Implementing basic SEO for your site will not alone
suffice. You must implement all the things your rivals do. How to tell whether
you are doing so? How to be aware that you utilize all the available resources,
besides doing that? You may do this in many different ways, and this includes competitor
research.
It is a must to research rivals to know what they
implement off-site and on-site, and how they do so. Beyond that, some basic
things are there for you to do for the WordPress SEO strategy of yours. After doing these,
you can take some advanced steps to improve that strategy, such as the
following.
Tracking Conversions With UTM Parameters
Lacking data or having inappropriate data, is
perhaps the worst possible scenario in SEO. Do you have to confirm that you do
not face the above situation? If yes, it would be a good idea to add the
parameters to the links you use to advertise.
Do you utilize links on social networking websites,
or URLs somewhere else with an SEO campaign attached? If yes, you would wish to
utilize the parameters in those links. The links should have the data required
for website conversion tracking. The above move would aid you in tracking conversions.
Resolving Indexing And Crawling
Problems Regarding Duplicate Web Content
This perhaps appears to be a fundamental problem,
but at its heart, it is not that basic. If you own a site with 1,000 webpages
having duplicate content problems, finding all of these could be difficult. It
could be more of a chore for a person without great SEO experience.
When suspecting that your online site is rife with
the said issues, perform the following audits. A web content audit for finding
duplicate offsite and onsite content, plus a technical one to determine how the
content causes the issues. During the former audit, use a website crawler to extract your
site data, and then find the content thereof.
Optimize
The Site Speed
The speed has been among the many different Google ranking factors since
2010. Nowadays, a webpage should load in 2 seconds or so to rank as high as
possible. The quicker it loads, the better it would be for a commercial
website. Optimizing the images you use for the site will help to make it load
faster. There exist several other advanced optimizations to do for your site.
It is not easy to start an
ecommerce business as it involves a lot of hard work and demands taking
necessary decisions at the right time. Starting an online store is a great
opportunity to build your own business but many people do not have the right
knowledge on creating an online store. This article will help you to understand
how to build a profitable ecommerce business.
Choosing The Right Product To Sell
The first step in building an
online store is deciding which products to sell to the customers. Many people
find it the most difficult part of starting an online business. If you find a
product to sell through your website, the next aspect you have to consider is
whether it is the right product to sell through an online store. Once you
figure out the right product idea, you have to find a manufacturer or supplier
of that product.
Preparing A Business Plan
You can start writing your
business plan once you figure out the right product to sell through the online
store and source your supplier. You need to do thorough research on the
competition and figure out how to make your business unique from others. The
research on your competition in the market will give you an idea of how to
create your business plan. The business plan will bring your thoughts and idea
together and also helps to find a way to determine what to prioritize in the
business.
Setting Up The Online Store
One of the challenging decisions
in opening an online store other than finding the right product to sell is
naming your online store and choosing the appropriate domain name. Once you
find a memorable name, it’s time for creating a simple logo for your online
store. The logo is one thing that makes your customers connected to your brand.
Understanding SEO
You need to understand the basics
of ecommerce SEO
before you launch your online store. Search engine optimization (SEO) is
essential for generating more traffic to your online store. SEO marketing will help
your online store to appear on the top results of the search engine result
page. Your online store should have captivating product descriptions,
photography, and a color palette that could attract many visitors.
Launching The Online Store
You need to figure out the right
distribution channels to bring your products to the customers. You need to make
sure that the products reach the customers in time because customers do not
like waiting. It will also help to build your reputation. You also need to
create an excellent marketing strategy to bring more customers to your
business.
Making money while you sleep. That is the
dream, isn’t it? For many people out there that have managed this, they have
started off in one way or the other as affiliates; earning a commission when
people end up buying something because of your marketing…
The
Magic Of Affiliate Marketing
This is the process of earning a commission
by simply promoting other people’s or businesses’ products. You find a product
you like, you promote and help others see its worth and get a piece of the
profit every time a customer buys that product/service.
The idea does sound simple enough, but
there are a couple of don’ts, especially when it comes to dealing with
affiliate marketing that you should be aware of!
