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SEO Tools E-commerce Businesses Need

Posted by Helmut BerieJuly 20, 2015eCommerce, SEO

There are hundreds of SEO tools to choose from, but every business should start with two basics: Google Analytics (GA) and Webmaster Tools (WMT).

For baseline measurement of your site traffic and SEO performance, not only should you have a GA account, along with Google and Bing WMT accounts, but you need to ensure they are set up correctly. They will provide valuable insight on your site’s performance and monitor the factors that affect your site’s SEO.

This blog covers offers tips on getting the most out of GA and WMT, as well as suggests third-party tools that are helpful to improve your SEO. This is part of our blog series on SEO.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics (GA) offers all the basic knowledge you need to track your site traffic and evaluate factors that affect your SEO. When set up properly, GA provides analytics on:

Search Traffic – amount and quality of traffic coming from search engines, including visitor demographics and how they found your site
Keyword Effectiveness – which keywords are driving traffic and conversions
Content Performance – which site pages and landing pages are driving the most traffic
Sales and Conversions – which search results and pages users click on that result in a sale
Engagement Metrics – which parts of your site have the best/worst engagement metrics
Rich Segmentation of Traffic – specific segmentation of metrics (e.g. segmenting metrics by device type)

To get the most out of your GA reports, Google offers a setup checklist that includes steps for installing a tracking code, identifying goals for what you want to track, linking to AdWords and/or AdSense, optimizing keywords, and tracking e-commerce performance against keywords and marketing campaigns.

There are a number of common mistakes made with GA setup that can significantly skew your results – and therefore, the quality of the data you’re using. For Google Analytics to be effective, you need to make sure you filter out fake traffic from botnets and avoid using too many profile filters. Also, it’s a good idea to use other analytics tools to double check your GA numbers. For more on common mistakes to avoid when setting up Google Analytics, watch this SLI recorded webinar.

Webmaster Tools

Webmaster Tools are both Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. Webmaster Tools (WMTs) provide you with important information needed to monitor factors that will influence your site’s SEO. WMTs go beyond Google Analytics to provide insight on how your site is viewed by search engines. It will notify you of broken links, crawl errors, HTML errors and other potential problems. You’ll most likely want to set up Google Search Console first. With recent changes to traffic distribution, however, Bing’s Webmaster Tools (showing data for both Bing and Yahoo!) should not be ignored.

To decide which WMT to focus on first, check your GA statistics for insight into which organic search sources drive the most traffic to your specific site. Then set up your WMT account. SEO expert Bruce Clay has a free online newsletter that goes through the WMT set up process in detail. Or you can get yourself started with Google at www.google.com/webmasters/tools.

Once your analytics, Webmaster Tools, site pages and URLs are properly set up, it’s time to monitor, tweak and repeat on a regular basis. Your Webmaster Tools will become your best friend, as they offer insight into how you can increase the positive signals and reduce the negative signals that will affect your site’s SEO

Third-party SEO Tools

There are hundreds of third-party tools available to further improve your SEO. Take a look at a few of these resources to see what might work well for you. Also, don’t forget to look at what third-party tools your direct competitors are using – if they’re more successful than your site in SEO, it’s a good idea to know what they’re doing to get there.

Here are a few third-party SEO tools that are popular:

Moz, SEM Rush, Search Metrics: Several inexpensive, powerful tools that track your ranking of keywords over periods of time include Moz, SEM Rush and Search Metrics. These tools can also show you when a competitor started a campaign that targets your keywords.
SpyFu: For between $79 and $1,000 per month, SpyFu shows you your competitors’ most profitable keywords and ads. This offers insight into their success so you can build a strategy to beat them at it!
Screaming Frog: This low-cost tool crawls your site and provides an onsite SEO audit so you know where to improve SEO elements like URL, page title, meta description or duplicate page issues. Screaming Frog can also reveal issues with your site navigation and discoverability of content.The free version may be sufficient for spot checks. Make sure your site can sustain the load the tool might generate.
Google Instant Search: For an incredibly simple, free tool for keyword discovery, start typing a keyword into a Google search box to see which suggested, common search phrases pop up first. As an example, when you type “pants for,” you’re shown different suggestions than when you type “jeans for.”
Ubersuggest: Another easy-to-use tool for keyword generation, Ubersuggest.org is a free resource where you can plug in keywords, choose a language and source, and receive further keyword suggestions.

For more on improving your site’s SEO, please download our free white paper, “How to Get the SEO-driven Revenue You’re Missing.” Also take a look at SLI Systems’ solution for improving SEO, SLI Site Champion.

