Prestashop SEO Tips

[tomerg3]

Nice, The very first post in this new section :)

I have written (and will update from time to time) some tips on how to improve SEO in Prestashop.

They are posted on my site rather than here because I wanted to use bold characters to highlight changes in the code and it's not possible with the form interface (bold doesn't work inside code)

http://www.presto-ch...estashopseotips

Make sure to check out the English version....

[tomerg3]

Those are the Prestashop related tips I have, for general SEO tips there are many other sources you can refer to on the internet.

The most important thing in my experience to help get better ranking in search engines is to get as many quality links from other sites to your site.

There are many other small things you can do as well, but getting more incoming links to your site is the easiest and simplest thing you can do.

[ruilong]

1. Change title! (header.tpl)
key words first, then shop name.

2. Change heading!
On product detail page change productname to h1. (product.tpl)
On category page, change category name to h1 and product name to h2. (category.tpl + product-list.tpl)
cms pages, page title = h1. (cms.tpl)

3. No h1 on the shop logo, this have no reason at all (a image is the most important heading on the page? what's the point?).

[tomerg3]

From 1265899539:

1. Change title! (header.tpl)
key words first, then shop name.

If your site name contains the keywords, than you can keep it.

The first 60 characters of the title have the most impact, so choose them wisely, and make sure you use up the 60 characters...

[sdqw]

Hi,
You might try this book. It's free. I have an affiliate link in it, but that's for folks who end up needing a web site and are looking for a host - which you are not - so don't fret about that.
The book is called "Make Your Site Sell" and it's really helpful.

[minh]

From 1265899539:

3. No h1 on the shop logo, this have no reason at all (a image is the most important heading on the page? what's the point?).

But the image logo comes with a text link, and that text is the name of the shop, and the name of the shop would be good to have with h1. Right? :question: :roll:

[ruilong]

From 1266405983:

From 1265899539:

3. No h1 on the shop logo, this have no reason at all (a image is the most important heading on the page? what's the point?).

But the image logo comes with a text link, and that text is the name of the shop, and the name of the shop would be good to have with h1. Right? :question: :roll:

The link only has a title in it, but ok, lets say your shop is called "cleaning master" and you sell soap. How good is it for your SEO if every page is about "cleaning master"? maybe you have a few products that is "deluxe soap" or "cheap soap" and want these product pages to rank better on these key words?

[minh]

From 1266459554:

From 1266405983:

From 1265899539:

3. No h1 on the shop logo, this have no reason at all (a image is the most important heading on the page? what's the point?).

But the image logo comes with a text link, and that text is the name of the shop, and the name of the shop would be good to have with h1. Right? :question: :roll:

The link only has a title in it, but ok, lets say your shop is called "cleaning master" and you sell soap. How good is it for your SEO if every page is about "cleaning master"? maybe you have a few products that is "deluxe soap" or "cheap soap" and want these product pages to rank better on these key words?

Yes, but what if the name of the shop is Deluxe Soap or Cheap Soap, and you sell precisely deluxe soap at low prices? Then perhaps it might be good to keep the h1 on the logo, or change it to h2, but not delete it. The point is, this might not be so categorical - it might be good to take it away, and it might be good to keep it or to edit it to h2 or h3. I guess it depends on how important it is for you to get your shop name out there, and it depend on how your shop name relates to the products you sell and to your key words...

[ray1reyes]

h1, h2...they are not so important. You need a good and value likns from relevant pages to your Soap Shop. From time to time google changes the algorithm and there is no 100% strategy. There is a quite difference b/n SEO and SEM and if you are trying to reach more traffic the first one is useless.

[minh]

I am guessing the reason why Google keep changing the algorithm is precisely to create a situation where there is no 100% strategy (no black hat SEO or spamdexing) apart from some very basic stuff like search engine friendly layouts and high quality informative relevant pages for the visitors. That is, their main interest is to see to it that their user get what the search for. Otherwise they will have no users. Since Prestashop is good at this out of the box, I think the main focus should just be to work on informative product descriptions and other texts. And work to get good and relevent links of course. And that is not a small task for most of us!!!

[Hemdeco.se]

From 1265899539:

1. Change title! (header.tpl)
key words first, then shop name.

I have looked in the header.tpl but I'm not sure what to change to get the key words before the shop name.
Can you provide a code example please?

/Stefan

[uddhava]

@ruilong,

Yes could you give an example header.tpl so we can get a feeling of what you mean?

[Hemdeco.se]

This is the first part of my header.tpl.
It must be in this part of the code that I have to change?

