As web surfers, how many times a day do you click over to your favorite search engine and type in a question to find the answer to something you’re looking for?
I pondered that for a moment after having one of those moments when I asked myself philosophically, “what did we do before Google?”
I can’t remember what life was like without answers to “how many pizzas can you eat” being just a few mouse clicks or finger taps away.
Every time we ask Google, Bing or Yahoo! a question, the algorithm crunching computers on the other end quickly decide which websites are going to be the ones chosen to respond to our query.
As website owners, we’re on a constant quest to have our sites come up for every relevant search term or query. Over the years we’ve tweaked our sites with tricks we thought could result in coveted top ten listings, only to find out later what we were doing was bad. Then we did something different to counter the effect.
It’s an endless dance with a partner who has two left feet and a bum knee.
But, as long as we have a website – whether it be information or an eCommerce store – we’re always looking for ways to make it more search engine friendly so it gets indexed and displayed when a searcher is looking for something we offer.
Search engine optimization has changed so many times since I opened my first online store in 1994 and it’s going to continue to evolve. However, one thing will always remain a key component to a good SEO strategy – content.
The days of keyword stuffing, hiding text, buying links, trading links and other tactics that became as commonplace as a Walgreen’s are over. The big three search engines are looking for websites that meet quality guidelines that they hold secret much like the Colonel’s blend of spices.
If you want to rank well in the search engines, it’s time to concentrate on making your site one of the most authoritative in your industry. You do this by creating unique, descriptive content on your item and section pages and engaging and sharable content on your blog. (If you don’t have a blog yet, jeeze, get with it!)
Your item descriptions should be written well, with plenty of detail about the product, but should not overuse keywords in an attempt to trick the search engine. When writing an item description, write it in an unique voice for your store and provide as much information that a customer needs in order to make a decision as to whether or not that is the correct item they need or want. If after reading the description, you still have unanswered questions about the item, your description isn’t good enough.
Your section page content should follow the same guidelines. Well written copy for these pages should talk about the products offered, how they’re used, why a shopper may need one as well as tips on selecting the right item for their needs.
When it comes to blogging, here is your opportunity to become an authoritative voice within your field of expertise. If you’re selling electronic thermostats, your blog posts should offer a continual stream of educational material, in plain speak, that educates readers on the benefits of these energy saving units, as well as tips on the maintenance and care of their HVAC units in their home or office. The goal is to make the articles interesting and informative enough that readers are going to share them in social media to others who have the same interests.
I’d like to say that link building is still a part of search engine optimization, but over the past several months I’ve seen many sites get penalized for having too many links out there, the majority of them being on low-quality websites. They got there due to bad SEO practices of the past and now many site owners and webmasters are spending a ton of time and money working to get those sins forgiven.
While links on high-quality sites probably won’t hurt your SEO efforts, I’m always a believer in the “better safe than sorry” mantra and just tell people to stay away from link building for now.
One often overlooked way to increase your search engine presence is engaging the services of a public relations firm to get your website or a specific product some good, old fashioned PR. Now, this is something that doesn’t come cheap and doesn’t happen overnight. It’s also not traditional SEO, it’s more brand building… which at the end of the day is just as important.
Let me go back to our electronic thermostat store for a moment. We just got a shipment of new thermostats that can be installed in less than ten minutes, are controlled via your smartphone, offer a guaranteed 10% savings in your electric bill each month and are half the cost of the other electronic thermostats with a better recognized brand name.
You want to get the word out to the masses about the benefits these money and energy saving devices offer. You pitch the concept to the PR firm you’re working with and they put the call out to their network of well established authors in the hopes that one of them will write a feature story for a website, magazine or newspaper on your product, or include your thermostat in an article they’re writing about a bunch of electronic thermostats.
If you’re picked up, you not only get the nationwide exposure this article is going to give, but (hopefully) you’ll get a very high quality link to your website.
There are firms that specialize in doing just this. Some of the big players are:
- FleishmanHillard (I’ve worked with them in the past)
- Uproar
- The Zimmerman Agency
But just because you pitch an idea to your PR firm doesn’t mean they’re going to run with it. Writers are very selective and they’re only going to write about things that are going to get their article shared a gazillion times and provide a valuable service to their regular readers. So you may have to throw a couple of strikes before hitting that home run by going this route.
Keep in mind that no matter what SEO route you take, it’s a continual process. It’s not a one-and-done deal. Good SEO is done daily and is a work in progress, if you don’t want to do the work yourself you can hire this SEO service in Sydney. It’s also not something that comes cheap – there’s a labor component behind it that you need to factor in to your cost of doing business online, just like your pay-per-click advertising.
I’d love to know what SEO practices you’re currently engaging in and what ones you’ve cut out, in my opinion, white label seo reseller services are some of the best practices. Bonus points if you can share a story about how a PR firm helped attract some national attention to one of your products. I’ll share some of the national media attention some of my items gained in a later blog post.