A Review of the Basics: SEO Terms & Principles

Posted by Dawn MortensenMay 28, 2015eCommerce, SEO

This is the first post of a blog series on how to improve SEO on your e-commerce site, so it makes sense to start with the basics: some main SEO terms and descriptions of various SEO disciplines. If SEO is what you do for a living, you’ll know these inside and out. But for those working in e-commerce with only partial SEO knowledge, this is a good place to start.

SEO Terms You Should Know

Bot – also referred to as a spider or crawler, a bot is a piece of software used to crawl your site. Internet search engines use them to gain an understanding of your entire site and its individual pages. There are desktop-specific and mobile-specific bots. Well-behaved bots identify themselves with a unique “user agent” string that is logged as part of the page request in your web server’s access logs.

SEO – search engine optimization – the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of the traffic that you earn through the organic results in Internet search engines. (Rand Fishkin, “What Is SEO,” Moz).

SERP – search engine results page – the page on which Internet search engines (e.g. Google, Bing, Yahoo!) show search results after a visitor submits a query.

Ranking Factors – there are many ranking factors that search engines consider to determine your SERP position, including basic document relevance (relevant terms, word count, proving words), number of backlinks, site speed, anchor texts in internal and external links, engagement signals (bounce rate, time on site, pages visited per session), support for mobile devices, domain authority, etc.

Index Size – the number of pages you have listed in Internet search engines. There are two index sizes – the number of pages an Internet search engine knows about and the number of pages it has actually crawled and can send its visitors to. The first number is significantly higher (in particular for e-commerce sites) than the second and can result in unfavorable “large index size” messages sent to your Webmaster Tools account.

Snippet/Rich Snippet – the listing shown on a search engine results page below the title is a snippet; other details added to the snippet (e.g. review stats, price, availability, etc.) make it a Rich Snippet. A Rich Snippet causes your listing to be larger and appear more predominant on the SERP. In addition, the larger your listing the further it pushes down your competitors’ listings and the more likely it is to catch the attention of a searcher.

Rich Snippet Markup (RSM) – code elements that are added to the HTML of the webpages showing product or other information. RSM allows the Internet web engine crawlers to better understand the information shown on the webpages. If the information on the page is well understood and the page itself is considered RSM-relevant, the search engine might honor this with a rich snippet on the SERP or it might improve the ranking of the page containing the RSM.

DA, or Domain Authority – this term was coined by Moz but is widely used in the SEO community. DA is the best prediction for how a website will perform in SEO rankings. It’s used to compare one site to another or to track the strength of your site over time. The collection of domain-level ranking factors determine a site’s domain authority.

PA, or Page Authority – this term was coined by Moz but is widely used in the SEO community. PA is a metric predicting how well a webpage will rank in Google’s search results for a particular search phrase. A collection of page-level ranking factors determine a site’s page authority. The same page will have different PAs depending on the search phrase for which the page ranks.

Penguin / Panda / Hummingbird / Pigeon – a series of major algorithm updates from Google focusing on different aspects of ranking webpages.

Penguin focused on identifying and rewarding sites with a high number of legitimate inbound site links, while also identifying and penalizing sites with spammy “black hat” inbound links.
Panda focused on interpreting which content is of high quality. It allows Google to reward pages that have highly relevant content and penalize those that use black hat practices such as content spinning or keyword-stuffing to try to give a higher SERP ranking to irrelevant content.
Hummingbird focused on measuring the semantic relevance of webpage content in relationship to search queries. It focused on “intent” and not so much on exact keyword matching. It is less about what searchers are asking for and more about what they actually want.
Pigeon focused on identifying localized content and giving higher rankings to localized content searched for from a corresponding region.

Meta Description Tag – an HTML attribute that describes a webpage’s content and is frequently used on SERPs. A well-written meta description is important for gaining high clickthrough rates, as it sums up the information on the webpage. The meta description tag should be unique for each page on your site to improve its efficiency (Moz).

Title Tag – an HTML attribute often used on SERPs to provide an accurate and concise description of a page’s content. One popular format is to include the following three elements, in this order:

1) primary targeted keyword 2) secondary targeted keyword 3) | your brand name
Example: Fashion Jewelry | JewelsRUs

WMT, or Webmaster Tools – Google (Google Webmaster Tools – GWT) and Bing (Bing Webmaster Tools – BWT) provide tools that allow webmasters to check the performance of their sites, monitor any crawling and indexation issues, test certain aspects of their sites affecting indexation and apply configuration to the way the search engines treat site information. Understanding the information provided within WMT is crucial to understanding the performance of your site.

