Design and content guidelines

1. Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link. - This means that you want to make sure all of your main pages, home page, contact page, faq's page, product listings page, etc can be found no matter what page the customer is on. Now, I know with the free templates, you do not get this on all pages. But... you get what you pay for. If you upgrade your account here, you have the ability to do custom templates. With this, you can make your high level site navigation available on all pages which can only help you. However, if you have a page you want to keep "hidden" but still be able to see it, you can simply leave it out of the navigation. I do not recommend this unless you have a page where you are testing out a layout. But delete the page once you have things figured out. Search engines do not like hidden content. They feel this is a type of "spamming" to get better rank. So, if you want the information to give you better rank, make it available to everyone that browses your site.
2. Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages. - Again, this is not something you can do with the free package, but you can upgrade and manually make a sitemap for your visitors. This is NOT the xml sitemap that you submit to Google but rather one that your visitors can view in a readable format.
3. Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content. - Do not just post a product image and price and be done. Describe the product using words that not only describe the product but also that people will be searching for. Make sure the description is relative to the product though. Think about what you would write if you were making a paper flyer for the product and write that. Do NOT focus on what the search engine wants because that will be part of your SEO failure.
4. Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it. - This goes along with number 3. To add to number 3 and this one, make sure your content is readable and makes sense.
5. Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images. - I have seen people put their description inside of an image. Only someone with a graphical display can read the image description. All the spiders see is an image and have no clue what it is an image of. Of course, you need to have an image of your product as well as a description and title so the visitors can see what you have to offer.
6. Make sure that your TITLE tags and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate. - There is a thread about this around here somewhere. BuyItSellIt has done a really good job of offering a shopping cart that is easy to use and not such a resource hog that it makes it a pain. The big thing to remember when listing in your BuyItSellIt store is that you are your own website. This is not eBay. Make your titles the best you can without the forced keyword spamming of eBay. Relax a bit when you do your listings and put what comes "naturally" to you. Your alt attributes on here are based on the title of your listing. Your page title here is based on your store name, and then the beginning of your item title. There is a limit on page title length so it will automatically truncate (cut off) your title when that space is filled. 
7. Check for broken links and correct HTML. - Always make sure your links work. This is mainly if you have a custom template unless you are putting links in your product description. Bots will leave if they find a bunch of broken links. If you are not sure about your HTML skills or if it is correct, there are online HTML validation tools. Just Google HTML Validation and you will find them. The main one is the W3C.
8. If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a "?" character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few. - This is not something to worry about over here. BuyItSellIt takes care of how our links look for us.
9. Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100). - I think this is pretty self explainatory.

Check out some of my work on my Portfolio page!
Stock template and existing template implementation now available!

Sexy Lingerie! Look Sexy! Feel Sexy! Be Sexy!
www.moonlightseduction.net

Ah, perhaps it was coincidence then. It just seemed that our site didnt show up until we completed the google checkout verification process. Then a short while later it was there.

Thanks again for the information. Very helpful.

Is a 'site map' different from 'product categories' that are essentially html links? (That do come with the basic templates)

A site map is a page in your store that has links to all the pages of your store. The category navigation only has links to the top level category. If you have sub-categories, it will not show on the main page but only when the user clicks into a top level category.

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Jennifer

Check out some of my work on my Portfolio page!
Stock template and existing template implementation now available!

Sexy Lingerie! Look Sexy! Feel Sexy! Be Sexy!
www.moonlightseduction.net

Scroll to the bottom of that article to find links to the individual directories. Each one has a brief description beside it explaining how it works, some are paid, but most are free.

You will find a few dead links in those and maybe only 3 good free ones, but it's a start.

               

http://islandmountainapparel.net

http://islandmountainapparel.com

I will try to make it up to you all though!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jennifer

Check out some of my work on my Portfolio page!
Stock template and existing template implementation now available!

Sexy Lingerie! Look Sexy! Feel Sexy! Be Sexy!
www.moonlightseduction.net

Have a nice evening,
Nikki

Handmade Treasures ~ Photos of Montana ~ Logos by Nikki ~ Clearance

Handmade Treasures ~ Photos of Montana ~ Logos by Nikki ~