Creative Business Challenge - 30 days to boost your business
A really serious health warning!
Please, please, please – read this page first before you start changing anything in your online shop or your website.
Not everything will apply to you and so you need to decide what does and what doesn’t.
We are now going to take on the big boys and we need to think smart and act clever. You are now entering the mystical world of search engine optimization and you need to tread carefully!
If you are not sure and need help, you are always welcome to ask in our private Facebook Group.
What do keywords actually do?
Great question! Why bother with these pesky things?
Here is why!
Keywords tell search engines what your product is all about. Search engines need to know, so that your customer can find you.
Unfortunately, a search engine doesn’t care about how beautifully you’ve made your product, that you have worked so hard to finish it and it took you so long that the kids had to eat beans on toast again. All they care about is the consistency of your keywords, original content and frequency of your keywords in your product description. If you get that right, you get in front of your customers who will care about your story, the wonderful details on your design and fantastic photos.
When a potential customer searches for a ‘handmade silver bracelet’ and that’s what you are selling, search engines match that search with the relevant results. The potential customer sees the result for their search and if yours look like the answer to their search, they click through and if everything else matches their expectation (beautiful photo, design, respectable seller, the right price) then they buy the product.
This is what’s called organic search and is by far the easiest way to market your product.
So, let’s dive in…
Titles
Your product title creates url for your product.
In most cases this happens automatically, so every time you change your title, you create a fresh url (and a new page). This sometimes also automatically creates your meta tags (these are the keywords that you research and search engines use for identifying your product). If you hover over your product open tab (right on the top of your screen) you will see them there. Depending on how your website or online shop works, you might need to insert meta tags separately.
The optimum url length should be about 70 characters. After that Google still reads it, but cuts off anything over 70 in the search results. This is not good….
If your url is too long it won’t be displayed properly and people can’t easily share it from your online shop or website via social media share buttons. It’s difficult to cut & paste or even to remember.
The url is the whole link, not just your title.
An example of a good url
http://www.wowthankyou.co.uk/the-chocolate-smiths/products/six-salted-caramel-truffles/
…and a not so good one
http://www.wowthankyou.co.uk/chicme/products/fridge-pickers-wear-big-knickers-wooden-funny-sign-plaque-chic-shabbyhome-plaque
Depending on your situation, the following applies
(just click on each tab to find out more)
I'm just starting out my new website or online shop and I have no other website/blog or online shop
That’s simple, go ahead research your keywords for your titles and your products and follow the best practice as outlined here.
Even if you do have a blog or other on-line presence, please don’t cut and paste your content. It all needs to be unique. If you set up your shop or website well, you will reap the benefits later and the rest of the online (and off-line) marketing will be much easier.
Your shop will work hard for you, even when you sleep…
I'm just setting up a new online shop, but I also have my own website and sell elsewhere
Not to worry, take this as a challenge and a way of expanding your reach on the world wide web!
Here is what to do:
- Research your keywords
- Make sure they are different from your existing product titles (e.g. the same product should have a different name)
Please don’t:
Cut & paste your descriptions, titles or keywords from your existing websites/platforms.
You are just duplicating your products and thinning down your impact across your online presence. The search engine is not going to know which version of your product is the ‘original’ and just to be on the safe side, it will push results for all your products down on all your websites/selling platforms. It will take a huge effort to bring it anywhere near top results organically and you will need to double your efforts to make it work.
Optimise your product page to strengthen your chances of being found by adding the same keyword (the whole product title, that is in your url) in your product description (2-3 times) and label the main photo with your title (keyword).
I have several different online shops and website and I'm selling regularly
Great!
Don’t touch your product title (because that usually changes the url structure), instead focus on optimising your products.
Products that sell (even slowly) should be left alone. Even when the keywords are not the best, somehow you’ve convinced the search engines that you are the real deal, so leave it for now.
But you should definitely strengthen your chances of being found by adding the same keyword (the whole product title, that is in your url) in your product description (2-3 times) and label the main photo with your title (keyword). Make sure your product description is at least 200-250 words.
When you are adding new products, research your keyword well and optimise your product description (more on that later…)
If you have a lot of products and are not to sure where to start, use your Google Analytics to determine the order in which you are going to tackle your work. Select the last 6 months to view (or more if you wish) and check which products get the most visits. Cross check this against your actual sales of each product. If you are getting plenty of views for a particular product and not getting the sales, prioritise those pages first.