Types of SEO Activities

There are various SEO disciplines or activities, each of which has a number of significant subdisciplines. Here’s a brief summary of each discipline and how it may be used to improve SEO on e-commerce sites. Not all activities need to be executed all the time, but it is a good idea to consider these items as a checklist when working toward optimizing your website.

On-page and off-page SEO: On-page SEO is any activity, on individual pages or the entire site, which is completed in an effort to boost ranking in Internet search engines (e.g. optimizing h1 tags). Off-site SEO is not related to the site but will cause ranking improvements indirectly (e.g. link acquisition, brand management, etc.).

Technical SEO: This encompasses any activity performed to ensure the site is technically sound so that bots can crawl it efficiently and effectively. Technical SEO is mostly on-page SEO and excludes content creation.

Local and international SEO: Local SEO focuses on ensuring high rankings for searches with local intent. International SEO focuses on sites with multiple geographic locations and possibly different languages. The aim is for the site to rank well in each target market and to avoid duplicate content issues.

Content creation and marketing: This discipline focuses on identifying relevant topics, creating highly engaging site content and ensuring this content is reaching target audiences. Content creators should keep in mind that great content doesn’t always yield immediate SEO results. As an example, it can take years of quality blogging to establish a new site’s domain authority. Content must be created and marketed to reach its audiences and provide an SEO benefit.

Site analysis/audits: This includes looking at specific metrics to identify why your site or competitors’ sites are ranking or not ranking well for particular phrases or topics. Site audits also typically focus on technical SEO and link profiles.

Competitive analysis: This includes the practice of understanding why competitors’ websites rank well for particular phrases or topics. This information is valuable for identifying how you can rank higher than your competition. It might also help you understand the level of effort required to outrank your competition on particular phrases or topics.

Brand management: This is the practice of ensuring your own brand is perceived well in all target markets or market segments. The higher the brand awareness for your business, the stronger your domain authority.

Come Back for More

Return to this blog in the coming weeks to learn specific ways you can use SEO to increase your e-commerce revenue. Also listen to our recent Webinar: How to Get the SEO-driven Revenue You’re Missing.

The 2015 Guide for Improving E-commerce SEO

Posted by Dawn MortensenMay 18, 2015eCommerce, SEO

As a retail executive or e-commerce professional, your goal is to produce more revenue. You want site traffic that is high in quantity, but also in quality – you need it to convert.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is just one practice out of many in your tool belt. Unless SEO is your full-time job, it’s nearly impossible for you to fully keep up with the details of constant algorithm updates that affect your site’s rankings, like the recent mobile-friendly updates from Google and Bing (a.k.a. “mobilegeddon”).

Plus, it can be difficult to know which SEO-related activities can drive more revenue without causing damage to your site’s rankings.

To help, I’d like to present our new SLI Systems white paper, How to Get the SEO-driven Revenue You’re Missing.

The easy-to-use 22-page guide will help you identify what’s possible with SEO and start on the path to improvement. Whether you have an in-house expert, use an outside agency or need to learn how to do basic SEO on your own, this paper will help you know where you want to go with SEO and outline the main steps to get there. Topics covered include:

Why you need to pay attention to the changing SEO landscape
A review of the basics: Top SEO principles
Two SEO tools you need to set up correctly before doing anything else
Six steps to improving the SEO of your e-commerce site
Major SEO “no-no’s” that can damage your site’s reputation
New streams of SEO-driven revenue most retailers miss out on
How user-generated SEO increases traffic and conversions without negative SEO

At SLI Systems, our search and SEO experts continually monitor and improve the on-site search of more than 1,000 client sites in the e-commerce industry. With more than a dozen years in business, we have gained unique insight into SEO best practices and opportunities, and we’re happy to share them with you.

Enjoy our new white paper now, and stay tuned to this blog for more articles on the topic of SEO in e-commerce.

After Mobilegeddon, Focus on Site Search for Mobile-Friendliness

Posted by Shaun RyanApril 30, 2015eCommerce, Mobile, Mobile/Tablets, SEO, Site Search

Mobile commerce is exploding! The majority of traffic to e-commerce stores is coming from mobile devices (Shopify 2014) and mobile commerce is growing three times faster than overall e-commerce. In its “Spotlight on Modern Retail 2015,” NRF found that during the first three quarters of 2014, retailers reported their mobile sales grew a whopping 87 percent!

Well aware of the growing mobile masses, on April 21^st Google expanded its mobile-friendliness ranking signal to reward mobile-friendly sites with higher search rankings and demote those that fail its test. (a.k.a. “mobilegeddon,”). While the full results are still to be seen, action by many online retailers is still needed. To guide developers, the search giant also provided them with the top things to know when building a site for mobile devices. Here’s how e-commerce site search fits in and can help contribute to your mobile success.

