What does it take to get top placements in the search engines with a VirtueMart-based website? Below is a step-by-step guide on what to do to improve your rankings.
The first thing you need to look at, is the URL’s in the shop. You need to turn on search friendly URL’s in Joomla. Without doing so, you will get a lot of duplicated content indexed by Google’s bots, and that will result in never getting anywhere in the search results.
The next you need to check, is if there are any broken links at your site. Make sure all images are present, and that you have not linked to pages that does not exist.
Keep improving the product pages
We have now gotten to the part of checking the content of the product pages. Are you giving enough information about each product and category for Google’s bot’s to have anything to read? Each page of the site needs to have enough text for the bots to understand what the page is about, so you will have to describe each product and category as well as you possibly can.
Keep the end user’s attention by adding good pictures and illustrations for each product and category. Don’t think that “this is something I’ll look into later”. Work thoroughly through each page, and ask yourself: would I buy this product based on the given information?
The next thing you need to do, is to get the pages shared in social media. Add a module that will make it super easy to share the product pages, and make sure the sharing buttons are easy to find.
Getting links from other peoples websites
Now, we have gotten to the hard part: getting other people to link to your pages. This is something you might need help with from us, but you should still try to do this yourself as well. Make a list of people you know that has a website, and that might want to link to your products. Ask them either by phone or send them a mail. Call your suppliers of products and ask them to link to your store.
Keep track of what you are doing
While working on the above, you also needs to keep track of how well your shop is doing. My personal recommendation is using Statcounter’s statistics service, but you might look at other third party solutions if you don’t like Statcounter. It’s not important what service you use, as long as you are fairly sure the service of choice gives accurate statistics. Google Analytics is another possibility for this.
Rinse and repeat
Keep improving every little detail on the site. Is the template well laid out? Is it easy to find the shopping cart? Does people know how to proceed to checkout? All these questions needs to be asked, and you have to be critical. Find someone that knows nothing about how a shopping site is supposed to work and ask the person to make a test order. Listen to what is confusing and then find solutions to fix it.
The most important of all, is that the site is never finished. It will never be done. Invest time and efforts in to improving on all aspects of your store, and you will see people return and buy your goods.
What is your experience with Virtuemart when it comes to Google rankings?
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Last Updated on May 31, 2023 by Bjorn Solstad