The next step is to work on products that are regularly reaching search engines results page 2. Page 1 is about the first 10 search results, so if your product ranks on average between 10-20 in search results, that’s page 2. Again focus on products that are 10-15, because you have a better chance of improving their position than anything above that.
I've had my shop/website for a while, but sales are slow
Look at your keywords (titles) and check that the keywords you are using are the best ones you can. Start with the products that have never sold.
Products that sell (even slowly) should be left alone. Even when the keywords are not the best, somehow you’ve convinced the search engines that you are the real deal, so leave it for now.
But you should definitely strengthen your chances of being found by adding the same keyword (the whole product title, that is in your url) in your product description (2-3 times) and label the main photo with your title (keyword). It’s also worth updating the product with fresh photos.
When you are adding new products, research your keyword well and optimise your product description (more on that later…)
Keywords & Titles
Key Points
- Why unique url is so important
- How to optimise your page
- How to research your keywords
Take action now!
- Check which situation applies to you
- Review what you have
- Make a plan
- Research keywords for existing or new products
- Keep spare keywords for blog posts
- Optimise your product pages
– KEYWORD –
By keyword we mean the EXACT string of words. Plurals, singulars, misspelled words, slightly jumbled or swapped words in the same string of words is ALWAYS a different keyword.
KEYWORDS RESEARCH
What you want to end up with
Ideally you want 2-3 (maximum 4-5) words that best describe your product. This is called ‘long tail keyword’ and it’s perfect for shop item description. You need to be as descriptive and specific as you can. Avoid using just one word (too vague) or too many words (as explained above, this doesn’t get displaid properly and the search engine often registers just the first few words anyway).
Good examples:
Personalised Silver Bracelet
Handmade Silver Bracelet with Pearls
Personalised ‘Mother’s Day’ Gold Necklace
Not so good examples:
Bracelet
Gold Necklace
Silver Earrings
How to research your keywords
If you are worried about researching your keywords, just describe your product as best as you can and then optimise your page using your own words. It is more important that these words (keywords) are not duplicated from another website where you sell, than worrying about plurals or singular versions of the same keyword.
Using Google Search
This is the easiest way to find out what other people search for. Open Google search and start typing your preferred keyword and see what suggestions come up. Use whatever fits the description of your product.
The problem with this type of search is that you don’t know how many people searched for that particular word and you don’t know whether a different version of your keyword might be better.
But it’s better than nothing.
Using keyword tools
Google keyword planner is still the best (and free) tool to use to research your keywords, but these days you have to have an account for Google Adds to access the tool. It’s still worth going through the hoops especially if you are serious about your business and want to get ahead of your competition. All you need to do is to set up an account and put together your first google add campaign. It doesn’t matter how you set it up, because you are going to pause the campaign a minute after you have set it up! Now, you are ready to go.
What keyword to pick
Any that describes well your product and you have not used before.
Note down any versions of the same string of words.
Aim for 200-500 monthly searchers (this means, that they are 200 people searching for that particular word, and the competition is not as high as with a word of 2000 monthly searches).
Aim for words which would be searched by people who are ready to buy. For instance ‘handmade silver bracelet ideas’ are probably searched by people who want to make their own or they might be just searching for a nice photo for their pinterest wedding board. They are not ready to buy.
People who are ready to buy usually know exactly what they want and they are specific in their choice of words. For instance ‘Boy’s blue jumper for age 10-12’ is more specific than ‘Blue jumper’ or even ‘Boy’s blue jumper’.
Be very, very specific (Use the less specific words for shop categories, for example ‘personalised wedding gifts’ can be used for shop category keyword, which leaves you to use other words and be more specific. You get exposure from both, the choice for category, and product specific keyword.
You will see that most keyword tools won’t come up with very specific descriptions. So the trick is to pick the one that’s closest to your product and then add your own specific words. For instance ‘Silver Anniversary Bracelet’ can become ‘Personalised Silver Anniversary Bracelet with Pearls’.
Keyword research for blog posts
As you are working on your keyword research, you will come across keywords that might not be useful for your products, but they will be perfect for your blog titles. Keep them (including the monthly search volume number) in a document and use them as and when you need an idea for your next blog post.
HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT KEYWORDS FOR BLOG POSTS
A strategic blog post content should be about a topic that people search for just before they buy your product.
