Ecommerce businesses need improvisation and adoption of new technologies, though they don’t face many of the issues brick-and-mortar retail stores do. It’s all driven by technology, and that’s why reliable outsourced ecommerce website development services are so essential. Small online businesses are in competition with the big ones such as Amazon and Alibaba, so they must maintain a competitive edge in their target market. For that, they need to ensure they aren’t left behind on the technology bandwagon.
Cloud computing has evolved from just an elitist technology to a necessity for businesses, with the Covid-19 pandemic clearly accelerating the need to adopt advanced digital solutions for data storage and processing, communication, employee management, customer relationship management, human resources and employee communication. Cloud computing can help businesses surpass geographic barriers and infrastructural hurdles.
Why You Should Think of Cloud Computing
Easy Accessibility of Data within Your Organization
With cloud hosting, all your data is securely stored in servers, which means that the data can be accessed from any device in your organization by authorized personnel via password. You don’t need to exhaust the internal servers of your organization or make expensive technical upgrades. Cloud computing can also help e-commerce businesses.
Expand Globally from Just One Physical Location
With a limited infrastructure, an ecommerce business can operate globally and maintain an international presence with the help of cloud computing. They can get customers from different geographic locations. Cloud-based apps can help ecommerce businesses to maintain strong consumer relationships as well. This can help build loyalty and generate further sales.
Employee Flexibility Puts Less Strain on Resources
Your staff can work from home using laptops or cell phones with internet connectivity to access data on the cloud and answer customer queries, market products, and perform other tasks. It adds flexibility as employees can work from anywhere and you don’t need to set up/maintain physical office infrastructure.
Save on Expensive Infrastructural Changes
Ecommerce businesses don’t need to spend on expensive software and IT infrastructure. In addition to being a cost-effective solution, cloud computing offers the required tools plus data storage and doesn’t compromise on your efficiency.
Two or world’s largest e-commerce companies are also cloud providers – Amazon and Alibaba. You can use cloud solutions on a pay-per-use basis so you can pay only for the services you use.
Scalability to the Next Level
Cloud computing also boosts scalability. You can increase your IT requirements or reduce them based on changing business needs. With the cloud, it is relatively easy to scale.
Improving Operational Efficiency
With the cloud taking care of your data storage and operational software, your servers are left with more storage capacity and your internet connectivity gives you greater bandwidth. This can help you process customer orders faster and improve the speed of your e-commerce website. Greater storage space equates to faster performance.
Remember that research states that 40% of shoppers online would leave a web page if it doesn’t load in 3 seconds. If prospective customers are dissatisfied with your website, it is unlikely they would visit it again. Cloud computing frees up enough resources for you to improve your website speed.
Redundancy Is Built In to Ensure Efficiency
With cloud computing, the inevitable question of data security arises. Of course, advanced cloud platforms do come with redundancy built in to avoid data loss. They provide the tools for backing up and securing the data. With redundancies built in, company operations can be resumed even if some data loss occurs, because there is a backup for everything.
How to Adopt Cloud Computing for Your Ecommerce Business
Each ecommerce business has its own unique requirements and there are plenty of cloud frameworks out there. You need to pick the one that suits your business in terms of the factors mentioned above. Cost savings and profitability are essential, along with flexibility and organizational efficiency. There are various aspects to consider when it comes to identifying the best platform for your ecommerce business.
First, you need to visualize your requirements. What exactly are your reasons for taking your business to the cloud? Are they just scalability and flexibility, or are you looking to expand sales?
Next, evaluate the adjustments you need to make in your business to accommodate cloud computing. Of course, an ecommerce solutions provider can help you with that. You also need to consider SaaS (software-as-a-service), PaaS (platform-as-a-service) and IaaS (infrastructure-as-a-service) solutions. You can also consider outsourcing solutions.
With the help of your cloud provider or outsourcing partner, you need to figure out what your business needs to do to adapt to the cloud. Set clear criteria for satisfactory adoption.
The next step would be to ensure everything goes according to plan. You must also hold on to the acceptance criteria.
Once you have successfully deployed the cloud in your ecommerce business, you need to give your staff time to adapt to the new working procedures. You may need to train your employees and carry out demos to further optimize the cloud system, and constantly evaluate the results.
An ecommerce business outsourcing provider can ensure that these steps are followed. They can also conduct constant evaluation and help with all the IT architecture redesign and infrastructural setup.
Ecommerce businesses have challenges. Partnering with an ecommerce website development company can ensure the technical support you need to help overcome them.
Are you on a frantic content marketing spree for your website and planning to optimize its content to increase SEO value? Then, start by building Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) content.
FAQ pages are valuable to organic performance. Incorporating keywords into on-page copy, optimizing title tags and Meta descriptions, adding structured data – all of these practices contribute to the SEO value of a FAQ page for Google. Partnering with a professional digital marketing services company is a great option for websites to attract targeted traffic and earn new leads. Here are some key reasons why FAQ is important for SEO –
Provide users a better experience.
