Mobile Friendly Sites are Friendly to Google

Last year, Google came out with a change to their algorithm that takes a stronger look at websites and whether or not they are mobile friendly. Starting in May, websites that were not mobile friendly were penalized by Google and saw a drop in search traffic. When I started my commerce site back in September 2015, I made sure to choose a theme that was mobile friendly.

However, when I checked my site by Site:healthyexercize.com to see if Google has indexed anymore of my pages since I changed my categories and updated my descriptions, I found a problem.

 First, I noticed that about 3,600 pages were indexed. That's better. Slowly, but surely. . . But then I noticed a message underneath all of my pages. "Your Page is not mobile-friendly"

That creates a problem. If Google doesn't think my site is mobile friendly, then the robots may never finished indexing my site because nearly 60% of all searches are mobile searches.

The message that "Your page is not mobile-friendly" was a link to Google Consoles. It allowed me to check my site. It showed a series of errors in regards to the ease of my site on mobile devices. Here's the message that  I got:

I did some investigation to my theme and discovered that you have to activate Big Commerce Themes to be mobile-friendly. It's not automatic.

Once I updated the theme, I checked Google Console again and got the green light!

The next step for me to take was to let Google know that my site is mobile friendly. I went into my Webmaster tools and resubmitted a new site map to it. I also asked Google to Fetch and index my site.

Here are the steps in case you aren't sure how to:
1) Sign into Google Webmaster
2) If you have more than one "property" (i.e. website) listed, choose that site. I have 2 sites listed. My website healthyexercize.com and the www.healthyexercize.com. I have designated a preferred site, but technically they are two separate addresses.
3) On the left hand side, choose Crawl
4) Below Crawl, Choose Fetch as Google.

 

Then you can type in your web page. (I left it blank and had it search my home page) After you fetch your home page, It will appear in the list below. Then, you can Submit it to Google to Index. This image shows both the fetch and render buttons and the submit to index bottom. 

I did this for both versions of my website. Additionally, I also submitted a new Site Map.

Although the Site: on Google shows me with 3600 pages, my webmaster tools only show that Google has indexed about 2700 pages. I'm going to check it over the next few days to see if this new mobile friendly version encourages Google to index more of my sites.

Progressing my Ranking Campaign for my 60k Store

Progressing my Ranking Campaign for my 60k Store

This week I worked on videos and articles. I was able to get 2 videos published in under 2 hours using Animoto.

Here's my category keyword video: 

Here's a product specific video 

Here's my news release on bodybuilding:  News Release on Bodybuilding

I am also working on another article that is likely to break down into 4 or 5 blog posts. I'm still deciding what type of articles I should have on my blog and what type of articles I should have under my knowledge-base section as permanent pages. 

All of these various resources on bodybuilding link back to my website and category pages. The news release has a little sentence about me that links back, the videos both have the category page in the video descriptions. That starts to give that category authority. 

Starting a Ranking Campaign for my 60k store

Starting a Ranking Campaign for my 60k store

There are a million items that I need to do on my website to get it to produce a 60k a year income for me. In reality, I expect to bring in more than 60k, but that is my first benchmark. These are the things I have already done:

1.  Products Listed
2.  A supplier chosen 
3.  My Categories with descriptions. (about 70% of them) 
4.  Some unique verbiage on my descriptions (HealthyExercize.com Presents Brand Name, Product Name) 
5.  Social accounts set up:   

•         Google+ (Nearly 500 followers) 
•         Twitter (over 2,000 followers) 
•         Pinterest 3.5k followers 29 boards, 1.8k pins and 18 likes. 
•         Instagram 5657 followers, 224 posts
•         Facebook 1 follower, 3 posts. 
•         YouTube account with 2 videos, 2 followers. 
• There are a bunch more accounts that I need to develop and set up such as Tumblr, StumbleUpon, EZine articles, and more. 

      6.  I have written about 10 articles/blog articles written for content.

All of these things can be improved upon. I will need to continue writing and optimizing my pages. I will need to increase my product listings and fill out my descriptions. I will need to continue to grow my social media followings, add more news articles, and more blog articles.

The next step that I've decided to do is a ranking campaign. I looked at my products and chose one of my most profitable products, a weightlifting home gym.

