Jill Kocher Brown

Articles by: Jill Kocher Brown

Jill Kocher Brown is a writer and search engine optimization expert in Chicago. She has been living and breathing search engine optimization since 2005, and has been in digital marketing since 1996.

Jill cut her digital teeth at Intel Corp., managing the home page and corporate sections of Intel.com. After that, Jill managed and developed SEO consulting practices at Netconcepts and Covario, specializing in ecommerce, and served as Groupon’s first in-house natural search marketer.

She now heads up the thriving SEO team at IBM iX.

Jill holds a B.A. in Communications and American Studies from Stanford University. jill@practicalecommerce.com

SEO: No, Google Does Not Support Newer JavaScript

May 25, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

Some search engine optimization professionals and developers have concluded in the last couple of years that Google can crawl JavaScript. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Sites using Angular (the... Read More »
Consumers Search by Voice. Do You Listen?

May 20, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

The future of search is, increasingly, spoken. At its annual I/O conference earlier this month, Google made 100 announcements. More than 20 related to voice interaction. (Many others involved visual... Read More »
Google Lens Ups the Ante on Image Search

May 11, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

Ecommerce businesses have a love-hate relationship with image search. They appreciate the conversion benefits, but they are wary of the labor required to optimize images and the risk of competitors... Read More »
301 Redirects May Save Your SEO

May 4, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

A search engine professional’s lucky number is 301. That’s the server header status code for a type of redirect that performs many critical functions for natural search performance. What Is a... Read More »
SEO: Managing Modern Algorithm Updates

April 27, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

Google launched a broad core algorithm update last week that impacted web search appearance and rankings. Algorithm changes typically center on rankings improvements tied to determining the quality of a site’s... Read More »
How to Implement SEO Tactics in Large Companies

April 22, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

There’s a perception that search engine optimization requires no resources. Executives sometimes think that SEO is simply a matter of editing existing content. As a result, they don't fund or... Read More »
13 Ways to Kill Organic Search Traffic

April 15, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

Skill and effort influence organic search success. But any number of actions can harm search engine optimization efforts. In this post, I’ll describe 13 SEO blunders that I’ve seen over... Read More »
SEO: How to Super Search with Advanced Operators

April 6, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

Have you ever typed a phrase into Google and been disappointed with the results? This collection of advanced search operators will help you narrow the results to get closer to what... Read More »
6 Spring Cleaning Tips for SEO

March 30, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

It’s spring, and that means it’s time to peer into your site to find the often-overlooked items that drag down natural search performance. In our homes, we tend to put... Read More »
SEO: Store Locators Good for Bots, Good for Shoppers

March 23, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

If you have more than one physical location, in addition to your ecommerce site, you need a store locator. Slapping all your store addresses on a single web page and... Read More »
SEO: 8 Reasons to Stop the Addiction to Keyword Demand

March 16, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

Search marketing is all about experimentation — testing and learning. Slavish obsession with the average number of searches per month as a sole metric for optimization or a forecasting revenue... Read More »
When Hiring an SEO Pro, Look for These 11 Skills

March 14, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

Hiring a search engine optimization professional is challenging. It’s relatively easy for a would-be practitioner to portray “book-learning” as actual, on-the-job experience. But I’m a firm believer in the importance... Read More »
SEO: How to Rank against the Heavyweights

March 8, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

Merchants want to rank number one in Google for search terms that are seemingly important to their business, such as “dog food.” Or “office supplies.” Or whatever popular term describes... Read More »
4 SEO Requirements for International Ecommerce Sites

March 2, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

Multinational ecommerce businesses with country-specific websites have distinct search engine optimization requirements. A searcher in Australia, say, must end up on the site containing Australian English, currency, and content. A searcher... Read More »
SEO Tips for New Ecommerce Sites (and Redesigns)

February 26, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

The battle for organic search performance can be won or lost before a site launches. Choices made in the design and implementation stages impact the ability of an ecommerce business... Read More »
Indispensable SEO Tools, from Free to Expensive

February 16, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

Search engine optimization is rooted in data: technical data, analytical data, and contextual data. The tools you use to access that data fuel your ability to make smart SEO decisions,... Read More »
HTTPS Is Important for More Reasons Than SEO

February 9, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

A website’s use of the secure protocol — as evidenced by the HTTPS designation and the presence of a security certificate — is a priority for search engines. But recent... Read More »
6 Ways Web Developers Can Improve SEO

February 2, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

The relationship between web developers and search-engine-optimization teams is sometimes contentious. Seemingly unrelated technical decisions by developers can impact organic search traffic. But there are enormous SEO benefits in working... Read More »
SEO: 8 Ways UX and Design Could Reduce Traffic

January 29, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

For more than a decade I've optimized organic search traffic for big and small companies. They often come to my team with greatly diminished search performance stemming from decisions on... Read More »
SEO: Google to Make Mobile Speed a Ranking Factor

January 19, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

If you weren’t already focused on your mobile site’s performance, Google is giving you a reason. In July of 2018, Google will use a new ranking signal focused purely on... Read More »
7 Ways to Integrate Natural and Paid Search

January 12, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

It’s not a matter of organic search traffic being more important than paid, or vice versa. What matters is integrating the two — paid and natural search — so that... Read More »
Optimizing Google Search Options for Android Apps

January 7, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

Apps for iOS and Android mobile devices represent a chance to sell to captive prospects — if they can find your app to download in the first place. The first... Read More »
How to Create Your 2018 SEO Strategy

December 22, 2017 • Jill Kocher Brown

If you don’t have a search engine optimization strategy for 2018, it’s high time to create it. Writing an SEO strategy can be intimidating. It sounds like such a lofty document,... Read More »
How SEO Impacts the Ecommerce Sales Funnel

December 17, 2017 • Jill Kocher Brown

Ecommerce marketers spend a lot of time thinking about the sales funnel. Search engine optimization plays a major role in filling that funnel at the various stages. In aggregate, we can... Read More »
For SEO, Better to Hire an Agency or an Employee?

December 8, 2017 • Jill Kocher Brown

The decision to hire in-house search engine optimization talent or to contract with an agency is not easy. Consider these points when deciding for your company. In-house SEO In-house advantages stem primarily... Read More »
SEO: For Redesigns and Migrations, Prepare for the Worst

December 1, 2017 • Jill Kocher Brown

You spend months preparing for your ecommerce redesign or migration. You take search engine optimization into consideration and anticipate an increase in organic search traffic after launch. But what happens... Read More »
SEO: Enabling Performance beyond Home Page and Brand

November 26, 2017 • Jill Kocher Brown

Ecommerce sites with the strongest natural search performance drive visits to every page, not just the home page and not just for searches for the brand. A search engine optimization channel... Read More »
Include CRO in Your SEO

November 17, 2017 • Jill Kocher Brown

Search engine optimization professionals often consider their job done after the click is won from the search result page and the visitor has landed on his site. That’s when user... Read More »
SEO: 7 Ways to Kill Duplicate Content

November 12, 2017 • Jill Kocher Brown

Duplicate content is endemic to ecommerce sites. Seemingly every platform, no matter how SEO-friendly, produces some form of duplicate content, holding a site back from peak performance. First, let’s look at... Read More »
SEO: 7 Ways to Jumpstart an Ecommerce Blog

November 3, 2017 • Jill Kocher Brown

Blogs can be excellent way to rank for informational searches that might otherwise be difficult for an ecommerce site. But ecommerce marketers who implement a blog sometimes conclude early on... Read More »