SEO Made Simple: Three Main Factors to Drive the Right Customers to Your Website
Already, online sales account for over 8% of all retail sale, it is predicted by eMarketer that “Through 20120, consistent double-digit growth will be seen” by North America. Online sales by then are expected to surpass $4 trillion the world over.
The biggest question, however, is: how customers will find your products on the extremely crowded and ever-changing world wide web? Search engine optimization is the name of the game, however, it has to be done right as well as in compliance with the webmaster guidelines of Google. Coming out on top of the SERPs that are relevant to what your customers are searching for is what SEO is all about.
In the core algorithms on Google, there are over 200 factors involved, and most of those at coed fall into the three areas that follow: off-page SEO, on-page SEO, and technical website structures. If you want to ran well in a search on Google, not only do you need to pay attention to the essence of these factors, but you also have to maintain your website every time an update is released by Google or you make changes on your website This task is not an easy one, however if you build it into your everyday maintenance routine for your website, you can maximize your exposure and sales all the while staying relevant.
Technical Website Structure Setup
When it comes to a successful e-commerce strategy, the first step is a website that is well-designed with a good user interface and strong content. When you are developing the structure of your site, this process must commence. When it comes to the SEO performance of your website, it is one of the most crucial aspects. Creating a great user experience is the main goal; what this means is that everything the site contains is easy to navigate and there is a logical sense to the menus making it easy for users. Having a focus group test your site before you launch it is a great idea, this will provide you with feedback about the layout, what the users find confusing as well as intuitive. To increase your search ranking as well as reduce future bounce rates, this can go a long way, being as site structure is some that in that once the site is live, you will not be changing. Some of the most crucial things to bear in mind as you plan the structure of your website are:
Navigation Must Be Kept Simple. Point A To Point B Should Never Be Complicated.
The number of options that you have on your menu should be kept to a minimum, ideally less than seven. It is best that your site’s main functions be on your main menu bar and included sub-categories that are relevant. Anything you are thinking about adding to your menu bar which is not one of the site´s main functions can be placed in the footer. Always look at things from the point of view of your user. For example, showing off the press received by your company if you have an eCommerce site may be something you love, however, it is necessary for your customer to view your press page on your main menu bar? Probably not.
When naming the options on your menu bar, keep keywords that are relevant in mind. For example, what will your users most likely search; “shop” or “boutique”, “tech” or “electronics”, etc. Choose terms that are going to help you drive the most traffic to your site, not merely the ones you prefer the most.
Make sure that the verbiage used in menu bar coincides with those used or the corresponding URLs.
On-Page Content Optimization
On-page is made up of every measure you are able to take on your website to best communicate what the page or website is all about. This has a direct impact on what phrases or keyword the site ranks for as well as its position in the SERPs. Here are the main things to consider:
- The use of keywords that are relevant on every page of your site. Before selecting the network you want you use to optimize your site, spend time on keyword research.
- Include Internal as well as external links that are helpful, the user experience should be enhanced by internal links and external links should only be to authoritative and useful sites.
- Make sure that across all mobile devices, your site is fully responsive.
- Make sure you site has a fast load time; you can use tool such as Pingdom to check the speed of your site.
- Optimize all of your sites images, this is done by uploading images that are the correct size, using title tags and alt tags.
- Update your site regularly, this lets Google know that your site is not stagnant. Having a blog that is regularly maintained is a great way of doing this.
- Include an SSL certificate to your website, this way login information and credit card information is kept safe.
Off-Page Optimization
What off-page refers to is how popular or authoritative your site is, this too is a major component of how well your site ranks in SERPs. Your off-page ranking can be boosted by getting press form publication or sites that are authoritative, saying relevant via gaining links from expert s and bloggers with your industry, and having engagements on your social media accounts that is excellent.
CEO of Spooky Digital, Dan Sevigny, describes the way in which on-page and off-page SEO must go hand-in-hand, “Having on-page SEO done on its own is much like having a vehicle yet not having gas and having only off-page SEO done is like filling a vehicle which cannot run with gas. Both are of equal importance; it is not possible to have one without the other. If you lack a strong foundation, your off-page efforts will be almost completely wasted.”
The end goal of your online presence should not merely be to place as much as you can of your merchandise in front of a customer, but rather to get your customer the products which best fit what they looking for as efficiently and effortlessly as possible.
SEO Houston Pros time and time again has proven to be the best Houston SEO consulting company. Visit our Discovery Page for a FREE website audit! If you have any questions regarding a new or pre-existing website, please don’t hesitate to contact us or call us today at (832)230-4495!
