• 1. General
  • 1.1. How to log in
  • 1.2. The text editor
  • 1.3. Data Lists
  • 1.4. Upload
  • 1.5. Thumbnails
  • 1.6. Frontend
  • 1.7. Spam-blocking
  • 1.8. Search Optimizing (SEO)
  • 1.9. Browsers
  • 1.11 Speed
  • 1.12. Prices, Rounding and VAT
  • 1.13. Images on web
  • 1.14. Cookies
• 2. Tree
• 3. Page types
• 4. Webshop
• 5. Modules
• 6. Control panel
• 7. File Manager
• 8. Statistics
• 9. Guides
• 10. Move a shop

1.8. Search Optimizing (SEO)

HostedShop is very search engine oriented, and is continously optimized to meet the standards of the search engines. The structure of HostedShop is constructed in a manner that enables search engines to easily identify your sites, products and other contet that is to be included in the database. As standard, HostedShop is a very effective system with regards to indexing the content of your website on the search engines. 

Also, HostedShop offers a line of built-in SEO tools that can be used for optimizing and improving your website's placement on the search engines. From these, especially the ability to control meta tags, URL's and 301-redirects are important. 
When working with content and SEO in HostedShop, there is a number of areas that you must focus on. Below you will find a description of the most important tricks to search engine optimization in HostedShop. This is far from a being a complete guide - if you wish to get a deeper understanding of SEO, we advice you to contact a bureau og read a book on the subject. 

Before you go online

If you are currently working on a websolution that has still to be launched online, we recommend that you close-off the frontend. This ensures that only you can reach the content, thus excluding other visitors, including the search engines, from reaching the website. Instead these will be presented with a closed site without content. In this manner, you will avoid having the search engines indexing your content from the temporary domain, which could otherwise cause duplicate content to occure, when you launch the website.

You frontend can be closed from CONTROL PANEL > SETTINGS > GENERAL > FRONTEND STATUS. 
 

”Content is king”

SEO is primarily concerned with the content on your website, especially the headline and text. Der er is no easy way to good SEO. Without high quality content, you website is most likely to have poor ranking og the search engines. By high quality we mean: 

• Content is unique - is must not be found other places online (duplicate content). It is a good idea to search for parts of your text on Google, and see if it occurs on other websites that yours. 
• No spelling mistakes, a varied language and correct grammar also counts up. 
• Keep the source code "clean" - remember to use the "insert from Word" when copying text from Word and other programmes
• Apply the relevant search wods in your text, but without exaggeration. The most important search words should figure in the headline, as this is marked with a headline-tag (H1 html tag). 
• Make sure that the content matches the rest of the site, links, headlines etc. 

Pictures and other graphical elements

Remember that search engines do not "see" your website, they "read" it. Pictures, flash elements etc. does not count as much as text. It is therefore a good idea to provide your files with indicative names such as ”t_shirt_med_i_love_new_york_print.png” and provide pictures with titles in the text editor. Otherwise, the search engines will not be able to read and index your files. 
 

Search engine optimization in HostedShop

With the right quality of the content, the "Search Engine Optimazation" which you can find on sites, products etc. in HostedShop, can help you achieve an even better optimization. Read further
 

Close old links and avoid Duplicate Content

When moving from one system to another, or being in a continuous process with content, you may experience dead links or duplicate content. Google Webmasters Tools is  a great tool for keeping an eye on duplicate content, and is is fully integrated with HostedShop. All problems regarding content is registrered by Google Webmasters Tool in DIAGNOSING > HTML SUGGESTIONS. 
If you want to close an old link, this can be done by creating a SEO redirect in HostedShop. This in done under CONTROL PANEL. Here you can either close an old link with a 404-redirect or point towards a new link with a 301-redirect. The changes will appear on Google Webmasters Tools in time. 

Link popularity

High link popularity is still one of the most important parameters for ranking high on the search engines. But not all links are equally good, as it also depends on the relevance and popularity of the website that links to you. If you for instance sell t-shirts, a link from a acknowledged producer of t-shirts is way more relevant than a link for a private blogger. 

The links you get from others will also be more valuable, if the content and the link-text on the linking website, is relevant for the search words you want to rank high on. For instance, it is better to get a link called "buy t-shirts with print here" than "Open www.domain.dk".
If you want to se how many links you have, you can enter "link:www.your-domain-her.dk" into Google, and a list of linking websites will occur. Google Webmaster Tools also provices a set of tools for keeping an eye on your links and the popularity of your search words.