Provide helpful content for users and address their hesitations.
Attract potential users to a website page and convert them into regular users.
FAQ section shows that a website is reliable. By giving clear answers to the users’ questions, FAQs help improve a website’s rankings in search.
Creating an SEO-friendly FAQ Page – Key Tips
When creating a FAQ page, be clear and unambiguous when answering the questions. Here discussed are some common tips to consider when creating an SEO-friendly FAQ page –
Find Questions Related to Your Area of Business – One of the first things to do before creating a FAQ page is to find relevant questions related to the specific area of business. Conduct comprehensive question research and take into account some of the common questions that may arise in the minds of the users or customers.
Never ever try to create a sloppy FAQ page to drive more traffic to the website as it won’t help SEO and will lead to worse results for the website. In any case, visitors who cannot find information on what they are looking for will quickly leave a website page.
To get to this section do the following:
1.Type a question on google search that is relevant to your service that people normally ask
2.scroll down until you see PEOPLE ALSO ASK, as seen in the above photo.
3.Pick all questions that are important to add on your FAQ page. If you do not see any. Do number 4.
4.See the red box around the dropdown arrows? Clicking any of these will populate more questions. Do this continually till you find more relevant questions OR do number 5.
5.Repeat this process.
Answer the Right Questions – Creating a generic FAQ page with 5-15 “catch-all” questions is not recommended as it will not bring the expected results. Rather, the best approach is to develop a strategic list of very specific questions that your target market may be probably asking.
Spend a little time researching first –
Refer the customer service emails and phone call notes to see which questions routinely come up.
Pay attention to free consult calls and note the specific areas where the prospects are often confused.
Poll social media audience on Twitter or Instagram stories and ask what isn’t’ clear to them about the services or products.
Research competitor sites to see what questions they answer – since your website caters to a similar audience, chances are that they will have similar questions.
Write an in-depth blog post for each question and then link to the post in the answers. This approach provides helpful information to the users. In addition, it loads the website well above the competition for its large amount of pages with naturally SEO-rich content.
Incorporate Keywords into the FAQ Answers – The FAQ pages created for a business website offer a unique platform to use the right keywords. Placing the top keywords meaningfully in the answers will make a positive contribution to the overall ranking of the website page in search engines. The major goal should be writing answers and questions relevant to the area of business. Using keywords that aren’t relevant to the area of business or brand will not drive traffic to the brand and the website, and will not affect SEO well.
These are the steps to choosing the right keywords
Step 1 – Go to google keyword planner and sign in with your gmail you will land on the photo below
Step 2 – where you see THE MAGNIFYING GLASS type in a search term. For example construction new york service.
Step 3 – Check out the bottom photo. For CPC meaning cost per click. This is the price people are willing to pay per click on both the top of the low bid & top of page on the high end. The more someone is willing to pay for a keyword on paid ads, the more importance to take on that keyword. Why? This keyword more than likely generates money for those running paid campaigns.
Format FAQ Pages for User Experience (UX) – Structure the FAQ pages for high-quality UX as this will make it easy for users to find what they’re looking for and chances are that they are more likely to remain on the site. A common drawback is to drop all of the questions onto a single FAQ page, forcing users to scroll endlessly to find an answer. Not only will that create a poor UX (likely to result in a high bounce rate), but also doesn’t take advantage of SEO opportunities.
Structure the FAQ pages for high-quality UX as this will make it easy for users to find what they’re looking for and chances are that they are more likely to remain on the site. A common drawback is to drop all of the questions onto a single FAQ page, forcing users to scroll endlessly to find an answer. Not only will that create a poor UX (likely to result in a high bounce rate), but also doesn’t take advantage of SEO opportunities.
Optimize Title Tag and Meta Descriptions for FAQ Pages – With multiple pages, it is possible to incorporate topically relevant keywords into the title tag and meta description of each FAQ page. Title tags help search engines understand what the page is all about and users understand what content serves the page. Meta descriptions are an important component that can impact CTR. By optimizing both of these on-page SEO factors, you can provide users and Google with a clear explanation of what the page is about.
Here’s how to update your title tag and meta descriptions
Step 1. Depending on the CMS you are using. You can use Yoast plugin
Step 2. Go to Yoast plugin and look for
Above you will see the meta description and title tag sections. Here you want to use the appropriate keyword that represents your FAQ page. You can also do the same for the other pages you will create to assist your FAQ page.
