More SEO Ecommerce Traffic Tips
How do you optimize your site for ecommerce? Keep in mind that the basics of search engine optimization (SEO) are the same for an ecommerce site as they are for a government site about sidewalk renovation. SEO is generally considered to have two basic categories, on-page (or on-site) and off-page (or off-site), and this is especially important for you as an online merchant. Your on-site optimization generally concerns your content, and content includes articles, product descriptions, menu names, sub-menus, headlines, and anything else that has text. On-site optimization also includes your site architecture, meaning the organization of your categories, products and pages. Off-page, or off-site optimization generally concerns quality and number of back links pointing to your site's pages.
How do you optimize your site for ecommerce? Keep in mind that the basics of search engine optimization (SEO) are the same for an ecommerce site as they are for a government site about sidewalk renovation. SEO is generally considered to have two basic categories, on-page (or on-site) and off-page (or off-site), and this is especially important for you as an online merchant. Your on-site optimization generally concerns your content, and content includes articles, product descriptions, menu names, sub-menus, headlines, and anything else that has text. On-site optimization also includes your site architecture, meaning the organization of your categories, products and pages. Off-page, or off-site optimization generally concerns quality and number of back links pointing to your site's pages.
With regard to search engine positioning, it is generally considered that the more incoming links you have, the better your chances of being in the top ten listings for your keywords. Good links are ones that are relevant to your own page and which link back to your site using text that makes that is obvious and relevant to your site. Google generally considers old links better than new links, and so the older a link, the more power it has to push you up in the search engines. In Google's opinion, if a link withstands the test of time it is has to be relevant or else both parties would have removed the link after not seeing any positive action by Google.
One of the most popular, practical, and workable methods of not only getting search engine attention to your site but bringing potential customers is through the use of a blog. A blog is a publishing platform that allows you to make frequent, updated posts. When blogs first became popular, people used them as a sort of personal, online journal. Now a days businesses use them to publish company news, articles, thoughts, comments, tidbits and tips about the subject area, or just to stay in touch with readers. As a means of ecommerce SEO and traffic generation, blogs allow you a means of easily publishing hundreds and even thousands of pages of highly relevant, focused content. These pages serve as a sort of funnel through which you direct people to your product pages.
Many SEO experts will tell you that they have specific ways of choosing the right keywords for a website. Some do it using SEO tools, software that compares possible keywords to see which are used the most. Some will give you DIY methods with spreadsheets. We say, however, that you should try every method you can in the search for keywords. Here are some steps that might help: Identify and create a list of keywords from meta tags, research on your competitors, your highest-converting products and biggest current traffic sources. For each term (typically between 30 and 50 terms overall), narrow the field down to about 15 or 20, choosing the terms you feel are most relevant to your website. Your higher ranked competitors are probably ranked higher a reason so take a look at what they are providing. Make sure that everything is directly relevant. The less common your key words are, the more likely you are to get the search engine results for these key words.
The content of a page is the primary thing that a search engine will look at when considering your site, and you should devote your on-page SEO efforts to the text as search engines do not even recognize images, videos or any other graphic content. Make sure that all of your important words and phrases are text and not part of an image. Content includes all the elements that a search engine reads as text, including the meta tags. Meta tags are part of the html coding and visible only to search engines and never to visitors. Some meta tag information, such as keywords, page titles, and descriptions can be helpful for SEO. Generally, however, ecommerce content will largely concern your product descriptions. For this reason, it is important to include the search terms people use to search for your products in the product descriptions, headlines, categories, and menu items. You want to do this with common sense so that your site appears professional and well written. It is helpful if product descriptions are 2 to 3 hundred words.
Use the power or press releases. The press release is both an SEO and traffic strategy. The press release itself will bring traffic. Even an off-line press release done through a local paper will influence SEO because the search engines respond to traffic. However, your Internet press releases--in addition to traffic--will themselves provide back links to your site and so can be important, especially when they rank well for your site's keywords. Press releases can also appear as news items on Google and Yahoo!. For that reason, although you can do press releases yourself for free, it might be worth spending the money to have a firm who guarantees a spot on Google News do your press release.
How do you optimize your site for ecommerce? Keep in mind that the basics of search engine optimization (SEO) are the same for an ecommerce site as they are for a government site about sidewalk renovation. SEO is generally considered to have two basic categories, on-page (or on-site) and off-page (or off-site), and this is especially important for you as an online merchant. Your on-site optimization generally concerns your content, and content includes articles, product descriptions, menu names, sub-menus, headlines, and anything else that has text. On-site optimization also includes your site architecture, meaning the organization of your categories, products and pages. Off-page, or off-site optimization generally concerns quality and number of back links pointing to your site's pages.
With regard to search engine positioning, it is generally considered that the more incoming links you have, the better your chances of being in the top ten listings for your keywords. Good links are ones that are relevant to your own page and which link back to your site using text that makes that is obvious and relevant to your site. Google generally considers old links better than new links, and so the older a link, the more power it has to push you up in the search engines. In Google's opinion, if a link withstands the test of time it is has to be relevant or else both parties would have removed the link after not seeing any positive action by Google.
One of the most popular, practical, and workable methods of not only getting search engine attention to your site but bringing potential customers is through the use of a blog. A blog is a publishing platform that allows you to make frequent, updated posts. When blogs first became popular, people used them as a sort of personal, online journal. Now a days businesses use them to publish company news, articles, thoughts, comments, tidbits and tips about the subject area, or just to stay in touch with readers. As a means of ecommerce SEO and traffic generation, blogs allow you a means of easily publishing hundreds and even thousands of pages of highly relevant, focused content. These pages serve as a sort of funnel through which you direct people to your product pages.
Many SEO experts will tell you that they have specific ways of choosing the right keywords for a website. Some do it using SEO tools, software that compares possible keywords to see which are used the most. Some will give you DIY methods with spreadsheets. We say, however, that you should try every method you can in the search for keywords. Here are some steps that might help: Identify and create a list of keywords from meta tags, research on your competitors, your highest-converting products and biggest current traffic sources. For each term (typically between 30 and 50 terms overall), narrow the field down to about 15 or 20, choosing the terms you feel are most relevant to your website. Your higher ranked competitors are probably ranked higher a reason so take a look at what they are providing. Make sure that everything is directly relevant. The less common your key words are, the more likely you are to get the search engine results for these key words.
The content of a page is the primary thing that a search engine will look at when considering your site, and you should devote your on-page SEO efforts to the text as search engines do not even recognize images, videos or any other graphic content. Make sure that all of your important words and phrases are text and not part of an image. Content includes all the elements that a search engine reads as text, including the meta tags. Meta tags are part of the html coding and visible only to search engines and never to visitors. Some meta tag information, such as keywords, page titles, and descriptions can be helpful for SEO. Generally, however, ecommerce content will largely concern your product descriptions. For this reason, it is important to include the search terms people use to search for your products in the product descriptions, headlines, categories, and menu items. You want to do this with common sense so that your site appears professional and well written. It is helpful if product descriptions are 2 to 3 hundred words.
Use the power or press releases. The press release is both an SEO and traffic strategy. The press release itself will bring traffic. Even an off-line press release done through a local paper will influence SEO because the search engines respond to traffic. However, your Internet press releases--in addition to traffic--will themselves provide back links to your site and so can be important, especially when they rank well for your site's keywords. Press releases can also appear as news items on Google and Yahoo!. For that reason, although you can do press releases yourself for free, it might be worth spending the money to have a firm who guarantees a spot on Google News do your press release.
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