Blog: SEO
Print Synergies launch
January 26, 2012
Print Synergies storeBlox 2 e-commerce site
eBlox is happy to announce the launch of Print Synergies, a storeBlox 2 web site for the Carrollton, TX promotional products distributor and printer. Printsynergies.com brings together a carefully-selected catalog of promotional products and apparel with extensive information on the design and printing services that the company offers.
Like most storeBlox 2 sites, Print Synergies couldn’t squeeze their business into the “template” that so many other industry solutions force distributors into — the need to prominently feature design and print solutions mandated either a custom site or a very flexible e-commerce platform. That’s where storeBlox 2 comes in.
Print Synergies also planned to launch with an SEO strategy with very specific performance requirements. In the process of interviewing nearly half a dozen SEO firms for the campaigns, Print Synergies had each firm vet all the e-commerce platforms they were considering. Once again, storeBlox 2 came out in front. With both manual and automated SEO capabilities, storeBlox 2 is the only industry solution for distributors and suppliers who are serious about search engine optimization.
With special attention to existing branding standards, we developed a unique look and feel for Print Synergies, carrying through corporate colors, typefaces and existing branding, while delivering a completely new online experience for the company. It’s quite a nice upgrade. Check it out at Printsynergies.com.
Categories: Launches
Tags: apparel e-commerce Launches printing promotional products SEO storeblox
Keyword-optimized URLs for storeBlox CS product pages
September 20, 2011SEO (search engine optimization) is the practice of building a site so that it ranks well in search results. While this is often not a high priority for company stores – they frequently have limited, focused audiences – we like to deliver the best possbile technology for our customers. Therefore, we’ve implemented a new feature to automatically create keyword-optimized URLs for your storeBlox CS company store.
The standard (old) product URL for storeBlox CS looks like this:
storebloxcs.com/product.jsf?id=7603
New URLS now include keywords generated automatically from the product’s actual name:
storebloxcs.com/pl/Retro-Stainless-Steel-Mug/7603
Don’t worry – all your old URLs will still work. The new URLs work alongside the old ones, but your site will immediately benefit from the new URLs every time a new page is generated by storeBlox CS.
Categories: Launches
Tags: company store keywords SEO storeBlox CS
Why SEO is Hard for Promotional Products, Part II
July 20, 2011In a previous post, we tackled the problem of SEO for promotional products and why it’s so difficult. Today, Google’s Matt Cutts released another video that addresses this problem directly. A webmaster asks if they will be penalized for offering the same product on three different domains, and it’s worth watching Cutts’ response in its entirety here.
The problem here, as it relates directly to promotional products, is that the vast majority of web sites selling promotional products contain identical products. There are two reasons for this: First, there are hundreds of thousands of products in the industry and it’s nearly impossible for anyone operating a website to customize and manage all those products, so most sites simply take a “product data feed” from suppliers or data aggregators (like ASI, SAGE, or Distributor Central) and display that product data. Therefore, most promotional products websites display the exact same data, product numbers and pricing information.
Second, even a fraction of that massive selection of products is difficult to manage. We recommend very strongly that our clients only showcase 3000-5000 products on their sites from the top suppliers, but even a selection that small is tough for most small businesses to customize and maintain.
So what should you do? If you use a platform like storeBlox, we offer automated tools for making every product unique, using a variety of techniques such as URL customization and custom SKU creation. These tools are not silver bullets, but they help solve the primary problem of a product on your site looking exactly like a product on your competitor’s. To find out more about the storeBlox e-commerce platform and how it can ease the burden of SEO, please visit eBlox.com.