Be Mindful of the FAQ Layout – Structuring and tailoring the website FAQ section will boost user experience and SEO. However, most FAQ pages simply list the questions and answers. This means users will need to scroll through the entire list to see if their specific concerns are addressed or not. This in turn may take a considerable amount of time. For instance, if an FAQ section consists of too many questions, categorize them so that users can more easily find answers. Listing all of the questions at the top of the page, with anchor text linking to each answer further down the page, may help improve the user experience. Alternately, group the questions by category or topic to help site visitors more easily find the right content they’re looking for. In short, configure a design that will enable users to find answers to their questions in the most comfortable and easy way.
Choose a Clear and Concise Tone – FAQ pages should clearly answer the question, must be easy to read, and cover the whole issue. Choose facts over marketing and try to represent the company’s values in each answer. Also, try to answer from the perspective of customers as this can help them connect with the brand and feel as though their questions and concerns are truly heard. Include enough information to completely answer the question, but try not to exceed 2-3 sentences for each. Utilize internal linking to drive users to relevant content within the site where they can find more information on the specific topic.
Add a Clear Call to Action to the Page – A FAQ page may be the last place a user stops before making a decision about a product or service. Add a clear call to action that prompts them to move forward in the sales pipeline, whether that’s a link to a website contact page, the option to download a helpful PDF, or the ability to join the email list for product- and service-related updates.
Regularly Update FAQ Pages –Never let the FAQ page become inactive, always keep it updated with new questions, accurate and useful content as the business evolves. In most cases, the initial FAQ pages may have 10 plus questions with anchor text and bold-format questions. As the questions and answers on the page continue to grow, it would be easier for users to sort through it with things like separate sections, collapsible content, and maybe even separate, topic-based FAQ pages. In short, the best FAQ pages need to proactive and provide clear answers to the questions asked by the users.
Track the Performance of an FAQ Page – Tracking the performance of an FAQ page is the only way to know whether the page is truly successful. Along with measuring page views, read times, and bounce rates, track the types of questions received. Receiving the same questions on a continuous basis even though it’s answered on the website, may be because it is not easy enough for users to find the answer or the answer may not be clear enough.
A well-optimized FAQ page can contribute to organic search strategy and success. However, it’s one small piece of a much larger puzzle. The success of a FAQ page depends on several factors like the type of questions and answers, number of pages and the final layout. Consider the needs of users or readers (not from a business/ marketing point of view), while creating a FAQ section for a website. The basic goal behind creating a FAQ page is to move someone from a reader to a client. Never stuff the page with unnecessary marketing jargon, instead include the right and common type of questions searched by users. Relying on the services of an organic SEO company will help bring more organic traffic, and thereby boost website rankings.
Are you a small business owner who relies on search engine traffic from your website, and looking for a steady stream of new leads? Then concentrate on your on-site search engine optimization(SEO), as it helps search engines analyze your website and the content connected to it and identify if a searcher’s query is relevant to your website or not. Ever since its launch, Google has been evolving its algorithm so that it can better understand a searcher’s intent and deliver search results that meet that user’s needs. So, as Google’s algorithm develops, make sure your website also develops accordingly. Experienced providers of mobile SEO services would know how to work out things better for small businesses.
Why Is On-Site SEO Important for Small Businesses?
SEMRUSH’s State of Content Marketing Report says that “attracting more traffic is a priority goal among marketers, with some 71% hoping to draw more consumers to their websites”. On-site SEO allows your webpage to rank higher on the search engine results page of Google, Bing, and other popular search engines. This makes it easier for people to find your brand online. SEO is part of a strong foundation for small business success because you can witness a large surge in your search engine traffic, brand visibility, and revenue just by optimizing your website – that is, without building a single link.
If done right and perfectly, SEO can lower customer acquisition costs, making it an appealing avenue for small businesses looking to grow without breaking the bank. That is, you don’t have to spend huge amounts of money to implement an SEO process for new websites and get more consumers interested in your brand.
When it comes to on-page optimization, there are numerous strategies that you can adopt. Here listed are 4 effective on-site SEO tips for small business websites.
Focus on Technical SEO: One of the strongest backbones of a website is technical SEO – the structure of your website – refers to website and server optimizations. It helps to improve search results and organic rankings as search engine spiders crawl and index your website more effectively. While crawling, the goals that should be met include secure and faster-loading pages, all working links, and more. Don’t underestimate the importance of technical SEO, because to have the best chance of ranking in search engine results beyond keywords, link building, and blog post content, you have to build a strong technical foundation for your website, or else everything will fall apart.
Even if your content is valuable and amazing, problems with technical SEO will hamper your site’s ability to rank highly in the SERPs. So, before producing new content to draw potential leads, take stock of the quality of your content from a technical perspective. If you don’t have that technical background, certain aspects such as page speed optimization, the structuring of data, and ensuring up-to-date security and encryption protocols are best left to an experienced digital marketing company. However, there are certain things a person with no technical background can do, such as
a. Creating a sitemap and submitting it to Google, to help you manage your presence in Google Search Results
b. If your website has a lot of pages that don’t get traffic, prune those old pages or else your rankings will be negatively affected.
c. Fix broken and old links; otherwise, the SERP robots will downgrade your content.
d. Use relevant images with appropriate captions and optimize them.
