Keywords and Phrases for Search Engine Optimization

Since we are regularly asked about SEO and how it works, we thought it might help to provide a basic SEO primer for those that are challenged with the task. Keep in mind that the guidelines provided here are general principles to help get you going in the right direction. Successful SEO requires many elements including keywords, Meta tags, content, URLs and links. However, the focus of this blog post will be on the subject of keywords.

Overview of basic keyword elements

• Keywords in Title Tags – The Title tags of your web pages are among the most important elements in optimizing your website since they tell both search engines and potential visitors what your web pages are about. Make sure your Title tags use your most important keywords and total approximately 60 characters in length including spaces.
• Keywords in Meta Tags – Keywords used in Keyword and Description Meta Tags are still of importance and search engines such as Yahoo! and Bing rely on them. Also, Google specifically looks for unique Description Meta Tags on every page of your site.
• Keywords in URLs – Using keywords in your URLs can help with your SEO efforts, for example http://yourdomainname.com/seo-services.html, where “SEO Services” is the keyword phrase you want to rank well for. However, as with any SEO element, the words must also be in the content of your web page.
• Keywords in Headings – Your most important keyword phrase for each page of your site should be used as a heading on the page and within the pages content. For example, your “SEO Services” page should contain a heading on the page of “SEO Services” and the content of the page should also contain these words. If you have another page about “Website Design”, then you should be targeting the words “Website Design” on that page.
• Keywords Upfront – The first sentence of your page content should start off with your most important keyword phrase and this phrase should be tactfully woven though the rest of the web page content without being redundant.
• Keyword Density – Keyword density refers to the percentage of times your keywords or keyword phrase is used on a web page. As a rule, keywords should be woven into your content in a natural manner as you would use in conversation. You should aim for a keyword density of approximately 3 to 7 percent. Once your keyword density goes over 10 percent, your web page may be considered by the search engines as Spam and your page may receive a ranking penalty, or even be removed from the search engines index.

Applying keywords as suggested above will help your website to achieve higher rankings in the search engines. Remember, the search engines do not understand what your web pages are about unless you make it clear to them.

Check back next week to learn about applying Meta tags to your website.

eCommerce Reality Check for Success

If you’ve read any of our previous blog posts you’re probably starting to pick up on a theme; being successful online takes effort. As a matter of fact, building a thriving ecommerce business takes the same amount of hard work and discipline as building any other business, if not more so.

The following tips will help you to grow your ecommerce business into a success if you apply them on a constant basis.

• Plan ahead for everything – It isn’t uncommon for a lot of ecommerce companies to miss significant selling opportunities due to not being ready ahead of time. This being the case, everything should be planned at least three months in advance. This includes seasonal promotions, product offerings, PPC and SEO campaigns, site design elements, etc.
• Make continuous improvements to your site – Many online businesses start with an incredible amount of enthusiasm only to fizzle out due to unrealistic expectations. Once your online store is up and running this isn’t the time to sit back and see what happens. This approach is guaranteed for failure. In order to be successful online, you need to apply the same mentality of the major players of constantly improving and growing your website. Keep in mind that search engines as rule like larger sites and they thrive on quality content. With this said, make getting big fast and continually growing your content resources a top priority.
• Keep it real – Some business people still view the internet as something different from their physical business locations. In other words, they think it’s OK to do things online that they wouldn’t do in the real world such as questionable marketing tactics to generate sales. Contrary to the “old school” way of thinking, your web presence is just as important, if not more important, than your physical business location. In today’s wired world, most potential customers will find you via the internet opposed to driving by your business or finding you in the yellow pages. If your online presence is not coming across as the most reputable and professional in your field, your competitors are only a click away.
• Promote, promote, and promote some more – If you are not actively working on marketing your online business every day, the odds of success are not in your favor. Like any business, you don’t set up a store, load it with products, and wait for something to happen… This methodology does not work in the traditional retail world and it will not work online either. Any successful online business is constantly marketing their site 24 hours a day 365 days a year. In addition to online marketing methods such as SEO and PPC marketing, think about other things you can do such as sending out flyers and bumper stickers with your orders. Having strong email signatures that promote your business. Using signage on your physical locations and vehicles. The options are endless, and the more you market your business – the more successful it will be.
• Don’t scare customers away – Have you ever visited a website, found their offers interesting, and then they got too nosy? You’ve seen these sites that want your zip code, your email address, etc. before providing any of the information you want. If you’re like most people you simply leave. With this said, if you apply such tactics, your potential customers will do the same. Don’t ask your customers to provide more information than necessary and by all means do not force them to set up an account to shop with you. This may have worked in the past, but today’s online shoppers aren’t going to do this as easily, which will result in lost sales for your business.
• Be the expert in your industry – The quickest way to gain ground on your competition, online or off, is by being an expert. However, this is even more so the case online where people are seeking information on products and services before making a purchase. Now, if you were a consumer and a site attracted you with the informational content you were looking for, and they also offered the product for sale, this would be a double win since these folks know what they’re talking about and they sell exactly what you want or need. This comes back to what was said earlier about making continuous improvements and maximizing your content opportunities. Simply showing a little picture with a blurb of text about your offering is not going to put you in a competitive position with leaders in your industry that offer online instruction manuals, lists of complementing products and accessories, additional product views, detailed product specs, etc.
• If you don’t know ask – If you feel your website isn’t living up to its potential, your marketing isn’t effective, or you aren’t applying strategic site development that works – by all means ask a professional for help. Sometimes all it takes is a minor change to make a website more successful and in other cases it may require setting up a new site that is up-to-date to compete in today’s online savvy world. Remember there’s no shame in asking for help, especially if doing so saves your business money and increases your online sales.

