Support Manual / SEO Basics

There are different ways to edit a page title.  We will go over which page titles there are and how to change them.

The Product Page Titles are controlled by the Products themselves.  See more info here.

You can also create a custom title for the Product details page.  See more below.

There are Category Page Titles. See more here.

Then there are "page" titles.  For pages that do not have to do with Products or Ads.  Those are edited in the "Page Settings" area of each page.

See screenshot:

Product Details Page SEO settings:

YourDomain.com > Modules > Ecommerce: Products (mX) > General Settings

You can create a page title based on the combined fields listed above.  In this scenario the page title for a  product will show the "Name"(the field "name" in the Product) and an underscore "_" then the "SKU" field,  then the "Discounted Price" field will display in the page title.

see screenshot:

In the example above you have the "Name" (Cover alls) and Underscore "_" then the SKU (10009) and Discounted price ($55.00) show pushed to gether because there is nothing specified to separate them.

One really great way to reduce the amount of 404 hits on your site is to have a "full text Search" as your 404 page, this is also really great for SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

You can enable this option in your "Site Template and Settings" area.

When using this option you can have the system search, instead of showing a 404 page.  So for example if you had an alias "christmas" indexed:  http://www.YourDomain.com/christmas
And that URL no longer exists.  Instead of a 404 error page showing, it redirects to the "Full Text Search" page and searches for whatever characters are used after "http://www.YourDomain.com/" so it goes to that page and searches all pages and products for "christmas".  This is also helpful if people had an old website and now all of the page and product URLs are different.

NOTE: if you select the "FULL TEXT SEARCH" in there are no pages for you to select in the second drop down, this means you need to add a page with the "Full Text Search Result" frame and the "Full Text Search Box" frame.

see screenshot:

Another cause of increased 404 errors on your site is altering a category name.

Categories create automatic aliases for a "Category page" for example: http://manual.websiteforge.com/5m2/ways-to-get-help.html ("ways to get help" is a category)  Since that category is already indexed on the Search Engines, if I make a change to the category name in any way (even changing a space  or adding 1 character) the URL will no longer work, because the alias name will not be the same anymore.  Having the full text search as the 404 will help eliminate this problem as well.

You can specify your Meta Content for a Category when editing your Categories.

YourDomain.com > Modules > Ecommerce: Products (mX) > Categories

See Screenshot:

The Page Title by Default (if Custom is not selected) uses the Category name_SKU.  Page Titles are important for SEO - NOTE:  THis is different than the page url.

Meta Description By default uses the Description text used in your Category description.  You can customize it by selecting "Custom" and writing something different there.

The Meta Description is what a Search Engine uses to briefly describe your Category. (Most of the time - but not always.  Sometimes the SE shows content from the page - usually to show you where it found the text that you searched for)

Meta Keywords Are keywords search engines use to find your items.  By default this area is populated by the Category name only.  It is a good idea to add more keywords that are relevant to your items. (things that people might use to describe your items when searching for them.)

You can update your Product Meta Data when editing your product.

YourDomain.com > Modules > Ecommerce: Products (mX) > Products > Edit Product

Near the bottom of the "edit Product" screen.

The Page Title by Default (if Custom is not selected) uses the Product name_SKU.  Page Titles are important for SEO - NOTE:  THis is different than the page url.

Page Alias is created automatically for your products and uses the Name of the product to create it.  You create a custom alias by selecting "Custom" and specifying a name.  We do not recommend using spaces, but using an Underscore instead " _ "

Meta Description By default uses the Description text used in your Products description.  You can customize it by selecting "Custom" and writing something different there.

The Meta Description is what a Search Engine uses to briefly describe your item. (Most of the time - but not always.  Sometimes the SE shows content from the page - usually to show you where it found the text that you searched for)

Meta Keywords Are keywords search engines use to find your items.  By default this area is populated by the product name only.  It is a good idea to add more keywords that are relevant to your item. (things that people might use to describe this item when searching for it.)