It’s a topic or problem that they really need a solution to. So, whilst your potential customers or blog readers might enjoy reading about how you make your wedding pearl tiaras, their real problem is ‘Are wedding tiaras in this season? or How do I style my hair with a tiara? Are pears still in ? Or are they too old fashioned?’.
Questions like these are very likely to pop into the heads of newly engaged brides to be as they are planning their wedding day. This is what will bring them to your website and if they find answers to their questions, they are more likely to purchase from you.
Their thinking pattern will go something like this: ‘ Not sure whether I should have a wedding pear tiara, lets find out whether they are still in and how I can match it to my outfit. Oh, look here is a blog post that answers my questions and it’s written by somebody who actually makes these lovely tiaras. Wow, they look like they know their stuff and their work is beautiful. Lets keep the link to their shop, oh hang on, let’s sign up to their newsletter, I don’t want to miss their next collection…’
…and that’s how the magic happens!
Make a plan!
This is not something you can do over night. In fact, changing your product url and optimising your pages is much better done gradually.
Weirdly, search engines think that you are a steady solid business when you refresh your content regularly, rather than updating everything over night which sends a message of ‘spam website – beware!’
- Check what needs doing
- Research your keywords
- Choose the strongest ones for your best products that you want to sell
- Cross check this with your Google Analytics
- Compare your keywords list with your actual product sales list
- Use an excel spreadsheet (or even a piece of paper) to keep track of which keywords you are using
- Schedule your work (realistically) to be completed within the next month or so
HOW TO OPTIMISE YOUR PRODUCT PAGE
Got my keywords what do I do now?
(aka how to optimise your product page)
- Choose one main keyword for the title of your product (3-4 string of words with 200-500 monthly searches or less)
- Add meta tags using the same keywords
- Use the same keyword 2-3 times in your product description (do this naturally and weave it into the text)
- Use the same keyword to label your main image for your product
- Use the same keyword to add to your product meta descriptions
- Use the additional descriptive keywords to label your other photos for the same products (the more pictures you have the better 3-6 is optimum)
- Publish
– KEYWORD –
The researched string of words that you describe your product, use in product description, as your url , your page title and use as label for your main photo
ideally up to 70 characters
– META DESCRIPTION –
Use the same string of words (your keyword) to describe your product to entice people to click through to your website
ideally up to 160 characters
Additional Resources & Downloads
KEYWORDS TOOLS
Keyword Research
Free and the best tool to use, but recently Google has made it quite difficult to use it for people who don’t have a Google Add account. You can still get access, but you need to set up an account and set up the first campaign (and cancel it straightaway). I would probably recommend this to you if you are serious about SEO, but if you just want to improve a bit, use other options.
Much easier to access, free and simple to use. Make sure that your setting is on UK searcher, as you don’t want to get results from across the world.
KEYWORDS RESEARCH
As you start typing words into Google search you will see that it always comes up with suggestions. You can also find suggestions or variations of the same keyword at the bottom of each result page on Google.
Semrush is probably the easiest tool to start with for keyword research. Just make sure that you select Google UK and main language as English when starting your search.
When you search for a basic world like ‘Silver Earrings’ you can see from the results, that there are about 6600 people monthly searching in the UK for this keyword. That’s a huge amount and if you try to use this as a product name, you will never make your website visible. Keep the ‘silver earrings’ as a word for your shop categories.
You can also see that once you start adding a third word to the keyword string, the search volume drops. That’s actually a good thing, because you probably don’t need 6600 people to buy your silver earrings every month, you perhaps need 100 or so.
You can also see suggested keywords that are close to your chosen one. Sometimes that’s worth considering too. Your aim is to get to page 1 (or 2 maximum) of Google search results, so that people can actually see you and click through. 70 people who are searching for ‘silver pearl drop earrings’ are more valuable to you then 6600 people who search for ‘silver earrings’.
Result for ‘silver pearl drop earrings’
Selling on WowThankYou? Here is additional information, which applies specifically to WowThankYou.
Titles
Your product title creates url for your product.
This happens automatically, so every time you change your title, you create a fresh url (and new page). This also automatically creates your meta tags (these are the keywords that you research and search engines use for identifying your product). If you hover over your product open tab (right on the top of your screen) you will see them there.
The optimum url length should be about 70 characters. After that Google still reads it, but cuts off anything over 70 in the search results. This is not good….
