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Getting started with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)<\/h3>\n
One of the biggest misconceptions of search engine optimisation is that it takes care of itself, and as such it\u2019s not necessary. The truth is that it is only ever going to get more important: online competition increases every second, and anything you can do to get ahead will make a real, measurable difference to your business.<\/p>\n
Many people create an ecommerce website under the mistaken belief that \u201cif you build it they will come\u201d. As of last summer there were approximately 968,882,453 websites on the internet (source<\/a>), so this is more than a bit optimistic! You have to market and optimise well to beat off the competition, and you\u2019re competing for people\u2019s time as well as their money. The good news is that learning about and implementing basic SEO for your ecommerce website doesn\u2019t have to be time-consuming or scary. In a nutshell, you\u2019re making your website (even more) attractive to search engines so that you rank higher in their results and people are more likely to come across your website.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re going to read anything about SEO, make it this: https:\/\/moz.com\/beginners-guide-to-seo<\/a>.\u00a0It\u2019s a long read, but as it\u2019s split into sections, it\u2019s very easy to dip in and out of, and it\u2019s better to spend ten minutes reading the Moz guide and getting a good understanding one of thing than it is to have your time wasted by rumours and myths. Be very selective about what you choose to read and believe when it comes to SEO. Don\u2019t be afraid to take it slowly either; it\u2019s very easy to get overwhelmed by the amount of information in different areas, and there\u2019s lots of scaremongering around penalties and Google updates. For now, let\u2019s concentrate on the basics.<\/p>\n Assuming you\u2019ve chosen a good platform<\/a>\u00a0for your website, a lot of the groundwork will already have been done for you. Make sure you have search engine friendly URLs (e.g. yoursite.com\/bouquets\/red-roses.php<\/em> rather than yoursite.com\/34\/2312ssdsdd.php<\/em>), as these will be a pain to change in the future and less effective than getting it right from the start.<\/p>\n We covered the importance of product descriptions and correct image labelling in Part 2: Presenting your products<\/a>. The information there is good for creating a balanced approach that considers sales, your goals, customers and general SEO, but here are some search engine specific tips to add to that:<\/p>\n Page lengths<\/strong> \u2013 Ideally each of your pages should have at least 500 words of text. Websites deemed to have \u2018thin\u2019 content often incur penalties, particularly if they\u2019re new.<\/p>\n Number of links<\/strong> \u2013 Google tends to ignore links on a page after a certain point (100 is a number that gets thrown around a lot), and they also only count the first instance of a link to a given URL. So, for example, if you link to a page with the anchor text \u2018Children\u2019s parties\u2019 and then later on link to it again with the anchor text \u2018Parties for children\u2019, Google will only count \u2018Children\u2019s parties\u2019 towards your optimisation attempts. So keep the number of links on a page reasonably low, and don\u2019t try and manipulate the system by linking to the same URL repeatedly with different anchor text.<\/p>\n This is especially important for your index page: linking to your index page from a high number of inner pages using different anchor text each time will incur an automatic penalty. If you\u2019re worried about this aspect of search engine optimisation, keep everything you do particularly clean and natural by only linking when it benefits the visitor, and you\u2019ll be fine.<\/p>\n Internal linking<\/strong> \u2013 Most ecommerce platforms and plugins come with a good internal linking structure out of the box. For example, category pages will link to product pages, there will be breadcrumbs from product pages to categories, and so on. To maintain the standard, make sure you don\u2019t create too many levels of categories and subcategories. As well as making users\u2019 experience more tiring and inefficient, you\u2019ll also be automatically creating a lot of unnecessary links.<\/p>\n Try to keep hardcoded links out of your product page body unless it\u2019s absolutely essential so you have more control and reduce the chances of outdated information or irrelevant\/distracting links. Many platforms offer \u2018Recommended products\u2019 and similar functionality to automate effective cross-linking which can be controlled easily.