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One of the unique SEO problems that e-commerce and b2b lead generating websites face is that their products can be constantly changing. This means that new pages are being added, content is being tweaked and discontinued or out of stock product pages are being taken down. This kind of \u00a0page turnover can actually hinder your SEO in the long run if you\u2019re not careful.<\/p>\n
The search engines rank individual pages, not websites as a whole, so each page can become an entry point into your website. That\u2019s one of the reasons it is so important to optimize each product page individually and target long-tail keywords to drive traffic directly to that page.<\/p>\n
However, if a page is only up for a few months it might not have enough time to age properly or gain enough links to do well in the SERPs. On the flip side, a product page that\u2019s been online for a long time has a lot of search engine trust and links that you don\u2019t want to lose should you stop carrying that product. The same issue is true for B2B lead generating websites – if<\/p>\n
In order to keep the SEO value of your ecommerce or B2B\u00a0website intact while you change your products of services,\u00a0here are a few things site owners need to do:<\/p>\n
Do you regularly discontinue a product or change the services you offer? Well, on the surface, it may seem as if the way to handle this from an SEO perspective is by doing a simple 301 redirect. However, 301 redirects are supposed to indicate a permanent change and tell the search engines to pass any SEO value and inbound links for the product page about blue widgets (which you are never going to carry every again on your site) to the page about indigo widgets.<\/p>\n
If a product is just temporarily out of stock there is no need to do a 301 redirect. A 302 redirect (temporary) or even just a message that says \u201cThis product is temporarily out of stock\u201d will do. If you go with the out of stock message you could even give shoppers the option to sign up for an email notification of when you\u2019re getting new inventory. This is a great way to build your list, as well.<\/p>\n
Another way to help keep shoppers engaged on your site is to offer related products on an “out of stock”product page. This might help reduce your website\u2019s bounce rate and keep visitors from leaving without making a purchase. At the very least it\u2019s a much better option than sending your visitors to a Page Not Found or 404 error because you pulled the page down. If someone wants to do business with your company, you should give them options!\u00a0Redirect discontinued products back to the main category page. For B2B websites, this isn’t as important since your sales cycle is likely to be a lot longer, unless you\u00a0allow customers to buy your products directly on your website.<\/p>\n
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You never know what kind of inbound links your product pages have built up over the years. Losing those can be a serious blow to your SEO. You also have to consider the internal linking that you\u2019ve created. How many other product pages could send visitors to that now discontinued product page? In order to preserve the SEO value and user experience of your site, it\u2019s better to redirect a discontinued product page back to either the main category page (blue widget should redirect to widget, not thingamajig) or a similar product page (blue widget to navy widget). Remember, you don\u2019t ever want a visitor to feel like they were mislead by landing on a page they didn\u2019t expect to get to. And by redirecting to another product page or category page you make it easier for someone to find what they are looking for, as opposed to starting the search process over from the homepage.<\/p>\n