The above principles should be a major part of your core thought processes and actions on a daily basis. Again, you can’t win in ecommerce without commitment, planning and continuous effort. If you’re not sure where to begin let us know. We can help you get started in the right direction.

Using Product Images to Increase Online Sales

When selling online a picture isn’t just worth a 1000 words – it’s worth 1000’s of sales. This thought holds true for every picture you post on your website. As the old Nike slogan goes, “Image is Everything”, and nowhere is this more true than online.

The images your website uses are among the first things that affect whether or not a site visitor is going to continue exploring your site or leave. This is even more important at the product level where the sale is being made. If your product images are less than desirable, so is the perception of your product offerings.

With today’s technology, providing excellent product images shouldn’t be any problem. Digital cameras can take thousands of photos that are ready for immediate use in the attempt of capturing the perfect image. Also, if the perfect photo isn’t quite perfect it can usually be made so with some crafty image editing software. Sometimes all it takes is a little cropping and brightening to turn an image from blah to buy!

Keep in mind that the better the quality of your product photos, the more confidence you provide your potential customers to follow though and make a purchase. If applicable, provide additional photos of other colors or designs available and alternate views.

In some cases, taking a picture of an item yourself may be impossible or simply impractical. If this is the case, ask your suppliers if they can provide you with images for your website. Most manufacturers have professionally done web ready images available simply for the asking.

Remember, on the web your product images can make the difference between getting the sale and losing it. Make sure you’re making the right impression with all of your product images and converting your site visitors from shoppers to buyers!

Writing a Better About Us Page

Some websites seem to provide an About Us page just for the sake of doing so with very little information that reinforces trust in the company.

Studies have found that visitors who visit a websites About Us page convert at a higher rate than those that don’t. A well written About Us page can provide your visitors with greater assurance of your company’s legitimacy and that you can meet their needs. The information you provide on your About Us page can make the difference between a visitor converting into a customer or leaving your site for a competitor.

Suggestions for a better About Us page

• Clearly describe your company and its purpose – Describe your company in a manner that makes it obvious to anyone about who you are, what you do, what you have to offer, and how you can solve your visitor’s needs.
• Keep it up to date – If your company has added new product categories or service offerings, make sure you update your About Us page accordingly to reflect what you have to offer your visitors.
• Provide links to support pages – Pages such as your Contact and Company News pages are logical pages to link to from your About Us page. Also linking to support pages from your About Us page encourages additional engagement with your website and brand.
• List awards and associations – Let your visitors know about your noteworthy achievements and associations with other groups or companies.
• Social media profiles and blogs – If you participate in social networking communities such as Facebook, tweet on Twitter, or have a great blog, your About Us page is the perfect place to link to these additional resources.

When writing your About Us page keep the above suggestions in mind and remember no one is going to know your story unless you tell it.

What are you telling visitors to your website when they visit your About Us page?

Common Reasons for eCommerce Shopping Cart Abandonment

It is estimated that online shoppers abandon their ecommerce shopping carts during checkout at a range between 25 percent (Andersen Consulting) on the low end and 78 percent (Bizrate.com) on the high end. The following are among the most cited reasons for cart abandonment.

• Lack of product and contact information
• Prices on site too high
• Shipping/handling costs too high
• Site requires setting up an account to purchase
• Site unclear about delivery times or how items are shipped
• Shopper changed their mind
• Shopper comparison shopping
• Shopper saving items for later purchase

Some of the issues above are simply part of the shopping process. However, areas that you have direct control over should be reviewed. Sometimes the smallest bit of additional information can reduce your shopping cart abandonment rate. The more information you provide to make your online shoppers feel secure and trusting in purchasing from you, the more likely they’ll complete the checkout process.

