Here are five BigCommerce SEO mistakes to avoid:

1. Ignoring keyword research: Keywords are the foundation of any successful SEO strategy. Conducting thorough keyword research helps you understand what your target audience is searching for, which terms to target, and how to optimize your product pages for those keywords. Ignoring keyword research can lead to irrelevant or weakly targeted content, which can hurt your search rankings.
2. Poor product descriptions: Product descriptions are key to attracting and converting customers. However, many merchants make the mistake of using manufacturer descriptions or thin content. Creating unique, engaging, and keyword-rich product descriptions can improve your search rankings and increase conversions.
3. Duplicate content: Duplicate content is a common SEO mistake that can result in Google penalizing your site. This can occur when you have identical content on multiple product pages or when your content is copied from other sources. Use canonical tags to indicate the original source of the content and avoid duplicate content penalties.
4. Ignoring meta titles and descriptions: Meta titles and descriptions provide a brief summary of your page’s content and can influence whether or not a user clicks through to your site. Ignoring or neglecting to optimize these tags can result in lower click-through rates and reduced search visibility.
5. Slow page speed: Page speed is a critical factor in both user experience and search rankings. Slow-loading pages can cause users to abandon your site and can lead to lower search engine rankings. Optimize your site’s images, compress files, and use caching to improve your site’s page speed.

By avoiding these five common SEO mistakes, you can improve your BigCommerce store’s search engine visibility and attract more targeted traffic to your site.

More Reading:

1. Google’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/beginner/seo-starter-guide
2. Moz’s Beginner’s Guide to SEO: https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo
3. SEMrush’s SEO Toolkit: https://www.semrush.com/seo/
4. Ahrefs’ Blog: https://ahrefs.com/blog/

More of our articles:

If you run an Bigcommerce store, you know that search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial for driving traffic and sales. In this post, we’ll go over the 3 tips for BigCommerce product page SEO, and show you how to implement them using Stencil coding.

Optimize your product titles and descriptions

One of the most important SEO elements for product pages is the title and description. Make sure your product titles are descriptive and include relevant keywords. Your descriptions should also be detailed and include keywords, but be careful not to stuff them with too many keywords – this can actually hurt your SEO.

To optimize your product titles and descriptions in BigCommerce, you can use Stencil coding to dynamically generate them based on product data.

Add structured data markup

Structured data markup is code that helps search engines understand the content of your website. By adding structured data markup to your product pages, you can increase your chances of appearing in rich snippets in search results.

To add structured data markup to your product pages in BigCommerce, you can use Stencil coding to generate the appropriate JSON-LD code.

Optimize your product images

Product images are an important part of the shopping experience, but they can also impact your SEO. Make sure your images are high-quality, properly sized, and named with descriptive filenames that include relevant keywords.

To optimize your product images in BigCommerce, you can use Stencil coding to dynamically generate the image URLs and alt tags.

Finally, optimizing your BigCommerce product page SEO can help increase your visibility and drive more sales. By following these top 3 tips and using Stencil coding to implement them, you can improve your chances of ranking higher in search results.

Resources:

1. BigCommerce’s SEO Resource Center: https://www.bigcommerce.com/seo/
2. Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test: https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly

One Take Services:

• One Take Media SEO Clean Up

Earlier today The Wife and Marcella (one of their talented cooks and writers) posted their first LIVE video blog: https://www.facebook.com/chefjasonmcclearen/videos/989712767809545/ – “Trial attempt at making homemade Port Ice Cream” ‪#‎homemade‬ ‪#‎icecream‬ ‪#‎wine‬ ‪#‎food‬ ‪#‎foodblogging‬ ‪#‎live‬

NOW! Livecasting via Facebook part 2 of “Making homemade Port Ice Cream” – https://www.facebook.com/chefjasonmcclearen/videos/989734437807378/

Email 1:

>
> Hello
> I’m Kelvin i would love to know if you can handle website design for a new company and also if you do you accept credit cards  kindly get back to me ASAP so i can send you the job details and also are you the owner of your facility???

