SEO can be confusing but it doesn’t have to be. The basics of SEO are actually pretty easy to understand and if you give yourself to learn search engine optimization you’ll be able to sort fact from fiction and you’ll have the tools to delve into more advanced SEO concepts.

How to Approach SEO 

Search engine optimization is a subset of marketing. It can fit into your overall marketing plan and not be your marketing plan.

You can do everything wrong when it comes to SEO, never receive a single visitor from a search engine, and still have a very successful and profitable site.

If you take a step back and market yourself well some of the more difficult parts of SEO will take care of themselves. That’s not to
say you should ignore SEO, but most of us don’t need to obsess over every little detail. There are ton of factors that determine where a page will rank in search results. Obsessing over one of those factors doesn’t make sense. Try to see the big picture rather than stewing over one detail.

SEO is not a set it and forget proposition. It’s an iterative process. You do what you can, measure the results, and continue to improve. You can’t SEO a site in a day or month. As with marketing in general, SEO is never ending. It also changes daily and what works for one site may not work for another.

SEO can be generally categorized into 5 different areas:

• Keyword research
• Search engine friendly site development
• Analytics
• Link Building
• On-page SEO

Each of the above is important and they all work together. The whole s greater than the sum of the parts. Let’s talk about each of the above in more detail.

Keyword Research

Everyone would like their pages to rank #1. So…what is it to rank #1?  Not all keywords and keyword phrases are created equal. Some are typed into a search engine more often and some are more likely to lead to a sale. You don’t need to optimize for every possible keyword or phrase.

Say you sell real estate in Charleston, SC. You might think it important to rank well for the phrase “real estate,” but is it? Someone looking to buy property in Chicago or Los Angeles isn’t going to be interested in the homes you sell in Charleston. It is pointless to spend time and money trying to get those people to your site. You’d do much better to target phrases that include South Carolina and even better Charleston.

There are 3 types of queries someone might type into a search engine

Transactional queries – searching with an intent to purchase

Informational queries – searching for information from general to specific

Navigational queries – searching for a specific site or page

All three types of queries are important and each of them could ultimately lead to a sale. Someone finding helpful information on your site at one point may come back later and buy something. It is important to understand that what a person types into a search engine reveals something about their intent. Based on the searcher’s intent you may want different pages of your site ranking for different queries.

Developing a List of Keywords to Target

Brainstorming is the first step in developing good keywords. Write down as many words and phrases (50-100) as you can think of that relate to your site and understand that this is simply the start of your research.

As you brainstorm ask yourself: Do you only offer web design or do you also offer web development? You might specialize in
ecommerce design or small business web design. Maybe you also offer web hosting. Each of these will likely become a keyword theme around which you can build a more detailed list. The next step is to expand your list with some keyword tools.

Here are a few great tools:

• Google AdWords Keyword Tool
• SEO Book Keyword Tool
• WordTracker
• Keyword Discovery

There are also a variety of more advanced keyword research tools should you desire them.

Don’t worry about the absolute numbers with keyword tools. The numbers are estimates. Consider the numbers more in relative terms in comparison to each other. If all of the above tools show that more people search for web design than website design, it’s probably true.

A few tips about building keyword lists:

Find the words and phrases your customers use instead of industry jargon.

Look for synonyms – Similar to the above seek the words potential clients will use. You call it e-commerce. They might type ecommerce. Is it web design or website design?

Add qualifiers – Our Charleston SC real estate agent might add Charleston, South Carolina, or both to most every phrase. As a web designer your services might be affordable or professional. Optimizing for “professional web design services” also optimizes for “web design services”

Qualify your qualifiers – You might be tempted to add a qualifier like “free” since so many people use the word. However, someone searching for free anything isn’t looking to buy.

Look to your analytics package to see what phrases are currently bringing people to your site.

