While shopping cart systems offer webmasters a convenient way of operating large and ever growing ecommerce websites they do tend to pose a few obstacles to optimization.   Dynamically generated URLs full of odd symbols, limited access to META settings and a lack of options for adding unique content to certain critical pages are just a few shortcomings we are sometimes forced to accept and work around.

So, granting that no shopping cart is going to present us with an ideal platform for SEO, we need to take a look at what certain shopping cart systems do offer us, and how best to exploit these advantages.   This series of posts will explore several shopping cart systems and evaluate them from an SEO point of view.

In the first part of this series we will take a look at the Yahoo! Small Business Store Editor.   I’ve heard from several clients while they were still in the negotiation phase for services, that they had been told Yahoo! Small Business stores simply can’t be optimized.   Where they heard this, I don’t know.   Does the Yahoo! Small Business Store Editor present us with an ideal foundation for SEO implementation?  No.   But does it allow for certain key elements of any site optimization to be implemented?  Yes, indeed.

What’s been your experience optimizing Yahoo! Stores?   Or any other eCommerce platforms?  Please jump in the discussion with any questions or additional tips you may have discovered by leaving a comment below!

SEO Friendly URLs

Yes and no.   The Yahoo! Small Business Store Editor does not generate long strings of seemingly random letters and question marks, but neither does it always allow for very specific URL file names.   In some cases, if the file name is short enough, it will retain the actual name (customwidgets.html) but in cases where we would prefer a longer name – custom handmade rawhide widgets – the name may be shortened to an acronym: cuharawi.html.

Text Only Pages

Many shopping cart systems offer no way of establishing pages on a site made of pure text.   These systems only allow pages to be created through the catalog creation admin, so if you want to create a keyword targeted page housing a keyword rich (but balanced!) article…you’re out of luck.

The Yahoo! Site Editor doesn’t technically offer this ability, but there is a work around for building a page of pure content (no products) by adding a SECTION off of the home page and inputting your text (including any HTML code) into the CAPTION field.

Access To META Information

The Yahoo! Store Editor does give you the ability to define unique per-page title tags, keyword meta, and meta descriptions.   Some shopping cart systems auto-populate the title tag with your category or product name, but the Yahoo! System does allow for completely unique title tag information to be implemented.

Adding additional meta tags – such as robots and Googlebot - is a little unintuitive, but possible.

Open your page for editing and then select the OVERRIDE VARIABLE option from the admin menu.   From the drop down menu select HEAD TAGS then click UPDATE.   When you return to the page edit area you will see at the bottom a CUSTOM PROPERTIES section with a field for your META information.   You can enter any new meta information here using HTML.

Unique Content on Category Pages

For any ecommerce site it’s important to have a block of text on each category page to define what the page is about for prospective consumers and to give the search engines something to chew on.   The Yahoo! Store Editor does allow for unique content on category pages AND product pages.

301 Redirects

The Yahoo! Store Editor is a bit lacking in its ability to establish 301 redirects.   While you can redirect an entire store from one domain to another, you cannot 301 redirect individual pages.   Nor can you establish a non-www 301 redirect to force your site to resolve to its full www.storename.com version.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5