Category

SEO

Our huge library of search engine optimization articles addresses strategies and tactics for ecommerce businesses. Our 12-part “How-to” series explains the basics. Advanced topics include faceted navigation, crawling and indexing, cross-border optimization, and much more.

Keyword Research | Link Building | On-page SEO | SEO Tools | Technical SEO

On-page SEO
SEO: How to Optimize Title Tags for Ecommerce

January 6, 2022 • Ann Smarty

Google once relied heavily on title tags to match search queries to web pages. That's no longer the case, as Google can discern a searcher's intent and deliver results accordingly. Nonetheless, titles remain important, as contributor Ann Smarty explains.
SEO
How HTML Headings Help SEO

December 30, 2021 • Ann Smarty

HTML headings are phrases or short sentences introducing a new section of content. Google has confirmed that headings help communicate the content's purpose. But search engine optimizers often debate how, exactly, Google uses those headings.
SEO
SEO: Drive Clicks with Video Rich Snippets

December 23, 2021 • Ann Smarty

Video rich snippets are enriched organic search results in Google. They're an opportunity to generate more clicks, especially on mobile. Publishers often mistake video rich snippets with video carousels.
SEO
SEO for Brand-name Queries

December 16, 2021 • Ann Smarty

Organic search results on brand-name queries can influence the buying journey. Brand-driven search results on Google appear in multiple sections, although brands have limited control over their appearance and ranking.
SEO
SEO: Updating Content for Higher Click-throughs

December 8, 2021 • Ann Smarty

Google claims that it shows dates in organic search snippets when its algorithm determines they would be relevant and helpful. In reality, dates are extremely common and have a big impact on click-throughs. Google offers clear guidelines as to how to communicate dates to its algorithm.
SEO
How to Generate Traffic from Google Discover

December 2, 2021 • Ann Smarty

Google is not just a search engine. It's also a discovery engine. The difference is huge. Searchers have an idea of what they are looking for. They know what they need. But the discovery engine attempts to discern the interests of searchers regardless of their queries. In a sense, Google Discover informs searchers of what they need before they realize it.
SEO
3 Ways Google’s Search Console Improves Organic Clicks

November 25, 2021 • Ann Smarty

Google's Search Console is one of the most helpful search-engine-optimization tools. Moreover, Search Console provides data straight from the source: Google. It is also free. Here are three ways to use Search Console to generate more clicks from your organic listings.
SEO
SEO: Google’s Video Carousels Are a Big Opportunity

November 18, 2021 • Ann Smarty

Google's search result pages have greatly changed over the past decade. In addition to clickable listings, we now see highly visible, often interactive results in diverse formats. One of the newer sections is video carousels.
SEO
Structured Snippets: The Low-hanging Fruit of SEO

November 11, 2021 • Ann Smarty

I addressed rich snippets last week, explaining how they can enhance organic search listings for ecommerce product pages. Structured snippets are similar in concept, but they don't receive as much attention in the context of organic search. I'll address structured snippets in this post.
SEO
Using Rich Snippets for Ecommerce Product Pages

November 4, 2021 • Ann Smarty

Rich snippets are additional details in organic listings that stand out in search results. Ratings, prices, FAQs, videos — all are examples of rich snippets. "Structured markup" is programming code that creates rich snippets. Any website can contain structured markup — Schema.org is the most popular type.
Link Building
Ask an Expert: Is Disavowing Spammy Backlinks Still Necessary for SEO?

August 25, 2021 • PEC Staff

“Ask an Expert” is an occasional feature where we pose questions to ecommerce practitioners. For this installment, we’ve turned to Bill Sebald, a longtime search engine optimizer, who addresses the effect of low-grade or spammy inbound links on organic search rankings.
SEO
23 Search Engine Alternatives to Google

August 23, 2021 • Sig Ueland

Google Search dominates global search with a market share of approximately 90%. However, alternative search engines offer many benefits, such as enhanced privacy, niche content and users, and new growth areas. Here is a list of alternative search engines.
SEO Tools
16 Tools to Manage Your Reputation

July 20, 2021 • Sig Ueland

Reputation management is essential for any brand. Your company's future may depend on what’s been said about it in posts, comments, reviews, and rankings. Fortunately, there are affordable tools to help. Here is a list of tools to manage your brand’s reputation.
Link Building
CommerceCo Recap: A Process for SEO Link-building

July 8, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Link building could be the most daunting search engine optimization task. It requires near equal portions of research, creativity, and outreach resembling cold calls. It's also critical for prominent organic search rankings.
Link Building
CommerceCo Recap: SEO Link-building Is Hard

