Hello dear readers! We continue a series of articles on creating your own online store. I sincerely hope that these articles will help you. In this article, we will try to uncover many secrets that attract traffic to your online store with high conversion and low frequency without much effort. In general, we will focus on the optimization and promotion of an online store.
Although this article is an instruction, almost every case is different from each other, so you need to be careful when performing any actions so as not to worsen the situation.
Next, you will learn about those things that you need to do on your online store, as well as what you should not do in any case.
What will you get after using these improvements on the website of the online store:
- Good relation of search engines to your site;
- Simplified promotion of your site;
- Increase traffic with low frequency;
- There are many other benefits that you will learn later.
Why optimization is needed and what it is
A lot of people do not take into account that before you start promoting your site, and whether it is an online store or any other site, it is very important to do some work that is related to internal optimization. This work will save you a lot of time as well as money in regards to future outward promotion.
In addition, internal site optimization will make it very easy and quick to raise low-frequency queries to the top positions of search engines, which are often the names of your store’s products (for example: “acer tt pc 1650px buy”).
Optimization within the site and work with it
In this paragraph, we will analyze the overall work with the site in order to simplify its indexing, as well as identifying Google and Yandex search engines. This is what is meant by work with internal optimization. We will consider both the optimization of the entire site and its individual pages.
Now imagine that you have an online store website (you just made it) and you have not even had time to fill it with goods. Below we describe a list of actions that will need to be done immediately after creating the site.
Taking into account the fact that a site, in particular an online store, often consists of thousands or even thousands of pages, you need to start promoting each page wisely and implement a high-quality selection of keywords. Before starting work, let's determine which of the pages need to be optimized and what type of query to choose for each of them?
Query optimization and its distribution by page type
Requests with a high frequency
These requests are the most popular.
For example: "Buy a car."
With the help of these queries, the main page of the site is optimized. This is necessary to attract the maximum amount of traffic for this request. Of course, you do not need to wait for the result immediately, but later you will see that it is worth it.
In simple words, the main task of this item is to optimize the main page of the store for a request that maximally covers the audience of your store.
For example, you sell bags and the main page of the site will be “Name of the store - buy a bag in Moscow”. You can sometimes skip this and do “The name of the store is an online bag store in Moscow”, but only if you can assign the high-frequency query “Buy a bag” to a specific category.
Pros:
- Attracting high-frequency traffic;
- Increase in attendance.
Minuses:
- Very often, traffic with a high frequency does not attract buyers as well as with a low frequency;
- The high cost of promotion, which in rare cases justifies itself and gives the desired result. But still worth using.
- Requests with an average frequency
For example: "buy a men's bag."
Requests with an average frequency have a narrower focus than high-frequency ones. They have the best conversion of real buyers from traffic. Such queries use pages with product categories.
Pros:
- Easier to unwind;
- Easier conversion into store customers due to relatively narrow focus;
Minuses:
- Despite all the advantages, the conversion of this type of requests is not enough.
Requests with a low frequency
For example: "buy a Calvin Klein women's bag in Moscow."
Even better, if the request for a Calvin Klein bag is for a specific model. Such headings should be provided with subcategories or the product card itself. You should pay special attention to this particular type of request, because such requests are used only by people who intend to purchase exactly what they are looking for. Website promotion should start with their help. The cost of attracting such clients is very small and the cost recovery will be very fast.
Pros:
- Very good conversion. The most targeted buyers;
- Low cost of promotion through linking.
Minuses:
- If the store is very voluminous, then it is very difficult to make the desired list of queries (semantic core).
Semantic core
At this stage, you will need to match the list of words with which you will further promote the online store. Keywords should be chosen from the most popular ones in order to capture more traffic. You can watch them using the service from Yandex . It is impossible to fully disclose the process of collecting the semantic core in one sentence, so there will be a separate article on this topic.
In short, this process is about collecting queries that can find your site.
For example, you sell bags in your online store.
You go to Yandex Wordstat, select your city or country (if you sell throughout Russia) and enter a query into the line, for example, “buy a bag” or “bag store”.
As a result, you see a lot of requests that you need. Open each of them in a separate tab and see even more requests. On the right side of the column are similar queries that may also be useful to you. You copy all these queries into an Excel spreadsheet file. Limit them to a lower bar of 20 requests per month (the number opposite each request).
You also collect requests for individual products of your online store.
When all the requests have been collected, you need to sit down and clean the table from unnecessary requests and divide the necessary ones into groups. After you have groups of requests ready, you can distribute requests across the pages of your site and optimize the pages for them.
