grow your magento store: going multilingual and setting up a marketplace

Grow your Magento store: going

multilingual and setting up a marketplace

April 24th, 2014 – online marketing session for Magento business owners

About Promodo

About Magecom

• Custom Magento development and design (including responsive design)

• Magento websites setup (site deployment, setting up theme, stores, languages, payments, shipping setup, integration of necessary extensions)

• Magento development services for digital agencies and codehouses around the globe

2008Year Founded

• Magento performance tuning

• Migration from other ecommerce platforms to Magento

• Integration with fulfillment companies, suppliers, dropshipping services

• Complex Magento solutions (extensions, non-standard functionality, B2B stores, auctions, marketplaces)

Services:

500+web sites

200+ecommerce projects

100+Magento projects

Magecom creates high quality e-commerce solutions on Magento platform

30+experts

Feel free to find out more at www.magecom.net

Speaker

Lena Ruchko Promodo

GA certified individual and enthusiastic online marketer, who possesses experience in SEO, content marketing and social media. She is passionate about everything connected with internet marketing and thinks it is a key element of company’s success these days.

Speaker

Olga OkhrimenkoMagecom

Olga is a Project Manager at Magecom company with 5 years experience specializing in e-commerce websites built on Magento platform.

Deadly sins of multilingual Magento SEO

Mistake # 1: Serving translations without changing the URLs

Bad implementation:

example.com/en/womens-slip-resistant shoes/ example.com/fr/womens-slip-resistant shoes/

Mistake # 1: Serving translations without changing the URLs

Good implementation:

example.com/en/womens-slip-resistant shoes/ example.com/fr/ chaussures-antiderapantes-pour femmes/

Mistake # 2: absence or poor implementation of rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x”

Hreflang does not:

-guarantee the same rankings on other language version of Google -fix duplicate content issue

Hreflang helps:

- Google serve the correct language or regional URL of your store to the user

Annotations rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x” are recommended to be used by sites that have content translated or targeted to different users from different regions

Correct implementation of hreflang:Case #1: different language for different countries

http://es.example.com/ http://us.example.com/

How to indicate to Google that the Spanish URL is the Spanish-language equivalent of the English page and vice versa?

In the page code of http://us.example.com/ in <head> section andin the page code of http://es.example.com/ in <head> section add the following:

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="es" href="http://es.example.com/" /><link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="http://us.example.com/" />

The same should be done for all other pages of all language versions

Correct implementation of hreflang:Case #2: one language for different countries

Example: product page with black jacket, the page is available in English for searchers from Australia, England and Canada

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-uk" href="http://example.co.uk/en/women/black-jacket/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-au" href="http://au.example.com/en/women/black-jacket/" /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-ca" href="http://ca.example.com/en/women/black-jacket/" />

Implementation of hreflang:

Pitfall #1:

Each page needs to have rel=”alternate” reference to all translations including itself.

Pitfall #2:

You should refer to the language equivalent of the exact page, not of the root domain.

If your site provides content in French, English, and Spanish, the Spanish version must include a rel="alternate" hreflang="x" link for itself in addition to links to the French and English versions.

Bad implementation: Good implementation:

de.example.com/product-name-in-german.html alternates to es.example.com

de.example.com/product-name-in-german.html alternates to es.example.com/product-name-in-spanish.html

Mistake # 3: autoredirecting user to a certain language version

“Avoid automatic redirection based on the user’s perceived language. These redirections could prevent users (and search engines) from viewing all the versions of your site.”

Some sites set automatic redirection of users to the specific language version based on the user’s IP address or other information.

Google officially recommends avoid this situation:

Mistake # 4: Mixing rel=”alternate” and rel=”canonical”

example.com/en/product-name-in-english/

rel=”canonical” shouldn’t be used to refer to the translated versions of the site.

