Many of us don't fully realise the rich benefit of SEO and SEO done right. A large part of online traffic is driven by search engines and as smart as search engines are, they still need our help to access certain pieces of information.
The faster we can provide the information they faster the search engines can do their job to get us seen on the world wide web.
To help us understand the basics of SEO, Alina Ghost joins us and talks about 3 specific pillars of SEO (search engine optimisation) for a good eCommerce website. These are technical SEO, content SEO and link building SEO.
Alina has a decade of Digital Marketing experience and has worked for the likes of Debenhams, Carpetright and Tesco. Currently, SEO Manager at Amara, a luxury interiors brand that is purely online, and Podcast founder and host of SEO with Mrs Ghost.
Let’s jump in!
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is about creating a website that is easily accessible, user friendly and understood by search engines so that it can surface at the right place and time for the user.
Technical SEO is what gives your website it’s structure. For this structure to work and deliver strong results you should definitely implement these basic SEO tools on your website.
>>Robot txt file. Robots that tell the search engine which part of their website to crawl. Be careful not to block your whole website by using the wrong file.
>>Site map. It informs the search engines of all the pages by outlining each URL on your site. The site map is helpful in showing the search engine what pages to crawl.
>>Title tags and meta descriptions. These are bits of HTML code that help search engines understand the content on a page. A strong and relevant title tag and meta description is really important because that’s the first portal to your world, your brand.
Although title tags and meta descriptions are not ranking factors, they are still an excellent way for people to click through to your site.
>> H1 tag. H1 (HTML) title tags indicate headings on a website and if used correctly they provide huge potential for your website ranking. This is the basics of HTML coding and it’s essential to understand it so that you can optimise the code so that a search engine crawler can understand your website.
>> Image alt tag. This is text that describes what the image is about.
Google looks at accessibility for those who are hard of hearing or visually impaired. If someone is using tools that read out content to them on a particular page or site then these alt image tags will also be read out. Further, if an image doesn’t appear on a page the image alt tag will appear in its place.
It’s good manners and good practice to describe what is out your website so that it is always accessible.
>>Site speed. We’re moving into the mobile first world where mobile devices and mobile websites are and it’s essential to have a highly responsive and speedy site.
Some elements will appear differently depending on whether you are on mobile or desktop. Low resolution and high quality portrait images are better suited for mobile as they will load much faster.
Site speed isn’t just important for user experience but also for Google ranking.
Think of SEO as a way to help Google to get their information quickly without their time so that they can do their job and help get you seen. Depending on what platform you use you might find that Google has to work harder to understand your content.
Your platform is critical for SEO. Some platforms have SEO plugins, others have developers to code sites and others just struggle altogether to create an SEO friendly page.
CONTENT SEO
Content SEO is all about creating the right content for your current and potential customers.
To do this really well you must first understand their intent and at which point you are reaching them on their particular journey.
The four types of search intent are:
Navigational intent - The user is searching for a specific product from a specific site and specific brand.
Informational intent - This user is looking for “how to” content. How to build a shed, how to bake cinnamon buns etc.
Purchase intent - This user is looking to buy something.
Investigation intent - This user wants to buy in the near future and is using the search engine to do some research.
To understand the search intent of your site users you need to find the keywords people are searching and then determine where in those four pools of search intent they sit. Once you have this information you have your complete content strategy.
Now you can create content that targets your current and potential customers on their particular journey.
For example, if you know that somebody takes six months to research a particular sofa before they buy it, create a buying guide that will help them find a sofa that is best suited to their taste and need.
To find keywords you can use Keyword Planner, Google trend (which shows the seasonality of words) and answerthepublic.com (which gives you questions people are asking around a particular topic).
Finally, optimize your content to make it as easy as possible for people to understand.
Schema.org. has a lot of coding that you can use to markup your page to showcase to Google the content and the information that you have on the page.
Take for example product pages that hold information like product name, description, price and whether product is in or out of stock. Schema markup formats that exact information to Google in a way that Google understands. Google then showcases all that information in the search results.
In essence, create content to match the user's intent quickly and easily so that Google can show your website at the right place and time.
LINK BUILDING SEO
Links to your website indicate to Google that you have relevant and quality content on your website. The more links you have the more Google will show preference to your site and will boost your ranking.
If you’re starting out and don’t have credible and relevant links, consider
- Creating guest posts - offering good and relevant content to other sites.
- Help journalists and the press and they will reference you with a link to your site. You can use HARO (help a reporter) to get press links. HARO will ask you for quotes, content or data and if you provide it they will likely link it back to your website.
- Create blog posts and add quotes from reputable people in the industry. These people are likely to share your content and so help create links back to your website.
- Create content for other websites so that they can also link back to you. This is about you providing relevant data and high value content that people are willing to share.
Be smart and find ways to create credibility and authority around your brand.
There you have it, Alina’s 3 pillars of SEO!
If you're doing e-commerce and you're serious about it, you need to grasp that SEO is going to be critical to your business. Get on a great eCommerce platform and or make sure you've got the right plugin to help you to get good SEO to drive your business.