Search Engine Optimization Tips for Online Retailers Part 1 of 3
Need to get more website traffic to your online store? You are in the right place! Today we start our mini-course on search engine optimization (SEO).
Even if you are totally new to SEO and getting your website ranking in Google, our mini-course will give you the snap shot you need to get started!
Check out the video below.
Want it in writing? Get the full transcript from this video below:
I’m Alice and I am back with another selling tactic to help you boost your online sales.
I’m really excited about today’s video, because I am starting a 3 part series on SEO or search engine optimization, this will be of particular interest to anyone who owns an online store including all our SaleHoo Store members!
The reason I am doing these videos over 3 parts is because there is a lot to cover with SEO and I want to make sure you at least get a taste for the basics without suffering from information overload.
Right, let’s into it.
In this video, I want to talk about why you should bother with SEO and why it’s such an important part of your business strategy.
Over 90% of Internet users use search engines, like Google, to navigate the web. When the internet was first invented and being used by the masses, people used to open their browser and type a URL direct into their browser. Now, we hardly ever do that. Now, instead, we just search.
9 of 10 searches are done from Google, Yahoo and Bing and as you can see from this graph I have on screen, Google holds over 85% market share of search engines, so they alone get around 8/10 searches through their search engine. So in short, Google is the big daddy in search engines!
Another reason why Google is such an important part of your strategy is because the results from organic search engine optimization are FREE! It is an investment of your time with lasting value, not an advertising expense.
So what results can you expect when your website ranks well in search engines?
Well here’s a quick example:
Say you owned a store selling baby items.
According to Google’s own statistics, there are over 201,000 searches for the words “baby shoes” every month, just in the US alone.
If you rank on the first page of Google for this search term, you have around a 90% chance that someone will click on your listing, and that’s because only around 10% of searchers look past the first page of search results.
If you are at the top of the listings, your chances increase dramatically.
What do these numbers mean to you?
Well, let’s say, just 1% of that traffic comes to your website every month, you could get an additional 2013 visitors to your website. Let’s say that 10% of those 2013 visitors purchase something, that’s a potential of 201 extra sales every month .
If that doesn’t get you motivated to watch my next two videos on SEO, I don’t know what will!
So keep an eye out on your inbox and we will let you know when the next video is ready, where I will go through some easy but essential steps to get your website ranking in Google.
Search Engine Optimization Tips for Online Retailers Part 2 of 3
Today, in the second part of our SEO mini-course, we reveal simple techniques you can use in order to increase your rankings, get more exposure and make more sales!
Check out the video below.
Join Online Selling Tactics Now
For a written run-down of today's video blog, check out the transcript below:
"Hi guys,
Welcome to another video. This is my second in my three part mini-series on search engine optimisation. It's great to see you back here: It means that you understand the vast benefits of getting your website ranking in the search engines.
Today, I am quickly going to introduce you to on page optimization . On page optimization is all about telling search engines what your website is about. This is really important because if you don’t tell the search engines what your website is all about, it won’t know when to show it to searchers when they use search engines to find your products.
On page optimization alone probably won’t be enough to get you a good ranking placement, depending on how many other websites are trying to rank for the same keywords, BUT on page SEO is crucial. Without it, there really is no point in doing any other types of SEO, even if it’s really advanced.
So here are 3 things you need to do to ensure that your on-page optimization is top-notch:
1. Use unique content.
This means you should never copy content from other people’s pages and use it as your own. Not only is it unethical, but it is also easily detected by Google who can see that the content is duplicate. When they see that you have done this, they will punish your website with lower rankings.
You might find that your web content is similar to other website’s and that’s OK to a certain extent because as long as your copy is 25-50% different from other content, you will be fine.
2. Insert your keyword into the first 50 words on your homepage.
Google and other search engines pay a lot of attention to the words that appear first on your page. Therefore, it is vital that you include the keywords that you are trying to rank for in the first 50 words on your home page.
If you have a SaleHoo Store, you can do this by changing your Welcome Message which is under the User Settings section of your administration panel .