You can also utilize tools such as Alexa’s SEO audit tool to check up on the technical SEO of your website.
Case Study
Neil Patel has mentioned in his blog how HubSpot managed to increase their traffic by 51.14% in just one month, by making technical SEO changes to their websites.
Improve Site Speed: People prefer to visit websites that load quickly, and Google knows this. Whether you’re running a desktop site or a mobile one, site speed is critical, because no one wants to sit around waiting for a website to load. Note that with every second it takes for your page to load, more people are giving up on it. Moreover, if Google sees that people are leaving your page within the first five seconds of landing on it, they’re going to drop you down in the search results. To avoid this, check your site speed using tools such as Google’s PageSpeed Insights, GTMetrix, Pingdom, WebPageTest and others.
By checking your site speed, you will not only get page load time, but also recommendations for improvement. Some tips to improve your page loading speed are:
a. Compress your images without losing their quality
b. Use browser caching
c. Minimize the space of HTML coding
d. Implement Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
Case Study
Neil Patel shared how the company WIRED started implementing AMP to do a better job of reaching their customers. The company found out that their conversions were simply not happening because mobile user experience was too slow, which caused speed issues and visitor retention problems. They decided to invest time into AMP that made a huge impact for them. They increased their click-through rate from organic search results by 25% and found a 63% increase in Click-Through Rate (CTR) on ads in AMP stories. WIRED was also able to add AMP stories to over 100k articles on their site.
Keyword Placement: Place relevant keywords strategically throughout your website content so that the search engines can properly index your site, entice searchers to visit your page, and persuade visitors to stay on your page. Choosing the right keywords and placing them in the proper places – title tag, Meta data, page description, main body content, links, URL, images and so on – is a necessary element of SEO.
Focus on Local SEO: Local SEO or multi location local SEO is a strategic process that focuses on emphasizing the optimization efforts of smaller businesses that operate on a regional – and multiple locations regionally -, as opposed to a national level. It prioritizes appearing on SERPs in a specific location so that it helps market your brand, products, and services to local leads and customers. Google highlights that nearly one-third of all mobile searches are location-based queries, such as “restaurants near me.” Even if the “near me” is not added, Google’s algorithm would automatically prioritize local options if you just searched “restaurants”.
One of the most important parts of local SEO is setting up a Google My Business (GMB) Profile, which is free and easy to maintain. Along with this, content, on-page optimization, and link building – all with a focused, localized intent, are part of local SEO efforts. Also, register your business in local directories such as Yelp, TripAdvisor, and the Yellow Pages so that you get a wide exposure among new audiences.
The above-mentioned strategies are just a few. There are other ways – such as streamlining content marketing, focusing on site security, checking for broken links, incorporating high-profile outbound links and so on – that can help small businesses improve their on-site SEO.
Understand that your business website – be it small or large – is a critical cornerstone of your brand. Therefore, whenever you’re starting a new small business or similar entrepreneurial endeavor, the first important thing is to create a website for building a brand. Once you’re done with creating a website, do proper and perfect on-site SEO in it with the above-mentioned actionable tips and ensure that people who could be your customers can find you online. While implementing on-page optimization, remember that Google likes to change the rules constantly. So, you must keep your eye open for changes in the world of SEO and stay updated with the latest rules. Or else, rely on a professional digital marketing company that offer mobile SEO services could help implement on-site SEO to your website and thereby attract more leads to your site.
Marketers write compelling copies, use tempting images, and add attractive videos on your business website to grab the attention of targeted customers. All of these strategies can be successful, but there is no better way than customer testimonials to help you gain trust and prove your brand genuineness. For instance, in medical website marketing, a customer testimonials page on your medical website is a significant one. It will help prospects who are looking for your services study the experience of other customers and know more about your service. This will allow visitors to make a quick decision and if the reviews are positive it increases your online visibility as well. It is because as the definition goes, a testimonial “is a formal statement testifying to someone’s character and qualifications”. They are real and natural, and they provide credibility to your business. By reading the testimonials, a prospective customer can determine whether you will satisfy their needs or not.
Testimonials have many benefits:
They add value to your business and builds trust
Give confidence for website visitors to take a desired action
If your product is not one-dimensional, you will get different reviews from different kinds of customers
Positive reviews can favor you from the beginning itself
They improve the visibility of your business on popular search engines
Here are some examples of testimonial pages that are worth visiting.
The Tea Story: This testimonial page attracts everyone with an eye-catching design and raises the brand’s identity. Visitors to the website will not miss out on the positive reviews as the testimonial section is located towards the top of the home page. They have chosen customer quotes as their primary testimonial format. They include selective descriptive words that are so appealing that it is difficult to resist purchasing the tea. Like this business, consider including testimonials as a part of your homepage design, so that prospects will come to know of your popularity right from the beginning.