What is your shopping cart abandonment rate?

4 More Tips to Increase Online Sales

If you sell online (or anywhere else for that matter) you should always be looking for ways to sell more. The following tips can help you gain more sales from both existing and new customers with little to no out of pocket expense.

1. Clearly list all products and services your business offers on your website, even if you don’t offer them for sale online.This one often stumps many businesses that sell online who also have brick and mortar locations. For example, let’s say you sell dresses on your website but also offer alteration services at your store locations. Not mentioning that you offer alteration services for your local area customers on your website is a huge mistake. Just think about how many more phone calls, store visits, and ultimately sales such a simple piece of information could generate for your business.

 

2. Send an email newsletter to people on your email subscriber list and make sure to include a reminder of the products and services your business offers.It isn’t uncommon to receive email newsletters from businesses that are about one specific offer that is of no interest to you. Now imagine if that same newsletter sparked your interest by mentioning another product or service offerings you were currently shopping for. Bet you would visit the site to check it out. Especially if it’s from a company you have done business with before and you trust.

 

3. Use an email signature on all outgoing emails such as customer service emails and shipping notices that describe your product and service offerings and provide a link back to you website.Think about how many emails your business sends every day. Now imagine if each one told the recipient of all that your business offers and allowed them to click a link to immediately go to your website. As basic as this may sound, it’s amazing how many businesses are still not maximizing this simple marketing tool.

 

4. With every order you ship, sell in store, or service you provide, give your customer a flyer that also provides an overview of all of products and services you sell along with your current promotional offers.This is one of the easiest ways to increase sales. For example, a customer may have bought a dress on your website, at your store, or had you do alteration work and not known you sell other items that they would like to buy. Keep in mind that flyers are also viral – they can easily be passed around and shared with others.

Remember, if you’re not clearly telling people of all that you offer and how you can help them, they’ll take their business elsewhere. How many of these ideas are you applying and maximizing?

Online Press Releases for SEO Link Building

When one thinks of building links to their website to increase Google PageRank and visibility in the search engines a lot of ideas come to mind, such as blogging, submitting links to directory sites, social bookmarking, etc. However, one of the oldest and easiest ways to build links to your website is through online press releases. Yes, press releases may not sound as cool as many of the social media marketing opportunities available on the internet today, but they work.

After you have decided upon the topic for your press release, you will need to define what the primary keyword phase is that you want your press release to target. Take the time to research to find a popular two-word keyword phase to optimize for with a keyword tool such as Google’s Keyword Tool. Also, make sure the keyword phrase you choose is both the primary focus of your press release and relevant to your site.

Once you have settled on a topic for your press release, and you have done your keyword research, it’s time to write. When writing your press release, make sure to use your primary two-word keyword phrase in the title of your press release and a few times within the body content.

Keep in mind that no matter how well your press release is optimized from a keyword perspective, it is of no use in your SEO efforts without links pointing to your site. When using press release services that allow you to place links within the copy, make sure you are using optimized keyword text links related to your product or service offerings, opposed to generic words such as “click here”. If a press release service doesn’t allow you to link within the content of the release, make sure that you link back to your site in the “contact box” or “about section” of the release.

After you have written your press release submit it to a variety of press release services. Although, there are some very good paid press release services such as PRWeb.com, there are also a lot of free services that you should consider. Ultimately, the more services you submit your press release to, the more links you will build to your website to increase your Google PageRank and link popularity.

If you’re serious about improving your search engine rankings, online press releases are one of the fastest and easiest ways go gain quality inbound links to increase the visibility to your site.

6 Tips for Writing Website Copy that Sells

When writing content for your website keep in mind that most people scan text, they’re impatient, and they’re skeptical if they haven’t done business with you before. These three reasons ultimately lead to less sales and income for most online businesses. So what can you do to address these issues and increase your sales? Start with the page copy of your website, especially on your pages that sell a product or service.

Keep the following copywriting tips in mind when writing content for your website.

1. Write headlines that are directly meaningful to what you’re selling. The more factual and direct the better.
2. Order your content starting with your most important selling point and work your way down the list. Make sure your most important selling point is right at the beginning of your content – front and center!
3. Keep your paragraphs short and only focus on one idea per paragraph.
4. Use bulleted lists and bold text where appropriate to highlight your key selling features and benefits.
5. Use simple language that anyone can understand and go easy on your industry jargon. If they don’t understand what you’re offering, they won’t buy.
6. Keep your choice of words objective. Avoid exaggerated claims or heavily promotional language. The more factual your content is written, the more people will believe it’s factual.