 You can update your Page Meta Content by going to the "Page Settings" area of any of your pages.

YourDomain.com > Pages > Default Group > YourPageName (X.html) > Page Settings :

There are several Important SEO settings here.

• Page Meta Keywords
• Page Meta Description
• Indexed By Search Engines
• Include in Site Map

Page Meta Keywords

The art of listing your web site in search engines like Yahoo! and Google is a very complex and time consuming process.

Meta keywords are a very small factor these days.  Nonetheless, you should list any and all keywords you feel are important here to increase your ability to list in search engines.

There are many, many, many (get my point yet?), many different factors that affect your search engine position.  Let me list a few factors you can take advantage of:

1. Put keywords in your page titles - Write sentences in your titles that contain as many keywords as you can while keeping them "readable".  Example:  We provide english books, childrens books, magazines, and novels.  Here the keywords are books, childrens books, english books, magazines and novels.  This will provide search engine value to your pages.
2. Content - Provide a large amount of informational information or artciles making sure to mention keywords and/or phrases thoughout your document.  This both will provide useful information to visitors and provide more "meat" for a search engine to check out.  MAKE SURE you write real articles with useful information.  This, over time, may help your search engine rankings.
3. Don't submit your site repeatedly - Submit your web site only once and wait.  Your site will eventually become indexed in the search engines and once you are placed anywhere within one search engine.. Others will follow.  Repeated submissions do not provide the value it would seem.
4. Title images - Get in the habit to put a title under images you are using as visual aids in your page copy.  For instance, if you are selling "Aluminum Radiators" and you are showing a sample on your home page.  Put the word "Sample Aluminum Radiator" or another keywords phrase that makes sense to write.  This can only help.
5. Don't keyword spam - Spamming is the practice of retyping the same keyword or phrase over and over again.  This will quickly cause your web site to become blacklisted from all the major search engines.  Don't do it.
6. Don't hide text - Putting white text on a white background (or any combination that hides text) can also cause your site to become blacklisted and removed from search engines.
7. Share links - Trading links with related web sites that already have very good search engine listings can help your site's rankings too.  It has to be a reciprocal link.  Meaning you put a link on your site and the reciprocating site puts your link on theirs.  One way linking may not work the same.
   

Page Meta Description

Meta Descriptions are a very small factor these days.  Nonetheless, you should enter a text description of your web site and what you provide here.

The description tag returns a description of the page in place of the summary the search engine would ordinarily create.

The above rules apply here as well.

Indexed By Search Engines

This option will allow the page to be seen by search engines. 

Include in Site Map

This option will add this page into the Sitemap when checked.

WebsiteForge provides an automatically generated Google/Bing Site Map for you. Its URL is http://YourDomain.com/sitemap_index.gz

You can find your specific link to your sitemap in the "Site Template and Settings" area.

You may contact support to obtain a free consultation with a search engine expert to learn some ways you can specifically increase your SE rankings..

You can do this by creating a Page alias. 

If you go here: YourDomain.com > Page Aliases then you can create page aliases. 

For a quick video on how this area works please go here.

Having the URL show a name would look like this: http://manual.websiteforge.com/Support_Home ( the use of spaces and any special characters is discouraged).  We recommend using an underscore"_" or combining the words (Google will separate them automatically)

The default URL for this page is http://manual.websiteforge.com/2.html

Using Aliases has a great SEO benefit as well.  Because it will add recognition to that page for what the page is.

Note: Creating the page alias does not automatically link your Site menu, or any other links on your site to your Aliased page.  You will need to manually re-link anything that is linked to the page you have created for your Alias.  Or you can enable a setting in your "Site Template & Settings" area called "Redirect to Aliases".  Which will automatically direct traffic to your newly created alias, regardless of the link for that page.

Page aliases can link to A Site Page, A Module Item, or A Module Category.

NOTE: Module items and Categories already use the "Title" in the URL to be identified.  

