E-commerce is a cut throat business. You have to arm yourself with the proper know-how and the tools to make your site a cut above the rest. Each day, more and more sites are clambering to optimize their rankings in websites and if you lose your guard, you may just get trampled on and be left in the abyss filled with so many failed e-commerce sites.
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a term widely used today by many e-commerce sites. For the past few years and the next ten years or so, search engines would be the most widely used internet tool to find the sites that they need to go to or the product or information they need.
Most people that use search engines use only the ten top search results in the first page. Making it to the first page, more so to the top three is a barometer of a sites success in search engine optimization. You will get a higher ratio of probability in being clicked on when you rank high. The more traffic for your site, the more business you rake in.
But, it is essential to grab a hold of that spot or make your ranking even better. As I aforementioned, each day is a new day for all e-commerce sites to make them selves rank higher using search engine optimization. It is imperative to make your site better and better everyday.
So just what is search engine optimization and do you have to use it? The answer to why you have to use it is an easy one. You need search engine optimization to be number one, or maybe at least make your site income generating.
With search engine optimization you can get the benefit of generating a high traffic volume. Let’s just say you get only a turn out of successful sales with 10 to 20 percent of your traffic. If you get a hundred hits or more a day, you get a good turn out of sales already. If you get only twenty to ten hits a day, you only get one or two if not any at all.
So once again, what is search engine optimization? Search engine optimization is utilizing tools and methods in making your site top ranking in the results of search engines. Getting yourself in the first page and better yet in the top half of the page will ensure that your site will generate public awareness of your site’s existence and subsequently generate more traffic, traffic that could lead to potential income and business.
Search engine optimization requires a lot of work to be fully realized. There are many aspects you have to change in your site or add as well to get search engine optimization. These will include getting lots of information about the keyword phrases that are popular in regards to your sites niche or theme.
You may also need to rewrite your sites contents so that you could get the right keyword phrases in your site without making it too commercial but light and informative. There are certain rules and guidelines to be followed with making your site’s content applicable and conducive to search engine optimization.
You will also need to collaborate with many other sites so that you could get link exchanges and page transfers. The more inbound and outbound traffics generated by sites among others are one of the components search engines uses to rank sites.
Try to search the internet for many useful help. Tips, guidelines and methods for search engine optimization are plenty to be found. Read many articles that can help you optimize your site in search engine results. The more knowledge and information you gather the better. This will all help you in getting those high rankings. This may require a little time and effort in your part but the benefits will be astounding.
If you can part with some money, there are many sites in the internet that can help you in search engine optimization. There are many sites that help in tracking keyword phrases that can help your site. There are also some content writers that have lots of experience in making good keyword laden content for your sites that have good quality.
Act now and see the benefits garner with search engine optimization. All of these will result to better traffic and more business for your site and company.
Have you heard stories about legendary online entrepreneurs who hit it big after getting a #1 rank in several popular search engines? You probably wondered what it would take for you to achieve that elusive #1 spot in the search engine result pages (SERPs). Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plays a vital role in ensuring that your business gets the best possible search engine ranking, which can lead to increased sales for your online company.
What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
Search engine optimization is the process of modifying web page content and meta-information to improve the search engine ranking of the page. Meta-information includes certain HTML tags (title, heading, emphasized text, keyword and description meta-tags), as well as the internal (links between pages on the same site) and external (links between pages on different sites) link structure of a web site.
Impact of High Search Engine Rank on Sales
Internet market research estimates that between 70% and 90% of online shoppers use search engines to find a specific product or service. Let’s examine factors that influence sales to see how effective search engine optimization can boost your revenues.
Three metrics are required to forecast online sales: the average ticket, the conversion rate, and the amount of web site traffic:
The average ticket is the amount of money spent by a customer on a typical transaction. Computer and electronics stores have high average tickets (hundreds or thousands of dollars), while bookstores have low average tickets (tens of dollars).
Web Site traffic is measured by the number of site visitors, typically expressed as the number of page views per month.
Conversion rate is the number of sales divided by the number of page views per month, expressed as a percentage.
