By now everyone has probably heard of SEO, but ecommerce entrepreneurs seldom take the time to understand it first as a priority, and then as an art. This isn’t a slight against entrepreneurs who are trying to get a foothold in the ecommerce world. It’s been our experience that most entrepreneurs come to the table with great ideas and the motivation to push those ideas into reality. But when it comes to SEO, it takes time to understand how to improve organic positioning on search engines, even on the most basic level.
Many people think SEO is easy, right?–it’s just remembering to use the right keywords in product copy and website copy for which targeted shoppers are searching. Yes…but a number of pro-active steps must be made to better perfect your SEO,–if you want your site to rank higher than the competition (and there’s a whole lot of that out there!)
SEO Starter Tips
- Take the time to develop a keyword portfolio that is industry and product specific (there are a number of third party tools available to help with this, such as Google Analytics, Keyword Spy, SEO Power Suite, etc. )
- Constantly update your site with fresh, original content. (make sure to refer back to your keyword portfolio as you make the updates. Customer keyword searches also change over time so update your keyword portfolio every six months or so)
- Although the recent Google Panda update has created a lot of confusion around the importance of inbound links (especially from link farms), it’s still important to spread the link love. (make sure your website url is listed anywhere that proves to be relevant to your industry)
- Lastly, if there’s time (and easy access to programming expertise), have your programmers check to make there aren’t any SEO roadblocks hiding in code, layout, domain, etc.
A Tip In-Action
Store owners are often so busy with the business of running an ecommerce store (or multiple stores) that coming up with original product description copy just isn’t high on the priority list. This is where manufacturers step in and say, No worries, you can just use our product descriptions. But the problem with this is that your competitors (who are selling the same products) are probably doing the same thing. To set your business apart, take the time to create original descriptions. Search engines usually penalize duplicate content, so by having unique descriptions, your products are more likely to rank higher than competitors taking the lazy way out by just using manufacturer provided product description.
Like Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (see intro.) stresses, good SEO is achieved through a process of dedicated, incremental steps, but it’s crucial to remember that it’s the shopper you’re ultimately serving, not the search engines. So, try to avoid over-pleasing the search spiders with techniques like keyword stuffing (overusing keywords just to get the attention of search spiders), etc. because chances are you’ll be double penalized: first by the search engines for trying to work the system, and then by your customers who’ll sense something spammy about your site, and move on to the next shop.
There is no doubt that SEO should be a top priority for anyone running a store, but it needs to be done right.
Like the world-famous prodigy rock climber, Lynn Hill, says in her Youtube rock climbing instructional video: You need that sort of pregnant moment where you’re like, Do I feel right for this move?
To get an idea how to get started, consider taking advantage of FastPivot’s SEO strategic analysis package.