<\/p>\n Content<\/strong> \u2013 We\u2019ve mentioned this before, but it\u2019s so important that we\u2019re stressing it again here: all your pages should be unique. Not only should they be unique compared to everything else on the internet, they should be unique to each other within your own website too. This is a bit more difficult when you\u2019re writing about common products that a lot of people sell, and\/or you have a lot of products that are very similar (e.g. computer monitors that only differ in screen size). It\u2019s not the most fun job and requires some creativity, but focus on what you\u2019d want to know if you were buying it, what you\u2019d be using it for, and what kind of person you\u2019re likely to be. Your content should be natural and read normally (i.e. not be \u2018keyword stuffed\u2019). If a sentence reads like a list of nouns, there are far too many keywords in there.<\/p>\n Note:<\/strong> If you\u2019re working with seasonal products\/ranges, never delete pages at the end of a season. Instead, redirect them<\/a>\u00a0to the closest most appropriate page. Or, if they will become relevant again at some point, leave them as-is but make it clear to the user that the product isn\u2019t currently in stock.<\/p>\n Most importantly of all: remember that even when you\u2019re working on actively improving your search engine optimisation, your first priority should always be the visitor – not the search engines.<\/p>\n One of the biggest mistakes people make when it comes to optimising their website is guessing what people are searching for, and then optimising for those terms. Sure, it\u2019s reasonable to assume that people will google logical phrases such as \u2018indian cook book\u2019, \u2018cheapest fencing\u2019, \u2018christmas presents for women\u2019 etc., but you should only use your own guesses as a basic starting point. Always back them up with data to create your final list.<\/p>\n To do this, use the Google Keyword Planner<\/a>. It\u2019s free, but you\u2019ll need to sign in with your Google account. Click \u2018Get search volume for a list of keywords or group them into ad groups\u2019, then enter some words and phrases instinctively to see how popular they are.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t forget to change the location if you\u2019re targeting customers outside the United Kingdom. Then hit the \u2018Get search volume\u2019 button and you see something like this:<\/p>\n In the above example, you can see that \u2018cat bed\u2019 gets an average of 4,400 searches per month in Google. The Competition column lists it as highly competitive, but as there are only three levels (High, Medium, Low), you can expect most keywords to have \u2018High\u2019 competition. Going on the screenshot above, you\u2019d want to focus your cat basket landing page to talk more about a \u2018cat bed\u2019 and a \u2018cat basket\u2019 (totalling 5,700 average monthly searches) than \u2018bedding for cats\u2019 (30 searches). For example, you could have a sentence on your landing page that reads something like, \u2018If you\u2019re looking for a new cat bed, check out our range of comfortable options designed to make your feline feel safe and warm.\u2019<\/p>\n There is a lot more data you can look at with your keyword planner searches to help you make more informed decisions. For example, you can use Google\u2019s suggested ideas, take a look at what times of year interest peaks, or how the trend has changed over time.<\/p>\n Note: When looking at search volumes, it\u2019s important to differentiate between informational searches and transactional searches. For example, there are 110,000 monthly searches for \u2018cat\u2019, but you\u2019re highly unlikely to make many sales: people are more likely to be looking for information on the topic rather than buying something related to it. Conversely, \u2018cat bowl\u2019 gets a modest 590 searches, but it\u2019s a lot more likely that a visitor will convert into a sale, so you\u2019d want to prioritise that instead. If you\u2019re unsure whether a phrase is informational or transactional, simply google it and take a look at the first page of results. More complex product searches may still return some informational pages (try a search for \u2018SSDs\u2019, for example), but the majority should be ecommerce-based sites. Informational searches are also far more likely to return a \u2018Low\u2019 competition result in the keyword planner.<\/p>\n As time goes on and you collect more analytics data specifically from your own website, you can refine your strategy further. For example, you might find that particular keywords lead to more sales (or higher value sales), whilst other keywords lead to a higher bounce rate, and you can take action and change your focus accordingly. If you run any paid advertising campaigns, such as PPC, you can also use your data from that in the same way to develop a more accurate picture faster. Over time, this means less work for more reward as you continue to build on the information you have and the patterns you identify. There are plenty of good free analytics tools available, including OWA<\/a>, Piwik<\/a>\u00a0and Google Analytics<\/a>, which we\u2019ll cover in more depth in a later part of this series.