If your url is too long it won’t be displayed properly and people can’t easily share it from your online shop or website via social media share buttons. It’s difficult to cut & paste or even to remember.
The url is the whole link, not just your title.
An example of a good url
http://www.wowthankyou.co.uk/the-chocolate-smiths/products/six-salted-caramel-truffles/
…and a not so good one
http://www.wowthankyou.co.uk/chicme/products/fridge-pickers-wear-big-knickers-wooden-funny-sign-plaque-chic-shabbyhome-plaque
Keywords within WowThankYou website
This is where you can go completely wild and add as many as you need to. And you should definitely add as many as you can. These work within the website itself and help to narrow down customer search. You can use a individual word or string of words.
Remember – like with your product title – plurals, different sequence of the same description is a different word.
The Website Categories
You can select up to 4, but you can change them as often as you need to. To get the most exposure, use all 4.
This is useful for exposure (e.g. are you the best product in a smaller category or are you average in a saturated or competitive category) or if you know that certain products would do well depending on the season. For example, decorative fabric heart can be a general gift, home decor, but also a wedding gift.
Gift Finder Categories
Similar to the main categories, you can select up to 4 and change them any time. To find which category works best for your products monitor your shop traffic and sales and move it to another category if you don’t gain enough exposure.
Your own categories
If you have a complex shop and have different types of products, you can create your own categories. This narrows the search right down and unlike with the other categories, you can make your own. Use these creatively based on your keyword research, but keep it simple for your customer too.
Got my keywords what do I do now?
(aka how to optimise your product page)
- Choose one main keyword for the title of your product (3-4 string of words with 200-500 monthly searches)
- This automatically creates url and meta tags
- Use the same keyword 2-3 times in your product description (do this naturally and weave it into the text)
- Use the same keyword to label your main image for your product
- Choose additional descriptive keywords for the internal keywords structure
- Use as many as you want
- Use the additional descriptive keywords to label your other photos for the same products (the more pictures you have the better 3-6 is optimum)
- Choose 4 website categories
- Choose 4 gift finder categories
- Make up your own categories (if you have enough products)
- Publish
I'm completely new here and WowThankYou is my only online shop
That’s simple, go ahead research your keywords for your titles and your products and follow the best given practice outlined here.
Even if you do have a blog or other on-line presence, please don’t cut and paste your content, it all needs to be unique. If you set up your shop well, you will reap the benefits later and the rest of the on-line (and off-line) marketing will be much easier.
Your shop will work hard for you, even when you sleep…
I'm new to WowThankYou, but I also have my own website and sell elsewhere
Not to worry, take this as a challenge and way of expanding your reach on the world wide web!
Here is what to do:
- Research your keywords
- Make sure they are different from your existing product titles (e.g. the same product should have a different name)
Please don’t:
Cut & paste your descriptions, titles or keywords from your existing websites/platforms.
You are just duplicating your products and thinning down your impact across your online presence. The search engine is not going to know which version of your product is the ‘original’ and just to be on the safe side it will push results for all your products down on all your websites/selling platforms. It will take a huge effort to bring it anywhere near top results organically and you will need to double your efforts to make it work.
Optimise your product page to strengthen your changes of being found by adding the same keyword (the whole product title, that is in your url) in your product description (2-3 times) and label the main photo with your title (keyword).
I'm an existing seller and I'm selling regularly
Great!
Don’t touch your product title (because that changes the url structure), instead focus on optimising your products.
Products that sell (even slowly) should be left alone. Even when the keywords are not the best, somehow you convinced the search engines that you are the real deal, so leave it for now.
But you should definitely strengthen your changes of being found by adding the same keyword (the whole product title, that is in your url) in your product description (2-3 times) and label the main photo with your title (keyword).
When you are adding new products, research your keyword well and optimise your product description (more on that later…)
I've been here a while, don't sell anywhere else, but sales are slow
Look at your keywords (titles) and check that the keywords you are using are the best ones you can. Start with the products that have never sold.
Products that sell (even slowly) should be left alone. Even when the keywords are not the best, somehow you convinced the search engines that you are the real deal, so leave it for now.
But you should definitely strengthen your changes of being found by adding the same keyword (the whole product title, that is in your url) in your product description (2-3 times) and label the main photo with your title (keyword).
When you are adding new products, research your keyword well and optimise your product description (more on that later…)
Thoughts, ideas, questions?
Handmade Business 2016