Search Engine Optimization For Retailers

Organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is probably one of the most undervalued online marketing tools available for fashion brands and retailers. If you are selling your product on the website, you need to invest to invest in Organic SEO. Before your hire an SEO firm, do your homework and check their online work.Also, take time to better understand Organic SEO and what it involves. Below are the most common terms:#1: Keywords in Page Content – Your web site copy is the most important element in terms of keyword targeting for search engine optimization. When adding content to your web site, ensure it contains the groups of keywords that you want people to find you by. Identify the most important three to four keywords for your market and location, then focus on those as opposed to trying encompass a wider range of search phrases. Target these keywords by making them into text links or emphasize them with text formatting such as bold, italics, underline or a larger font. Don’t overload keywords, you don’t need to rank for hundreds of terms, just the ones that are most important.Try to use popular keywords that are more likely to be used by potential visitors on search engines. Grouping a range of keywords together is better than individual words. Avoid common words like ‘or’, ‘and’, ‘with’…etc, as these are ignored by search engines. Keywords placed at the top of the page are scored higher than lower down. Update your content regularly to ensure they’re crawled more often by search engines. Your home page (the first page someone sees when they go to your domain) is the most important of your site. This is why photo-only or flash entrance pages are a BAD IDEA, as they don’t provide the amount of content exposure you would get with a regular content page.#2: Domain Name Considerations – Domain names that contain one of your target keywords will have an impact on search engine rankings. Domains that are registered for multiple years or have been registered for at least two years will score better than a newly registered domain that is set to expire in one year.Example: Your company’s name is Jenna Smith Designs and you design denim, you bought the URL http://www.jennadesigns.com. That is great, but a better URL is http://www.JennaDesignsDenim.com. You already then have a crucial word in your URL.#3: Meta Tags - Although site copy is most important, ensure you have also filled out your Title, Description and Keyword meta tags and that they not only identify your target market, but also include information relevant to that page. Your title tag is the most important. Keep it short (about 10-60 characters) and prioritize keyword placement in the order of importance#4: Internal Links – When linking to internal pages, don’t link words like ‘Click here’. You should always link text that identify keywords you are trying to target for search engines. Check regularly to ensure there are no broken links.#5: External / Outbound Links – Linking to quality web sites will score higher than those with low rankings. Inspect outbound links regularly to ensure none are broken. For those of you with Blogrolls – avoid having more than 100 links on a page to avoid being flagged as a linking farm.#6: Inbound Links (backlinks) - Try to obtain quality backlinks. As with outbound links, those web sites with higher page ranks will give you a higher score than if a lower-ranked or link farm site were to link to you. Increase your backlinks gradually over time. A sudden high increase of backlinks all at once has the potential to flag your website for spam. Aged backlinks (those established for longer than 1-3 months) will improve your ranking more than new or temporary backlinks.If you’re considering hiring an SEO firm, you must commit for a minimum of six months to recieve a positive return on investment, you will see some results with the first few months, depending on the terms you are ranking for. A quality campaign starts at six to nine months long. I don’t believe in relying on PPC as the only form of search marketing and in 80% of campaigns, organic SEO has replaced very pricey PPC.Go to FashionablyMarketing.Me for more SEO tips!

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