SEO Archives

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.

Image of a Google search bar on an iPhone

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.

Image of wireframing process by designers

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

SEO: 9 Tips for Brand-friendly Content

September 8, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

Branded marketing content and excellent organic search rankings are not mutually exclusive. Content is among the most subjective aspects of search engine optimization. It has also become the most important. And the best content is unique, well-written, and relevant. Here are nine tips to get started.

On-page SEO

SEO: 7 Ways to Optimize Category Pages

September 2, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

Category pages target the keywords that consumers search for most frequently. But optimizing category pages for organic search rankings can be difficult, as default category templates on ecommerce platforms tend to hold less text than other pages. What follows are seven category-page elements that improve rankings on highly competitive keywords.

SEO

SEO: Where to Start When You Need to Fix Everything

August 25, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

Optimizing a site for organic search can be overwhelming when you’re staring at a blank slate. Where do you start? The good news is that there are three definitive steps when you're getting started.

SEO Tools

SEO How-to, Part 12: Technical Tools

August 18, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

Implementing a search engine optimization strategy typically requires tools that can be dangerous when mishandled. Knowing those tools — when to use them and how — can make all the difference. This is the 12th and last post in my “SEO How-to” series.

Technical SEO

Google Lighthouse SEO Scores of Every Shopify Theme

August 12, 2020 • Hamlet Batista

This post addresses the SEO capabilities of every Shopify theme, using Lighthouse, across various page types — home, products, collections, blogs — for desktop and mobile.

Technical SEO

SEO How-to, Part 11: Mitigating Risk

August 10, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

The risk to organic search performance from altering a website usually comes from changes to content, linking structures, or underlying technology. With careful planning and execution, however, you can mitigate the risk from those changes and increase the likelihood of better rankings. This is the 11th installment in my "SEO How-to" series

Technical SEO

SEO How-to, Part 10: Redesigns, Migrations, URL Changes

August 4, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

Changes in content, linking, and URL structure can dramatically impact organic search performance. Thus it's critical to understand the search engine risks and rewards from a new design before you start developing it. This is the 10th installment in my "SEO How-to" series.

Technical SEO

SEO How-to, Part 9: Diagnosing Crawler Issues

July 27, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

Search engines must crawl and index your site before it can rank in organic search. Thus optimizing your content is pointless if search engines cannot access it. This is the ninth installment in my “SEO How-to” series.

Technical SEO

SEO How-to, Part 8: Architecture and Internal Linking

July 20, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

The structure of your ecommerce site — categories, subcategories, attributes — heavily impacts search engine optimization. This is the eighth installment in my “SEO How-to” series.

Keyword Research

SEO How-to, Part 7: Mapping Keywords to Content

July 13, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

Keyword research is the process of identifying the words that consumers use to search for your products on Google and other search engines. Keyword mapping assigns those terms to pages on your site. This is the seventh installment in my "SEO How-to" series.

Technical SEO

Understanding Core Web Vitals for SEO

July 8, 2020 • Bill Sebald

On rare occasions Google provides expectations of upcoming algorithm changes. For example, Google alerted us to the mobile-first index change and, also, the inclusion of SSL signals. Once again, Google has given us a heads-up with Core Web Vitals.

On-page SEO

SEO How-to, Part 6: Optimizing On-page Elements

July 3, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

Keyword research can help improve your organic search performance. Search engines attempt to sync the words and intent of consumers' queries with web pages. Ecommerce merchants should therefore align their pages using the right keywords to convey the proper intent.

Technical SEO

Assessing Google’s ‘Core Web Vitals’ on Shopify Themes

June 23, 2020 • Hamlet Batista

Google recently announced "Core Web Vitals," which are new performance metrics that will become a search ranking signal next year. Google displays the new metrics in Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, and the Chrome User Experience Report. “Page Speed Scores of Every Shopify Theme,” my article in April, included a table of those speeds at that time.

Keyword Research

SEO How-to, Part 5: Analyzing Keyword Data

June 19, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

Keyword research is a search engine optimization tactic to identify the words and phrases of consumers who are looking for the types of products and services that your company sells. In this post, I'll cover four steps: seeding keyword research, collecting the data, organizing it in my free keyword analysis template in Google Sheets, and analyzing it to understand intent and demand.

SEO- Search Console Is the Best Source of Keyword Data

SEO Tools

SEO: Search Console Is an Untapped Source of Keyword Data

June 5, 2020 • Bill Sebald

Search Console now has more than enough data to return us to the glory days of natural search keyword data. But many businesses are not aware. I’ll explain the Search Console data in this article.

Keyword Research

SEO How-to, Part 4: Keyword Research Concepts

June 3, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

Keyword research is the process of analyzing the search-engine queries of real people. That data — a window into the desires of searchers — is a gold mine for search engine optimization.

SEO

SEO How-to, Part 3: Strategy and Planning

May 29, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

The planning phase of search engine optimization involves identifying a strategy and roadmap to reach your goals. The process can be daunting. This post is the third installment in my “SEO How-to” series.

Technical SEO

SEO How-to, Part 2: Understanding Search Engines

May 21, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

Nearly half of shoppers turn to Google before deciding what to buy and where to buy it. Understanding how Google and other search engines work can help you choose which optimization strategies to apply. This post is the second installment in my "SEO How-to" series.

SEO

SEO How-to, Part 1: Why Use It?

May 13, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

This post begins a weekly primer in SEO, with the goal of addressing all foundational aspects. In the end, you’ll be able to practice SEO more confidently and converse with others regarding important SEO challenges and opportunities.

Link Building

Yes, Toxic Backlinks Can Still Harm Search Rankings

May 12, 2020 • Armando Roggio

When a website links to your online store, that site is indicating it finds your content valuable enough to share with its own audience. Google and other search engines recognize this vote of confidence, which may boost your site's ranking. For this reason, many search engine optimizers covet backlinks.

Technical SEO

SEO: Target Informational Rankings with Pillars and Clusters

April 21, 2020 • Jill Kocher Brown

Unless it's a major brand, an ecommerce site’s category and product pages may not rank organically for informational search queries. Creating pillar and cluster pages can help.