Nowadays, having a business means also having an online presence. It could be your very own website, a page in an online marketplace, or even a social media platform. The bottom line is that you should be visible on the internet, since millions of consumers start their buying process through an online search.
This simply means that you need to invest in search engine optimization. This is particularly true in the present climate, with more and more sellers and content creators emerging by the day.
The thing is that not all businesses may have a lot of money for SEO marketing or hire a top digital marketing agency to help them out. However, there are plenty of SEO lessons you can pick up to maximize your online presence. All you need is some patience and a bit of research. Here are some things to keep in mind:
Categorize Your Content Properly
If you want to rank higher in search engine results, you need to optimize your content. It doesnât matter if you have a blog or an online store. It also doesnât matter if you have five pieces of content or five hundred. You need to organize everything and be as specific as you can.
For example, if youâre selling personal care products, itâs not enough to have categories for face, body, and hair products. Instead, you should break these down further into sub-categories. For hair products, you should shampoo, conditioner, dry shampoo, baby shampoo, organic shampoo, styling products (which you can separate into gels, mousses, waxes, etc.), and so on.
For blogs, you need to categorize every topic. If youâre writing parenting tips, you might want to separate advice for moms and dads, advice for parenting toddlers and teens, and so on.
The key is to help customers find what theyâre looking for, especially if theyâre still undecided or really have no idea what to look for. Having separate categories also helps you target a wider range of keywords through descriptive content for each of these categories or topics.
Categorize Products or Posts Per Brand
Aside from categorizing by type, you should also categorize per brand. This is especially important for entrepreneurs who sell multiple products, as well as for content creators who review items. A good example of this would be gadgets. One brand alone can have 20 or even 50 different models of smartphones or laptops. You canât just lump these all together and expect users to find your site or page useful.
Categorizing per brand can also help you rank higher in search engine results pages, since you can also create optimized content for each brand page.
Provide Helpful, Substantial Copy
Speaking of optimized content, search engines give higher priority to pages that provide the most helpful and relevant content for users. If youâre talking about a smartphone, mention not just its specifications and price but also how it stacks up to similar models. You can also highlight a few of its most prominent features and talk about them in-depth.
Do note that most of the time, this type of rich content on a product page isnât meant for buyers. Rather, this is for the search engine to âunderstandâ what the page is all about and rank it accordingly. If the search engine deems the content to be relevant to the keyword, itâs possible to rank higher. If youâre running a blog, however, you really have to invest in great content no matter what.
Use Unique Content
Search engines, particularly Google, are quite strict when it comes to duplicate content. If you copy-paste content from other sites, youâre going to get penalized. In short, make your content as unique as possible.
Those who are selling non-unique products (e.g., smartphones) on online marketplaces have an even bigger need to provide unique content. This way, your page has a higher likelihood of being indexed in search results.
Optimize Your Title Tags
The title tag, for those who are unfamiliar, is an HTML code that allows you to give a name or title to a specific web page. You can see this title in the browserâs title bar; itâs also what appears in the search engine results pages (the big blue text that serves as the title of a search result).
Ideally, you should have a call to action on a pageâs title tag to optimize it. If you want the consumer to buy your product, then include âbuy nowâ or something similar to the title tag. The same goes for other actions such as inquire, sign up or register, download, and even read or learn more. Use your preferred keywords as a guide in writing title tags.
Focus on Engagement
One of the ways that search engines determine the rankings of a website or web page in their results pages is how engaged the visitors are. Essentially, the longer a person stays on your website, the more that search engines believe that they are engaged and find your content useful. Thus, you need to focus on ways to engage your visitors.
Look at how online marketplaces do it. When you visit a product page, youâll see not only the featured product, but also descriptions, consumer reviews, and even related products. You can explore all of these additional content types to help you make a decision whether or not to buy that specific item. Ultimately, this makes the online marketplace a more credible website to search engine algorithms; thus, the website ranks higher.
Doing all of these can feel tedious at first. However, in a highly competitive online space, applying these SEO lessons can definitely help your business stand out.
Good luck!