#1: Make It Easy

Google’s #1 recommendation for building a mobile-friendly site is: Make It Easy For Customers. Heavily contributing to the ‘mobile-friendly’ signal is whether or not visitors, after landing on a mobile page, can easily complete the tasks they want to accomplish by solely using the mobile site. For instance, when visitors using smartphones search for new running shoes on Sports Authority, the company’s mobile-friendly site helps them easily find and buy the shoes they want, which in turn will now help Sports Authority fare better in Google smartphone rankings.

Mobile-optimized site search helps retailers connect shoppers with the products they’re seeking, making it easy for mobile visitors to find, research and/or complete a purchase (their main objective). Given mobile’s space and speed challenges, the search box is the best gateway to finding products and content on mobile sites. That in turn has a big impact on engagement metrics such as conversion rates, bounce rates, average time on site, average pages requested per session and more, which affects its ‘mobile-friendly’ signal and mobile search ranking.

Helping site visitors easily complete their objectives now has a direct impact on mobile search rankings, making good site search more important than ever before.

#2: Measure Effectiveness

Google’s second recommendation for building a mobile-friendly site is: Measure The Effectiveness Of Your Site. Optimized site search is a vital part of delivering a satisfying shopping experience to mobile users as it helps visitors quickly and easily engage with the site – often increasing conversion rates and average order values, and lowering bounce rates. Leading e-commerce companies, including international cosmetics brand e.l.f. Cosmetics and specialty retailer WebUndies.com, have experienced impressive measured results with mobile-optimized site search.

Lesley Klein, director of e-commerce at e.l.f. Cosmetics, reported: “Conversion for mobile visitors using site search is four times the rate vs. mobile users who don’t use search. With 30% of our online traffic coming from mobile devices, we’re providing a seamless shopping experience no matter how or where people come to e.l.f.”

Terri Hunsinger, co-owner at WebUndies.com, found: “Mobile site search has been very effective in bringing 2,500 products to the forefront for customers who are trying to search on small devices where it can be difficult to see our broad product selection. People are spending more time and more money and are more engaged because of the accurate search results they are seeing.”

As with sites like e.l.f. and WebUndies.com, optimized mobile sites make it easy for customers to shop. Whether Mobilegeddon ends up significantly impacting SEO or not, your optimized mobile search will strongly contribute to better online shopping experiences and conversions.

For SEO, Check Off Mobile-Optimized Site Search (By Apr 21!)

Posted by Tim CallanMarch 23, 2015eCommerce, Mobile, Mobile/Tablets, SEO, Site Search

Now that more than half of all time spent shopping online is done via mobile devices, mobile commerce is growing three times faster than overall e-commerce. In its “Spotlight on Modern Retail 2015,” NRF found that during the first three quarters of 2014, retailers reported their mobile sales grew a whopping 87 percent!

To meet these quickly changing usage patterns, Google is again adapting its algorithms to help users discover more mobile-friendly content. On April 21, Google will expand its mobile-friendliness ranking signal to make it even easier for users to find ‘mobile-friendly’ websites in search results.

According to Google, “This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.” And if anyone wants to test mobile web pages, Google provides a handy tool: The Mobile Friendly Test.

Mobile-Optimized Site Search Boosts SEO

Heavily contributing to the ‘mobile-friendly’ signal will be whether or not visitors, after landing on a mobile page, can complete the tasks they wanted to accomplish by solely using the mobile site.

For instance, when visitors using tablets search for new running shoes on Sports Authority, the company’s mobile-friendly site helps them easily find and buy the shoes they want, which in turn will help Sports Authority fare better in Google rankings after the April 21 algorithm change.

Mobile site search is a vital part of delivering a satisfying shopping experience to mobile users as it helps visitors quickly and easily engage with the site. Given mobile’s space and speed challenges, the search box is the best gateway to finding products and content on mobile sites. That in turn has a big impact on engagement metrics such as conversion rate, bounce rate, average time on site, average pages requested per session and more, which has a direct domain-wide impact on its ‘mobile-friendly’ signal and mobile search ranking.

For a complete guide to providing mobile shoppers with a great user experience, download the new white paper Site Search and the Mobile User Experience.

Mobile 101 – New Webinar!

Join us on Tuesday, March 24 at 10:00 a.m. PDT for a new SLI Webinar, Mobile 101 – Best Practices, to learn more about how to convert mobile shoppers with an engaging mobile user experience (and in turn, boost your mobile search ranking!). Registration is open until 8 a.m. PDT on March 24, plus an on-demand version of the webinar will be available soon.

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