Let’s look at an example. The Ultimate Taupe Widget (UTW) store has an average ticket of $25, a conversion rate of 2%, and gets 5,000 page views per month. The estimated monthly sales are $2,500 ($25 average ticket * 0. 02 conversion rate expressed as a decimal * 5,000 page views per month). Achieving a high search engine rank will increase the number of page views, and therefore increase sales. In this example, if traffic doubles to 10,000 page views a month, UTW’s monthly sales should (approximately) double as well (to $5,000).
Keep in mind that a high search engine rank will produce a measurable increase in traffic only if there is significant marketplace interest in taupe widgets and your web site appears in the first thirty search engine results.
However, search engine optimization is not going to produce measurable results if there is very little demand for taupe widgets. The #1 spot in search engine result pages is not particularly impressive if only two people search for “taupe widgets” each month. Role of Keywords in Search Engine Optimization
Keywords are words or phrases users provide to search engines to locate information. Search engines examine page content to determine whether a specific page is relevant for a particular search word or phrase. Thus, effective keyword selection is one of the cornerstones of search engine optimization.
Each keyword is characterized by supply (number of search engine result pages) and demand (number of searches). The easiest way to improve search engine rank is to select keywords that have favorable supply-demand characteristics; that is, ones with a relatively high demand and a relatively low supply. It is much more difficult to improve the search engine position of a page on a high supply, competitive keyword.
Good keywords must be relevant to your product line, as well as your line of business. A #1 rank for “navy widgets” is worthless if you sell taupe widgets exclusively. A potential customer will find your page, quickly discover that you don’t sell any navy widgets, and promptly go elsewhere. In effect, the conversion rate for irrelevant search engine hits is very close to zero.
Using Keywords Effectively
Choosing a set of target keywords is the first step in search engine optimization. The second step is using them in the body, title, headings, and meta-tags of a page.
Include the target keywords in the text of the page. Don’t overdo it, though — the keywords should fit smoothly into the surrounding text. Search engines use several techniques to detect excessive keyword density, or too many keywords stuffed into very little supporting text, and will reduce the rank accordingly. A page has too many keywords if they interfere with the general flow of the text on a page and appear to be glaringly out of place
The title tag should contain information that describes the page. Unless you operate a multi-national conglomerate that is already a household name, your company’s name is not a descriptive title. Most search engines use the title tag as the first line of your listing in the search engine result pages. Strive to make your title tag say “click me” to a prospective customer. “Superior taupe widgets – 50% off every day” is a good page title, while “Ultimate Taupe Widgets, Inc. ” is not.
Incorporate keywords into the headings on the page, as well as into emphasized sections (bold or large text). Even though search engines are de-emphasizing descriptive meta-tags, include keywords in them nevertheless. The description meta-tag should have an accurate description of your page, and the keywords meta-tag should contain a set of keywords (separated by commas) that list key concepts mentioned on the page.
Understanding the basics of search engine optimization is an important first step in creating an optimized, well-positioned web site.
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Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing are both very important strategies for elevating your business into higher profitability. Yet most beginners think only of Search Engine Optimization. The fact is that it is only a part of the bigger marketing picture for a business online. You need to employ them both to propel your internet business forward.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) refers to the full array of promotional technologies used by internet marketers to increase their online traffic as well as visibility for their web pages. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one only one of the important SEM tools that aim to make a page easier to evaluate, and consequently ranked higher by search engines.
SEM experts employ several methods concurrently to achieve this:
1. Pay-per-click or PPC Advertising
Paying advertisers submit bids for mega tags or keywords. Advertisers pay for listings in search engines (Yahoo, Google, Dogpile, and others). Search engines display ad banners at various frequencies and sites based on the prices they receive. Google Adsense is currently the most successful PPC program in the history of internet marketing, as it specifically picks out the niches that would prove the most effective for an ad based on a techno-intelligence way of assessing the needs of webpage visitors.
