Questions for the SEO experts out there

Hello everyone. I have a few specific questions for the SEO experts out there. Hopefully you can lend me a hand so I can get my webpage up and running asap.

But first , please excuse me if this post has “newbie” written all over it. I am indeed an SEO newbie. However, I have done a lot of research and I can’t seem to find any answers to these last few questions I have.

And please only reply if you have plenty of experience. I will use this information as the base of my strategy, so I cannot risk using advice given in speculation or advice you read online. I can only trust answers from people who are highly experienced in such practices.

1- My website domain is sprtsjerseyscheap.com . There are 2 good keywords in there. “Sports Jerseys” and “Jerseys Cheap” My question is if I use my name at the end on every product description on every page of my catalog (over 500 pages), will Google penalize me for overusing those keywords?

2- Same question but I want to know if I should use my name at the beginning of every page title, or and the end possibly. Will this get me penalized?

3- I have over 500 different products to list. Each one will have a unique URL. Will Google even index all of the links? If not, which ones will they decide to index ?

4- How important is it to write a unique product descriptions for each product? I mean, there is over 500 products and these are just jerseys we are talking about. They are all very similar. I was going to write 500 word paragraphs for each one (side question: how many times do I need to mention the KW in a 500 word desc?), targeting “Sports Jerseys” and “Jerseys Cheap” and maybe one or two long tail keywords unique to that product. But of course this information is basically useless for the customer. It will just be a sales type description- encouraging people to support their team. Maybe I could throw in some fun team facts, etc etc.

5- In comparison to the importance of targeting keywords in the title, how important is it to target them in a unique product description?

6- Do I need to use software like Wordtracker to accurately determine how competitive keywords are? Right now I just compare how many “ALLINTITLE” and “INANCHOR” links show up in Google in comparison to how many times the keyword is searched for. Then I also look at the top ranking WebPages and see if they are big name companies or not. Is there a more effective way to go about this?

I realize I am asking a lot. But I can’t seem to find clear information regarding my specific questions. I will dedicate my whole heart into this so I want to get as much right from the beginning as possible. A very big THANK YOU to anyone that can help me out.

Again, I don’t want to sound like an arrogant or ungrateful person, because I am not, but If you are not an experience SEO expert then I kindly ask you to only reply if you are 100% certain on what you tell me.

Thank you very much for reading my post. And thank you even more if you can help a newbie out! :slight_smile:

Reading his post again I’d say that you’re right, good spot.

Thanks a lot. I think I got it now.

Delivering the product is no problem. The jerseys I sell will be at wholesale prices.

Now just need to select the KW based on “easier to rank for, which is more likely to result in a sale, search engine traffic estimates”

So how to determine this stuff I guess is my next hurdle. I am thinking about joining SEOMOZ to use the KW competition tool, but I am not sure if that will be a single “cure all” solution or not. Probably not I am guessing.

Hmmm, how much would I need to pay a SEO firm to determine this information for me? Just the 2 KW?

Or do you know of a good guide that I could follow and do this within a week or so?

Thanks again.

Google will penalize you if you use the keyword in anchors repteadly.

I don’t have much time, but the OP wasn’t talking about meta description from what I could gather he was talking about a simple text that describes the product. He did not say whether that text would be part of the meta description or to be found as part of the normal content of the site.

Of course, your main keywords should appear in the actual content of your site. As somebody else said, write for humans first, then for Google & Co. So make them appear natural in your product description.

I have just a couple suggestions for you.

Write your content for your customers. If you write the content purely for the Search Engines the site will end up looking very unprofessional to your potential customers. It will not do you any good to have high SERPs if you do not sell anything.

You do not have to completely rewrite product descriptions. However, you do need to edit them some what so they are unique. If you leave them alone then you will have to compete with everyone else who carries that product on their websites.

Remember that SEO is an ever evolving thing. Keep up on the most current trends and make sure that your site is not static.

That’s where things get tricky :wink:

So how to determine this stuff I guess is my next hurdle. I am thinking about joining SEOMOZ to use the KW competition tool, but I am not sure if that will be a single “cure all” solution or not. Probably not I am guessing.

Unless you’re planning on going hardcore into SEO I would just start with a third-party tool that will get you started. I use MicroNicheFinder myself. If you’re just looking to two search terms then you can do a fine job with the SEObook Firefox toolbar.

Do keep in mind that most of your traffic will probably come long-tail keywords if you have 500 products.

Thank you very much for taking time to read and reply to my post. : )

You have helped clear up many things for me. But just to clairfy. I do understand that the title needs to reflect the page content. However, I want to include my domian name in the title, which is 2 keyword–“sports jerseys” and “jerseys cheap” These are the ones I really want to rank for. So if it does nto help to add it to all my product descriptions and product titles, what exactly can I do on-site so that I have the best chances of ranking for that KW. After all, it is relevant to every product on my page…

I was also thinking about joining SEOMOZ. Guess I will check it out after all.

Thanks again!

Work those terms into the page titles in a way that they would normally appear.

For example

Patriots sports jerseys or cheap patriots jerseys
Blackhawks sports jerseys or cheap blackhawks sports jerseys

I wouldn’t load up the title tags with both of those terms though. I would select one and stick with it based on which is easier to rank for, which is more likely to result in a sale, search engine traffic estimates, and whether you can deliver. If you’re not actually selling cheap jerseys then there really is no point to ranking for the term because clients are going to look at your prices and bounce right back to Google.

You could then create specific pages around the other terms you want to target so a page for “cheap jerseys” that then links out to your other pages.

  1. Probably won’t help. Your page description should reflect the content of the page.

  2. Put your keywords at the front of the Title unless you either have a recognised brand that adds more value or are trying to promote your brand. Otherwise, make it clear to Google which words in the Title you consider the most important.

  3. Assuming you haven’t created any bot traps, Google will probably index most of your pages. Use Google Webmaster Tools to submit a site map and keep track of how many pages they’ve indexed. It will be influenced by your internal linking structure and PR.

  4. How important is it to you to provide descriptions that are useful to your visitors? Also worth factoring in that Google will probably ignore duplicated descriptions when looking for snippets for the SERP.

  5. Not important at all from an SEO point of view. Meta Description does not affect your ranking.

  6. Competitive keyword research is a book in it’s own right :stuck_out_tongue: You’re thinking about it the right way but don’t forget that pages can rank without any of the signals you mentioned because the site that they are part of is authoratitive enough. A Pro subscription to something like SEOMoz SEO tools will help, they have a good keyword competitiveness tool.