<\/p>\n Once you\u2019re happy that you have your on-page basics sorted and you\u2019re ready to launch your website to the world, you can submit your website to the search engines for indexing. If you\u2019ve made any administration panel changes or robots.txt\/.htaccess changes to block your website from search results up to this point, make sure to reverse them (and expect your website to take a little longer to index).<\/p>\n Firstly, you\u2019ll want to submit a sitemap to Google and Bing. Your sitemap may well have been generated automatically depending on how you built your website; if so, it\u2019s just a case of finding the URL. If you\u2019re using WordPress, you can even use a sitemap plugin to do everything for you. If you can\u2019t find a sitemap.xml file for your website, try googling the ecommerce platform you\u2019re using with \u2018sitemap\u2019 or similar to see if it\u2019s available and where you can find yours.<\/p>\n To submit your website, you\u2019ll need to verify your website with Google Search Console<\/a> (formerly Google Webmaster Tools)\u00a0and Bing\u00a0Webmaster Tools<\/a>. This link also has some great information on making your website appealing to search engines<\/a>.<\/p>\n Try speeding things up further by:<\/p>\n To check if your website has been indexed, simply paste the URL in the Google or Bing search bar. If it returns your URL in the listings, it\u2019s been indexed. You can do the same for specific pages to check individual URLs if you like, or log in and check Webmaster Tools\/Console Search information for your website to see how many\/which pages have been picked up so far. Bing tends to take longer than Google to pick up new websites, so don\u2019t worry even if it takes weeks longer.<\/p>\n Note: Many people confuse indexing with ranking well. Don\u2019t expect to be able to type your chosen keywords into the search bar and have your website appear at the top from day one. Ranking well, especially for competitive terms, takes time, effort and patience.<\/p>\n There are many different ways to check how your website is performing in search results. A simple google search is best avoided as you will see personalised results even if you\u2019re logged out of your Google account. Instead, consider using a proxy<\/a>, browser plugin, or even Excel\u00a0macros<\/a>.<\/p>\n On-page SEO is only half the story. Having other good websites link to yours is essential for increasing your rankings and ensuring the search engines see you as a trusted destination. This is where it gets trickier, as trying to game the system can cause severe penalties and even stop your website appearing altogether. Link building should be slow, consistent, and carefully approached. Ideally you want to tie it in with your natural PR and marketing strategy in order to get the most return on your time and effort. For this reason, we suggest a predominantly PR-based approach which we\u2019ll be looking at in more detail in the next part of this series.<\/p>\n Coming up: how to market and promote your ecommerce website on a minimal budget, so check back next week for more tricks and tips!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In this next part of our e-commerce series, we cover the basics of essential search engine optimisation and how to help more people find your e-commerce site.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,29],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8331","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-your-business","8":"category-your-website"},"yoast_head":"\n![\"make-ecommerce-site-profitable\"](\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/make-ecommerce-site-profitable1.jpg\")
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\nOn-page essentials<\/h3>\n
![\"make-ecommerce-site-profitable2\"](\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/make-ecommerce-site-profitable21.jpg\")
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\nWorking out the best terms to target<\/h3>\n
![\"ecommerce-part-4\"](\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/ecommerce-part-41.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"ecommerce-part-4-2\"](\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/ecommerce-part-4-21.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"make-ecommerce-site-profitable3\"](\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/make-ecommerce-site-profitable31.jpg\")
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\nGetting your website indexed<\/h3>\n
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![\"make-ecommerce-site-profitable4\"](\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/make-ecommerce-site-profitable41.jpg\")
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\nTracking rankings<\/h3>\n
\nGoing off-page<\/h3>\n
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