Search engine optimize your online store (Part 1 of 3)

With the New Year now upon us and the holiday madness behind us, this is a great time to start thinking about how to drive more traffic to your store. So for the next 3 weeks I will be posting some tips on how you can help drive more traffic to your store by optimizing your site for natural search engine traffic. We’ll start by discussing how to find the right keywords and fitting them into your site. In the following weeks we will detail using the Shopster tools for SEO and link building strategies.

Choosing the right keywords for search engine optimization is critical to any successful online business. If you pick keywords that customers don’t use, then it will likely result in little traffic. On the flip side, if you choose keywords which are too broad and highly competitive, your website may never appear in search results, thus resulting in little traffic. So when you are choosing your keywords, be sure to spend the time to do your research and to create a strategy before doing any optimization. It will save you a lot of time and grief in the long run.

If you’re just starting off with your SEO efforts for your online store, picking keywords may seem like a daunting task but it’s really not that bad. Here are some tips to help you get going:

Create a list with the following:

1. Your top selling products 
2. The categories of the different products you sell (eg. Electronics, fragrances)
3. Other keywords that may be associated to your products (eg. Wii accessories, anything pink, rock music, Davidoff perfume store)

Take your list and insert them into a keyword research tool for additional keyword ideas. I like using Google’s tool but there are several free ones out there.

1. Google’s keyword research tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
2. This tool will provide you with search volume and the amount of competition for that keyword. Assume that if the “advertiser competition” is high then the natural search competition will be high as well.

Now you should have a long list of keywords to choose from. So the next step is to decide on what keywords to focus on. I normally recommend that you start by focusing on 3-5 keywords that you will optimize for your ENTIRE site. You should also have 10 additional keywords that you optimize for intermittently on different pages. As an example, if I had a laptop store here’s a possible list of keywords:

Top 5 keywords

1. cheap laptops online
2. laptop parts and accessories
3. buy laptops online
4. laptop deals
5. cool laptop bags

10 additional keywords

1. Asus laptop deals
2. Acer laptop deals
3. Laptop store California
4. Ladies laptop bags
5. Laptop backpacks
6. Discount laptops
7. 17 inch laptop bags
8. notebook computer deals
9. cheapest laptops
10. 15 inch Samsung laptop

When you review the list above you’ll notice that the top 5 keywords I chose are relatively broad but they are keyword phrases that could have a significant amount of traffic. My list of 10 other keywords is much more specific and even though they may not have the search volume as my top 5, in return they will likely be easier to get my store to appear in search results.

Once you have finalized your list it’s time to start optimizing your site with your keywords. With your top 5 keywords you want to ensure that they are in as many pages as possible. The other key is to get those keywords into “header tags” whenever possible, as this will indicate to the search engine that the keyword is truly relevant.

With your 10 additional keywords, focus these keywords in a few pages within your site. Here’s a hint; a great place to insert content is within your product descriptions and titles, however be careful to avoid spamming and distorting your core message.

I won’t go into a lot of detail on SEO copywriting since there are hundreds of sites out there with great articles and tips. It’s highly recommended that you understand the fundamentals but more importantly just give it a try and you may realize that it’s really not that hard. Check out some of my favorite SEO reference webites:

1. http://searchenginewatch.com/
2. http://www.webmasterworld.com/  
3. http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/category/search-engine-optimization/

That’s it for now. Stay tuned for part 2 where we will discuss the different Shopster search engine optimization tools for your online store.

  

Comments

[Alex Genadinik]

Hi,

I found this very helpful as I am doing SEO on semanticvalley.com right now.

I need help with SEO with my e-commerce site milderwilder.com - who should I contact to talk more in depth about it? The site is in alpha now and it needs help :)

Thanks,
Alex

[DROP SHIPPING COMPANIES]

It is very nice blog. i gain information through this article

[cheap computers]

I think if you choose keywords which are too broad and highly competitive, your website may never appear in search results, thus resulting in little traffic.