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-
Technical 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.
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Technical 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.
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SEO Tools
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.
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Technical 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.
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Technical 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.
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Technical 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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,
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Technical 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.
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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.
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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.
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Technical 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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On-page 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.
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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.
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Technical 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.
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On-page 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.
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On-page 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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On-page SEO
SEO: 5 Tips to Convert Visitors to Buyers
October 13, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown
Search engine optimization focuses on driving consumers to your site. But traffic alone doesn't pay the bills. Success depends on converting those visitors to customers. Use these five tips to convert more searchers into buyers.
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Technical SEO
‘Domain Age Impacts Rankings’ (and 8 Other SEO Myths)
October 5, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown
Many myths surround the complex signals that search engines use to determine organic rankings. In this post, I'll debunk nine such myths and share the four factors that matter.
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Keyword Research
SEO: How to Target High-demand Keywords (or Not)
September 28, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown
Search engine optimization often has lofty goals, such as ranking on page one for a high-demand phrase. How can you reach a seemingly impossible objective? The sites that rank on the first page of the search results are Google's assessment of the best options.
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Technical SEO
FAQ Snippets Expand Organic Search Visibility
September 22, 2020 • Bill Sebald
There is one rich snippet that has become increasingly popular: frequently asked questions. An FAQ snippet expands a listing's real estate in organic search results. It's based on implementing FAQ Schema in the code.
SEO and Interstitials
Sales Report 2022: Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday
18 Alternatives to Twitter
Ecommerce Product Releases: November 15, 2022
How to Write a Tutorial to Attract Customers
28 Instagram Tools for Ecommerce Marketing
Reducing Transaction Friction and Fraud
How to Supercharge Product Feeds for Sales, ROI
Boost B2B eCommerce with a 5th P of Marketing
Prepare for the Holiday Peak
