December 2007 Build a Niche Store Review

The Build a Niche Store featured review this month will be for the Child Safety Products website.

Build a Niche Store Site: www.safechildstore.com/
Target Niche: Child Safety Products
Date Reviewed: 12/01/2007
By: Mark Hansen

Overall Score: 5.5 out of 10 (10 being the best)

• Domain Name: 9 (Has target words in domain name)
• Domain Age: 2 (Only active for 2 months)
• Niche Specific Site: 8
• Use of Keyword Meta Tags: 7
• Use of Description Meta tag: 7
• Use of Targeted Articles and Information: 0
• BANS Default Menu Optimization: 5

Lets get deep into the review of the Child Safety Products website.

On first glance, the layout of the site appears very welcoming to the visitor and navigation is clearly defined on the left side of the page. The category structure, while using quite a bit of the eBay default names, is easy to browse though and leads to the exact products a visitor will be seeking out fairly quickly. I do feel that your main article on the landing page of the site is too long. The ultimate goals of a BANS site are:

•  #1 - Get the user on the site (SEO)
• #2 - Get them to a specific category of products they were seeking
• #3 - Get them over to eBay and plant the 7-day cookie

By choosing to have such a long article on the main page, the visitor is forced to scroll very far down the page before they ever get to see the products you are listing. I would suggest that you eliminate all but the first paragraph of your main page, starting with “The True Story” portion. The text is very informative and useful, but it should be placed into content pages, versus the main entry page.

Suggestions
De-clutter the main page so the products take up your prime real estate on the page.
Break each of your main page paragraphs into their own content pages, with links to your related product pages. For example, take the “Car Seats” article and move it to its own content page. Scatter a few HIGH KEI car seat terms into the article and show them as links to the products on the store page section.

Domain Name
Since the website is targeting child safety products, having the terms in the domain name itself is a HUGE plus! In fact, if you were to search for the domain terms in Google, you will find that a search of “Safe Child Store” brings the site to the top of the SERP’s. There is also an opportunity in this statement in regard to the term never being searched for. Since you already have the targets in the domain name, it will benefit you greatly to rename the site “Child Safety Products” in the BANS admin. Click the setup link, and simply change the “Sitename” field to represent what it is you are selling. While you are in the admin, choose “Store Pages” and edit the very top store page (The one with NO delete option) changing the title to the same.

The age of the domain is something you have no control over. Since it was just registered in September of this year, it will take a bit of time to gain recognition as a website that is going to be around for awhile. Search engines love older domains… it is just like an longstanding store in your local community, more people will refer customers in your doors since you have been around a long time and have a higher likelihood of being there in a year!

Suggestions:
Rename site to reflect what you niche is targeting.

Niche Specific Targeting / Menu Optimization
The site is actually very targeted on the Child Safety Products niche, and with a mild SEO efforts in targeting the right terms, will do very well! I have done quite a bit of keyword research and included the excel file in a personal email to you. You will benefit greatly by separating your store from the 2 main categories you have currently, into 8-15 main categories, filled with 10 or more KEI specific product pages each. For example:

Current Categories

• Baby Safety and Health
• Kids Car Seat

 Suggested Categories

• Child Safety Carseats (With 10-20 product categories beneath it)
  • Infant Carseats (Search keyword - infant carseat)
  • Toddler CarSeats (Search keyword - toddler carseat)
  • Manufacturer 1 carseat (Based on KEI)
  • Manufacturer 2 carseat (Based on KEI)
  • several others…
• Child and Baby Monitors 
• Child Safety Software
• Child Safety Gates
• Child Safety Alarms
• Electrical Safety Devices
• Child Safe Heaters
• Child Safety Harnesses
• Infant Carseat Covers
• etc etc… to cover the full range of searched terms.

As you can see - you will be taking your BANS store and developing 10-20 MAIN categories with each having a proven and high KEI (which means high conversion rates) rate. This will assure you of success in the quickest manner of time!

Suggestions:
Redevelop your entire category structure to focus on the highest KEI and Search terms.
Review the key-phrase report sent via email to focus on the LONG TAIL terms that will provide good product pages.

Use of Meta Tags

It appears that you have already started with optimization of the site - that is great! Several of the categories I reviewed have custom keywords, titles and descriptions in them already, which are semi-focused on the specific category they are related to. It is refreshing to see that you took the time to do this and far too often, a BANS site will contain the very generic terms, or none at all!

While you have done very well in your efforts, it is also worth noting a few things to keep in mind as you progress.

• Limit your meta-title tag to 7-10 words, very specific to the page it is on. Try to be as descriptive as possible and use your target phrase at least once. For example, the main page of the site:
  • Current title: Safe Child Store
  • Suggested: Child Safety Products to keep your Child Safe
  • As you can see, we took the generic term and made it VERY focused on the niche. We were even able to include target words twice in two different forms! (Child, Safe, Safety)
• Limit your meta-keywords to the very products or category currently displayed. It will be helpful to limit the length of your keywords/phrases to 7-10 as well. The main page of the site is the only exception to this rule as you want to have an entry for each category of products you offer.
• Meta-Description tag - very well done on the home page of the site. A short paragraph that explaining what the current page is about is what you want to strive for.

Recommendations:
Continue your efforts in optimizing each and every main category of the site first, then go back one or two days a week and spend an hour optimizing all of the subcategories. The time you spend during the first month is the key to the overall success of the site! Always keep in mind… aside from the main page of the site, each product or category page terms should be very specific to the resulting page.

Use of Targeted Articles

At this point, you have not added any articles or rss news feeds. By moving the content from your main page into separate articles and using those article pages to focus on promotion of specific products, your site will benefit from not only internal linking, but you have the opportunity to focus on high kei terms in the articles to grab more visitors!

Follow the suggestion above for moving the articles to their own pages in the content section.

Aside from moving and.or creating new articles using rss, you should add the BANS sitemap mod to the Child Safety Products website. If you need any help, please don’t hesitate to ask… I am always willing.

The sitemap places all of your categories, links, titles and descriptions onto a single page that not only helps the search engines index the site faster, but it allows a site visitor a single page explaining where to find everything in your new niche store!

Since your site is already being indexed by Google, making SEO changes to the overall category structure will yield immediate results! You must however be careful not to change your existing file names as you optimize, otherwise the search engines will send traffic to pages that no longer exist! The easiest way around this is to optimize the existing category structure and simply skip the last box on the editing pages, it is the one that contains your page file name. If you prefer to change the actual file names, just add a new page with only slight differences in the terms etc… using the new file name.

I will be completing the KEI search term spreadsheet for you shortly and sending it along for your reading pleasure. Remember, find the right balance between high volume and high KEI and you simply cannot lose! Your site carries quite a bit of potential and you will find it earning revenue for you in a short time and sustaining those commissions for a long time to come!

Mark