5 SEO Tips for Retail Websites

An online retail store contains products from various or niche manufacturers. A retail website can sell anything from toys, books, furniture, bags or perfumes. The best example of a retail website is Amazon, which lets you purchase almost anything under the sun. In order to generate leads, you need to drive quality traffic to the website. Search engine optimization is the most commonly used technique to drive traffic to the website. It is also the technique many webmasters are ignorant about. If misused, your website can get banned in the search engines.

Five SEO Tips for Retail Websites

1. Target Niche Keywords: Quality traffic is defined as the visitors who are genuinely interested in the websites content. You can draw quality visitors to the website by targeting niche keywords. Lack of knowledge about SEO can be detrimental to this basic step of search engine optimization. Your target should be to analyze keywords from your niche and select the ones which are a perfect blend of competitiveness and popularity. Fiercely competitive keywords take over a year to rank. Thus, you should work on ranking well for several long tail keywords.
2. Generate SEO Friendly URL’s: A retail website is bound to contain several hundred pages. With addition of various products, this number is going to increase. A Dynamic website is developed using a programming language whose URLs contain session ids. This kind of URL structure is not SEO friendly as the searchbots ignore them. Do not use special characters in the website URL except hyphen. Also, keep the URL structure common throughout the website.
3. Add Fresh Content: Search engines love websites which get updated regularly. Webmasters have a good scope of adding a variety of non repetitive content to the retail websites. Content can be added in the form of product description, comparison with other products and consumer reviews. You need to ensure that the content doesn’t get repeated in the website. Do not stuff the content with keywords. A keyword should be distributed in the content 3-4 times at relevant places. Always write for the visitor and not for the search engines.
4. Optimize the Images: Image optimization if a part of the on page optimization strategy. A retail website is full of product images which the search engine cannot read. You can use the alt attribute in the image tag and input relevant text. For e.g., if the product image consists of a Harry Potter book, the alt tag can read, Harry Potter- the Sorcerer’s Stone. Instead of reading a blank space, the search engines will encounter the above text. With thousands of images, image optimization is absolutely necessary for a retail website.
5. Optimize PDF Files: It is common practice on a retail website to offer a product catalogue in the PDF format. If optimized well, a PDF file can rank faster than an html page. An image based PDF file is like an image to the search engines, who don’t read them. In order to rank well in search engines, text based PDF creators are more useful than the Image based PDF creators. You should always fill the document properties of a PDF file, especially the title. Lastly, keep the size of the PDF file to the minimum. This will ensure quick loading of the file.

All the SEO techniques applicable to a normal website can be used for a retail website. This includes off page optimization activities like link building and search engine marketing. A well optimized retail website not only increases the ROI but also enhances the user experience.

@Gagliassoblog

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PPC Management

Quality Score:

It looks at a variety of factors to measure how relevant your keyword is to your ad text and to a user’s search query.

The best way to improve your keywords' Quality Scores is by optimizing your account. This entails making sure that each of your ad groups contains descriptive ads all advertising the same product or service, and that each keyword in the ad group closely relates to the ads.

Optimization means taking steps to get the results you want by improving the quality and performance of your account – without raising costs.

Optimization strategies:

1. Identify your advertising goals:

I want to get more clicks,

I want to increase my clickthrough rate (CTR),

want to improve my return on investment (ROI)

2. Organize your account for maximum effectiveness:

Organize your campaigns by topic,

Target the right languages and locations,

Create highly specific ad groups,

Avoid duplicate keywords across ad groups.

3. Choose relevant keywords and placements:

Choose your keywords carefully,

Take advantage of keyword matching options,

Use placement-targeted campaigns,

Choose your placements carefully.

4. Create straightforward, targeted ads:

Include keywords in your ad text (for keyword-targeted ads),

Create simple, enticing ads,

Use a strong call-to-action,

Test multiple ads in each ad group.

5. Optimize your website for conversions:

Point users to the right landing page,

Evaluate your site design,

Test your way to effective site content,

Keep the user experience in mind.

6. Track your account performance:

Check your account statistics,

Set up custom alerts, reate reports,

Use web analytics.

7. Test and modify your campaigns to get the results you want:

Evaluate your campaign performance and make changes as necessary,

Try different bidding options.

How is an AdWords account structured?

Here are three levels to a Google AdWords account: account, campaign, and ad group. The diagram below shows the account structure and the settings that are applied at each level. In summary:

What are keyword matching options?

1. Broad Match:

2. Phrase Match

3. Exact Match

4. Negative Match

Determining cost per click

There are two primary models for determining cost per click: flat-rate and bid-based

1. Flat- rate PPC: In the flat-rate model, the advertiser and publisher agree upon a fixed amount that will be paid for each click.

2. Bid-based PPC: In the bid-based model, the advertiser signs a contract that allows them to compete against other advertisers in a private auction hosted by a publisher or, more commonly, an advertising network.

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