DEMYSTIFYING SEO FOR ECOMMERCE GILLIAN MEIER 3 SEPTEMBER 2014 Twitter: @GillianMeier
SEO? Search Engine Optimisation Search Experience Optimisation Copyright of Blue Magnet Digital Twitter: @GillianMeier 2
Why you need SEO? It s highly effective. You can take on the big players. Google makes an average 2 changes per day to its algorithm. Copyright of Blue Magnet Digital Twitter: @GillianMeier 3
What is SEO about? Technical Optimisation Robots, Crawl, Index, Architecture, Navigation On-Page Optimisation Meta data: Title, Description, Images Content User Engagement Off-Page Optimisation Authority (Popularity & Links) Content Marketing (Social Signals, Web PR etc.) Copyright of Blue Magnet Digital Twitter: @GillianMeier 4
On-Page Optimisation: Research Research Find the Right Keywords Competition vs Search Volume Copyright of Blue Magnet Digital Twitter: @GillianMeier 5
On-Page Optimisation: What should you focus on first? Home Page Category Pages Product Pages Copyright of Blue Magnet Digital Twitter: @GillianMeier 6
On-Page Optimisation: Site Architecture Buy Clothes online Home Page Buy Jackets online Jackets Buy t-shirts online T-shirts Buy jeans online Jeans Buy red leather jacket online Product Buy navy blue blazer online Product Buy sports jacket online Product Copyright of Blue Magnet Digital Twitter: @GillianMeier 7
Category Pages: Make Yours Better! Everyone s Category Pages Your Category Pages Boring Bland Offers nothing new Unique Better chance to Rank Offers Value Copyright of Blue Magnet Digital Twitter: @GillianMeier 8
Product Pages: Make Yours Better! The Essentials: Big Beautiful Images Social Sharing Buttons Unique Descriptions Include Benefits/Features MASSIVE ADD TO CART BUTTON Related Products Reviews Copyright of Blue Magnet Digital Twitter: @GillianMeier 9
Schema Mark-up: Structured Data Rich Snippets 30% increase in traffic with rich snippets Indicates the health of a site Takes up more space on search Schema.org Markup Marking up for the wrong thing can negatively impact CTR. Copyright of Blue Magnet Digital Twitter: @GillianMeier 10
Speed unless you building websites. Then Speed is EVERYTHING! Copyright of Blue Magnet Digital Twitter: @GillianMeier 11
Speed (Rated Top Ranking Metric) For every 100ms increase in load time of Amazon.com sales decreased by 1% (Kohavi and Longbotham 2007) Pingdom Speed Test Copyright of Blue Magnet Digital Twitter: @GillianMeier 12
Duplicate Content: Canonicalization ( original ) <link rel="canonical" href= www.myshop.com/category/product" /> Tells Google that the page is a duplicate version of another page. Passes Authority to the original page Copyright of Blue Magnet Digital Twitter: @GillianMeier 13
Secure HTTPS: Better for the user / Better for Google We're starting to use HTTPS as a ranking signal. - Google We encourage all website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS to keep everyone safe on the web. - Google Copyright of Blue Magnet Digital Twitter: @GillianMeier 14
Off-Page Signals Just get people talking about you on RELEVANT platforms. Copyright of Blue Magnet Digital Twitter: @GillianMeier 15
#1 Tip from Google s Matt Cutts.??? Gillian Meier & Matt Cutts (Head of Google s Web Spam Team) at SMX 14, Seattle Copyright of Blue Magnet Digital Twitter: @GillianMeier 16
Mobile Friendly: You have no choice! Copyright of Blue Magnet Digital Twitter: @GillianMeier 17
Final Thoughts Start with the basics and keep at it. Never Stop SEO is an on-going process. Always focus on your users first. Make sure your website is better than the rest. Test, test, test! Keep tabs on the latest trends. Enlist the help of Professionals. Copyright of Blue Magnet Digital Twitter: @GillianMeier 18
Thank you Gillian Meier CEO Blue Magnet Digital Solutions Email: Gillian@bluemagnet.co.za Switchboard: 011 064 5694 LinkedIn: http://za.linkedin.com/in/gillianmeier Twitter: @GillianMeier Twitter: @BlueMagnetSA Copyright of Blue Magnet Digital Twitter: @GillianMeier 19