Hi guys,
Looking to get some advice - we run an online retail store and we have limited IT knowledge.
In regards to SEO - how important is it?
I find it difficult to wrap my head around as it does not have an 'immediate' return and it is very hard for someone without an IT background to see the results.
I have read few tutorials but rather pay someone to do it - keeps my life simpler.
Thanks in advance!
Ahhh advice for the year 2009.
And it still works really well. It's one of the many many things to try.
The tech site I'm involved in started using it and it's helped us get to the top. Obviously there are more factors than that.
@Cheap Charlie: Close to 12 months ago. It's only really been used when we're first to get info on a new product. So when people go searching for the iPhone 8 Plus we're more likely to be up top because of those keywords.
I have know someone that works in the SEO sector. I could give you his details if you like, pm me.
I've been investing my time reading Moz. I'm not a SEO specialist but I know more than the average person so that should I need to hire someone, I'll know whether they are the right person for the job.
SEO is a long game that requires consistency and a clear top-down strategy. Keywords is still where things are at so you'll need to sit down and figure out what are search terms that your customer profile is using.
How important is SEO? Hmmm. It depends. Some businesses do very well with organic search traffic. Others do just fine with word-of-mouth. For example, I buy all my PC gear from known retailers. I never Google for parts. I'll use Shopbot but just to get an idea of average price. Then I'll go to IJK because I can't stand MSY :P So I supposed I'm saying in a very long way that you need to understand your business before taking strategic SEO actions.
This guy http://jamesnorquay.com/ knows his SEO.
do your own SEO and spend the saving on TV advertising…
Post a shitty bargain here. /s
I should forward you the dozen or so SPAM emails I get touting SEO services to my business email address daily…or you could just announce a census, that will apparently drive up your traffic somewhat. :/
It is funny how 90% of these 'SEO experts' have hotmail email addresses.
Website SEO is important, and is an ongoing activity, not a once off activity.
What kind of products do you sell, and what eCommerce platform are you using?
Some general tips:
Have a blog on your website, and regularly write content that is relevant to your product(s), that people may search for in Google. Search engines also look more favourably at websites that often have new content added.
Search engines look favourably at websites that have a lot of other websites linking to them (backlinks). Perhaps you can post your website to relevant online directories, in addition to regularly linking back to your website from social media.
The keywords that you use in page titles and meta descriptions, and how often you repeat keywords that you are targeting in the written copy is also important. So is the length of the copy, the pages readability score, the amount of images, the pages load time etc.
I work in Web Design / Digital Marketing, feel free to send me a message if you would like someone else to take care of this for you.
SEO is quite important. now a days equally important is social media exposure (Eg www.facebook.com).
Google prefers structured data: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/data-ty…
Facebook prefers Open Graph : http://ogp.me/
This would be in addition to having a proper sitemap & meta tags.
SEO is important for retail store business. because most of the people search product on Google to find the right place to buy it. If your website come up on top result on google or bing or any search engine there would be more chances to increase your sales.
However, SEO isn't easy now as it was. You can implement few SEO practices by yourself but if you are not IT or SEO expert you will face hurdle to apply some SEO techniques.
Moreover, Social is also important to promote your business, you should aware with it as well.
You might want to try an SEO person from Fiverr to start with, cheap cheerful but results unknown.
https://www.fiverr.com/categories/online-marketing/seo-servi…
I've tried - but what results am I supposed to see?!
Think they take months before any positive results.
SEO can be complex, but there are some simple things people do. One method of getting your website to be at the top is using meta keywords which are snippets of text in the code of the website that explain the page's content.
Here's a basic example…
A computer repair shop in Melbourne has a website and they want their site to be at the top of Google. To do this they put meta keyword code in their website with keywords like "computer repairs melbourne", "melbourne computer repair", "computer repairs" etc. So when people search for these keywords in Google… the computer repair shop website is more likely to appear at the top.
Now this is probably confusing (I'm not the best at explaining), but if your site is Wordpress then there are plugins that will do it for you. All in One SEO Pack is a good plugin to make your website more search engine optimised and very easy to use.