Next, I checked out Google Adwords- Keyword Planner. I looked up a lot of words related to the Home Gym and found that bodybuilder is a high search term with low competition. So I named my products Bodybuilding Brand  Home Gym. I'm going to focus on that term. My goal is to rank in the top 5 of google results for that term. If I can sell 4-5 of the home gyms a month, I will earn my 5k a month in income. This is a fast path to income.

So I fleshed out a ranking campaign plan. This is sure to change as I go through my actual ranking campaign, but here's what I have so far:

Ranking Campaign Plan

1. What product are your trying to sell?
1. Home Gyms 1k Profit= 5/ month = 60k a year 
2. What Keywords, Long-tail, are you going to do the campaign for? 
1. Bodybuilding Home Gym 
3. Optimize the products and the Category Page 
1. Create a category page
2. Create a video for page and a description 
4. Write a blog article
1. tweet it out 10 times 
2. google+ once
3. Facebook 
4. SumbleUpon 
5. Tumblr
6. Reddit 
5. Create a video for that phrase and other follow up videos. Share on Social Media
6. Write a HubPages article
7. Find an Inspirational Quote around bodybuilding and post it in Instagram and Pinterest. Have available for free download during campaign. 
8. 30 external links to the category of "Bodybuilding Home Gym" 
9. News Release about the topic
10. Add to Quora/Reddit (home gym vs gym membership) Huff Post? 

Ranking Campaign Checklist

• Create a Category for the Keyword phrase
• Product Category add "bodybuilder" to homegym products and in the descriptions 
• Add to Metadata, Meta Keywords, Product Descriptions, Page Title 
• YouTube videos for the Category and individual products 
• Write 5 blog articles around the subject 
• why home gyms are better
• bodybuilding news
•  
•  
• Write a news article
• Write a HubSpot article
• Inspirational Quote and image on blog. 
• Other things as I come up with them. . . 

May 16-21 Category descriptions

The entire week I worked on product category descriptions. I found that I had a lot of crazy categories with only 1 or 2 products in them and even had some categories with no products that were created when a product failed to upload. I spent the week reorganizing my descriptions. I also wrote descriptions for the categories. The purpose for this is to add additional unique content to my site and to make it more informative for visitors.

First Order!!

So I got my first order last night. Technically it was my third order, but it was with the same person and all 3 orders were for 1 order and to cover shipping. I had to create a special product to make up the shipping differences so I could charge her and ship the product. We have been communicating via Skype and she's been approving the shipping charges.

Here's what I learned:

1) Shipping to the Tropics: If you need to ship to a country call St Kitts (Its actually a country and to think I never heard of it before!!) You need to use Tropical Freight. They ship cargo and are way LESS expensive than Fed Ex, DHL or UPS. I was quoted $130-150 shipping for a 4 lb dumbbell with UPS and FedEx and $110 with DHL. Tropical freight will charge $25, but take a week to get there on the boat. (Plus it only leaves every Wed so the shipping takes almost 2 weeks because it won't get there until Wed and the cutoff is Monday.)

PS. Her $14 set of dumbbells is costing her $35 in S&H and will cost another $6 in customs charge.
The St Kitts Custom's office is:(869) 466-7227 Its local on  my cell phone (I don't have an international plan set up and it called just fine). Also for that small island, they don't have house addresses or even street addresses. Everything comes into the port (Basseterre) and they pick it up there and bring it through customs.

Tropical Shipping Website: 
https://www.tropical.com/external/en/

2) Accepting Credit cards through a Business Pay Pal account: BigCommerce partners with BrainTree for credit card charging. BrainTree links to PayPal, but requires a Privacy Policy and a Terms of Condition to set that up. I already had a business Pay Pal account set up , but no Privacy Policy or Terms of Conditions.

Big Commerce's resource on Terms and Conditions: 
https://support.bigcommerce.com/articles

SEO Toaster  has a great Privacy Policy generator that asks several questions and then generates a privacy policy specifically for you. I would highly reccomend it!
SEO Toaster's Privacy Policy Generator

These guys also give a free Privacy Policy. You answer questions as well, but at the end they give you an offer for free Chat, customer review, etc
http://www.freeprivacypolicy.com/?utm_expid=87121688-80.WFRRlatZQLGGIJusHTGtdA.0 
Their offer page for $47 a year for chat, reviews, and more. . .
http://www.freeprivacypolicy.com/index-single-sales.php

Terms and Conditions Generator:  This charges for each little thing. I chose to copy and past my suppliers terms of service for now. . This will be a follow up item so I don't get pulled off track.
https://termsfeed.com/terms-service/generator

Also-- Here's an article on setting up your BrainTree account to a Paypal account. I found it useful:
https://articles.braintreepayments.com/reference/security/ecommerce-website-requirements

Gateway:
Paypal CC processor.
Direct CC transactions- Those go to BrainTree gateway processed by another processor and are paid directly to my bank account. 2-3 days to appear. Amex 3-5. BrainTree auto deposits into my bank account directly. Paypal only pays into the account if the customer pays via PayPal.

