This seems to be one of the things that many people find difficult in Magento.

There are huge advantages to creating and submitting a google sitemap, this will tell the search engine about all of your pages in your website, the first step is to setup a google webmaster account (Click here to signup).

After you have create your google account login to your magento admin panel and firstly setup your preferences, go to: Admin – System – Configuration – Google Sitemap Tab under Catalog most of these settings can be left as default if you are unsure.

The next step is to create your sitemap, go to: Catalog – Google Sitemap.
Then click Add sitemap
You will need to then create a folder in your ftp to hold the sitemap, I recommend this as the folder needs to have write permissions, if you are familiar with FTP create the folder and then Chmod the folder to 777, if you are unsure how to do this ask your web designer.

Once the folder is created with the chmod set to 777 go back to magento and add the sitemap filename. eg. sitemap.xml, this is the name of the file that will be created.

then add the path, for example if the folder you added to the server was sitemap you would type in here. sitemap/

Then click Save and Generate. The sitemap will then be generated and a link to the sitemap will be displayed, you can verify it worked by clicking the link.

Then copy the full url and add this to your google webmasters account, if you have any difficulty in creating a google webmaster account feel free to contact us for assistance it should take less than 10 minutes.

www.2jdesign.co.uk

ecommerce · google · Google XML Sitemaps · magento · sitemaps

Magento is in my opinion is probably the best Ecommerce platform available today on the market, with so many features and great optimisation it excels above others such as Oscommerce, Zen Cart to name but a few.

One of the features I really like is the clean urls that are written automatically or can be written yourself with abit of knowledge.

Here are a few tips to improve your product listings SEO and how to get them listed in the search engines.

1 – Optimise your Product Name well to include what people will search for
2 – Ensure the Meta Titles and Descriptions are unique for each product across the site.
3 -Re-write the URL Keys to give your pages a nice clean SEO friendly URL, eg. www.mysite.com/categoryname/a-nice-product-name-url
4 – List your products in a both the root and sub category if relevant.
5 – Add alt tags for images
6 – Optimise the descriptions to have the keywords people will search for, and create links to information pages, other products
7 – Setup Upsells and related products to promote other relavant items

Once your site is loaded with products dont forget to make use of the Google APIs available in Magento, Create a sitemap, setup a google analytics account to keep a track on your traffic and ecommerce conversions, create a google merchant account and submit your products (Also know as Google Shopping or Base) more information on Google Shopping click here.

When you have created your sitemap ensure you create a Google Webmaster Account and submit your sitemap to google.

Some of the above you will need some knowledge but your web designer should certainly be able to do any of the above points with ease.

For more Information on Ecommerce Web Design and Magento Development Click Here

eCommerce Web Design · google analytics · google sitemaps · google webmasters · magento