Email 2:

Well i have a small clothing business for both male and female which i run here  in city am trying to expand the business and i want you to build an informational website for it for advertisement and to increase my sales rate..so i need you to checkout this site but i need something more perfect than this it is possible,http://www.missrebel.co.uk.The  site would only be informational, so i need you to give me an estimate .the estimate should include hosting and i want the site to have not more than 8 pages since it is informational.i have a private project graphic designer ,he has the text content, images and the logos for the site.

Note:
1. I want only English language
2. I don’t have a domain yet but i want the domain name as selfie-wears.com or selfie-wears-Al.com
3.You will be updating the site for me.
4. I will be proving the images,logos and content for the site.
5. I want the site up and running before ending of next month.
6. My budget is $2000 to $5000 Kindly get back to me with:
(1) an estimate
(2) your cell phone number  
(3) And will like to know if you are the owner ??
BUSINESS NAME ; SEFIE WEARS.
MY CELL PHONE NUMBER: 817) 890-2914

for selling i just want it informational please get back to me with an estimate and i can payment to get started thanks

Email 3:
Thanks for getting back to me,Well i only wanted an informational site,i  like the layout of the site that is why it was sent to you as sample,i will like to with the selfie-wears.com think that will be better as a domain name you can purchase that for me.I am not selling on the site yet that is why i want it informational for now.I have up to 50 items i want to upload on the site for now .i want the site updated monthly each time i have new designs i want to upload on the site.I will like the search engine optimization ,It will make it easier for people to get to my site my budget is for the website alone ,i will have my private project graphic designer forward the information you will be needing as soon as you come up with an estimate.i will like you to get back to me with your estimate so we can proceed.

get back to me with your quote.

Email 4:
Okay good  am okay with the cost of  $****  does that include processing  fee + tax and am ready to make down the payment Asap??
and also what type of merchant processor are you using for processing payment??

So can you also get back to me with your personal cell phone so i can text you and call you??

I was suspicious at the start, so i googled and found this blog post: http://blog.ihenix.com/nearly-got-scammed/ that helped confirm what I suspected it was.

I’ll be posting about this blog and this scam attempt on me on my Facebook/Twitter/Linkedin/and blog.

Thanks again to Robert Bowick, iHenix!

So I needed to find a way deal with Magento’s understanding that a / denotes a category/subcategory assignment rather than it just being part of the category name.

I spent a fair amount of time researching on google and I found a few articles that talked about it, but no clear way to deal with it (enclosing the category names with quotes didn’t work and neither did escaping the character as some posts suggested) until this morning when it hit me.

Ascii html Characters! Could I substitute / with / and would that still display a / on the storefront, but be accepted by the store input? so i did a test and indeed it worked perfectly! I had already created a Import/Export profile for categories, so just deleted the categories that had a / in the name, edited the category csv file subbing in / for any / and uploaded. Then i uploaded a test product to Artists/Prints and it worked! So on the storefront i had Artists/Prints showing as a category and my test product in it.

So here are the steps I took and hopefully this helps anyone that’s run into this problem that doesn’t want to change their category names to remove their /’s all together.

1. Manage Categories > replace / with /
   1. I had over 70 categories to deal with so it was easier to make a import/export profile http://www.templatemonster.com/help/magento-how-to-exportimport-data-in-csv-files.html#gref and edit using Find/Replace in excel/openoffice or you can download an extension to help you.
2. Open your product spreadsheet, go to the Categories column, using Find/Replace to do the substitution.
3. Import!

Hopefully this is helpful to you all!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years to you all!

“One Take Media is true to their name: They do great work across SEO, development and marketing, and they do it fast. They’re a pleasure to work with!”

The our team consists of e-commerce experts and Web professionals. We listen, we consult, we strategize, and help plan for the future to bring our client’s business dreams to realization. Whether you are a new start-up online company or a seasoned entrepreneur with several retail locations, we enjoy working with all levels of businesses. In the last 8 years we have helped our clients succeed and partnered with them and their business to the next level. We understand the concerns of running a business and look forward to guiding you each step of the way. Contact us for a free consultation with one of our e-commerce specialists!.