Selling online is like any other form of sales communications; you need to be direct, clear, and easily understandable. The easier you make it for your potential customers to understand what you’re offering and what’s in it for them, the more likely they will convert into paying customers.

Optimizing for Local Search

Many websites, especially those that only sell online, are not maximizing the potential that local search optimization offers. It isn’t uncommon for pure play online businesses to think that their geographical location is of little importance since they sell on a nationwide or worldwide basis. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

In today’s online world where the web has become hyper-competitive, local search is a must for any online business that wants to maximize their sales opportunities. More and more, people are no longer simply searching by product or service related keyword phrases. They’re searching for product and service phrases followed by geo-targeted terms including their city or state.

So why would someone care about where you’re located if you only sell online anyway? Think of it this way, clearly stating who you are and where you’re located adds more credibility and trust to the decision of doing business with you. Also, the number of people looking to buy online from local companies is increasing due to various reasons such as supporting local businesses and a greater sense of security this provides in case service is needed after the sale.

Clearly stating your address throughout your website also benefits your customers on the other side of the country or even the other side of the world. For example, someone from New York sees that your business address is in Seattle, which immediately takes away the mystery of who they’re dealing with to a large degree, since you have established your business as being a real business with a real address, opposed to simply a mysterious website in cyberspace.

Your physical address followed by your phone number should be on a minimum of your home page and contact page. Although the best option is to have this information clearly posted on the bottom of every page of your site.

Keep in mind that simply having your address on every page of your site isn’t going to optimize your site for local search, since this may not provide enough keyword weight to raise your site in the search engine rankings. Therefore, your site must be specifically optimized for key local search terms along with your product or service offerings.

In addition to optimizing your website for local search, you should submit your site to local search services such as the following.

• Google Local (Google Maps) http://www.google.com/local
• Yahoo! Local http://local.yahoo.com
• MSN/Live Local (Live Search Maps) http://maps.live.com

Every day, millions of people are searching for products and services online using geo-targeted search terms such as their neighborhood, city, state and even country. If you’re not actively optimizing your site for local search, you’re business is leaving a lot of money on the table for those that are. Is your site fully optimized for local search?

4 eCommerce Tips to Increase Online Sales

Being successful in the world of ecommerce is dependent upon many disciplines such as merchandising, marketing and design. This being the case, often basic areas of improving conversions for an ecommerce website aren’t fully thought through or applied. The following ecommerce tips will help you to increase your conversion rates for greater sales success and make your customers more likely to return to your site.

1. Keep things simple. Review your site to ensure that your navigation structures and link descriptions are easy to use and understand. The more your visitors have to try to figure things out, the more likely they are to leave and never come back. Also, make sure that important information such as pricing, return policies and your contact information are all clearly visible. The more obvious you make it that you’re there for your customer before and after the sale, the more likely it is that they will trust in buying from you.
2. Think like your potential customers. If a product can fit within multiple categories, place it wherever appropriate. Simply choosing one rigid category placement and expecting your potential customer to work to find the item doesn’t work. They aren’t going to do it. For each product you have on your site, ask yourself where else it would make sense to feature the item. Also, make sure you are maximizing up sell and cross sell opportunities. For example, if you have a page selling shoes offer a link to your belt category as well. You should always be thinking of ways to make it as easy as possible for your visitors to buy more!
3. Consider the impact of your images. Are all of the images on your site clean, crisp and professional looking? If not, you’re losing credibility with your visitors and losing sales. Review all of your images. Do they make the best impression possible? Would you buy a product shown on your site based on the image? Also, add additional images to show multiple product views and options. Take the time to make sure every image on your site is as good as it can be. Nothing can blow an online sale quicker than a poor image.
4. Actively promote your site every day. It isn’t uncommon for many small online businesses to build their website and wait for people to come. This may have worked 15 years ago, but those days are long gone. Now that the web has grown it takes greater thought and effort to drive visitor traffic to your site. Always be on the lookout for quality ways to promote your site. Basics you should be applying include search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing (SMM), pay-per-click advertising (PPC) and email marketing. The bottom line is that you need to actively work at driving traffic to your site every day.

Now take an honest look at your site and bring in others opinions. Review your site to make sure it’s easy to understand and use and that potential customers can easily find related products. Look at every single image and change any that aren’t making the best possible impression and add additional product images as needed. While doing these things (and everything else you have to do every day) make sure you are constantly promoting your site. It doesn’t matter how well you implement the first three steps above if you aren’t driving potential customers to your site to buy.