SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization.” Have you heard of it? Did you know that it’s an important and free way to bring people to your store over time? Read on to find out how to solve the problem.
Can people find your store on Google when they use the right keywords? If you don’t, you’re losing a lot of traffic to your site because most people look for products and services on Google. You can waste a lot of money on Facebook ads if your business plan is missing the basics.
Would you like to be one of the first search results on Google? It’s clear that it has rules and that you and your web developer will have to work hard on it. So let’s look at how you can get your business to the top of Google’s search page in just a few hours of work.
Getting back to the basics
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, takes a long time. Don’t expect results quickly, but there are some tools that can make it go a little bit faster. I’ll talk about them in a bit. It takes Google’s search bots and algorithm 3–4 months to re-evaluate your listing. So, be patient.
SEO has three parts, and you’ll need to work on all of them if you want to move up. Here’s what they are:
On-site Optimization
Continual Building of Authority Off-Site with High-Quality Content
Let’s talk about each one individually so you can see where you need to improve.
On-site optimization
This part has pretty much everything that is on your site. You will need to pay attention to the right page title, headlines, relevant content, keywords, keyword density, internal linking, external linking, URL building, site security, meta descriptions, and site navigation.
One of the most important on-site SEO rules says that each page should be built around a single keyword. Long-tail keywords are keywords that are more than just one word. For example, a keyword could be an expression or a few words. These may be searched for by fewer people, but if your company comes up for them, it’s likely that people will click on your site because the content is relevant.
Make sure that your URL, page title, and page content all include the chosen keyword. Use synonyms, and don’t forget that you’re not writing for the Google bot, but for people who don’t like reading the same words over and over on one page. Aim for a medium keyword density, but don’t make keyword stuffing your main goal. Don’t forget that every page should only have one headline 1 (h1>), which should always be the page title.
There is no clear rule about how many h2 and h3 titles you should have, but you should use them in a way that makes sense for the content of your page. Pay attention to the internal links and make sure that a visitor doesn’t end up on a 404 page because of an invalid URL. Try to use external links in your blog content that take people to relevant sources, but don’t put them on your main keywords.
If you want to advertise your pages on Google Ads, where page relevance and quality of content are very important, your pages need to be laser-focused on one key piece of information, like one feature of your software or one of your online store’s vendors.
Continually Good Content
High-quality content should be the biggest and most important part of your SEO optimization. We’ve written a lot about how important it is for store owners to have a blog, too. This part is mostly about giving your visitors new updates, important information, and topics and products that are related to your niche. A website that is updated often is worth gold to Google, not to mention to your loyal fans and repeat visitors. You need to give them good content so they can’t stop reading your blog or visiting your website. This is how you should take care of your customers and give them more value than just the great products you sell.
Also, the more blog posts and pages you have, the more pages Google can index that are related to your niche and brand. When it comes to SEO and Google results, you are way ahead of your competition if you have a content strategy that includes how often you will post, how you will use social media, and what you would like to write about.
What makes for good content?
First of all, and we can’t stress this enough, it has to be about your topic or niche. If you want to sell clothes, don’t write about how to save time in the kitchen. But I think this is pretty easy to understand. Also, your text should be well-researched, teachable, and entertaining all at the same time. Pay attention to your grammar and how things look. Don’t just write plain text in your articles; back it up with pictures, links to other reliable pages, charts, survey results, or anything else creative.
Don’t cut and paste from other websites. To rank high on Google, you need to offer content that isn’t found anywhere else. Write your own descriptions of your goods. If you still want to use other sites’ content, make sure to show where you got it from. This also applies to pictures. Use alt text for every image you use, and try to only use ones that can be downloaded for free.
Authority Building Away From Site
This part is all about building links and networks. Most people don’t know that backlinks, which are links to your website from other sites and platforms, will always grow. This part is often undervalued because you don’t have much control over other websites and it’s hard to get other people to put links to your site on their pages. Even though there are some great ways to help you get more backlinks to your online store, it’s best to stick to the ones that work best for you. Here’s what we think you should do:
- Make good deals with people and ask them to put your logo and a link to your website on theirs.
- Write guest articles and add links to your author bio or the text itself.
- Start linking your blogs.
- Start promoting your business with your partners, and add the link to any written materials.
- Add the link to the website to your social media accounts.
By getting more and more links back to your website, Google will see that it is a reliable source that many other businesses and websites trust, so it will start to rank your page higher.
Tips you might want to know about SEO
We recommend the following WordPress plugins if you have a WordPress site that will help you make sure you haven’t forgotten anything about SEO.
Yoast SEO
Image Optimizer
Sitemap Maker
CSS and JavaScript Minifier
Connect your website to Google Search Console and send the sitemap it makes to Google so it can index it. By making this simple change, you can speed up the time it takes to index and rank pages. But, as we said at the beginning of this article, you need to be patient with your SEO ranking. It could take weeks or even months to fix. But if you follow all of the tips above, your business can shoot to the top of Google’s search results page.