Which keywords you enter here depends on what you are selling. If you are selling ice skating supplies, then that would be a good keyword. If you are selling dog grooming products, use that as your keywords.
3. Internal linking
One of the biggest factors that helps a page to rank well is having links pointing to that page using the keywords as “anchor text”.
This means that when you link to another page of your website, you shouldn't use words like “click here” when linking to other pages, you should use related keywords. Here is an example:
Wrong: Click here to see our baby pajamas.
Right: Click here to visit our baby pajamas.
The top one is wrong because it is letting go of a great opportunity to show search engines what your website is all about, because the words ‘click here’ don’t really mean anything.
The bottom example, however, which uses the words ‘baby pajamas’ in the link, is telling search engines that the website that it is linking will be useful for anyone looking for baby pajamas.
OK, I will leave it at that for now, because I want to keep this simple and give you tips which you can use this week, and really, these three tips I have given you, offering unique content, using keywords and internal linking are all really easy things that you should be able to do to your website in less than say 2 hours, so I really encourage you to do this.
If you have any questions, let me know in the comments section below and in my next video, the 3rd in my 3 part mini series on SEO, I will go over some “off page” optimization tips with you.
Search Engine Optimization Tips for Online Retailers Part 3 of 3
In today's video, we will take a look at "off page" optimization and specifically, how other websites can help yours rank better in Google and other search engines.
View the written transcript of the video below:
"Hi guys, welcome to the final in my 3 part mini-series on search engine optimization.
In my last lesson, we went over some on-page optimization factors and you will hopefully remember that on-page optimization is pretty easy, but it’s really essential and there isn’t much point in doing any other SEO work if you haven't got your on-page stuff right.
In this lesson we are going to talk about back linking which is crucial for getting your website ranking high in search results and pulling more buyers to your website.
So what is back linking?
Well, first of all, here is what a back link looks like (see video): This is a back link I created in a recent blog post. As you can see, the link appears in blue and when I hover my mouse cursor over this, it shows the URL that the link points to.
Back linking is essentially getting other websites to recommend your website by adding a link to it. And in doing so, Google and other search engines see these recommendations and recognize that your website is something that web users should know about, so they rank it better.
A good way to think about back linking is to think of it as a popularity contest, or an election, every bank link counts as a vote, and the more votes your website gets from other websites, the more Google wants to rank it.
How to get back links
So you’re probably wondering how to get back links. Well, there are a number of ways but the first thing I want you to know is that not all back links are made equal.
You might stumble across cheap back linking services who are offering cut price services to give you hundreds of links, but beware of these, because they might not be all that valuable to you.
The best and most sustainable way that you can start building back links without having to spend money or use complicated software is to start sharing content on other sites and linking back to your own website.
A popular way to do this is to write a quick, say 500 word article about a topic related to the products you are selling and then submit the article to an article directory like Ezine Articles or Squidoo, (see links above), you will get back links to your store.
To get the most out of each article you write, you can re-write them to make sure the content is about 25-50% different from the original article and you can submit your article to a number of different article directories.
Another idea is to find blogs that relate to what you are selling and post comments with a link back to your website. For example, if you are selling power tools, find blogs that are about DIY and home renovations and post a comment, and make sure it is a helpful one, not just a spammy one, and add a link back to your store.
Not only will this give you back links, but if your comments are helpful or interesting enough, readers will click through to your store directly.
Well this video concludes my 3 part mini-series on search engine optimization. I hope at the very least I have shown you the opportunities that SEO can open and answered some of your questions about it.
In the first video, I told you that SEO is complex, but it’s not difficult and if you commit to learning more about it and implementing what you learn, you will see results.
If you want some step by step instructions on SEO, I recommend you check out my video training course, Online Selling Tactics. Inside, just one of the lessons, I spend an hour with SEO extraordinaire Mark Ling who earns over $112,000 per month on his websites that rank highly in Google and other search engines. Check out the link below to find out more.
