This isn’t going to be one of my usual long and boring posts with lots of technical mumbo jumbo instead I’m going to keep it really short as there isn’t really a lot to say on the subject but is a question that seems to keep cropping up.

It’s always a struggle getting all of the pages on a large e commerce site indexed especially when you have a client expecting results quickly so what do you do?

Webmaster Tools

First of all log into your Google account and setup a webmaster tools account. To access webmaster tools you can click here. Webmaster tools is an excellent resource for web masters as it gives you lots of information about the way Google views and manages your site and its content and is a must for any SEO.

Submit an XML Sitemap

If it’s a new or old website if you haven’t submitted an XML sitemap I would recommend that you do so. Not everybody will agree with me on this and some say that it isn’t necessary for indexing. My view is that if Google isn’t indexing your pages and you can do anything to help then why not?

A sitemap is basically a list of all of the URLs that you have on your website. One of the reasons for signing up to webmaster tools is that this is an area where you can upload your xml sitemap and tell Google first hand where it can find all of the pages on your website.

There are many tools out there that will generate an XML sitemap for you but most of them limit you to a maximum of 500 pages. This won’t help you with a large e commerce site but for your smaller websites they are great. You can purchase software that will create them for you but if you have a decent web developer it wouldn’t take them long to generate one on your behalf.

Blogging

Once you have submitted your sitemap to web master tools I suggest a vigorous blogging campaign dropping links to as many pages on your website as possible. Google seems to be crawling blogs a lot quicker these days so if you have lots of links pointing to different pages from your blog Google is sure to follow.

External Links

These are your biggest weapon for getting your site indexed. Start building lots and lots of quality links to your website. Building quality links to your website will help you in more ways than one and is the area that you need to spend most time on. The better the website you get a link from the more often Google will be visiting the page and the more likely it will be that it finds your website.

So there you have it my four easy steps to getting more pages indexed on Google. If you want to see a real example of how to get more pages indexed then feel free to keep an eye on my Office Supplies client. We are currently attempting to push more of their pages into Google main index using the methods described above.

P.S Sorry for the shameless link I couldn’t help myself

The next topic is reciprocal linking. Generating reciprocal links is the most common and probably the easiest form of link building there is. There is a lot of debate out there as to how effective reciprocal linking is, but my opinion is that done properly it can be really beneficial.

First of all, you need to ensure you have done your research properly and identified the sites that you want a link from. Don’t set your sites to low here as one link from a great site can benefit you much more than 10 links from just any old site.

Ok so you now have your list so how do you get the links? Its common practise when reciprocal link building to send an email to the webmaster of your targeted site explaining how good your website is and how important it is to swap links blah blah blah blah. If you are anything like me the first thing you do when you get this type of email is slam it in the recycle bin. Fortunately this method is dying out and SEOs have to become more cunning.

HOW TO OBTAIN RECIPROCAL LINKS

First of all be prepared to put in the time. If you have chosen your target sites well your time and efforts will be rewarded. I know I keep banging on about content but first on your checklist needs to be the quality of the content you want to get links for. Rubbish content will result in rubbish links and none of the big boys will touch you.

Stay away from link farms and link exchange sites. I will cover these types of sites in more detail in another post but for now take my word for it and steer clear. Join some social network sites related to the niche you are working in and start to participate frequently. This may sound like a nightmare but by participating UN selfishly you will begin to build up a nice contact list of people related to your niche area that once you have built up confidence in can approach them for a link exchange. People are more likely to link to you if they feel like they know you.

Have a really good think about everybody you know and what jobs they do. You never know you could just remember that professor that is really high up in a university who is really good friends with the University web master. You get where I am coming from here.

Get a blog and start blogging. It’s more difficult to offer reciprocal links from within your website so a blog is a great way to build up top quality content that you can then use to link out to people in return for a link in. Blogs are especially great because there are no limits as to what you can blog about. The more you blog the bigger the buzz will become around your blog attracting more subscribers. The beauty of this is that if somebody has taken the time to subscribe to your ramblings they are obviously interested in your subject so yet another good candidate for a link exchange.

This list can go on and on and I couldn’t possibly give all my secrets away here but the main point I am trying to make is that you need to do your research and be prepared to put the time and effort in to make reciprocal link building more effective. If you just trawl the net obtaining reciprocal links from any old site, although you will see some short term benefits, as Google continues to improve its search algorithm you will waste your time long term.