This Shouldn’t Be Your Reliable Source Of Income Immediately
Although affiliate marketing is a great
way to make plenty of money, it can’t be blatantly regarded as a regular source
of income. Affiliate marketing is not the “get rich quick” tactic.
If you have a small fan base and the
traffic you pull to your website or blog is not much and runs in the couple
thousands, then the income will be sporadic! It will take years for consistent
monthly returns to turn up. Implement quality content and SEO marketing to your
site to bump up the traffic. You can take the help of top-rated SEO companies
to provide reliable SEO services.
It Is Hard Work Running A Affiliate Program
If the affiliate network is built on a weak
relationship with your audience, then it won’t work. You have to make sure that
you’re working with the right partners and that you are constantly changing and
updating your content.
Take, for example, you did a product
review. The product may have new updates and features added in. You will need
to keep an eye out for this constantly and keep making changes to keep your
content relevant. If you don’t have the energy or the time to go back and
manage accounts, monitor links and so on, then affiliate marketing may not be
your cup of tea.
Be
Wary
Before you sponsor and market a product
make sure to thoroughly research it first. It will be even better if you can
get your hands on one, but then again that would be an ideal world scenario.
Make sure that this is a service/product that you would use, only then should you
recommend it to others. If for some reason, the customers are unhappy then you
will lose credibility and your traffic numbers will drop like flies in winter.
If
yours is a business that operates online then you will already know the
relation between website design and SEO services. However, let me be clear on
one thing and that is, SEO or Search Engine Optimization ideally must be
built-in rather than added later to your website designing process. In the
universe of digital marketing, your website acts as the face of your company
which you have built from scratch with blood and sweat.
This
being said, typically the thought of SEO or opting for reliable SEO services
doesn’t catch your attention until after you have built a website or worst-case
scenario, rebuilt your website. SEO should not be treated like some Band-Aid to
be put on your website in case it needs plastering. On the contrary, it must be
treated as one of the fundamental requisites if you wish to rule the industry.
Let us discuss how this motive can be achieved?
How
To Develop A Website That Is SEO-Friendly?
Let’s
begin with the basics. What do you understand by an SEO-friendly website? It
simply means a website that facilitates the renowned search engines to read and
explore your website; every single webpage of it. To achieve this, your website
must primarily be made visible to the result pages of these search engines. Now
is the time when SEO comes into the picture. Building a website that is
SEO-friendly needs thorough planning and an organized approach. So where to
start? Read on to find out.
What
Are The Fundamentals Of Website Designing?
It
essentially has three core components and they are discussed as under.
1.
Domains
At
present, you may be using example.com as your primary domain plus you may have
other domains as well. It is very important that the domain names which you use
bear a close resemblance to the business you are conducting. One of the common
notions about domain names is that businessmen feel the need to include their
keywords in their domain names. Up to an extent, it does offer some help to the
business but since the prime focus must be at the rest of the world; this is
not a sensible thing you are doing.
2.
Hosting
Hosting
is also equally important. If the website you are designing or have designed earlier
is slow, you will be left with nothing but unhappy customers. You must take the
necessary steps to turn the situation to favor you and you must also keep your
potential customers in mind. Move your location to your audience’s location and
be quick in doing so.
3.
CMS
Short
for Content Management System, the choice of CMS is an important factor that
will decide the success of your business. It is always best to choose a CMS to
comply with your situation and your businesses as well; rather than blankly
opting for the one which your web company suggested according to their
convenience and compatibility.
How
Can Crawling And Accessibility Help?
The
search engine must be able to freely crawl the website you have created and
thoroughly understand what business you are carrying out plus in which location
you are running your business. For doing so, there are two important things to
be considered and these are discussed as under.
1.
Indexation
Your
potential customers who are visiting your website must be able to read and
understand the contents of your webpage. How can this be made possible? It is simple;
just keep it text-based. Refrain from images, flash or even videos. There are
numerous tools available online to enhance the textual contents of your website
and make it presentable and appealing to the target audience. The utmost
important thing to be kept in mind is that the contents of the website must
bear a close resemblance to what your business is doing in the real
world.
