Search engine optimization (SEO) relies to varying degrees on your ability to have others voluntarily link to your sites pages as an endorsement that the page is relevant and of value to others. X-Cart SEO presents the SEO challenge of getting others to link to your products with limited incentive to voluntarily generate you revenue by sending you sales via links. This x-cart tutorial will demonstrate how an x-cart blog can be used to create inbound links by providing relevant content, and can be used to generate sales by associating the product and x-cart blog entry.

X-Cart Blog

To get started using an x-cart blog to increase your x-cart seo, you of course require an x-cart blog. In this tutorial we'll be using our x-cart module xCMS - X-Cart Blogs, Information, News, Articles and more!, in conjunction with Custom Dynamic Search Engine Optimization (CDSEO) for X-Cart, but the x-cart SEO principles presented will be the same whether you're using wordpress blog software, a hosted blog, or any other blogging solution.

By providing high-value content via an x-cart blog you:

• Improve SEO by providing keyword rich content.
• Increase your Page Rank by providing information that will be linked by bloggers, other websites in your industry, and shared in social networking sites.
• Boost your trust authority with search engines.
• Position your company as an expert in your field.
• Increase credibility with your target market.
• Encourage repeat visits by becoming a go-to resource.
• Facilitate customer conversion by providing content relating to products and prompting to action.
• Stay in constant contact with users via RSS Feeds.

Select the Product

The purpose of this x-cart tutorial is to facilitate traffic and drive sales for a specific product, so the first step is selecting a product. To illustrate this process we'll use our newly released x-cart module xCMS - X-Cart Blogs, Information, News, Articles and more! and use this tutorial as it's being written to drive traffic to that product. I know, convenient right?

Keyword Research

Search engine optimization should always start with keyword research. This is the process of determining what your users are searching for, and picking keywords for which you have a legitimate shot at achieving high rankings. To view information for keywords use Google Adwords: Keyword Tool. Enter your keywords and then sort by Global Monthly Search Volume. The higher the search volume the more times a month the keyword or phrase is searched for, but the higher the advertiser competition the less chance you will have of actually ranking for that term. Unless you have a page rank of 6-10 your best to choose keywords that are a balance between search volume and advertiser competition.

Optimizing for our xCMS x-cart blog/content module, I will select the keyword phrase x-cart blog. Often you will want to also create a list of secondary keyword terms to use throughout your article. I will use the secondary term x-cart seo.

Optimize the Product

Before writing the article, optimize the product for which you want to increase traffic using the keywords you identified in the keyword research stage; it helps when there is a keyword link between your article and your product. Since our xCMS for X-Cart product hasn't yet been optimized, we'll make some changes to the product in CDSEO to emphasize an x-cart blog phrase:

Write the Article

Think about your product. What solution does it provide? What purpose does it serve? What if any hot topics are related? Think about your keywords and how they can be integrated. Then select an article topic that is both useful and interesting. "How To's", "Step By Step's" and other such articles can usually be very effective. Then sit down and write your article.

When writing your x-cart blog entry, take these suggestions into consideration:

• The title of the entry is the most important on site element. Create the title first. The title should be attractive to users and emphasise your keyword terms.
• Use your main keyword 2-4 times in your opening paragraph and when appropriate make it the first word of the first paragraph.
• Break content using compelling and keyword rich headings.
• Use short paragraphs.
• Use bold keywords where appropriate.
• Use your keywords liberally but try not to make it sound unnatural and try not to overdo it.
• Keep the article informative (don't hard sell). If your product is relevant and helpful it will sell itself based on the content.

Complete, proof-read, and submit your article to your blog.

SEO Optimize X-Cart Blog Entry

Ensure that your new x-cart blog entry is search engine optimized. We'll use CDSEO for this purpose:

Link the Article/Product

Create a link between your x-cart blog entry and the product your optimizing for. If using xCMS for X-Cart you can do this easily by setting a related product:

If your blogging software doesn't have this functionality, you can always create a link to your product at the bottom of the content itself.

Promote the Article

You'll now have an x-cart blog entry about a relevant topic related to a product, and both your product and blog entry will have been search engine optimized. You now need to make people aware of the article. To get you started here are some methods of promoting your article:

• Make search engines aware of the article by submitting an XML sitemap. If using CDSEO you can easily do this by generating an XML Sitemap in the CDSEO Admin -> Modules - XML Sitemap section.
• If possible send out an email to your subscribers list and/or notify people who have previously purchased the product.
• Allow users to easily submit your article to social bookmark sites.
• Submit your site to reputable article submission sites such as Digg.

So does this article help you in your business? Can it help you achieve search engine rankings and drive sales for you and/or your clients? If this tutorial has served its purpose the answer to those questions is "Yes - and I'd love to share it with others!"