Also if you want to change the Direct Deposit account, change it first with PayPal and then call BrainTree to update the deposited $$.

Product Options in Big Commerce

Today I worked on understanding Product Options in Big Commerce. This became an issue because I have so many levels of categories in my Speed and Agility Section. If I consolidated my lower levels into a higher level, then it leaves 100 or more products in one category and it seems like a lot for people to go through.

You can see that under CanDo Adjustable Exercise Band Systems, I have 18 products directlky underneight, but 237 sub category products. When I looked at those products they were mostly 10 or 12 products with additional options. For example:

In this section, all these products are the same item, but its a different thickness level (and color) So I can have 1 item that adjusts color and fitness level That would clean up my store a LOT.

So I learned how to do options. Here's the video of how to do product options on BigCommerce

I also learned something else about Options. Here are the pros and cons. 

Pros: Cleans up the store. Likely makes it easier for customers to choose a base product and then select options (Imagine having to look through a store for a jacket and having to rummage through 20 colors, 5 sizes, and 3 materials. That's 300 different products.) Instead its easier for the customer to choose 1 product : Jacket. Then they choose the size : Medium  (Now its narrowed to 60 products) Then they choose the Color: Blue (Now they have 3 product choices for a Medium Blue Jacket. They have 3 material choices)  

Con: I learned that Big Commerce doesn't have a google shopping integration that includes options. You have to use another service and most of them cost. Only the main product will show up on Google Shopping. So if you want each variation to show up on google shopping, you need separate products or would need to use an additional platform. (I haven't looked into that yet) 

Unknown pro or con: If you have each variation with a unique product description. I've done that on a lot of my products, then each product helps you to rank for those key terms because its more content. But its really hard and time consuming to come up with 200 variations for the same product. Plus at what point to you start to sound spammy to google? Does having different products help you rank on google shopping? If I have Blue Jacked Large, Blue Jacket Med, Blue Jacket Small- Can I rand for Blue Jacket with each of my pages and take up most of the page 1 options?  (I don't know the answer to this question) Its worth thinking about though. 

Resources for Big Commerce Options: These are videos and articles by Big Commerce.
https://support.bigcommerce.com/articles/Public/Product-Option-Types
https://support.bigcommerce.com/articles/University/Product-Options-Getting-Started-Video/
https://support.bigcommerce.com/articles/Public/Product-Options-Product-List/?q=product+listing&l=en_US&fs=Search&pn=1
https://support.bigcommerce.com/articles/Public/Product-Options-Rules/?q=product+rule&l=en_US&fs=Search&pn=1#image

Here are the list of MultiChannel Apps for the Options to integrate
https://www.bigcommerce.com/apps/ 

Category Content

Whoohoo! I did get my approximately 22 categories left in my weightlifting section completed. I started on the Speed and Agility sections. I'm consolidating the automatic categories I uploaded and renaming them to more applicable categories.

I also got set up on Social Intents Chat. I pushed it to Slash so that my phone gets notified if I get a chat. However, I'm having issues with it. The notifications aren't always pushing. When they do push, it doesn't continue to update the conversation which makes the chat worthless. I am waiting on their support to fix the issue. 1 week timeline. Will keep you updated. It will be a great tool if it works.

Category page descriptions: weightlifting.

Today I had two main focuses.

1) I wanted to organize and make my store categories easier to understand. I have many items that were bulk uploaded that went into extra categories or the wrong categories that need to be fixed. By consolidating categories and clarifying them, I'll be able to submit a new google site map to the webmaster tools. Hopefully this will notify Google that I've changed my site and along with the little bit of product descriptions that I added recently, will entice Google to index my entire site.

I discovered that Big commerce allows me to maintain URL's Check out my video I made to show you how to do that!