2.
LinkStructure
If
you wish to index the contents of your website beyond your homepage, you will
necessarily need internal links so that the search engines can crawl your
businesses website. You can make use of your primary navigation, XML Sitemap
tools, search engine directives, etc to do the trick. Another useful tool is
Screaming Frog; it can offer some serious help.
How
Can A Mobile-Friendly Design Help?
Nowadays
the use of mobile phones is increasing rapidly. With the advent of smartphones,
people can access the internet from anywhere around the world and anytime they
want to. This being said, developing a website that can be accessed through a
smartphone is very important. This will be beneficial for your business as
well.
How
Can Page Speed Assist?
In
the present era, speed is everything. Customers are impatient and so if the
website you have designed is a slow running one, naturally you will lose out on
your potential clients.
Having high exposure on Google’s organic
search results will potentially do more things for an ecommerce business’s
website than just instant sales. The capability to lure new consumers can make
or break an ecommerce business. In other words, if your business can attract new
consumers, it might just succeed; otherwise, it might not. Organic search
traffic can go a long way to building your revenue. Here, we will look at some ecommerce SEO benefits to
give you an idea about why that is the case.
Drives
Brand Awareness
Almost every ecommerce website requires SEO
for more brand awareness without spending much money. Your brand site appearing
in Google Answer Box or the first search engine results page could remind a
customer that they have visited it before. Or else, it could be the first time
they are seeing your website there.
Furthermore, some search engine users
consider ranking well an endorsement that makes their possibility of clicking
on a higher site listing more.
Fills
Your Marketing Funnel
Your conventional marketing funnel depends on
a constant inflow of new customers. Ecommerce SEO has a big impact on driving affordable and top of
the funnel traffic when customers are at the phase of ‘awareness’. That said,
search engine optimization also plays a part in the rest of the marketing
funnel stages.
When customers come to know your product,
they would then have an interest in it and the next phase is conversion. For an
uninitiated, the term ‘conversion’ refers to the customer doing anything you
want them to, such as buying your product. When the customer journey
progression from brand awareness to consideration to conversion, their aim
reflected on the keyword used changes from information-related to
transaction-related. Targeting the right intent of the customer at the perfect
points on your website will influence their movement to another stage, boosting
the possibility of conversion.
Elevates
Content
Advertising for keywords having the intent of
high transaction is a sensible thing to do. But the worth of other forms of web
content, like buyer guide, tutorial blogs, and usual articles, will be felt gradual.
It is useful to do SEO for the said types of content. SEO can help to bring a
considerable increase in web traffic at a marginal expense. It just takes the
capability to optimize web content, knowledge of what users look for online,
opportunity to use the right CMS software, and time.
Expands
Remarketing Audience
When customers come to your website through channels
such as organic search, your team of paid search marketing professionals should
add cookies to that site for remarketing. After that, you can reveal display
advertisements to the customers as they exit your website and progress to
another marketing funnel stage. If you drive more individuals to your website,
you will have a bigger remarketing audience.
Remarketing will be more sensible when you think
about visits to your web content published atop the funnel. When customers
navigate the internet, customers will be caused to remember that your product
or service has given them something valuable.
Captures
Search Traffic From Long-Tail Keywords
Less than one-third of web search queries
that customers make on Google is new to the search engine. These vague one-time
search phrases form part of your long tail keyword, including queries that separately
drive some searches, yet in total represent almost 40% of the overall search
queries. Long-tail keywords often lead to customer action at a much greater
rate compared to other keywords in SEO for ecommerce.
Usually, ecommerce websites are made hierarchically
with growing detail levels, so these are set up to target the long-tail keyword-based
searches. For instance, a common navigation path for a women’s clothing website
is this: Clothing > Women’s Clothing > Accessories > Collars > Sailor
Collar. The webpages are deeper there and match a long-tail keyword such as
‘sailor collar’, but these are excessive to be targeted individually. Scalable ecommerce SEO is more
important.
Improves
User Experience
Having a solid user experience causes conversions
to happen. SEO helps to know customers, and thereby, optimize the usability of
your website, which in turn, could improve your ranking.