Xero: This website contains unique testimonial snippets on the homepage along with customers’ photographs. The page includes quotes, videos, industry, client names, etc. The page has “Read More” buttons that take you to the Q&A page for that individual case study. This company is a brilliant example of a business that knows the importance of customer testimonials. By featuring unique testimonials for different kinds of customers, Xero allows prospects to experience the story relevant to them.
com: By using typography, color, and balance, they have created a layout that is extraordinarily clean and organized. They provide three types of testimonials on their website. They are: regular testimonials that include logo and quote; featured testimonials that include logo, quote, and video; and case study testimonials that contain summary, quote and Read More button that connects to a newsletter-type PDF for each client.
Hearts and Tears: It is a motorcycle tour agency that uses a short customer quote to promote their upcoming tour. It is paired with a large image from the trip to give people an idea of what the ride is all about. The company makes use of the positive customer reviews posted on social media and on recommendation platforms. It is the best strategy to find customer testimonials rather than asking for customer reviews.
Bizzabo: It is a company that provides tools for professional event planning and implementation. They have different kinds of testimonials of different kinds of customers, so that anyone can find the testimonial that they are looking for. They have case studies on their page and also videos for people who prefer any of them. You can see in their testimonials page how Bizzabo really cares for their customer stories because they provide a range of content formats. The layout of the page is like choose-your-own-adventure that gives prospective customers options on how they prefer to absorb these stories.
Codecademy: Their mission is to teach newbies about learning new coding skills online. They use their customer testimonial page to strongly explain this mission, and they have numerous students willing to share their experience. They use videos to tell the story and show people how Codecademy helps to achieve success in their career with the help of this new skill. They also include stories of many students and interviews with the students about how and why they chose coding. This helps break the barrier for those that are hesitant to sign up for a coding course.
Autofleet: They build trust by appealing to authority. They focus on high profile business partners such as Suzuki, Zipcar, and Avis in their testimonials. For those who are unfamiliar with this company, such testimonials make Autofleet instantly appear to be an industry leader with a competitive solution. Autofleet places their testimonials on their homepage with an easy and brilliant design. Along with the testimonials, they include a photo and job title of each customer to make it more convincing.
mHelpDesk: mHelpDesk is a business automation software company that has a very constructive customer’s page, they incorporate both videos and text-based reviews. They present the video testimonials at the top of the page with pulled out text excerpts below them for easier navigation. Between the video section and text-based reviews there is a Call to Action. The company also include the badges and awards they received to build trust in the minds of prospective customers. The videos included on their page are fine, but some of them lack in quality. If you are including videos, ensure they are of good quality so that you can create a good impression on customers.
Fabletics: They depend on social media to obtain testimonials from customers. Fabletics encourages their customers to post their pictures on Instagram, wearing the company’s products and tagging them. This provides a flow of engagement for the brand’s social account as well as a free advertisement for the brand in the form of customer advocacy.
ChowNow’s: The simple design of ChowNow concentrates on videos and unique quotes from customers. To produce high-quality video testimonials, their team sends a video crew to their customer restaurant locations as it is the best way to display happy customers. These videos connect with the viewers at an emotional level that is hard to convey through text alone. The featured quotes on their page that mention why people choose ChowNow over competitors increased their sales from 20-25%.
Hootsuite: It is a social media management platform. Their testimonial page shows how their product works for anybody. They start their testimonial page with a video mashup showing their different kinds of customers and businesses. As you scroll down, you can also see the case studies of these different businesses in three sections separated by the goals. They are brand building, speed/efficiency, and reporting capabilities.
FreeAgent: It is an accounting software that has a review page which includes press mentions and not customer testimonials. They include snippets of the reviews posted on other sites and these are linked to the resource. The reviews are from trusted sources, and this helps FreeAgent to drive sales.
So, testimonials and reviews are a great way to boost your credibility and establish your level of expertise. For medical website marketing, it is very important to include a testimonials page because visitors to healthcare websites check out the experience of earlier customers. It is a great idea to place the testimonials on your home page as it is the first page that provides the users the first impression, and if the reviews are positive, they can favor you from the beginning itself.
Keyword research is an important factor for SEO. It involves evaluating search terms that people enter into search engines to get information about a product or service they are looking for. Keyword research is the crux of any online marketing campaign. Identifying the commonly used industry specific words or phrases that people type into search engines allows businesses to understand what keywords they should target and rank for to increase traffic to their site and reach their targeted audience.
Keyword research is one of the first steps towards setting up a successful search engine optimization strategy. If you want more traffic to your website, you should a secure a position on the first page of Google search results, or even better, be in the top three search results. Research shows that the first three search results grab about 75% of the clicks and only 0.78% of searchers click on a link on the second page of Google search results. Using the right keywords will put you in touch with your audience and help get them to visit your site.
