I’ve finally decided which Cart I’m going to use. Magento.
I’m about to hire someone to redevelop my (existing) site, however, after looking at his past work, they look nice and all. But I’m concerned with his SEO skills…
I noticed the rankings of the sites in his portfolio, they don’t seem to rank very well, but they’re nicely designed!
Keep in mind the sites (in his portfolio) are fairly new, which may contribute to why they don’t rank so well in Alexa(dot)com.
I did mention this to him, but he says that ‘Alexa’ is not the most reliable source. “The only real way to get the acurate rankings is through analytical programs such as google’s.” Also he mentioned that “it takes time to rank well”.
The question I’m trying to ask is… Once I DO get my site built & nicely redesigned with Magento Cart, can SEO be attributed AFTER the site has been created IF I feel the SEO was not properly executed?
I’m super concerned because the Website I have now ranks at the top with MOST of my products. If I loose those spots. I’ll lose a lot of business…
I read the post / article - FAQ: Search Engine Optimization.
But I’m feeling apprehensive to start this work on a new designed site, then lose all my rankings which sends me back to the bottom.
Alexa rankings really have nothing to do with SEO. They’re a statistically extrapolated estimate of the site’s traffic. If you want to know if he’s good at SEO, ask him for some examples of that work – sites he’s optimized, what he did, and how it improved the site’s search positions. Good SEO work doesn’t necessarily mean the site is going to have a high traffic rank – a site about farming worms for fish bait just doesn’t have the same audience and search volume as Facebook.
Also, your rankings are going to move around a lot when you completely change platforms. Some pages may go down while others may go up.
Also, try and 301 redirect the old urls to their equivalent new url. So incoming links to specific products or categories will point to the right place
Whilst I can’t speak for how well you SEO guy does SEO, he’s quite right in what he says about Alexa and time frames.
Dan is also correct in pointing out that modern SEO is no longer about where you rank but whether or not your traffic converts. SEO is conversion oriented now, rankings are practically irrelevant, espeecially as different people will see your page in different places in the SERP because of geo-targeted and personalised search on Google.
If I ask him for his work, I’ll have no idea what the language means, it’s like reading Chinese to me. So if he sends me the work, the programming, with all those codes, I won’t have any idea if it has been optimized well or poorly… I’m Assuming that is what you’re talking about??
In otherwords ask for his Analytical Stats? Such as Google Analytics? and see how it has improved since inception? - Sorry, I know I’m not educated enough on this subject, but I’m trying.
Yes, I do agree with Worm farming vs Facebook… haha, I understand that…
Also, your rankings are going to move around a lot when you completely change platforms. Some pages may go down while others may go up.
Also, try and 301 redirect the old urls to their equivalent new url. So incoming links to specific products or categories will point to the right place
Clayton, Thank you also
301 direct? It ports my old URL to the new one? I have those old school URLs with the strange characters such as ( .com/ex?mple?#-Product1-23 ) The new ones will be more clean such as ( .com/Product1 )… So I have my old URL port to the new one? That should solve or have less of an affect on losing my positioning?
Whilst I can’t speak for how well you SEO guy does SEO, he’s quite right in what he says about Alexa and time frames.
Dan is also correct in pointing out that modern SEO is no longer about where you rank but whether or not your traffic converts. SEO is conversion oriented now, rankings are practically irrelevant, espeecially as different people will see your page in different places in the SERP because of geo-targeted and personalised search on Google.
JJ, you too, thank you,
Conversion Oriented?? So in a nut shell… Google/yahoo/Bing ,etc will determine and calculate, when someone lands on my webpage, Stops, Browse, and make purchase or leaves?? So it will calculate how many purchases I’ve made to determine the ‘Conversion’ rate??
I’m assuming when you say ‘Coversion’ it means - Converting a browser into a shopper… Is this correct?
So in essence, the more those browsers turn into shoppers, the better my ranking?? How come I rank on top, number one, on a lot of the Keywords compared to some competitors? I don’t even have an Ecommerce site (yet), just a catalog to view pricing… So time does have an effect, I see… hmm
No, nobody is going to calculate your conversion rate for you. YOU need to calculate your conversion rate, and it should be your goal to improve that. Your goal with this website is to make sales, collect leads, or some other action right? Traffic doesn’t pay your bills, people buying things from you or clicking your ads does. That’s your goal, not traffic. If you work towards increasing traffic but the new traffic isn’t interested in buying anything from you, you’re wasting your time and money.