Bad implementation:

example.com/fr/product-name-in-french/

rel=”canonical”

Mistake # 4: Mixing rel=”alternate” and rel=”canonical”

example.com/en/women/slip-resistant-shoes/

Good implementation:

example.com/en/outdoors/slip-resistant-shoes/

rel=”canonical”

Structure and on-site factors that influence rankings

Key on-site factors that influence rankings:

Page title optimized for keywords

Headings H1 H2 containing keywords

Page content optimized for keywords

One of the most dangerous factors that hurt rankings is duplicate content:

Page title

Page description

Text on the page

Typically, duplicates occur in:

Check duplicates in Webmaster

Tools

Paste a piece of content with

exact match into Google search

bar

Most common Magento on-page SEO mistakes

Setting default description for the page:

To disable default description go to: System–>Configuration–>Design–>HTML Head–>Default description

Leave this field blank or otherwise your store will generate a lot of duplicates - all pages where no meta description is written will have the same description.

Not turning on rel=canonical

Categories and product pages often have duplicates. To save your site from harm, make sure to turn on canonicals for categories and product pages. To turn on canonical go to: System–>Configuration–>Catalog–>Search Engine Optimizations„Use Canonical Link Meta Tag For Categories“ and „Use Canonical Link Meta Tag For Products“

Most common Magento on-page SEO mistakes

Not changing home page title:

To change default title of the homepage go to: System–>Configuration–>Design–>HTML Head–>Default Title

When a new shop is launched a default title of the homepage is „Home“. In order for the homepage to be ranked well for relevant keywords, change default title for more informative and SEO-friendly.

Why product pages deserve special attention

Product pages often have “slim” content and don’t provide enough information to the search engines

Product descriptions are often copied from manufacturer’s site which creates a lot of duplicates and decreases rankings

Informative product pages filled with a lot of optimized and relevant content have more chances to attract high-quality traffic from long-tail queries.

Optimal site structure:

Flat structure:Benefits:

Image source: Kissmetrics blog

• easy, intuitive navigation for the users

• logical hierarchy for the search bots

• optimal link juice distribution

Internal linking structure:

Benefits:

Image source: Searchengineland.com

• pages are easily discoverable for the search bots

• smart internal linking which strengthens each product and site overall

• breadcrumb navigation ensures that whenever a new page is added, it gets links from other pages from each level

Best practices to ensure fast and smooth indexation

Prevent filter pages from being seen by the search engines.

Robots.txt file

When developing stage is finished and the site goes live, make sure to turn meta robots to “index, follow” and remove robots.txt disallow .

To turn meta robots to “index, follow” go to: System > Configuration > General > Design > HTML Head > Default robots “INDEX, FOLLOW”.

Use “noindex, nofollow” meta robots tags on all unnecessary filter pages or block URLs with unnecessary filter parameters in robots.txt

Sitemap.xml

For smooth and fast indexation, create a sitemap.xml and submit to Google Webmaster Tools. Make sure sitemap.xml doesn’t contain sample products and categories.

A sitemap can be created at:Catalog–>Google Sitemap –>Add Sitemap. Choose a filename, path and store view, press “Save & Generate”.

Put the code Sitemap: http://domain.com/sitemap.xml in robots.txt file to show the search engines where to find your sitemap.xml file.

Submit created xml sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools.

Html sitemap

To ensure that all your site URLs, especially product pages, can be easily found by search engines, you can create html sitemap.

For large ecommerce sites it is recommended to create category-specific html sitemaps for all content related to the category. Apart from better indexation such sitemaps also provide great user experience and simplifies navigation.

Page load speed

Slow loading pages decrease the number of URLs crawled by the search engine. You can check page loading time with Google tool

This tool also gives recommendations on how to improve page load time on desktop and mobile devices.

Explore as a Google bot

When develop the site make sure that all links and content you want to be crawled are accessible for Google bots

Important facts:

• Google bot doesn’t accept cookies• Google bot doesn’t recognize text contained in images• Google bot doesn’t run Javascript, Flash

Recommendation: navigation and content for the site needs to be accessible with Javascript, CSS, cookies and images disabled.

How to know what Google bot will see?

