3 Essential SEO Tips That Every New Web Store Owner Should Know

Alice Delore is an education specialist for SaleHoo.com, an online community of over 95,000 online sellers and retailers. Their product range consists of an online selling course, ecommerce software  and their flagship product, a wholesale directory

Most store owners graduate to owning their own website after learning the basics of selling on giant marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon. There are a host of benefits to owning your own store including having more control over the direction of your store and not having a percentage of your earnings eaten up by marketplace fees.

However, the one major drawback is that when you branch out from a marketplace, you no longer have traffic spoon-fed to your listings, which usually means very slow sales in the early days of owning your store.

It won’t come as news that one of the most effective way to attract buyers is by capturing them in search engines. However, knowing how to go about doing this can be the tricky part.

Here are my top 3 essential search engine optimization tips for new web store owners:

#1 – Write content-rich product descriptions

One of the ways that Google and other search engines determine which sites to rank is through the text content on the site. Therefore, it is crucial that your product descriptions contain keywords that your buyers will search for when they search for items you stock.

Try to write descriptions that are at least 250 words long and remember to include the keywords that closely relate to the product, but remember not to stuff your description with too many keywords. Doing so could tell Google that your content is not genuine. It’s also an eye-sore for buyers!

If you aren’t sure which keywords to use, try the Google Keyword Tool. It’s a free tool by Google which allows you to swoop in and identify exactly which keywords your potential buyers are searching for.

For example, if you are selling women’s dresses, you can enter ‘womens dresses’ into the keyword tool and hit search to see a list of related keywords that buyers are searching for.

#2 – Write a killer meta description

Your meta description is the text that displays in search results.

Above is a good example of a meta description. This company, Inch Blue, ranks on the first page of Google for the keywords “baby shoes”. Their meta description contains these keywords but, more importantly, it provides information to the person searching which encourages them to click-through and visit the web store.

Therefore, meta descriptions serve two purposes:

a)      They help you rank better in search results when you include relevant keywords

b)      They give you a chance to lure buyers into the store. Make use of your meta description by stating, as Inch Blue has, what makes your product different from other options.

How to alter your meta description depends on how your store was built or which store builder you use but, if you know HTML code, the meta description appears in the header code of your website.

#3 – Keep your content fresh!

Google and other search engines love when you update your site with fresh, new content. When you update your content, Google knows that your website is a ‘live’ one, not just a static website that is never updated, which improves your rankings.

There are a number of ways that you can easily update your web content to keep it fresh. One is by simply re-writing your listing descriptions every couple of weeks. You can still say the same things about the products, just freshen up the order of the wording. Adding customer reviews of the products or general feedback is another easy way to add new content. It also encourages customers to purchase because they love hearing positive feedback from other buyers.

Blog writing to increase your search engine placement

Writing blog posts on a regular basis is another way to brighten up your content. Additionally, when you write about the products that you sell, you show off your passion for the products which inspires customers to hit the “Add to Cart” button!

Most products or product lines are relativity easy to blog about.  If you sell handbags, you can write about the latest season’s color and style trends or about an outrageously expensive new designer bag that your audience would adore, but never be able to purchase themselves!

If you sell gardening equipment, you can write blog posts about gardening tips or keep a photo blog of the world’s most beautiful gardens.

Your blog posts do not need to be long or sophisticated: Web readers will engage better with a shorter, snappier and more personal blog post than a dry, boring post.

Above all else, aim to give valuable, informative or entertaining content to readers and avoid blasting them with advertisements for your products.

How well does your website rank in the search engines? 

Image Credit: Mike Atherton

Comments (3)

  1. Quentin:

    #2 – Write a killer meta description

    “a) They help you rank better in search results when you include relevant keywords”

    Is that right ? I thought that it wasn’t the case anymore.

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