Keyword data makes it possible to understand
the desires of customers. Shoppers want something, so they are searching. Websites
fulfilling their desire faster are likelier to sell. The said data helps to understand
in what way customers articulate their desire. Adding the keywords they use for
searches to your website could make the experience better. For instance, if
almost every user searches for ‘affordable sailor collar’, emphasizing those cheaper
items could just improve usability.
Another important ranking factor,
particularly for Google, is offering an excellent user experience. If numerous
searchers click through to your website, and instantly go back to the SERP, Google
assumes that that site is irrelevant for the corresponding search query. That
customer action can negatively affect your ranking.
The popularity of online
shopping is rapidly growing, hence, the ecommerce industry has become more
competitive. It became important to implement the best marketing strategies for
ecommerce platforms to attract customers and to generate revenue. Ecommerce sites use a large number of advertising
and marketing techniques, one of the major strategies among them is Search
Engine Optimization (SEO).
SEO marketing is the process of increasing your ranking in the
search results provided by different search engines. It will help you to appear
in the top places in these results. Hence, you will get more visitors and more
conversions. This strategy can help you to attract a large number of customers
to your ecommerce site, thereby boosting your income. We have included some
best ecommerce SEO
tactics that will aid you to drive your ecommerce sales.
Conduct
Keyword Research
For implementing
the best ecommerce SEO strategies, the
first thing you have to do is keyword research. A keyword is what your customers
will type in a search engine when they are shopping for products. There are a
lot of keyword research tools that are available online. These tools will show
what your customers are likely to search and the search volume related to each
keyword.
Keyword research
will give a good idea about what your customers will be searching for. Hence,
you can focus more on these keywords for redirecting people to your site who
are searching for those words.
Blogging
After you find
the right keywords, it is time for you to include them on your webpage. You can
include them in your product pages and descriptions, but it may not be enough.
This is where blogging will come to your help. You can add blogs in your ecommerce
sites which include your keywords. These blogs can also be helpful in educating
your customers. Hence, blogging will give you multiple benefits.
Use
Long-Tail Keywords
It is estimated that more than half of the
searches conducted by the customers include more than four words. Hence, it is
better for you to select long keywords associated with your products. For
example, if you sell bicycles, then instead of focusing only on the term
“bicycle”, try something like “high speed gear bikes” or some other similar
terms that are specific to your products.
Use Simple Website Architecture
It should be easy for the customers and search
engine bots to navigate through your website if it makes use of a simple
architecture. It will provide more convenience for your customers and will help
you to increase your popularity.
Ecommerce
marketers occasionally measure the condition of their SEO program by gut feel. There
are several gray areas in ecommerce
SEO, but its evaluation requires not some hunch, but data. Use the
following methods to find out the state of the search engine optimization (SEO)
program for your ecommerce website. Although analyzing SEO metrics in many
systems will give the clearest idea, remember that the metrics in a platform might
not match the numbers in other platforms.
Evaluating SEO
Using enterprise search tools and
platforms like seoClarity, Ahrefs, and Searchmetrics is the quickest way to
measure SEO performance. Why? Because these assimilate data from many of the following
sources, and convert it into easily readable dashboards. Sometimes, you may be able
to find an issue without exiting the platform.
Analytics Tools
Data from website analytics tools
will be the regularly sought-out source of your SEO KPIs (key performance
indicators) namely orders, most significant traffic, and revenue. If these KPIs
are working fine, so will be the crawling, indexing and ranking processes, plus
attracting clicks off of the (search engine results page) SERP to your website.
The website’s non-SEO aspects
like user experience, product assortment, pricing, and others will determine
whether or not a searcher does what you want them to. In SEO parlance, this
user action is known as a ‘conversion’.
Bear in mind that analytics tools
do not provide reliable data on keyword search-queries. Search engines have
made the data unavailable back in 2013. Now, analytics software reports almost
every keyword as ‘not provided’. What’s worse, the remaining SEO keywords are
an unreliable part of the dataset on the whole.
Google Search Console
There is no more reliable source
of rankings, impressions and clicks than Google’s Search Console Performance report.
