A lot of small businesses don’t nurture their websites as much as they should. Whether they don’t have all the right hands on deck to update the content as much as they should or feel overwhelmed by a seemingly daunting task, the business website often just sits, waiting for someone to visit.
If you’re doing e-commerce in any capacity at all, you know organic traffic is one of your best opportunities to make sales and accelerate growth. Here’s some SEO tips that both simple and smart that’ll set you on the path toward success.
Group Products and Services Accordingly
This seems obvious, but arranging your products within a set category is a technique known as theming or siloing, which alerts search engine spiders to classify all women’s pants, for example, under the terms “women,” “pants,” and so forth.
Gussy Up Your Lowest Performing Content
Take a look at the worst performing content on your site, this could be post posts, product descriptions, anything, and rework it from the bottom up. Our recommendation is to start with the bottom 10 or 15%, and revamp with stronger copy, bigger, brighter imagery — you get the idea. Repeat this task every couple months or so to get the most out of your site.
In order to keep an eye on how each page is doing, you’ll need a Google analytics account. This will enable you to track the buttons people click on, as well as how they travel through your site, and more. Knowing what works will inform what needs to be changed.
Delete or Fix Broken Links or Unused Pages
When users see excessive 404, 505 or any other error message, it sends the message to them that your company is disorganized. Get these fixed so Google doesn’t pick up on any major issues and move your page down the ranks.
Use Long Tail Keywords
While the most popular search terms do seem like the ones you should be using to drive more traffic, it’s less intuitive than that. More traffic is great, but it needs to be relevant. For example, if you’re offering tennis lessons in Los Angeles, you want local people visiting your site, rather than someone in Texas looking for an instructor. Neil Patel has a great post highlighting the many reasons why long tail is essential for growth.
Create Great Content
Easier said than done, but if you keep plugging away at blogging and using the right keywords, you’re adding more content to the proverbial SEO pool, which gives Google more chances to pick up on your site. Blog as much as you can without damaging the integrity of your content.
Make the Most of Your Meta
Meta title, URL and the page descriptions that seem like small details, but in reality can take your organic traffic to the next level. Keep these simple, and descriptive to the page you’re working on. Experienced SEO specialists can help optimize these tiny, but critical details.
Get Started!
There’s always more to be done from an SEO standpoint. Working with a specialist can help, as can dedicating a little time each day to improving content, keeping an eye on page performance, and more. Trial and error is the name of the game, but inaction will get you nowhere.