2. SEO
This is the active practice of optimizing a web site to improve both it’s internal and external aspects to increase the traffic the site receives from search engines. If your site does not come up in the search engines when people search for a phrase or term that your site has content for, you miss out on the wealth of search – people who want what you have visiting your site. Employing these strategies, marketers will insert strategic keywords (or meta tags) to websites often after carefully studying those used by their competitors, in an effort to increase their own rankings and site traffic. Entire websites can also be structured around these tags and words, and content is often developed to access certain statistically popular keywords. It can also be used to take advantage of Image Search capabilities.
3. Paid Inclusions
For advertisers, it often pays to be a part of marketing or shopping search engines such as BixRate, Froogle, Shopzilla , MySimon, DealTime, and many others. It helps them to lure shoppers to their own websites for other purchases and customer lists.
In the current high-tech marketplace scenario, consulting, web developing and marketing solutions have become big business and lots of businesses seek them out in the hope of increasing their success scale. Larger companies often have their own in-house staff to handle and implement internet marketing strategies. Yet, neither are difficult to learn or apply. The objective is to create search-engine-friendly websites and pages that attract and appeal to your target niche markets. That’s the double whammy of the two together. Learn the techniques and apply them consistently, focusing on your content and niche market and audience interest and you’ll greatly increase your business reach.
Any kind of search engine score of your site which helps you to increase your page rank or the search engine ranking of your keywords will entirely depend on the on-page optimization of your site. Mainly it is viewed that the on-page factors of your index page determines the rankings of your keywords. We can say that an off-page factor includes the maximum part of SEO Optimization work but the results of off-page optimization reflect through on-page. Thus this is quite assumable that a rock solid off-page optimization with a poor on-page optimization will not very fruitful for any website. People have an idea that on-page optimization is very easy and it can be done within an hour. But let us remind you friend, search engine algorithms are really very cruel and it is improving day by day. Thus it is very crucial for your website to do the best on-page optimization for receiving ultimate ranking. For organic and natural search engine ranking on-page methodologies are extremely important and these techniques are used to define your website business or we can say to describe the motive of your website business in front of all search engines. 15 unforgettable priceless tips regarding on-page optimization1. URL Naming: If possible try to place your prime targeted keyword as your domain name. This will help you to advertise your business at the first impression. 2. Title Tag: Decorate your title tag with your utmost preferable keywords of your business in a smart and eye checking manner. 3. Meta Descriptions: Sketch your proper business announcement with simple words for catching concentration of the visitors who are searching similar kind of product or service which your website is going to deliver them. Possibly you can punch your keyword into that description but in a tricky way. 4. Crawler Notification: All kind of search engine crawler notifications like SE robots instructions, website owner and publisher declaration, website language, copywriter name etc. should go from the Meta portion of all your web page. 5. Image Optimization: Crawlers are unable to read images and the flash part of your web page but these images or flash is required to influence the visitors. Thus Optimize this images with suitable contents using Alt tags which reflects your proper business. 6. Text Links: Use text links of all of your important pages of your site and if possible then try to avoid flash links, Java script links, image links etc. 7. Keyword Density Checking: Modern SEO services told us that you should inculcate your keywords at your content and maintain the density with an ethical mode. 8. Broken Link checking: Broken links are really very harmful for any site, thus don’t forget to check it first, if it exists then remove that from your site in a quick approach. 9. Static URL’s: Remember that all of your important pages should have short and static URLs and dynamic pages may follow those static pages. If unwanted lengthy URLs exist at your site then replace them with short. 10. Footer: Don’t forget to place links for all important pages at the footer part of your index page. This allows your visitors to jump at important pages with just a single click. 11. Robot. txt: Ensure that robot. txt is necessary at your website with apposite crawler notifications. 12. XML Site Map: Nowadays an xml feed acts as a site map which includes all pages of your site and is really indispensable from crawler point of view and should be confined as a link at the index page or at the common footer portion. 13. Canonical Issue: Nowadays optimization for Google is vastly required because maximum customers come at your site through it. Thus canonical issue should be solved first if exist. 14. Common Header and Footer: a common header text and footer text within H2 tag should be placed at each of your web pages. 15. Avoid Black Hat techniques: Achieving organic ranking and holding it for long time depends absolutely on white hat techniques and we should simply avoid all black hat strategies.