For example, someone who is looking for a plastic surgeon in New York is likely to type “Plastic surgeon New York” into the search box. If your website content is optimized the right way with this keyword phrase, then your website would show up in on the first page of Google search results and likely bring the searcher to your site.
So, using the right set of keyword in your blogs, images and other content is important to secure the top position in search engine results page. On the other hand, using the wrong keyword may misguide users, increase your bounce rates and eventually lead to you to lose your ranking as well as and traffic.
Keyword Research – Basic Steps
Be clear about your main business goal: The first step in keyword research is to develop a clear idea about your main business goals or your mission, the audience you’re targeting, where they are located, and what they are looking for.
Make a list of keywords: Next, develop a list of keywords with your audience’s search intentions in mind. Think about the words they would be using to look for the products or services you’re offering. What is your unique selling point? Once you have the answers to these questions, you will get an idea about the search terms that you want to be found for.
Do keyword research: This involves putting yourself in the place of your customers and focusing on what exactly they want. Test the keywords you have identified on Google. There are tools that can help you do this.
Pay attention to competition: Find out which keywords your competitors frequently use. This will help you understand gain insights to stand out in the crowd.
If you are redesigning your website, make sure that the navigation of your website, URL naming and content for each page is based on your keyword research. Keyword analysis will help determine the search terms people are using in relation to the products, services and the location of your business. Next, do keyword research to develop content for each page. Keywords should be incorporated into content writing smoothly and in brand promotion.
Keyword Research for Content Optimization
Content optimization is an important factor in SEO and it is important to keep content up to date. As your online presence grows, the search terms that describe the products and service which people use would also change. Performing content optimization on a yearly basis will improve your content and also help meet your SEO goals. When incorporating new keywords, make sure to include them in your meta titles and description of the page to match with the new content. This is because search engine are highly responsive to these changes and they expect consistency throughout the content. It is always better to choose specific keywords that have high search volumes and low competition.
Types of Keywords
Long-tail keywords: These are keywords that have 3 or more words, and low search volume and competition. It is easy to rank for long-tail keywords. Though they may get low search traffic, they may have high cost-per-click (CPC) and attract quality traffic.
For example: running shoes for men with flat heels
Short tail keywords: These are keywords that have less than 3 words and they are very popular and have good search volume and competition.
For example: running shoes
Source: Niche Site Project
Apart from long tail and short tail keywords there primary keywords and secondary keywords too. Primary keywords are keywords that have the main keyword phrases that you are aiming to rank for and appear in the headline, domain,blog post, meta description and meta title of the content. Secondary keywords are extra SEO keywords or phrases that help you to rank better with the content.
How to do Keyword Research
Find the seed keyword: Seed keywords are the basis of keyword research for SEO. It helps identify your competitors and niche easily and promotes your products or service online. These keywords are the most relevant keyword or phrases for your business. Seed keywords are terms that are closely related to your products or service or the basic search terms that are used by audience to search online. For example, if you have an online shoe store, the seed keyword for your business is “shoes”.
Identify keyword ideas: Once you have your seed word ready, the next step is to come out with relevant keyword ideas. But remember to keep in mind the needs of your target customers.
Look for words that you have already ranked for: Find out a few hundreds of keywords that you are already ranked for in Google. This will help you to start your keyword research. Use “Search Analytics” in Google Search Console to find the average position of each keyword in Google web search queries and the clicks that it can bring in.
Identify the keywords that your competitors are ranking for: Look out for keywords that your competitors are using and you can pick the best one. If you do not know your competitors, then enter your seed keyword in Google and find out who ranks first. Check out for keywords in related industries too – you may find useful keywords that may not be relatable but still bring target audience to your website.
Search related: Let us consider an example, typing “plastic surgeon in NYC” into the search engine may give related search terms such as goals plastic surgery, Colombian plastic surgeon, plastic surgeon near me, etc.
Look at the “search related” section at the bottom of the Google page. There will be many keywords in the section that come directly from Google. This will also give you a new list of related keywords.
Look for keywords in Wikipedia: You can find several articles in Wikipedia provided by experts in various industries. Type a broad keyword in Wikipedia and look for the “contents” section of the page. It will list out the subtopics covered on that page.Let’s continue with same example: typing the word plastic surgeon in Wikipedia give you subtopics like Aesthetic surgery, Burn surgery,etc
Use Reddit: If your target audience changed out in Reddit , you can find keywords here. Go to Reddit and search for the topic that your target audience is interested in and something related to the product you sell. The next step is to choose a subreddit that target audience hangs out in, and finally, look out for threads that have many comments.