Search Engine Optimization

SEO, while capable of providing a valuable source of traffic, is still only one way to attract potential clients and customers to your site. Think of SEO as part of your marketing strategy instead of your whole marketing strategy

SEO is a process that can begin anywhere. Most of the time it will begin with keyword research, especially if you’ve yet to build your site or create the initial content. Keywords help you define who your market is and what that market is looking for. They’ll also lead the way when it comes to how you develop your site, what content you choose to create, and how that content is written.

Check out: The Ultimate Guide to Ecommerce SEO Pt 1

Default Settings

The main thing you need to do is go through all configuration points and change every single default setting. The default Magento installation is pretty useless when it comes to SEO. It has certain settings, but they are insufficient for proper search engine optimization and fighting competition.

You can’t leave the default settings as they are and you will still need to go through them and tune everything up before installing any third-party SEO extensions.

Changing URLs/Deleting Pages

If you change URLs or delete pages and don’t set up a proper redirect, it will cause more 404 mistakes on your website. Google says it’s okay to have some URLs returning 404 pages, but still they want you to fix them. Just go to System, then Configuration, then Catalog, and Create Permanent Redirect for old URLs. Its good to eliminate these as nothing scares a customer off more than a 404 message!

Image Optimization

Magento doesn’t change the name of the product image or add an alt tag so you will have to do this yourself if you want your images bring you passive traffic from search engines, and SEO friendly name tags. Try Extendware’s Image Optimization  extension to optimize your images and reduce their size without sacrificing image quality!

Default Descriptions

If you go to System, then Configuration, Design, HTML Head and finally Default description and enter it, Magento will put this description to all pages without a custom description. Remember that each of your pages is considered to be unique, including meta tags.

Translated Page URL’S

If your product is site.com/product.html for the English language, you should have different URLs for the same product in other languages as well. I learned that you have to change it for each language your store is geared towards. Make sure to do it on all pages too not just home page, which means all product pages!

Rich Snippets

Rich Snippets are a great way to have more exposure and attention without necessarily being in top 3. Results in Google with rich snippets have higher CTR and more clicks. Implementing rich data is pretty easy and should be only be made once.

rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x”

rel=”alternate” connects pages with the same content, but in different languages so don’t ignore it! You might even want to use another tool – “x-default hreflang” for international landing pages. Make sure to link translated pages with each other. It is usually done through country flags or links with language names’.

Layered Navigation/SEO Optimization

Leaving Magento layered navigation as the default or third-party, without tuning SEO settings is an important mistake which may lead to hundreds of pages with messy URLs and duplicate content. Check out Extendware’s Layered Navigation extension to increase sales by making your catalog more filterable, aesthetically appealing, and faster for your customers to find the products they want!

XML sitemap

To make sure all of your store pages are indexed and re indexed properly and fast, you will need to upgrade your XML sitemap. Make sure to check the content before submitting it to Google Webmaster Tools. Default Magento XML sitemap only includes products and category pages and doesn’t contain images.

Duplicate Issues

Ok so Magento is a culprit of duplicate content, which Google hates! Product Sorting can increase the effectiveness of your online product catalog and can increase your conversion rates. Sort products on your sales page by Best Sellers, Top Performers, Most Viewed, Number of Reviews, and more. Easily cascade your sorting options – such as always showing in stock items first. For more info check out Extendware’s Product Sorting extension.

Load Speed

Load speed on any website is an official Google ranking factor. An e-commerce store’s speed influences bounce rate and customer’s likeliness to return. Magento itself is very slow in terns of site speed and SEO. So it is recommended to use a cache service such as Extendware’s Full Page Cache extension. This will reduce your Magento store’s First Byte Time, increase your web server request rate, reduce database load, and make your store much more responsive!

All in all, Magento is a great platform for my business, but like anything, it takes time and investment in the right tools to make it run fast and efficient. For more tools that focus on SEO and performance, visit Extendware’s Performance Extensions. They are sure to help you like they did me!

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