Ignorance is not bliss in online marketing. Common mistakes made by inexperienced business owners can result in poor sales largely because few people visit your website. Because? Because little to no effort has been invested in website search engine optimization, probably the most important aspect of having a website to date.
If you have a website, you probably know that where it shows up in daily Google searches can make or break you. If I’ve already lost you, let me explain. All Internet users today have particular interests, and at one point or another, they will type a short phrase into the Google search field to find websites that represent their interests. For example, if they have been invited to attend a baby shower, they might search the Internet using the phrase “baby shower gifts.” What happens next is critical to your website if you’re selling baby gifts. Page one of Google’s search results will display the most popular websites that offer baby gifts, mysteriously ranked by a Google algorithm that takes into account how much traffic a site is likely to receive, how many external links connect to this site, how relevant its domain name, page title, page description, and actual content is to the phrase being searched for, how “rich” or comprehensive that content might be, how often that content is updated, how many internal sites match the links to the search, as well as the compliance with a range of other search engine optimization parameters. .
While most people with a website have heard of search engine optimization, or SEO, most business owners I’ve worked with consider it a non-essential service designed to steal their valuable marketing funds for no apparent benefit. And it doesn’t help that your spam filters are flooded with emails daily from SEO “experts” promising you the top spot in Google rankings. I admit it gets a bit tedious and hard to swallow!
For that reason, I include SEO as part of my website design services, which eliminates any reason for my clients to get upset about their cost. In fact, it is with relief that they applaud this decision as they prefer to work with someone they trust. From my point of view, it gives me the opportunity to show them an improvement in their rankings, which in turn increases traffic and sales. Many of them say that I am a magician. But I know it’s just being aware of what Google is looking for.
A Big Reason Your Rankings May Be Suffering
If you’re part of an extremely common category of websites, like baby gifts, for example, the likelihood of your website appearing as the number one search result, not to mention even appearing on page one of the top twenty search results, is pretty remote. In fact, it wouldn’t be surprising if your website appeared on page 1,056 of all search results when you realize that a Google search for baby gifts just returned 24,200,000 results in 0.22 seconds.
Wow! That’s some steep competition! And which lucky website appears at the top of the list? I clicked on it and found it to be very well represented in the baby gift category, with many choices and many purchase options presented in a professional and attractive manner. I also found that it was hosted by Yahoo Stores, which probably provided some advanced and sophisticated functionality in terms of shopping cart performance, as well as advanced search engine optimization support.
This did not surprise me. As I have clients who have stores on eBay and Amazon, as well as an e-commerce website of their own using a great shopping cart powered by ShopSite, I am well aware that you can easily reap the benefits of relationships with these internet giants to improve your Google rankings. Whether the additional registrations I have made for all of my clients’ websites with Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics also contribute to excellent search rankings is not a confirmed fact, I would venture to say that if partnerships with Google do not positively affect their rankings, the knowledge gained from them certainly does!
My daily foray into visitor analytics for each and every one of my websites gives me a clear competitive advantage in understanding what affects visits, searches, rankings, and results. Also, each of the internet giants I’ve mentioned has a financial interest in the success of their stores by sharing a percentage of sales, charging listing fees, or charging a monthly shopping cart fee, all of which I find worthwhile! You definitely get what you pay for.
Of course, I can’t argue with the value of using PayPal as your store’s payment gateway, which allows you to use its wonderfully comprehensive functionality to accept credit cards for free. Years ago, some of my clients paid exorbitant monthly fees to banks for such services, many of which had poor performance and woefully weak back office support. It’s truly refreshing to have found some of today’s Internet giants to be easily accessible and wonderfully responsive to user needs!
And I might add that the latest leader of the pack, Google, offers incredible options in terms of a knowledge base on just about every possible subject, free of charge…yet it’s one of the richest companies in the cosmos.
What to do to improve your Google ranking
But back to her baby gift website and her less-than-stellar Google search rankings. What can you do to improve your ranking if you are competing with everyone? First, as I would recommend in any marketing effort, your ecommerce website would perform better in Google rankings if it appealed to a special segment of a market rather than an entire generic category worldwide. Rather than aiming for “gifts” or even “baby gifts,” it’s better to try to narrow the category down to describe a more unique aspect of baby gifts, thematically, geographically, or in some other way that makes your effort stand out from the rest. While you will still be competing with a host of other websites, if someone happens to be more specific in their search terms to include your specialty, your ranking in Google may be positively affected. Another useful strategy is to include a blog as part of your website because such content is updated more regularly and will attract the attention of Google. In general, while I still recommend being frugal with your marketing spend during this economic downturn, I urge you to make sure you’re promoting your website everywhere you can to increase traffic on your own. In addition to adding your website URL (www.yourwebsite.com) to every mode of marketing you use, including your email signature, business cards, letterheads, advertisements, newsletters, brochures, conversation networking opportunities, etc., it is also your responsibility to search the internet for the endless variety of sites that will include free listings about your business, such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yellow Pages, Yahoo and Google Free Local Listings, etc., as well as forums and blogs on appropriate topics. s where you can post comments, including links. return to your website.
When looking at your Google rankings, don’t put too much emphasis on your fear that maybe it’s your web designer’s fault for not having a facility for beautiful graphics because Google doesn’t even see the artwork on your website. And if you did, Google search rankings don’t care how innovative, eye-catching, appropriate, or tasteful your artwork might be, unfortunately. Rather, the search engine optimization techniques required for successful rankings are based more on strategies that, ironically, can serve to denigrate the aesthetics of a website if not controlled by a web designer who has a full understanding of what is necessary to achieve Google benchmarks while maintaining an understanding of what maintains professionalism and viewer appeal in website design.
Often when I do a Google search on a particular topic just to see what competition there may be for a client I’m working for, I’m disgusted by the look of some of the websites that have made it to the top of the search results lists because they clearly achieved their enviable position in the results for nothing to do with graphic design sophistication. However, their SEO specialists (if not the web owners themselves) have cracked Google’s code for ranking superiority simply by understanding what defines a properly optimized website, regardless of what it looks like. I often wonder if there is a certain bond between computer geeks that gives them a universal community that makes it very easy to master SEO voodoo unlike some of us who focus more on the importance of looks and brand excellence.
In any case, I’m happy to report that both aspects can coexist peacefully to the benefit of the website owner, who can enjoy a prominent presence at the top of search listings while winning the hearts of shoppers with the glamour, cunning and glitz that Google has completely missed.