For example:

http://manual.websiteforge.com/5m2/dashboard.html?m2:nested=0

(the URL above will take you to the category "dashboard".  As you can see an alias is not needed in this scenario unless you want to force a different URL.)

If you were to create an alias for the Dashboard category, let's say we call it "Dashboard" that URL would look like this instead: http://manual.websiteforge.com/Dashboard

The same is true for items (Products, ADs, & Blog Posts)

To Create an alias First add an alias name.

Next click the "Select" to choose where this alias will link to.

The "Select Link" pop up will appear.  In this pop up you can choose if you are linking to a Site Page, Module Category or Module Item.

(In this example I'm linking to a Site Page named "Results".)

You have 2 options on the right.  "Redirect" and "Member-dependent". 
Redirect will take a user to the page number, and not keep the name as the URL.  In the example above if we select "Redirect" the URL would show up as Http://manual.websiteforge.com/7.html when the alias is used.

This is used when, say someone had an old page and they want to make redirects from the old pages to the new ones...  That way people who may have bookmarked - or results in search engines, will get sent to the new page.

Member-dependent will allow you to make aliases for specific users.  Once the "Member dependent" box is checked you will see available groups to select to allow access to this alias.

NOTE: if you only have the "Default Group" in your members area, then you will not see any options when selecing the "Member-dependent" option.

This is what it looks like when you have multiple member groups:

This is what it looks like when you ONLY have the "Default Group" in your Members & Group's area:

For more assistance with this please feel contact support.

You can export products in your "Products" area in your E-Commerce Module.

"Export to CSV"

"Export Inventory"

"Advanced Export to CSV"

"Export to Google Merchant Center"

See screenshot:

When you are on your products page you can export products in a couple of ways.

"Export to CSV"

"Export Inventory"

"Advanced Export to CSV"

"Export to Google Merchant Center"

First thing to understand about this process is if you do a search on the left hand side of this area, and then click any of the export options it will only export the items from the search results.  If you wish to export all of your items then you should click the "Show All" button prior to doing an export.

Export to CSV

Will export all of the products listed from the search.  It will include all fields that you have for your products. (Fields are "SKU", "Description", "Price", etc...)

Export Inventory

Will export all of the QOH for the results listed. ( it will show the sku and QOH of that sku)

Advanced Export to CSV

This option will export all of the items shown from the search.  But will allow you to choose what fields to export. (This can come in handy if you are only looking to update pricing for example.  Then you may only want to export the title or sku, and the price field.  To keep the file small and easier to update)

See screenshot:

Export to Google Merchant Center

also see this video

This option allows you to export to Google Merchant Center.  And set the mapped fields here. This will save a .txt file that you can import to Google Merchant Center.  (Note: be sure the fields match how you want them to be linked in Google Merchant Center)

See screenshot:

Once you click on "Export" in any of these scenario's it will either prompt you to save the file (if it is small enough) or it will go to "scheduled tasks" and create the file for you there.  Once completed it will have a link for you to click and downlaod your file.  The link will expire soon after creation.

Alternative text is text associated with an image that serves the same purpose and conveys the same essential information as the image.[1] In situations where the image is not available to the reader, perhaps because they have turned off images in their web browser or are using a screen reader due to a visual impairment, the alternative text ensures that no information or functionality is lost.

Alt image text also helps with Search Engine optimization. Alt image text should describe what the image is about and get those visitors interested to see it.

Add Alt Image text in a frame

Add Alt Image text in Advanced Gallery Module

Add Alt Image text in E-Commerce Module

Add Alt Image text in a frame

To add Alt Image text in a frame, first insert the image in a frame and then go to source view -

You can then add the Alt Image text between the two "" in the code - alt="" .

Adding Alt Image text in Advanced Gallery Module

If you want to add Alt Image text to images present in the Advanced Gallery Module then you can choose a text field for alt image text in the "General settings"  

Add Alt Image text in E-Commerce Module

If you want to add Alt Image text to images present in the E-Commerce Module then you can choose a text field for alt image text in the Miscelaneous settings under "General settings"