Does anyone have any tips for the homepage/website optimization? Specifically, I am wondering if adding the "search by manufacturer" module will hurt my SEO efforts.

I think this because we have hundreds of manufacturers listed, and therefore that lowers my keyword ratios for other key terms on the page. Do I have a correct understanding of how this works?

Perhaps someone from NS can explain how the column modules work in regards to SEO.

Any help would be appreciated form NS or other store owners!

Since the search by manufacturers is a dropdown, this probably won't be picked up by the search engines as it is not an exact link as it is actually a form control.

The first thing though that you definitely need to change is your header. That is just a solid image with image mapping. I really do not believe the search engines will be able to pick up those links well.

In terms of links overall you should try to not have more than 75 or so links on any given page. More than that can cause the spiders to have some issues.

Joe

Thanks...So the featured products module in the column doesn't get picked up at all? What about the center featured products?

In addition, about that top graphic, what can I do to make it more optimized? I don't want the default one that you guys have, and I don't know how to do it other than with image mapping...

Joe,

In reviewing what you said about having too many links, I assume that it is OK to have more than those links in the columns since those are simply dropdowns. Am I correct?

What specific things would you reccomend for the homepage to be optimized better?

I would like to create individual buttons for the top, but I am not quite sure how to do this and still make it look nice...

I use a graphic header that I have sliced into 3 pieces with Image mapping. I use the alt tag to key word them with my main keywords. I also created a paragraph at the bottom of our homepage with information about us. I have excellent SEO ratings for our main keywords

What is your website?

In terms of links overall as I said try to keep them around 75 or less. More necessarily won't hurt you but if there are too many, then the spider might fail reading some.

What I would recommend though is to add content, a lot of good text and current text is always needed to make sure the spiders keep crawling your site. May be focus on a specific range of products per week and write about them, then link from the homepage to those products/categories.

That will help a lot for any homepage.

Joe

Is it possible to put category descriptions BELOW the items for the category. While most of my categories do not need formal descriptions, I realize that it would be helpful for SEO...however, to make the structure and design more accessible, I don't really want text before the links to sub-categories and products.