How to Optimize Your Site’s Content

As an online seller, search engine optimization (SEO) should be one of your top priorities. You need to optimize your content so specific pages have a better chance of ranking higher on search engines like Google. A higher rank nets you better visibility, which will make it easier for potential customers to find your site instead of your competitors’ sites.
By improving the quality of your content, you will open the door for backlinks as well. Use this guide to optimize the content on your site so you can improve your search engine ranking.

Finding Good Keywords

A key aspect of SEO is including specific, high-ranking terms, or keywords, into your content. People looking to buy things online typically type in specific words or phrases into the search engine so they can find exactly what they need. Including these terms in your content is the key to making it easier for people to find your website.

Your job is to search for terms that not only rank high, but also refer to the products on your site specifically. Using popular, but irrelevant keywords may draw in users that have no interest in buying your products. Tools such as Google’s Keyword Finder can help you find high ranking terms for the products and services you offer online.

Try to search for terms that have a low amount of competition, since you will not have to fight against other companies for top-billing. Logicblock’s 7cart system is great for keyword design, thanks to its easily customizable URL structure.

Writing Content, Titles, Meta Descriptions

After selecting your keywords, you need to incorporate them into the content on your landing pages and product pages. Fit relevant keywords into the copy you are writing so they fit in with the content for each individual page on your site. Make sure your content is concise, because if your content drags you will have trouble converting any of the people your optimizations bring in.

You also need to incorporate these words in the title tags and meta descriptions for each page to further boost your search engine ranks. This content also needs to be concise, because pieces could get cut off in the search engine if you write too much text. A rule of thumb is to stay under 70 characters for titles, and under 160 characters for meta descriptions.

Avoid Keyword Stuffing

To piggyback off the previous point, it is important that you do not fill your copy with too many keywords. Since keywords help improve your rank online, fledgling copy writers come to the conclusion that stuffing their work with lots of different keywords can boost a site’s rank dramatically. This could not be further from the truth.

Keywords are built from a combination of specific words, so using them too often can make your content sound unnatural to the average reader. Your rank also suffers, because when you try too hard to tune your content to a search engine’s algorithm the content comes across as nothing more than spam. Use your keywords efficiently, and only incorporate them in places where it makes sense in the context of what you are writing.

Perform a Site Audit & Fix Errors

After you have everything squared away with your content and keywords, you should perform a site audit to look for major errors. Things such as broken links and duplicate pages break the flow of your website, and will harm its search engine rank. Test all the pages on your site to make sure all the URLs work, and check for repeat pages that you can delete.

You also want your URLs to be nice and readable, so if some of them look a bit messy try to rewrite them so they are easier to understand. Be sure to keep a report of any adjustments you make so everyone in your company is aware of the changes you make to the site. Refining your website in this way can help it gain much more visibility online.

Check Out the Competition

Every type of seller knows that it is important to keep tabs on what the competition is up to. One of the best ways to improve your own SEO strategy is to see how your competitors are handing their own optimizations. Go to their sites, and get a feel for the content they write and the keywords they use.

If their content is performing well on Google, this will help you see where you can make necessary improvements. This also helps you determine where your competitors are faltering, which will give you the opportunity to set up an SEO plan that can fight back. Be sure to pay special attention to the homepage, since this is one page that most companies spend a lot of time optimizing.

Keep in mind that you should not use the same exact keywords that the competitors are using. Use their keywords as a guide, and search for similar keywords that are not as competitive.

Performing search engine optimizations is a critical part of improving your online marketing. Want to know more about the importance having strong marketing?