The collection of the semantic core must be approached with great responsibility. Collect only those keywords that will give you sales! Remove requests with the words "free", "freebie", etc. This is necessary not only to optimize the site pages, but also to set up contextual advertising in Yandex Direct and Google Adwords .
Site structuring
When designing your site, be sure to consider its structuring. Here is an article about the structure of an online store . There is a “three clicks” rule for this. It lies in the fact that any element of the site, whether it be a product, page or section, must be located 3 clicks from any place in the online store, regardless of where the user is. I highly recommend doing it, because it helps a lot with internal optimization. It also enhances a certain confidence of the buyer, because, having entered the site, the user does not face the problems of finding the right product.
- You don't need to create many product subcategories. Ideal scheme: "Start (main) page" ->; "Categories of goods" ->; "Page of the product itself" ;
- You need to structure your online store for people, not for search engines;
- Create a sitemap - sitemap.xml. It is needed for search robots, it dramatically simplifies indexing.
Human understandable URL (CNC)
Which URL do you prefer?
– your site .ru/technika/smartphones/iphone_6s
– your site .ru/products/prod_id=22
I think there is no need to explain that the first link is more readable than the second. Also, links such as the first one are better indexed in search engines, because they already know what is where.
Human-readable URLs are very useful for the store, as they are more human-readable and search engines recognize them better.
About the "Title" tag
The title tag is almost the first thing that search engines pay attention to. Almost every site content management system has the ability to edit the title of the page. This is done in the CMS admin panel.
- This tag must be unique throughout the site;
- It must contain the exact occurrence of the keyword (phrase).
The title is simply obligatory and it is for it that you distribute the semantic core. For example, if you have a request "buy a men's bag" , then the title of the category page with men's bags will be "Buy a men's bag in Moscow" (if you are not tied to a city, then do not indicate its name).
Description tag
This is a short description of your page, which comes immediately after the title (title) in the search results. It must also be compiled for the request of the title + additional requests.
Example:
To the title "Buy a men's bag in Moscow" you can make Description "Buy a men's bag in Moscow. Catalog of men's bags made of natural and artificial leather in the online store ... ".
"Breadcrumbs"
They are the buyer's way back to the main page.
For example:
Electronics –> Computers and Peripherals –> Tablet PC –> Samsung GT-P3110 Galaxy.
This block is usually located under the menu of the online store and looks like this:
Linking
When optimizing, be sure to use relinking. It allows you to link different store pages to each other. For example: "similar products", "recently you looked", "also buy" and so on.
- Increasing the number of sales due to competent offers for the purchase of similar products;
- This needs to be taken very seriously. No need to produce unnecessary results in linking. This can have a bad effect on the behavior of people on the site, sales, etc.
Images
Any picture on the site has some tags that contain information that search engines use to determine whether they belong to this topic.
Alt tag. Here you need to briefly write down what is displayed in the picture or its name. Use keywords in the description!
The TITLE tag is optional, unlike ALT, but you shouldn't leave it empty.
If you take image optimization seriously, you can get traffic from image searches.
Responsibly approach the images on the site. You must show your product from all sides. A beautiful product photo can increase sales by several times. Checked! After we changed the photos of the products to more professional ones, the sales increased.
Website text
Never upload images or texts to your site if they are already located somewhere on another service or online store. Only unique texts should be used. In the case when a very voluminous assortment is worth adding goods slowly, gradually. Only that the images were not "stolen".
- Search engines are very positive about unique texts and images;
- Never leave a page without a product description. Never!
Take the text seriously. In the product description, you don’t need much, a maximum of 200-500 characters with 1-3 keywords for which you are promoting the page. In the online store, they don’t quite like to read, here they pay more attention to the product itself, which means to photos and videos.
Text size for pages:
The text should be divided into paragraphs, possibly separated by pictures, so that it is pleasant and convenient to read it.
Subtitles and headings
Almost any text should have subheadings and headings. When writing any text, you will be faced with the fact that you will need to prepare a heading for the text, as well as subheadings. It is very important to use the main keyword in the title.
The h1 tag (main heading) should be the only one on the page. It should be similar to the Title on the page, but may not be the same.
It is advisable to use keywords in subheadings.
Articles in the online store
If you consider only optimization within your online store, then various articles about products will help you attract the right traffic using the keywords that are indicated in the article. In addition, the buyer, who will look for a description or review of the product, will be able to go to your store and buy this product.