E-mail us at info@onetakemedia.net or call us from 9am-5pm Est, Mon-Fri at 810-824-7639

One Take Media can help you with:

• Custom Bigcommerce or Magento Coding

• Google Analytics
• Store and Product Migration and Set up
• Search Engine Optimization
• HTML to Bigcommerce Conversion
• Bigcommerce Plug-Ins and Snippets
• Custom Web Site Design
• Bigcommerce Templates

E-mail us at info@onetakemedia.net or call us from 9am-5pm Est, Mon-Fri at 810-824-7639 Follow me on App.net

Save

Step 1:

Take this code:

<!-- Google Code for Purchase Conversion Page --> 
<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript"> 
<!-- 
var google_conversion_id = Your-Merchant-ID-Here;
var google_conversion_language = "en_US"; 
var google_conversion_format = "1"; 
var google_conversion_color = "666666"; 
if (%%ORDER_AMOUNT%%) {
var google_conversion_value = %%ORDER_AMOUNT%%;
} var google_conversion_label = "Purchase"; 
//--> 
</script> 
<script language="JavaScript" src="http://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/conversion.js"> 
</script> 
<noscript> 
<img height=1 width=1 border=0 src="http://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/conversion/Your-Merchant-ID-Here/?value=1&label=Purchase&script=0"> 
</noscript>

Replace Your-Merchant-ID-Here  with your Google Adwords merchant ID. 

Step 2:

Bigcommerce control panel, click Setup & Tools › Customize your store › Conversions


Drop the edited code into the box on the next screen and click save. Give it a couple days to catch up and you should have new conversion data!

I have to be blunt, your submission form really sucks.

• it doesn’t allow dashes in the phone number but doesn’t say so, gives a stupid “are you sure you entered an area code?” error
• it requires http:// before the www in the site url, a simple adjustment to your form can make tell if there is http:// entered and if not add it to the url so your database has it in it each entry.
• it can’t delete or ignore preceding or trailing spaces in the email box, they are common when copy/pasting email addresses
• your keyword submission boxis equally stupid. you only allow single keywords and no phrases? what is this the 90s? “Commercial restaurant equipment” is a high value search/keyword phrase but according to your form’s “no commas, use spaces” only rule I can only submit single keywords, which reduced me to only submitting 6 instead of 18 so that ‘and’ and other connecter words and the first or last part of multi-word phrases didn’t get my client’s site mis-categorized.

so after 10 min of fooling around trying to read the tea leaves i was able to get this client in, but it could have been a couple min process.

Also, the site needs major work if you want it to look professional, you ought to check out some templates if its not in your budget to have a custom design done, they’ve come a long way since the 90s. I even have some of one of my sites, www.bltemplates.com

Retiring Google Checkout Announcement

On November 20th, 2013, Google will shut down its Checkout product. Here’s how this may affect you:

• Merchants selling digital goods may transition to Google Wallet for digital goods
• Merchants selling through Google-hosted marketplaces (e.g. Google Play) will be unaffected
• Merchants selling physical goods will need to switch to third-party alternatives (see below)

What this means for ProStores users that unless you are selling digital, non-physical, goods that you will not be able to use Google Checkout anymore, Google is not offering a replacement processing solution for physical goods and services. They have partnered with Braintree Payments to help transition people from Google Checkout, but Braintree and ProStores aren’t compatible at this time so thats of no help.

To minimize the disruption to your business, Google recommends moving to a new payment provider as soon as possible.

Paypal is still available, Amazon payment is good, setting an account with one of the standard Credit Card processors found in your Payment settings is a perfectly viable option as well (although there is a monthly fee associated with a CC processor)

Some important notes:

• No new orders will be accepted after November 20th
• All refunds must be initiated by December 20th
• Payouts will continue per your usual disbursement schedule
• A final payout will be initiated after order processing concludes; where eligible, funds held in reserves will be disbursed

Related articles:

• Closing your account
• Ending order processing
• Processing refunds after account closure
• Managing chargebacks after account closure
• Receiving your final payout

If you’ve purchased Google Checkout from us here at One Take Media just call or email us we will remove it for free. If your a ProStores Merchant and bought it somewhere else we can still help you remove it for a very small fee of $10, thats just to cover the time to remove the code and the badges from your store.

Google’s schedule of changes.

Honestly we recommend that people stop using it now, you don’t want to get caught up in a reconciliation and accessing account information mess after the shut off date.

This isn’t happy news, but its important that people know, so please share this post wherever you can.