June 10, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Link building is among the most important search engine optimization techniques. It is foundational and essential. Just about every successful commerce business wants or needs to build links, but it is hard to do well. Moreover, there is no easy way to "hack" link building.
SEO Tools
12 Tools for YouTube Search Optimization

April 12, 2021 • Sig Ueland

YouTube is the second most visited website, after Google. Success on YouTube requires compelling videos, but it’s equally important to optimize them. Fortunately, there are tools to help. Here is a list of tools to optimize your video content on YouTube.
SEO Tools
The SEO Benefits of Web Scraping

April 6, 2021 • Bill Sebald

In "SEO for Google Shopping," I addressed the need to optimize product feeds. I stated that including keyword product descriptions and titles in the feeds was scalable with "scraping." But I didn't describe it further. In this post, I’ll explain scraping.
SEO
CommerceCo Recap: SEO Entities vs. Keywords

March 31, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Some search engine optimizers believe “entities” have supplanted keywords as the foundation for organic rankings. But it doesn’t mean that keywords are irrelevant. Within SEO, entities are the people, places, things,
SEO
SEO: 10 FAQs for Internal Links

March 9, 2021 • Jill Kocher Brown

Internal links benefit search engine optimization. But knowing how to use them and understanding their value is not always clear. What follows are 10 frequently asked questions for internal-link management for SEO.
SEO
10 SEO Tips for Podcasts

February 23, 2021 • Jill Kocher Brown

Podcasts have gone mainstream — 37 percent of Americans over the age of 12 listen to at least one podcast per month. But podcasts are often poorly optimized for search engines. Drive more organic search traffic to your podcast with these 10 tips.
Keyword Research
SEO: Keyword Research for Product Content

February 14, 2021 • Armando Roggio

For many commerce businesses — omnichannel retailers, ecommerce-only merchants, wholesalers — attracting a steady flow of site visitors from organic search results is vital for success. But achieving high rankings in those results requires optimizing a site with relevant content.
SEO
SEO: Common Fixes to Core Web Vitals

February 9, 2021 • Jill Kocher Brown

Google stated in November that Core Web Vitals would become a ranking signal in May 2021. When Google announces such a change, heed the warning. The sooner you prepare, the better the chance of preserving or improving your organic search traffic.
SEO
SEO for Google Shopping

February 1, 2021 • Bill Sebald

Google has a storied history with services for ecommerce products. The first was Froogle. Then Google Base absorbed Froogle. Both provided a method for merchants to inform Google about their products to improve visibility in organic search results.
Technical SEO
Don’t Overlook Technical SEO in 2021

January 27, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Good ecommerce and blogging platforms should, by default, take care of most technical search engine optimization concerns. But this doesn't mean B2B and B2C ecommerce companies can ignore technical SEO in 2021.
SEO
A Day in the Life of an SEO

November 22, 2020 • Bill Sebald

Search engine optimizers are like black sheep in a family. Our work is often misunderstood. Colleagues wonder what we are doing or how we make money for the company. Why do we read blog posts all day, they sometimes ask? Success in organic search can be elusive.
SEO
SEO: Excellent Content Moves Shoppers through the Funnel

November 16, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

Informational content such as buyers’ guides and how-to instructions can lure shoppers to your site while they’re in research mode. There, they could complete an action that delivers immediate or future value to your business. Examples include signing up for a newsletter, requesting more info, or the ultimate goal: purchasing a product.
SEO
SEO: Google’s Product Knowledge Panels Drive Impressions (but Not for Amazon)

November 9, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

Every merchant wants to beat Amazon in Google's organic search listings. The easiest way? Upload data for placement in Google’s product knowledge panel. Product knowledge panels contain information you’d typically find on a product detail page, such as a product description, images, and reviews.
SEO
SEO: What Google’s New Passage Indexing Means for Ecommerce

November 5, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

In its never-ending quest to improve search results, Google is extending natural language processing to "passage indexing," ranking individual sentences or phrases within a page. Google addressed this latest update in an October 15 blog post. The update will impact an estimated 7 percent of its search queries worldwide.
SEO
Mobile Site Design Impacts Organic Search Rankings

October 26, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

The design of a mobile website impacts its ability to rank in organic search results. Mobile design controls the availability and readability of text, the usability of navigational elements, and even access to entire pages that are critical to organic performance.
SEO
SEO: How to Move Skydivers through the Funnel

October 20, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

What happens when consumers parachute from organic search results and land on the page Google thinks is the most personally relevant? They skip as much as 95 percent of your prepared journey.

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