Custom E-commerce Website Development and Search Engine Optimization

A while back, one company that was considering branching into an online watch business — to sell luxury high-end watches that are collectible timepieces — contacted the SEOTM team for assistance. The company had previous experience selling watches online on different e-commerce platforms, but on the flip side spending big on Google Ads to run the business. The project kick-off meeting showed that the company management knew how valuable organic search traffic can be and was fully aware of the high costs associated with acquiring customers for this particular niche.

In terms of SEO, we delivered exceptional project results: We conducted a thorough competition analysis, followed by effective technical SEO that eventually contributed to more search traffic and a 5-fold increase in conversions as compared to the previous endeavors.

Our dedicated team included:

Project Tasks and Task Assignments

The SEO project for this client encompassed various tasks such as developing a convenient, technically complex, and fully SEO-friendly online watch store; conducting market research on similar e-commerce projects; and implementing advanced technical SEO.

To complete the project tasks, we accomplished the following:

• Conducted niche research and designed an optimal product catalog structure.
• Designed the project architecture in ElasticSearch.
• Built an online store platform with Yii2 PHP Framework.
• Made a responsive website design.
• Implemented technical SEO recommendations.

The following are the technical features our team implemented to give the functionality that the online watch business needed:

• Setting up the Product Compare Plugin to the website.
• Creating a catalog of the personal watch collections with different styles and unique design themes.
• Setting up a FAST search and filtering by key features using ElasticSearch search technology.
• Creating the review section and enabling customers to rate and review a product, product category, or the entire website.
• Integrating into Amazon cloud services for setting up a mailing system from the website.
• Integrating into the Advego module to determine if product descriptions are unique.
• Setting a future publish date for new arrivals on social media.

Considering the specifics of the project and peculiarities of the business model, we made it possible for our client to run two online e-commerce platforms from one place: one store for selling jewelry and another one for selling watches.

As a result of our technical department’s continuous efforts aimed at successful project execution, the following functions were implemented:

• Enabling regular updates to the EPUB-created watch catalog on mobile devices, PDAs, tablets, and communication devices.
• Implementing the website product subscription module.
• Setting up multiple domains for one website.
• Integrating with the payment system that enables buyers to pay while ordering.
• Adaptive web design with the use of the latest technologies.
• Generating automatic algorithms for meta tags for different product sections, categories, and groups.
• Adding microdata markups on different page templates to boost the website SEO.
• Algorithm-based creation of unique SEO content.

The homepage was designed to provide rich search and filtering capabilities on any website page using ElasticSearch-based fast product search technologies.

Product list filtering allows shoppers to refine searches based on the main and additional attributes of a product. Both online stores showcase an innovative design and awesome functionality.

A look inside the personal watch collection featuring different styles and unique design themes.

Example of the product card design created for the ‘Watches’ store, with More Info, Image Gallery, and Main and Additional Product Details tabs, New Arrivals page, Compare Product page, Social Media icon links, and Live Chat widget.

Example of the product card design created for the ‘Jewelry’ store, with More Info, Image Gallery, and Main and Additional Product Details tabs, New Arrivals page, Compare Product page, Social Media icon links, and Live Chat widget.

Displayed here is the Admin Bar with shortcuts to manage products in the ‘Watches’ store right from the storefront, as well as other menu sections.

Technical SEO

We have put in a lot of effort to improve the website's technical performance. This include:

• Implementing usability recommendations.
• Setting up 301 redirects.
• Writing the rel="canonical" attribute on the pagination series.
• Setting up template generation of meta tags for various types of pages using formulas.
• Implementing the rel=”next” and rel=”prev” attributes on all the pagination pages.
• Leaving only one H1 heading per product page.
• Setting up possibilities to automatically populate title and alt attributes of images on the section, subsections, and product pages, using a formula.
• Generating automatic updates for the XML image sitemap.
• Displaying SEO fields above and below the product name in all the sections, subsections, and categories that contain a product catalog.
• Generating automatic updates for the XML sitemap with an option to disable pages in the admin bar.
• Setting up a global HTTP-to-HTTPS redirect.
• Installing global protection from the text being copied for the entire website.
• Adding breadcrumb markup.
• Creating structured data markup for product pages.
• Creating an HTML sitemap page and including it in the footer of every webpage.
• Adding rich snippets for “Reviews”.
• Adding a product to the “Compare Product” page from the original product page.
• Setting up 404 error pages.
• Configuring the “Last-Modified” response to contain an actual date when the server believes the current page was last modified.
• Improving the website loading speed.

Results

When it comes to content marketing and SEO, patience and consistency always pay off. Our efforts resulted in more Google organic traffic to our client’s website, which was the ultimate SEO goal. The website's search visibility and its position in the top 10 for target keywords rose significantly.

Since 2007, we have been delivering large-scale web projects for medium and large businesses on time, on value, and on budget. As of now, we use the Laravel framework, which replaced Yii2, to develop a website from the ground up or improve the existing platform. The Laravel framework is a powerful modern tool that provides plenty of opportunities and features that facilitate the development of websites with the functionality of absolutely any complexity.

Our effective web projects attract organic traffic from search engines. What could be better than high-quality, low-cost leads? We use a holistic approach to develop optimal solutions for our client's problems. Websites should be beautifully designed, clean, and user-friendly, but also able to attract visitors and turn them into customers. If you have been looking to develop your own custom e-commerce project, we are here for you to help with the implementation. The right SEO will pay off big!