The report is limited to search on Google, but the search engine makes up over
90% of organic traffic on almost every ecommerce website.
In Search Console, there are also
reports for server errors, indexation, structured data, internal and external
linking, sitemaps, etc. It is used to communicate significant details
concerning your website, like a manual Google penalty to name one.
Google Ads
The advertising platform offers
reporting on Google organic search provided that it is linked with Google
Search Console. Google Ads’ ‘Paid & Organic Report’ provides a lot of data
concerning the search queries you get impressions for.
For instance, if an ad is shown
when you google ‘red shoes’, it will show as a search query in Google Ads’
report, whether or not the organic search result has an impression. In contrast,
if it gets an organic search impression, ‘red shoes’ is sure to show in the
report in Google Ads, regardless of that advertisement. Using the report is one
more method to evaluate your search engine optimization efforts.
Free Search Ranking Tools
As a whole, rankings are among
the most useful diagnostics for investigating in what way keyword trends affect
organic performance. However, rankings are not a KPI. Clicks on an organic
listing are more important, not where that website ranks.
Even so, if you cannot afford any
enterprise search tool, and need another opinion about rankings to support
Search Console, use a free and limited version of a platform including rankings
information.
Ask Somebody
Many people can assess search
engine optimization problems for free.
Webmaster Office Hours
Submit your doubts on Google
Webmaster Office Hours Hangouts, hosted by the Senior Webmaster Trends Analyst
of Google named John Mueller. Check on the calendar of the Webmaster Events to know
when the next chat will take place. Several SEO professionals usually take part
in the hangouts session, so be there in time to discuss your doubts with them.
Google Webmasters Help Community
Raise an SEO-related question and
get answers from members of the community forum, including Google’s workers. That
said, you should check the reliability of any person who provides advice there
or any other forum for that matter.
Twitter
Start networking with esteemed SEO
professionals regularly by following these pros and retweeting the information
they share on social media. Comment on their articles in a constructive way. Rather
than saying something like ‘great blog!’, mention the thing that you found
useful in it, or raise a question which shows you appreciate their work. SEO
professionals may be ready to assist when you require help if you have left a
good first impression on them.
LinkedIn
Join an SEO group on LinkedIn, a
social networking site for professionals. Some good examples are Search Engine
Watch, LinkedSEO, and Search Engine Land. Ask meaningful queries and get
answers from other group members. You can check each respondent’s credibility
by clicking to their LinkedIn profile. The aforementioned networking tip for
Twitter applies when you use this website, as well.
SEO marketing utilizes a
variety of techniques including content marketing, social media marketing, etc.
Another important SEO strategy that is widely utilized by a lot of websites and
ecommerce sites includes external linking. This is one of the SEO best practicesthat can
increase the reputation and credibility of your website. Also, it can be useful
to enhance the visibility of your site, thereby boosting the traffic.
External
Link
An external link can be referred to as a
hyperlink that links to another website other than the source, i.e., if some
other site links to your website, it can be called as an external link.
Similarly, if you link to another website, then it is also an external link. It
is also known as an outbound link. This link can act as a reference to your
website, hence, it can increase your credibility among your competitors.
You can add an external link from another
website or a blog. Many websites are utilizing blogs for getting links and also
for educating customers. This is also a great strategy that can increase your
ranking in Google search results. You can ask other reputed sites to add a link
to your website from theirs, and in return you can add a link to their website
from your site.
However, there are certain things you have to
consider before adding a link to your website, because there will be spammy
links which can ruin the reputation of your site. It is better to avoid adding
a link to or from such sites, as it can jeopardize your search engine ranking
too. Hence before adding or requesting a link, you have to check the
trustworthiness and credibility of the other websites.
Today, most of the search engines utilize a
set of metrics to determine the value of an external link. It includes:
The trustworthiness of domain that provides
the link
How popular the linking page is
The relevancy of the content given in both the
source and target pages
The anchor text (the clickable words to which
the hyperlink is added) used in the link
The number of links coming from the source to
the same page
The number of root domains linking to the
target page
The number of variations of the anchor text
that are used for linking to the target page
The ownership relations between both the
source as well as the target domains
External linking is a wonderful SEO
marketing strategy that is
utilized by a lot of businesses. It can be useful to increase the reputation of
your website and can to also boost your search engine ranking. Hence, it is
important to utilize this technique for increasing the visibility of your
website.