Pros:
- You need to constantly update the content, because this is well reflected in the ranking of the store in the search results;
- High conversion of buyers from articles.
Minuses:
- Waste of time and money. ## Common Mistakes in Optimization
Internal optimization should be moderate, because you can overdo it with it, and this will not affect the site in a good way.
What is NOT RECOMMENDED to do:
– Apply page re-optimization. An example of a re-optimization about "leather chairs":
“If you need to buy leather chairs, call our company because we have been selling leather chairs for 15 years. Our leather chairs are the best.”
Such text will immediately fall into the ban of search engines. Too many repetitions of a keyword for a small amount of text. After a while, for this, the search engines will tell you “Goodbye!”
An example of optimization for a specific query
After all the above theory, let's move on to a practical example. This will solidify your knowledge and help you better understand the internal optimization process. Imagine that you have an online store of toasters and you need to do internal optimization of one page of the site. It's a product page.
For example, you are selling a kitchen toaster GHOTEM SASUOLO MH55 3200 GTXN.
The name of this toaster is a low-frequency request. Next, we will analyze what needs to be done for optimal independent work to promote this page:
1) Optimize your TITLE according to the request.
Toaster GHOTEM SASUOLO MH55 3200 GTXN buy in St. Petersburg: description, photos, price.2) Working with CNC.
http://your site .net/kuhonnaya_tehnika/ghotem_sasuolo_mh55_3200_gtxn/
3) Different heading levels (h1,h2,h3):
H1: GHOTEM SASUOLO MH55 3200 GTXN
H2/H3: Description GHOTEM SASUOLO MH55 3200 GTXN
4) "Breadcrumbs":
Categories -> Household Appliances -> Toasters -> GHOTEM Toasters -> GHOTEM SASUOLO MH55 3200 GTXN
5) DESCRIPTION
6) Linking inside the store. You need to link links from other products to the page with this toaster. For example, in the item "Similar products" along with similar toasters.
7) ALT and TITLE in product images.
For example:
<img alt=”GHOTEM SASUOLO MH55 3200 GTXN photo”
title = “Photo GHOTEM SASUOLO MH55 3200 GTXN”
8) The description of the product must contain the exact occurrence of the key:
“The GHOTEM SASUOLO MH55 3200 GTXN toaster is one of the best toasters produced in 2015…”
9) The ideal option would be to have a review of this product with videos, pictures, etc.
Note! It may seem to you that you will not be able to do all these steps with every product, but I assure you that in reality there will not be as much work as it might seem at first glance.
Your actions to optimize the online store
1) The main point is the compilation of the semantic core.
2) Uniform distribution of requests on pages.
3) Each page should be internally optimized.
4) After that, requests with a low frequency will be higher in the issue.
5) Next, you will need to pay attention to requests with an average frequency, since you are already fine with a low frequency.
6) After the mid-frequency requests are processed, you can start working with high-frequency requests that bring a lot of traffic.
7) Constantly improve your online store site based on statistics. You need to make your site more user-friendly for your visitors.
This strategy is designed for approximately the first year of operation.
But that's not all!
Now a few more important points in optimizing and promoting an online store!
Nice design and easy navigation
It is necessary! You must make and constantly refine the site for people. It should be convenient and comfortable for visitors to be on it and look for something. If they quickly find the information they need, navigate the site, then you will have good behavioral factors! Namely, user behavior (behavioral factors) now more than ever has a better effect on your positions in search engines. Therefore, the convenience for users should be given maximum attention!
I would also like to voice the recommendations of one of the seo specialists here:
You must understand that the buyer makes a decision to purchase a product within 15-30 seconds. The buyer is more likely to be looking for something specific. He already knows what he wants to buy. Moreover, it is not rare that he knows how much it costs. Therefore, the 2 main elements that your IM should have are “PRICE” and “ORDER BUTTON”.
The buyer on the store website always wants to see the price. And if this price suits him, then he immediately wants to place an order. If the buyer does not buy your product now, then most likely he will never buy it (he will go to another).
Therefore, on the product page, the “Price” is placed next to the “Order Button”.
Mobile version
Your site must have a mobile version or responsive design. Every month, the growth of Internet users from mobile devices is gaining momentum. I often monitor the statistics of all my sites and almost half of the users access them from mobile devices. And this is a significant part of the traffic.
If you do not adapt the site to mobile devices, then you can lose about half of your visitors and customers.
To be continued
That seems to be all the main points in optimizing the site of your online store. After all this is done, you can start promoting your online store. To do this, read the article on how to promote and promote an online store on your own .
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