Promotion of an online auto parts store, promotion of a spare parts website, SEO for a store

Auto parts website – paradise for internet marketer. Millions of pages, with proper internal optimization, can bring thousands of interested users without the cost of additional advertising. But the right search engine optimization in order to promote the site of auto parts – not an easy task.

An online store of spare parts differs from an ordinary site not only in the number of pages, but also in the complexity of the structure. The obvious advantages of a large site are also its disadvantages. The key problem – bad indexing.

Reasons for poor indexing:

Complex structure;
Large number of pages;
Full and partial page duplicates.

Optimizer task – get rid of problems with indexing, cover the maximum number of mid-frequency and low-frequency queries, increase the position of the site in the search results.

The main activities in the process of promoting an online auto parts store:

Development of the correct site structure, taking into account the semantic core;
Optimization of internal pages in order to attract traffic for low-frequency and medium-frequency queries;
Selecting priority landing pages and optimizing them for high-frequency, mid-frequency and low-frequency queries
Internal linking to redistribute static weight within the site.
Setting up a robots.txt file and compiling a sitemap for correct indexing by search engines;
Working with external ranking factors.

In this article, we will talk about internal optimization, because good SEO starts with it.

Optimal structure for promoting a spare parts website

The simplest version of the structure of an online store allows you to implement a step-by-step selection of auto parts from brand to product, taking into account the model, year of manufacture and car engine.

Structure of an online spare parts store with one step-by-step selection

However, this structure is not SEO friendly enough because it covers no more than 20% of search queries.

In order to expand the semantic core of the site, it is necessary to create an additional selection option – reverse: from the spare part category to the product, including step-by-step selection by make, model, type of car engine.

Structure of an online parts store with reverse fitting

Using the power of Allzap CMS 2.0, you can create and organize your catalog however you like. To do this correctly, focus on demand and check the Google Keyword Planner statistics. First of all, form the categories of auto parts that users most often search for.

An example of a well-formed auto parts catalog

Give categories an appropriate name, different from what is listed in the standard catalog tree. For example, the category "Independent Suspension / Pivot Arm" it's more rational to call it "Ball Joint", because that's how users look for this spare part.

Try not to generalize: the category called "Other Steering Parts" will not bring customers from the search.

Optimization of internal pages for online store promotion

It is important to understand which pages will be effective for promoting an auto parts site, which ones are able to generate traffic and direct maximum efforts to optimize them. To do this, you should turn to keyword statistics for help.

Our experience shows that the most attractive for promoting an online auto parts store are:

Brand Page (e.g. Audi Parts)
Model page (e.g. Parts for Audi 80)
Product page (e.g. SWAG 50 90 6767 Boot kit)
Reverse selection category page (ex. Brake discs)
Reverse brand page (e.g. Brake discs for Audi)
Reverse fit model page (e.g. Brake discs for Audi 80)

Given the number of pages, and there are several million of them on the autosite,it makes no sense to talk about manual optimization of each separately. Only the top most priority pages are manually optimized: brands, models and categories.

General recommendations for all pages

Each page must have:

Title;
Description;
Headings h1-h3;
Optimized text.

Meta data, as well as text, should contain keywords that users will use to find your site. Traditionally, they are commercial in nature and follow the general formula:

Page name (%%variables) + price, buy, catalog, online, promotion region (city or Ukraine in general)

Thus, we get pages relevant to queries of this type:

Buy cabin filter;
Cabin filter price;
Cabin filter buy online;
Buy a cabin filter in Ukraine and many other variations.

Bulk Page Optimization

The Allzap CMS 2.0 functionality allows mass optimization of pages with fine-tuning of meta-data. Each page can use unique variables. For example, for a product page, this is:

%%part_name - product name;
%%art_name - product SKU;
%%brand_name - the manufacturer of the product.

Use the variables and the above keywords to correctly compose the title, description, headings and text template.

Important! Text and meta data templates for each page level should be different.

Manual page optimization

We recommend optimizing priority pages manually. To promote each page, you need to create unique metadata and write unique text, taking into account the recommended semantic core (SN).

In the process of preparing the SA, one should not neglect the statistics of search engines, using templates acceptable for mass optimization. High-quality SA includes high-frequency, mid-frequency and low-frequency requests.

Important! It is necessary to saturate the text and meta-data with keywords, but do not spam it. Remember that any content is primarily created for people, and only then for search robots. The text on the landing page that you have chosen for optimization should solve the user's problem and answer his questions: how to choose? How to buy? why buy from you?

Internal linking of the spare parts website

Good internal linking has three main goals:

Distribute the static weight of pages correctly;
Improve site indexing;
Make it easy for the user to use the site.

Partial linking implemented in the site structure:

The main page links to the brand page;
The brand page links to the model page;
The main page also links to a catalog page that brings together all categories of auto parts in a reverse search;
Auto parts category page links to brand page in reverse search;
The brand page in the back lookup links to the model page in the back lookup.

This linking option is enough for the user to select auto parts step by step, but not enough for search engines to correctly distribute the weight and speed up indexing. Therefore, it is necessary to introduce additional internal linking, which will help to correctly distribute the weight of pages and affect the speed and quality of site indexing:

The model page must link to the model page in the reverse fit and to other models within its brand except for itself;
A brand's page in a reverse search must link to pages in this category for other car brands, except for itself;
A model's page in a reverse lookup must link to other parts pages in its category other than itself.

The robots.txt file and the “Robots” meta tag

Robots.txt – a set of instructions designed for search engine robots. Allows you to restrict access to site content. Correct setting makes it possible to exclude certain groups of pages, sections and directories from the index of search engines. In other words, using robots.txt, we can hide potentially unwanted pages:

Service and technical pages (for example, a new user registration page);
Pages that will not bring us traffic (modification pages, parts list pages)
Pages with problematic content (such as pages with non-unique content, outbound links, etc.).

The “Robots” meta tag performs a similar function, but it gives the robot instructions regarding a particular page: whether it needs to be indexedExxify whether to parse links on it.

Above, we determined that not all pages in the site structure are suitable for attracting traffic. The main reason – duplicate content. For example, we have two cars with different engines: Alfa Romeo 146 (930) 1.4 I.E. and Alfa Romeo 146 (930) 1.6 I.E.. We understand that these are two different cars, but the difference in one digit is not enough for the search robot. Such pages will not bring traffic, as evidenced by the Keyword Planner data.

The optimal solution – using the meta tag “Robots” prohibit search engines from indexing pages of this level, however, allow them to follow links to them so that the robot can easily reach the product page.

The problem of duplicate content is also relevant for the parts list page, for example, Cabin filter for Alfa Romeo 146 (930) 1.4 I.E. and Cabin Filter Alfa Romeo 146 (930) 1.6 I.E.

There is another way to solve the problem - software improvements, which are based on the reworking of the site structure and the introduction of the "Garage" functionality. This solution is more complex and expensive, so at the initial stage it is enough to correctly configure the robots.txt file and the “Robots” meta tag.

Important! Incorrect configuration of the robots.txt file and the “Robots” meta tag can cause more damage to the site than their complete absence.

Sitemap

Sitemap – xml format file, type sitemap.xml, intended for partial management of site indexing. The sitemap should contain links to all the important pages of the site. At the same time, it is unacceptable that the sitemap contains url-addresses of pages closed from indexing.

Important! You must update the sitemap after any changes to the site. Whether you're adding categories, uploading new price lists, or updating old ones, don't forget to start generating a new map when you're done.

This is not a complete list of site optimization work. Separately, it is worth discussing the problem of uniqueization of the product page, the need to go to https:// and, of course, work with external ranking factors.