1 Product Per Page

[Dave Fisher]

I have read somewhere that its better to have a single product on a page because it easier to optimise that product for the search engines. IE Page name can refer to the product on the page etc etc

However, I am not sure how to acheive having a single product on a page. Obviously you can have a single product in a section but if you can potential have in excess of 7,000 products you would not want 7,000 sections down the left hand side of the screen.

Ideal situation would be to remove the section list and allow people to search for products using the search/advanced search facility.

Would appreciate any feedback from people with simular problems and how they resolved the issue.

We are currently using Catalog V7 and Best Seller Theme

[procheck]

As far as I can tell, what you say is correct. We've created a section per category and each product is a subcategory which we call directly from our regular html pages. Since we've got our own products page, we've hidden the main sections from our site. Unfortunately Actinic forces us to upload these pages. We have about 1000 products, but many of these are displayed per team (ie. hockey pucks are displayed for each team), so we potentially have up to 2000 at this time. So far no problems, although there is one article on this site where there was an issue on this subject. Unfortunately I don't remember the article. If you search this site, you should be able to find a few articles on this subject. Hope this helps.

[pinbrook]

2 options

1 to have every product in its own section you can use the section above to display images only ie an image of the product in that section and lay it out with 3 images per line

2 use the extended info but reference it as an href and not a pop up (see Normans thread about how to do this)

[Dave Fisher]

Thanks

Thanks for your comments. Will look into the suggestions made

[chris ashdown]

I do not know if the original view is right or wrong regarding the search engine, but are you loosing customers by making it hard to find the product at the expence of a slightly higher rating

My question is are you better of with a few more hits or a site thats easier for the customers

[procheck]

Well one product per sub-section is easy to setup & it answers the criteria for search engines. Removing a product is a breeze. If we don't hit a limit on the sub-sections, then we're ok.

As for the customer access, it depends how your site is designed. We've had many emails on ease of use. We only use Actinic as a catalogue and call each sub-section directly from our regular pages, so if the customer has problems with navigation, then it's our fault and not Actinics.

[chris ashdown]

My point is, that its the customer who makes or breaks us, and they should have a easy ride, as a few more people visiting your site with better seo optimisation is lost, if you loose those already there by making the site difficult or a long process for them to purchase

[procheck]

Agreed. Two clicks or less to purchase.

[AFH Dan]

Watch out for the dupe content filter in G

[BPJSURF]

no clicks to purchase????

Dave,
I beleive I would have been the person who told you a single product per page is prefered for SEO. In many product types and categories you can set up and merchandise the products in your catalog to the search engines. Often when people search on products they prefer to land on the product they were looking for, not a range of products on a page.

In an ideal world it would be two clicks to get to a product. I dont think this can be realistic for many product orientated catalogs.

I can tell you from our expereince with many of our cleints who catalog hundreds and thousands of products in a single catalog, being found is most critical. How you work with a customer after being found is important but a close second to being found. If you mechandise the catalog correctly and execute an effective marketing campaign for the site in many cases a google, yahoo AOL or MSN search result will deliver the customer directly to the product page not to your home page. This is wat I would like to call the "no clicks to purchase" result.

The DMA published a study some time back. They found that people do not search for websites....... People often search for a specific "subject" or a specific "Product". In the case of your business it is my opinion your customer is searching for a specific product not browsing your website or the search engines to find sites that sell similar products. Therefore you sould ignore the two or three click useability rule and set up your site so as many potential buyers find your site directly from the search engines.

You can build a Cathedral on the north pole. No matter how beautiful the cathedral or how devote the user if the location is not easily accessible its a waste. Likewise you can build a wonderful easy to use web site, if no one finds it your not gonna make any money. Useability is important however it takes the backseat to being found.

Brian

[geniyisis]

Is there a limit to the number of products ??

If you do this will we all start hitting a problem with the number of products. We have customers where we are well over 2000 products and are adding up to 10 a week for them, what is the limitation if we go by section ??

[Eddie Edwards]

How do you do that?

Agreed. Two clicks or less to purchase.

Hi

I checked out your site, and found that you had achieved exactly the effect that I wanted for my product listing, ie product category listed 'line by line' then an link to the relevant catalogue sub section within actinic. HOW DO YOU DO THAT? is iit your own hard coded html?

regards

eddie

[cdicken]

Does this knowledge base article help at all?
http://knowledge.actinic.com/users/k...re.html#aCD526