. So you can edit online for small tactical changes, or revamp an entire site content offline.

Paul

[sitecreations]

Agreed. I think for any site, even non Y!-stores, can benefit from a little stand-alone strategic thinking with a spreadsheet. Your thought process shifts into "do" mode with the tools in front of you. Often small changes in the spreadsheet to correct thoughts save hours in coding updates when caught early.