<head>
        <title>{$meta_title|escape:'htmlall':'UTF-8'}</title>
{if isset($meta_description) AND $meta_description}
        <meta name="description" content="{$meta_description|escape:htmlall:'UTF-8'}" />
{/if}
{if isset($meta_keywords) AND $meta_keywords}
        <meta name="keywords" content="{$meta_keywords|escape:htmlall:'UTF-8'}" />
{/if}
        <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="application/xhtml+xml; charset=utf-8" />
        <meta name="generator" content="PrestaShop" />
        <meta name="robots" content="{if isset($nobots)}no{/if}index,follow" />
        <link rel="icon" type="image/vnd.microsoft.icon" href="{$img_ps_dir}favicon.ico" />
        <link rel="shortcut icon" type="image/x-icon" href="{$img_ps_dir}favicon.ico" />
{if isset($css_files)}
    {foreach from=$css_files key=css_uri item=media}
    <link href="{$css_uri}" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="{$media}" />
    {/foreach}
{/if}
        [removed][removed]
        [removed]
            var baseDir = '{$content_dir}';
            var static_token = '{$static_token}';
            var token = '{$token}';
            var priceDisplayPrecision = {$priceDisplayPrecision*$currency->decimals};
        [removed]
        [removed][removed]
        [removed][removed]
        [removed][removed]
{if isset($js_files)}
    {foreach from=$js_files item=js_uri}
    [removed][removed]
    {/foreach}
{/if}
        {$HOOK_HEADER}
        <meta name="google-site-verification" content="WX2lVmV2Zj9VaDpnU_HXqa32Avw2SJhGuSTyR5En6sI" />
    </head>
    
    <body {if $page_name}id="{$page_name|escape:'htmlall':'UTF-8'}"{/if}>
    {if !$content_only}
        
        


            <!-- Header -->
            

            
                            


            
            

                
                    {$HOOK_TOP}
                

            
<!-- headerwrapper -->

/Stefan

[tomerg3]

The part of the code you need is in /classes/Tools.php

Start at line #487

    static public function getHomeMetaTags($id_lang)
    {
        global $cookie, $page_name;

        /* Metas-tags */
        $metas = Meta::getMetaByPage($page_name, $id_lang);
        $ret['meta_title'] = (isset($metas['title']) AND $metas['title']) ? Configuration::get('PS_SHOP_NAME').' - '.$metas['title'] : Configuration::get('PS_SHOP_NAME');
        $ret['meta_description'] = (isset($metas['description']) AND $metas['description']) ? $metas['description'] : '';
        $ret['meta_keywords'] = (isset($metas['keywords']) AND $metas['keywords']) ? $metas['keywords'] :  '';
        return $ret;
    }


    static public function completeMetaTags($metaTags, $defaultValue)
    {
        global $cookie;

        if ($metaTags['meta_title'] == NULL)
            $metaTags['meta_title'] = Configuration::get('PS_SHOP_NAME').' - '.$defaultValue;
        if ($metaTags['meta_description'] == NULL)
            $metaTags['meta_description'] = Configuration::get('PS_META_DESCRIPTION', intval($cookie->id_lang)) ? Configuration::get('PS_META_DESCRIPTION', intval($cookie->id_lang)) : '';
        if ($metaTags['meta_keywords'] == NULL)
            $metaTags['meta_keywords'] = Configuration::get('PS_META_KEYWORDS', intval($cookie->id_lang)) ? Configuration::get('PS_META_KEYWORDS', intval($cookie->id_lang)) : '';
        return $metaTags;
    }

You want to change

$metaTags['meta_title'] = Configuration::get('PS_SHOP_NAME').' - '.$defaultValue;

To

$metaTags['meta_title'] = $defaultValue.' - '.Configuration::get('PS_SHOP_NAME');

[Hemdeco.se]

I tried this, but the only thing i got was a white page.

Change this

$metaTags['meta_title'] = Configuration::get('PS_SHOP_NAME').' - '.$defaultValue;

To

$metaTags['meta_title'] = $defaultValue;.' - '.Configuration::get('PS_SHOP_NAME')

does not work for me.

/Stefan

[tomerg3]

My bad, i have updated the code (accidentally moved the ; before)

[Hemdeco.se]

Now it works, but only on categories and products, not at the frontpage. On the frontpage you still have the company name first.
If you test the new-products or best-sales yoy still have the company name first.

/Stefan

[tomerg3]

Did you apply the change to both functions??

[Hemdeco.se]

Well, I'm not sure what you mean with both functions?

/Stefan

[webzoom]

From 1265899539:

1. Change title! (header.tpl)
key words first, then shop name.

2. Change heading!
On product detail page change productname to h1. (product.tpl)
On category page, change category name to h1 and product name to h2. (category.tpl + product-list.tpl)
cms pages, page title = h1. (cms.tpl)

3. No h1 on the shop logo, this have no reason at all (a image is the most important heading on the page? what's the point?).

Thanks for an interesting post.
Pleace explain with examples how 1. should look like. Maybe I'm stupid but I do not understand it.