Ecommerce Expert Tips #2 (SEO and ___)

The Power of People Like Me. 

We all know how important trust icons on our websites are. They help communicate to customers that they are in safe hands when working with your company. But don't forget that perhaps the most powerful of trust icon is the user rating stars or similar customer review devices. Inherently, one of the biggest obstacles to buying online is the fear that I'm making a mistake. By ensuring your customers all have the opportunity to provide feedback on your products, you allow others to overcome that fear. Its part of the reason sites like Amazon are hugely successful. EVERYONE has gone to Amazon, picked a product, and used the previous reviewers comments to help guide their purchasing decision. Giving your customers the opportunity to voice their opinions on your product is often a great way to get future customers to overcome their fear of making a mistake. It also allows you to get a glimpse at what the concerns of your customers are- shipping times, product quality, color tones, fit, design, etc. Your customers may think about your product differently then you and their reviews may help you see a value you didn't know you had.

By: Hiren Patel, Coalition Technologies

Dan, I think this is a great idea and I'm happy to lend some insider tips. As an SEO Expert, the three things I recommend to each Shopify client right off the bat are as follows:

(1) Keyword Research
(2) Competitive Analysis
(3) Rank Report

I'm happy to expand on any of the above but the main idea here is that research is done up front to ensure the right keywords are being targeted on the appropriate pages. Without this proper SEO groundwork, on-site SEO changes amount to little more than "rearranging the deck chairs" so-to-speak.

As far as "SEO tips," I have a few tips that could help most clients as I'm seeing the same thing again and again that can easily be optimized.

SEO Tip 1: Add alt attributes to each image in the image slider. Google reads each image in a slider as a static image and you'd be surprised how many shop owners use alt attributes everywhere else on the site but are unaware that they can add alt tags to the images in the slider.

SEO Tip 2: Change your site's logo image name from the default generic "logo.png" to your top keyword separated by hyphens. So if you sell Halloween costumes, make your logo's image name read "halloween-costumes.png".

SEO Tip 3: Internal anchor text is more important than people realize so I recommend changing the "Home" selection in the top navigation bar to your top keyword if it fits. So again, if you are selling Halloween costumes, then the link to your homepage would read "Halloween Costumes" instead of "Home."

SEO Tip 4: Add more descriptive content (text) to Collections pages, which is good for both customers and search engines. While the default Shopify settings are aesthetically pleasing, in most cases, these mid-level pages (between the homepage and the product pages) are too image-heavy and don't include enough descriptive text. Most Shopify templates allow for but do not promote the fact that a paragraph of text can be added to the Collection pages, which is highly recommended.

SEO Tip 5: Add customer reviews to product pages as seen here. Not only has this been shown to increase conversion rates, but adding customer reviews has an SEO benefit too. It is often a natural way to include relevant longtail or secondary keywords on-site using the language and voice of your target audience.

SEO Tip 6: Build links back to your store! The dirty little secret of SEO is that more than half of the work is actually done off-site. So my recommendation is to look for relevant places on quality websites where you can acquire a link. One example would be leaving feedback for Shopify Experts who you've worked with in the past--not only is this helpful for other users to see which Experts do quality work, but it also provides a link back to your store on a trusted site!

By: Michael Salvo