Heater-Store.com Case Study

About Heater-Store.com

Thanks to its top ranking in search engine results pages for highly competitive key phrases like "heater" and "propane heaters", Heater-Store.com has enjoyed a high level of organic traffic for the last several years. Heater-Store.com's goal is to become the premier online source of heating products. They offer quality, name brand products for both commercial and residential use. Their inventory includes a broad range of products from small office heaters to large 1.5 million BTU industrial heaters used in the coldest parts of the world. Heater-Store.com's strategy is to gain a competitive edge in the market by:

1. Offering a broad range of high quality products at the
lowest possible prices and outstanding customer service.
2. Maximize conversion rates by offering the best possible
shopping experience.

3. Minimize the cost of driving traffic to their website.

Although heater-store.com has been powered by SearchFit.com for several years, in this case study we will take a look at the most recent version of the site, which was launched in November 2009. This version included a site redesign with many new features.

SearchFit has allowed Heater-Store.com to gain market share quickly in a very competitive marketplace. The tools available from SearchFit make search engine optimization as well as product updates quick and efficient. From SEO to the design/content found on the website, SearchFit has allowed Heater-Store.com to focus more closely on the relationship side of sales. This close attention to our customer base is directly related to our increase in sales year of year, and undoubtedly a direct reflection of the advantages to having a powerful e-commerce solution such as SearchFit. We have looked at other shopping carts and nobody offers the options that SearchFit gives us. Recent additions into the social networking world have allowed us to gain an added customer base that has been previously untouched. By adding new opportunities while maximizing our search engine optimization, SearchFit has been a very close partner in our successes.

Andy Birkel
EVP of Sales
Heater-Store.com

Sales based on website searches showed improved results in January when the holiday shopping had ended.

After the launch of their new site, traffic rose as expected during the holiday season, then saw another peak in January.

About the SearchFit Ecommerce Shopping Cart

SearchFit is an ecommerce platform with a broad range of features and an extreme focus on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SearchFit features are driven by the goal to provide store owners with the highest amount of free or low-cost traffic. This traffic comes in the form of referrals from organic searches on major search engines, comparison shopping engines (like Bing Shopping and Google Base) and email marketing conversions. Regarding SEO, SearchFit allows you to implement your custom SEO content throughout a website, whether it is static or automated content. Static SEO content includes keyword rich category descriptions, product descriptions, individual pages, etc. Automated SEO content is available via SearchFit's "SEO Naming Rule" system, templating system and its many SEO-related settings. The Product Feeds system offered to SearchFit customers includes in-depth, but easy to use features. Highly configurable product feeds can be automatically created and delivered to comparison shopping engines at a specified interval. SearchFit also provides a large number of customer-friendly user interface elements and shopping options. Visit the SearchFit features page for more information.

SearchFit Features Used on Heater-Store.com's Relaunch

Showcasing Products with Product Groups

Heater-Store uses the "Product Groups" feature to showcase "On Sale", "Best Sellers" and "New Items" in key areas throughout the website, such as the home page and top-level category pages' "Products On Sale" display. SearchFit offers an "Intelligent Product Groups" feature that can be used to automatically choose products based on many different criteria such as "Best Sellers", "On Sale" , "Newest Items", "Highest Rated", etc.

Improved Layout and Structure of Top Level Category Pages

In SearchFit, "category type" pages are the top level of your product catalog. Heater-Store.com added an easy-to-navigate category display to their category type pages using the SearchFit "Category Template". Categories are laid in 4 columns with a photo and name listed for each. This is an attractive layout that helps customers quickly navigate to the desired category in a visual fashion. Heater-Store.com not only added a Category template, they did a complete restructuring of their categories. Heater-Store.com uses the automated Google Analytics installation feature to capture analytics data. They used this data to determine that most customers only viewed the first page of any category. If a category contained 10 pages worth of products, then pages 2-10 were rarely viewed. The products needed to be closer to the surface and not buried in links. Their restructuring strategy involved adding more categories in order to reduce the number of products per category. With the new structure, customers are now able to visually navigate to a category by clicking on easy-to-understand category images and the lower level category pages which contain a more condensed/relevant selection of products. This restructuring caused a large increase in conversion rate for heater-store.com.

Enhanced Category Pages with New Shopping Features

The Brief Product template determines the layout of lists of products on Heater-Store.com's category pages. A one column layout was used to display products and each product includes useful functions like the ability to read and write product reviews, view a "quick look" and compare products. SearchFit offers a in-depth product review system where customers can comment on other reviews, rate them as helpful and even earn special statuses. The webmaster controls review permissions such as allowing reviews to appear only once they are approved. The "Compare Products" feature allows the customer to check a "Compare Products" checkbox. Once the customer has selected more than one product to compare, they have the ability to launch a compare products panel where each product can be viewed side by side. The panel includes product photos, a customizable set of information and the ability to purchase products. The "quick look" button allows the user to view the detailed product information in a panel without leaving the current page. This allows for more efficient browsing.

Enhanced Detailed Product Displays

Heater-Store.com's strategy is to offer customers as much relevant information as possible about each product. This increases the chances that customers can obtain all the information they need in order to make a purchasing decision. Detailed product pages include general product summaries, tables showing product specifications, bulleted lists of features and more. Helpful functions are included to provide an easier shopping experience. These include a "Printer Friendly View" , "Add to Wishlist" function, "Email a Friend" function and the ability to read and write product reviews. A display of similar products is shown on the right side of the page. This helps customers locate similar items without having to navigate through the site.

Added Product Filter Navigation System

On category pages, the left column displays a filterable menu which allows customers to narrow items by various criteria. Customers have the ability to quickly and easily drill down to products which contain only the desired set of attributes. For example, customers can filter by manufacturer, price range, fuel type, voltage, etc. Heater-store.com continues to expand its filter choices according to the product attributes that are important to its customers.

Enhanced Comparison Shopping Engine Feed System

A key feature that Heater-Store.com has focused on is SearchFit's ability to automatically create and deliver product feeds to comparison shopping engines like Google Base (google.com/shopping) and Bing Shopping. Heater-Store has taken advantage of SearchFit's ability to associate Google taxonomy with their products. This helps Google Base properly categorize Heater-Store's products in its search results. The ability to specify many attributes as well as customizing page names and descriptions have helped Heater-Store.com improve its position in Google Base. Heater-Store also submits a product feed to Bing Shopping and participates in the Bing CashBack program, where customers can earn rebates for the items they purchase. SearchFit's Bing CashBack integration made the setup process easy and effective.

Added Advanced Website Search "SearchFit Power Search"

In addition to the SearchFit shopping cart, Heater-Store.com is also using SearchFit's advanced site search solution "Power Search". Having an advanced site solution has helped Heater-Store.com increase conversion rates and average order value for customers who search. The advantages of Power Search include lightening fast, relevant results and user friendly navigation options. This allows customers to quickly find what they need with the fewest possible searches. Results can be quickly narrowed down and explored using the search filters. Search filters allow the customer to refine search results according to attributes like price range, manufacturer and category. Other navigation elements like results sorting and "Most Popular Searches" are also available.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Improvements

Heater-Store.com has used SearchFit's SEO features to increase the amount of organic search engine traffic . The "SEO Naming Rules" feature was used to automate much of the process including product page names, titles, keywords and meta descriptions. Titles and metatags are fully customizable throughout the site and many were entered by hand. Keyword rich content was added to the top of each category page and detailed product description. The product groups placed throughout the site help give the site fresh content and varied keywords. The recent restructuring of the site also helped boost the amount of organic search traffic.