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-
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
SEO for Events
How to Train ChatGPT for Better Responses
TikTok Replaces 'Storefront' with 'Shop'
Best Content Types for ChatGPT
Charts: Top Global Marketplaces by Monthly Visits
Ecom Exec: Marketing Attribution Is a Waste
The Profitable Seller: Mastering Amazon FBA in 2023