Google Trends: This is one of the best sources for understanding the seasonality as well as the overall trends of keyword search volume. It can also provide a set of related queries that can help you to get more keywords into your keyword list. For example, the following image shows the trend graph for the keyword “flowers” in Google Trends:
Source: Ahrefs
Understand your niche: Finding out what your niche wants will help you discover various relevant keywords. You can talk with your customers to understand their needs or participate in niche communities social networks to do so.
The search volume for keywords may differ greatly, but if you want to target terms that your audience are looking for, then it is better to use target terms with lower search volume as they are less competitive. As both high and low competition keyword are useful for your website, knowing more about search volumes will help you prioritize keywords.
Use Keyword Tools: If you are the leader of your niche, then looking for some unique keywords is essential. You can use keyword research tools to find relevant keywords. Here are some popular keyword tools:
Google keyword planner: This is one of the most reliable sources of keyword data because it comes straight from Google. It designed to mainly for Google Ad Campaigns. This platform provides you many keywords and also finds queries that get many searches.
Source: SpyFu
Uber Suggest: This tool provides keywords that are not available in Google Keyword planner. You can type in your word and then click suggest. This will generate a list of keywords
Keywords Everywhere: This platform shoes keywords from various places around the web. Install the keyword extension and the next time you visit any of the sites that Keyword Everywhere integrates with, then you will find a list of keywords ideas.
Exploding Topics: This is similar to Google trends. It shows terms that are highly popular. This platform allows you to sort the topics by category.
Soovle: Soovle provides keywords ideas from various sources like Google, Youtube, Bing, Yahoo, Amazon, etc. It can show you hidden keywords that even competitors may not know about. It also lets you save and download your favourite keyword ideas.
Ahrefs keyword planner: This Kewyord planner provides very deep information about each keyword. It also tells you how many backlinks are required to rank on top of the Google.
SEMrush: This is a time saver because instead of providing random keywords tool, SEM rush shows the exact keywords that a site already ranks for.
Keyword metrics: Once you have thousands of keywords, you may find it difficult to pick out a few that deserves to be shortlisted. With keyword metrics you choose the right keywords for your business.
Keyword popularity: Knowing the popularity of keywords is the ideal way to start your research. When more users search for a keyword term, it will get higher ranking and more search volume for that keyword. You can check your keyword search volume with the help of online tools like Wordtracker.
Most popular keyword: To attract more visitors to your website, optimize the most searched for keywords. But remember, more the popular the keyword, the harder it is to rank.
Less competitive keywords: It may not make sense to use less competitive keyword, but this is a good approach for new sites to compete with mature ones. Young websites can find more success in using keywords that are not very popular.
Keyword traffic: Two main metrics – search volume and click rate – provide information about keyword popularity and traffic. A keyword may have many synonyms and people may search for same thing in various ways. So a single page on your website has the potential to rank for many related keywords. So evaluating keywords on the basis of clicks and search volume is not right – consider top ranking results as well as search traffic.
Keyword relevance: To optimize your website, it is important to choose keywords that are relevant your products and services. If your keywords are not very relevant to the products or service you offer, then the search engine will not get a relevant message.
Keyword Intent: It is vital to know the search intent of users to know the value of keywords. The intent behind each keyword or search queries are divided into three categories:
Navigational: brand or company queries
Transactional: purchase queries
Informational questioned oriented or solution seeking or curiosity queries
Keyword ranking difficulty: When it comes to understanding the ranking difficulty of a keyword, the best option is to manually analyze search results and use your SEO experience. Each keyword tool has its own way of calculating ranking difficulty score.
Cost-per-click: This metrics is important for SEO, but is regarded as an indication of keyword’s commercial intent. CPC is more volatile than search volume. The search demand for a keyword fluctuates every month, whereas CPC can fluctuate at any time.
Once you have a list of keywords ready the next step is to narrow down your keywords by testing them using the following steps:
The first and foremost step is asking questions. Find out whether the keywords align with the website’s content and whether the user can find what they want if they use that keyword. Check out if the keyword can ultimately lead to a return on your efforts. If your answer is yes to all these questions, then it means you have a good keyword.
The second step is to conduct a Google search with the keywords that you want to be used. Find out what your competitors are using and if the keywords get many Ads for it then it means that your keywords can bring value and also convert traffic.
Do not jump into targeting using the keyword. Instead, run a small campaign using the exact match option and find out how much the keyword generates.
Make sure to run the campaign for 24 hours and find out the number of conversion that you receive for a few hundred clicks. For example, if the test gave you 10,000 impressions and 300 click in 24 hours, out all those click 20 users may have become customers from users. This means that you can generate a revenue of $1800. This revenue is from a 3 percent Click Through Rate. So a 30 percent Click Through Rate on 10,000 impression means 3000 clicks which can give you a revenue of $18000 every day. The test may sometime show a different result, but can help target niches.