Anytime people need to know something, they will first google it.
For an uninitiated, the term ‘google’ is also used to refer to the search for
details regarding something online through the namesake search engine. People
generally go to the websites on the first page of the search results. They
prefer to go to the top websites because they feel that these are more
pertinent to the search they make. The site at the very top will get more
visitors, which will make you wonder why it ranks better compared to the rest.
It is due to search engine optimization.
Search engines have AI capabilities to verify whether the site you
have made is as per the rules and algorithm these have given. SEO helps Google
and other search engines in finding and ranking your site. For better rankings,
you should drive traffic to your site, and SEO will help do it for you.
Why Your Website Should Be Optimized?
You might have heard the term ‘SEO’ (search engine optimization).
You might wonder what causes websites to be at a higher position on search
engines such as Google. Think from the point-of-view of a visitor, when you
look for something online, you prefer visiting the top websites. This is
precisely why you should have better rankings on each search engine result
page. If your website is to be at the top, you would get an increasing number
of visitors. So SEO practices are utilized for the better relevancy and
visibility of a website on the SERPs (search engine results pages).
Forms of SEO
Search engine optimization is broadly categorized into two: ‘black
hat’ and ‘white hat’. Think of white hat SEO as the good form and the other as the
not-quite-good kind. Here is an overview of the two forms of SEO.
White Hat SEO
The most common and inarguably the best search engine optimization
form is this. White hat
SEO refers to both the practices and methods which follow the search
engine’s guidelines to the tee. In this
form, there is no foul play or deceptive methods for ranking involved, and
professionals in SEO pay attention to producing quality content, plus whatever
else that search engines recommend. It gives slow but long-lasting outputs.
Black Hat SEO
This form of SEO exploits the weak points in search engine algorithms. In it, methods that are against the guidelines are used. You may still get quick results through black hat SEO, but these will not be long-lasting. The other form of SEO focuses primarily on search engines, not the internet audience.
SEO techniques have been greatly
helpful for emerging businesses to rank their websites higher in the results
page of the search engines, thereby making them visible to the targeted
audience. It is important to look into some of the SEO tips that are been
widely considered for building a business platform, and here are a few of them.
Setting up
Right and Efficient Keywords
Finding out the most effective sets of
keywords is the key tip in building your business. Carrying out some researches
to find out the suiting keywords like long-tail keywords can help rank your
website highly on certain niches. The right keywords can attract the audience
you are targeting, thereby increasing the rate of conversion of your business.
Using keywords that align with the intents of the users can help greatly to
make it easier for both the users and the business. For instance, people
usually type queries when they search for something in the search engine.
Optimizing the set of keywords this way can help to make the whole process a
lot easier.
Using Keywords
in Anchor Text
Anchor texts are mostly links that
can be clicked on and those that are in hyperlink forms; it can boost the ranking
of your website through SEO techniques. Including the set of keyword links in
product descriptions can, in turn, help lead the visitors to similar products
of your page. But, always make it a point to never use the same keywords to not
get penalized by Google.
Optimizing the
Product Images
Most e-commerce platforms rely
completely on high-quality compelling images that help to boost their business.
Since the Google Image Search can drive traffic to your website, such images
have great SEO potential in building your website.
Improving the
Usability of Your E-commerce Site
Making site navigations as easy as
possible for the users is one major factor that converts the visitors of your
page into customers. Not providing clear navigation paths to users can make
most of the visitors confused and frustrated, and compel them to leave your
site. Always make sure to link your product pages to landing pages.
Regularly
Checking Conversion Rates
Conversion rate is the rate of
conversion of visitors who lands on your page to customers. You will have to
have to keep a check on the conversion rates of your business, which helps you
to plan the future of your business. Google Analytics offers good help with
this – in analyzing the traffic of your website and spot points to improve your
page.
