So you’ve got a great website, fantastic products, and every social media account available up and running but you aren’t seeing as many sales as you anticipated does this sound familiar? Let’s take a look into how you can get your products found on page one of Google!
SEO can be a minefield and I recently spoke with Maddy Jones (More likely known to you as Maddy Shine) from Maddyshine.co.uk, the queen of SEO all about how you can help your business to become more visible online.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which I’m sure you have heard many times before. If you’re reading this blog post and this word fills you with dread, don’t worry. Maddy kindly broke this down in simple terms: It’s all about being seen more online. You want to be page one of Google, because let’s face it who looks further than page one unless you’re desperate?
Maddy uses a great phrase for SEO; Seeking Exciting Opportunities. This is a great way to look at it – but how?
1. How do people describe what you sell?
The number one way to start this process is by thinking about what people would search in Google to find your product. If you sell one or twenty products, you need to imagine you’re a potential customer and brainstorm what words or phrases you would search for to find your products. You may have similar products but are they all the same colour and size? They all need different keywords. You may have a multitude of products for all different occasions, they will all need different keywords!
Another way to look at this is by also brainstorming what other people may call your products. For example, if you sell swaddle blankets, you may search for this but would somebody else search for a baby blanket?
2. Brainstorm all the specifics
Once you’ve thought about the different words and phrases that people may use to search for your product it’s time to brainstorm every variation but in a clever way. Maddy shares with us that the longer the phrase, the more likely you are to get to page one, as it’s more specific.
To go a step further, think about if you’re delivering locally, could you add your town into the copy on your website so that if somebody’s searching for ‘Dried flowers London’ your website is automatically going to be picked out by Google and taken to the top of the page!
3. Check the popularity of your keywords
The next step in bringing SEO to fruition is to add the keywords to your website. Before you do it’s important to note that although keywords is a hugely popular term it doesn’t refer to just one word. Keywords should be thought of as phrases, so instead of ‘Toy’ you should be using ‘Children’s dinosaur toy’ etc.
4.How many keywords do you need?
Now you have a wonderful list of phrases for your customers to find your product. You might worry if you’re using too many. The answer is no, but be mindful that you can overuse them which is slightly different. An example of this would be if you only sell one product but it has different variations. You don’t just need to change the colour/size keyword. Instead, you should be adding in extra keywords that make it relevant to that individual type of product.
A clever way to differentiate this is by using alt text on the images. By using alt text you’re telling Google exactly what your image is, so if you have very similar images and products you can specifically tell Google what’s different about this image – if it’s the colour, the style, the print, etc.
As a side note, you should also look into optimising your images to the correct size so that they don’t slow your website down. To do this use a website called Tinyjpg, which is a free tool, and when you’ve resized the image upload it again to your website but make sure that you rename the image file with your keyword phrase for that exact product.
5. How often should you be checking the keywords you use?
If you’ve been inspired by this post, and by Maddy’s wise words, it’s a great time to get stuck in with your SEO but the real question is how often should you be checking that the keywords you’re using are still popular and still bringing customers to your products?
In an ideal world, Maddy recommends you work on your SEO regularly and consistently, just as you would work on your marketing plan consistently. Ideally, you should set some time aside every week – which I know may seem overwhelming.
This may not mean reviewing every single product and page every week. You can break it down or do an overhaul every quarter. By using the tools we’ve listed later in this post you can see what people were typing in to find your products and how well you’re doing in the rankings. You never know, one change to a keyword could bring a flurry of customers, so a small amount of time each week could be the difference between people finding your fantastic product or not.
6. What happens if you get lots of clicks but no sales?
So you’re getting lots of clicks and not as many sales? It may be that you’re simply not communicating the message of what you’re selling enough. Perhaps you have beautiful images and branding but the copy needs work. This is even more of an incentive to look at your SEO and find out what people really want to see when they’re looking for a certain product. As product sellers, you may always put photography and branding at the top of your list and SEO is a ‘nice thing to have’ but in order to have the full package, it’s imperative to look at SEO in the same way.
7. Do you really need your own website?
Do you need your own website? In a nutshell, yes! If you’re reading this today and you sell products, but only on Etsy, Amazon, or any other third-party marketplace then you should really be thinking about your own website. When you sell through these platforms, they may help with SEO but you’re also helping them and competing with their algorithm which in the long run doesn’t help you out.
Having your own space to use your own branded colours, your own formatting, and your tone of voice shows that you are an established business and we all know that people like to buy from people.
When you have your own website you also have the chance to have a blog and a blog brings a whole new SEO card to the table. When you have a blog you are refreshing your content constantly, letting Google know you are active, and most importantly talking to your customers in a friendly and approachable way. You have the opportunity to tell your story and also repurpose blog posts into social media content and email marketing that is all so important to your business.
8. Which tools and apps can help you with your SEO?
Don’t fret, you don’t need to do all of this hard work on your own! Luckily today we have access to a multitude of apps that you can use to see how many people on average per month are using your phrase in Google and here are some of Maddy’s favourites:
Keywords everywhere: This is a Google Chrome browser extension that works alongside any website you are visiting. Therefore when you’re on your own website it will show you an approximate search volume which you can also use when you are researching or looking at other websites which will, in turn, give you more ideas.
SEO Edge (iPhone) and SERPMojo (Android): With these apps, you can add in keywords and they will tell you the position on Google so you can look at which words you want to use in your content in order for it to be popular.
Yoast (For WordPress websites): Once you’ve installed Yoast on your website the handy tool will help you to optimise any copy by using a traffic light system of Green, Yellow, and Red to show you what needs improvement or if your SEO looks good.
SEMRush: This tool has a free version that will review your website and highlight anything you miss without having to spend money on hiring somebody or using a paid tool.
In Summary
To master SEO the key things you need to be doing are:
Brainstorming keywords/phrases that relate to your products
- Use a tool to check these and perhaps identify new ones
- Add these keywords and phrases to your website
- Review and update regularly
- Block out regular times in your diary to reevaluate your SEO and look for even more opportunities.
I hope this helps you on your journey to better your SEO. If you want to take it one step further, then download Maddy’s free guide to tell Google you exist right here. You’ll then receive plenty of tips on how to up your game. You can follow Maddy Shine on Instagram here.