Fetch as Google bot in Webmaster Tools

Google bot simulator (for example, search engine spider simulator by Webconfs.com)

How to check site indexation

In Google search box type [site:] and paste the URL of the site you want to check. You will see how many pages are in Google index

Check in the Webmaster Tools in the Google Index section

Marketplace: what is it?

How it works?

• User registers as a seller

• Sellers list their products and handle order fulfillment

• Marketplace backend processes payment, edits orders/products if needed

Most popular e-Marketplaces:

• Amazon.co.uk

• Ebay.com

• Etsy.com

Types of vendor access

• paid memberships + $$ commission

• paid listings + commission

Types of products

• Car rental

• Accommodation booking

• Selling art

ETSY.com overview

• One account to sell and to buy

• Various payment options:

PayPal, Skrill, GoogleCheckout,

Wire Transfer

• Listing fee and transaction fee

ETSY.com overview

ETSY.com store promotion

• Filling Title, Tags and Descriptions

• Twitter and Facebook integration

• Search Ads tool provided by Etsy

• Shopping engines integration

ASOS.com overview

ASOS.com: overview

• Individual sellers (Wardrobes): up to 100 listings, 5% commission

• Small businesses (Boutiques): £20 monthly fee, unlimited number of listings, 20% commission fee

• Store promotion options

• Worldwide shipping options

• Payment method: PayPal only

SuperSimple Marketplace

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• 100% free extension

• Easy to install and easy to configure

• Create user role for vendors

• Specific privileges to Vendors

• Only admin can create vendors, no

registering from front-end is possible

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• Vendors only have access to their

account and their products

• No extended functionality like

commissions, payouts etc

• For proper usage requires

additional customization

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Apptha Marketplace: key features

• Seller registers on front-end

• Registered buyers convert to

sellers in one click

• Seller dashboard with easy-to-use

vendor interface

• Flexible Commission

• Seller portfolio

• Vendor specific URL

• Different product types (simple,

virtual, downloadable)

• Adaptive PayPal payments: admin

gets commissions and seller gets

payment through PayPal

automatically

Admin features

• Full control over all products

• Full control over seller profiles

• Option to view and edit orders

• Assigning commission per product or per seller

• Managing payments

• Seller account approved manually

or automatically

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Apptha Marketplace: vendors

• Easy product creation from

user account dashboard

• Custom options for products

• Related products

• Vendor specific URLs

• Ratings and reviews

• Transaction history tool

• OneStepCheckout

21.3.1121.3.11

Apptha Marketplace: admin products

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WebKul Marketplace

• Seller registering on front-end

• Easily customizable

add new product feature

• Seller profile page

• Contact seller feature

• Order history

• Commission management

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WebKul Marketplace: example

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Custom developed

features:

Number of views

Product origin

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Seller profile

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uMarketPlace Suite

• Very powerful and extendable module

• Pretty expensive with various add-ons (approx $300 each)

• $1650 per license, $5000 for MarketPlace Suite + add-ons

• Vendor Payout manually or automatically

• MicroSite with custom look, subdomain and landing page

• SplitRate add-on to split products in the shopping cart by vendor

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uMarketPlace Suite: Add-Ons

• Select and Sell

• Price Comparison

• MicroSite Pro

• Vendor Ratings

• Vendor Questions

• uReturns (RMA)

• MultiVendor

• Batch Payout

• AdvancedPO

• SplitRate

Free online marketing auditWe would like to invite all you to take a free 10-15 minutes personalised webinar for a quick audit of your website and marketing campaigns by Google certified experts.

- Quick usability audit of the existing site;- Quick SEO audit and review of existing analytics;- Audit of PPC campaigns;- Technical audit;- Best practices of conversion rate optimization;- General online marketing strategy insights.

Free online marketing audit

Special offer from Magecom

Get 20% discount for

any Marketplace project

on Magento platform

Thank you for your attention!

Lena RuchkoMarketing assistant at Promodo

e-mail: [email protected]: ruchko_lena

Olga OkhrimenkoProject Manager at Magecom

e-mail: [email protected]: olya.okhrimenko

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