The second thing that I did was to focus on content writing for my categories. I was able to get 14 product category descriptions written :) I have another 22 categories in my weightlifting section, plus the weightlifting larger category. Plus eight other large categories with sub categories to work on. This will definitely take me most of the week to work on and probably all of next week as well.

The items I added to my category pages:
1- A detailed description of the category. Sometimes that is difficult so I also include why that product is important, the health benefits, the uses, and types of exercises enjoyed with this product.
2- A detailed list of the products and sizes contained in the category.
3- A meta data description, Meta data tags, search tags, and page title.
Also here are two resources I found on Meta tags that was great info:
http://www.metatags.org/examples_making_meta_tags
http://www.code7.co.uk/blog/how-to-write-seo-friendly-title-tags-and-meta-descriptions
4- A thumbnail photo. That makes larger categories look nice like this: (You can tell which categories I haven't gotten to yet)

In this photo, you can see one of the sub categories with the description written out and more sub categories underneath. It looks good and it has information that makes the page more valuable for Google.

Tomorrow I continue.

PS I haven't had Google Index any more of my pages yet. I don't expect them to until I submit a new site map.

Adding unique content Stage 1

Today I exported my entire product list via BigCommers to a Csv file.

Then I took my description column and inserted a new column into it. I wanted to add my website, the product brand, and the product name to my description. My hope is that by doing this, I would be able to have a little more unique descriptions. My friend who started www.waketaker.com 1 month ago has gotten 14k pages indexed by google. My 7500 pages on www.healthyexercize.com have been published, but not indexed for the last 3 months. My pages have zero unique content (well all but about 500 of them) while www.waketaker.com has only the waketaker added to the description.

The formula that I used to combine 3 columns and words are:
="HealthyExercize"&"  "&C2&" "&G2&" "&H2  The " " are so that I had spaces between the info on the cells. It looked like this afterward (as an example)

This came out to HealthyExercize Champion 2 Lb Dumbbell This dumbbell is . . .
Without the " " it would have looked like this:
HealthyExercizeChampion2 Lb DumbbellThis dumbbell is. . .

There needs to be an & between each cell added and a & between any exact words added such as spaces and HealthyExercize.

You can see how the formula in the upper left translates into the first few cells under column J. Column J is the added column I added.

Then I drug the formula all the way down and copied it so it used the same formula

Then I Copied (CTL C) and right clicked and chose to copy the value. That replaced the formula and put the words in solid as a description.

I checked visually to make sure my description didn't have any duplicate words. For example Champion Barbells might show up and Champion Champion Barbells because I added the brand and the product name.

If I found a duplicate I highlighted the column (in my case Column J) and hit CTL H. Find: Champion Champion (the duplicate words) and Replace: Champion (only one of the duplicate names)

Once I knew I didn't have duplicate names, I uploaded it back up to Big Commerce with the new descriptions.

Checking Site:healthyexercize.com on google chrome, I can see that google has indexed 3170 of my pages. I did this 5 minutes ago and came up with 3200. So it varies a little depending on your internet speed. But about 3k of my pages have been indexed. That number has been the same for at least 203 months. Lets see how many are indexed with this change in the next few weeks. Brandon did this to his site and got immediate indexing (within a couple of weeks)

Daily Activity Log The Week of May 4-6

Daily Activity Log The Week of May 4-6

I know that my website hasn't been indexed by Google fully. About 3-4 months ago, I uploaded 6500 new products to my exiting 500-1000 products. Those first 500 products had unique descriptions, but the bulk uploads I did about February didn't. I kept the same descriptions just to get more pages on my site and increase my domain authority. It worked somewhat. My domain authority is up into the mid 20s, but google only indexed a little over 3,000 pages. For the last several months, it hasn't updated past those pages. I'm trying to redo my descriptions and categories so that I can get google to red index my pages. I'm going to focus on 2 items.

1- rewrite my descriptions
2- reorganize my categories. They are also in the original categories as well

May 4th- I rewrote 46 product descriptions in the Big Commerce Platform.
May 5th- I rewrote 25 product descriptions
May 6th- I rewrote 128 product descriptions, but half of them were copied. So I have products that are 1 quantity and then the same product, but with a quantity of 12. I wrote a new descriptions for each, but copied it for the 2 quantities. So I really only newly wrote half of those descriptions.

I worked on it in the http://healthyexercize.com/accessories/hot-cold-therapy/heating-pads/