Once you have determined the estimated traffic potential of the keyword and analyzed the competition and how you can improve your ranking, the next step is to identify the resources that should be invested in building a competitive site and promoting it well.
Local SEO Keyword Search
Just like keyword research for SEO, local SEO keyword research is also important. This is the process of optimizing your website to ensure that your business is visible in the search engine result page for local search queries. It requires various strategies such as link building, adding local business schema mark-ups to your website and local citations. Apart from geographical locations, local SEO keyword research is similar to keyword research for SEO.
Local keywords are long tail keywords that have low search volume but are easy to compete for. This is because when you rank for local keywords you have better chances of attracting customers that are ready to covert. For example, when a user searches for “shoes”, the user will find links about the meaning of shoes to different types of shoes etc. But with local keywords like “shoes in NYC”, they can find the shoe stores in NYC. Up to 76 percent of people who are searching for businesses on their phone will visit that company in a day’s time and 28 percent of those customers are likely to make a purchase too.
Google keeps changing its algorithms very frequently and using the right keyword research formula along with the right tools is vital to improve your organic traffic. Conducting keyword research and choosing keywords for your content is essential for search engine optimization. Many businesses choose to associate with SEO companies to perform keyword research. A reliable company will work with its clients to find the right keywords with right balance of search volume, competition and relevancy – all important ingredients for a successful marketing campaign.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic made the news and topics of discussion in the corporate circles, the buzz was all about artificial intelligence (AI) and how it is pervading all aspects of business. It has helped automate manufacturing and enabled organizations to provide better customer care. As digital marketing companies would testify, search engine optimization (SEO) has also come under the influence of AI.
AI has already influenced SEO significantly, particularly in how search engines detect the right search results to put up in the SERPs in accordance with the search query.
Google has been incorporating machine learning. A glowing example is RankBrain, a machine learning system that was incorporated into the Hummingbird algorithm back in 2015.
The Hummingbird update dates back to 2013 and was designed to incorporate semantic search, whereby the search engine figures out the intent of the user behind each search query.
For that, the update would understand the context behind each query. So, Google could consider associated words and synonyms rather than the exact contents of the query to deliver the best results. That would prevent search marketers from resorting to keyword stuffing without enriching their content with rich meaning and genuine information. It was designed to avoid the situation many of us have, when we really never used to get the information we were looking for, instead we would just get results containing content with words that mimicked what we typed in the search box.
How RankBrain Made Search Results More Accurate
The RankBrain modification enabled Google to examine vast sections of search information to improve how it interprets search phrases. These particularly helped when users typed lengthy search phrases or long tail keywords. They would be lowered to a manageable size that the algorithm could effectively deal with. The update is keeping on enhancing and improving itself. The self-enhancing happens based on insights gleaned from machine learning.
In future, there could be more AI- and machine learning- based improvements to help algorithms update themselves. This can replace introducing updates after updates, and it’s also more cost effective. Going ahead, we could see AI developments to analyze the content quality and the hyperlinks that search optimizers produce.
AI Could Help Return More Customized Results
We have seen Google’s efforts to personalize search outcomes for users based on their geographic location. The results could also differ on the basis of the users’ search history and the demographic information that Google collects about you. This was something new back then, but it no longer seems strange. Still, these efforts are restricted now. These could expand further with AI. And Google could use AI for making deeper predictions about search behavior on the basis of historic searches. We already see smart search suggestions while typing in the search box. With AI, Google could predict search outcomes faster by studying the search information and patterns of millions of users.
This could benefit online marketers if they make use of these predictive searchers to better understand user behavior. The marketer that succeeds the most in this could have a significant advantage over the competition. But it may also add to the complexity of Google’s search algorithms, and make it tough for search marketers.
AI for a More Interactive Search Experience
Google has also made its search page more interactive and richer in information, so much so that people looking for information don’t need to click the links in the search listings but get all the information they want right from the SERPs. Snippets and Knowledge Graph are examples.
Quite like how RankBrain helps Google understand the semantic aspect of search queries, AI could be used to make the search results page more interactive and inclusive of the kind of information the user is looking for. That, of course, raises the challenge for search marketers.
Search marketers need to remember that the future is all about improving user experience and fulfilling their requirements. That is Google’s goal, and it will be using artificial intelligence to get to that.
Content Quality and Openness to New Strategies
Businesses would need to deliver comprehensive, relevant and engaging content through their web pages and blog posts, because the AI-powered search knows exactly what users need and the context of their search. You can also optimize for long tail keywords and conversational search queries because that’s how people search these days, particularly when they use voice search to search using their voice assistants and mobile phones.
Experienced website designing and digital marketing services can help various kinds of businesses to be relevant and conspicuous in the search pages and online spaces despite the stiff competition by other businesses. Being prepared to adopt new technologies and strategies to live up to the standards of smart, AI-powered search engines will determine SEO success in the future.
