SEO For Beginners: How to Get More Organic Traffic in 2020

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Free, high quality, consistent.
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This is the exact kind of traffic that every
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e-commerce entrepreneur wants.
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And today you’re going to learn how to make it happen
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by learning the basics of search engine optimization.
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Welcome back to learn with Shopify.
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I’m your host Tyler, and today you’re going to learn
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how to use SEO to increase sales and grow your brand.
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I am so excited to share with you some simple techniques
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that every online business owner should be practicing.
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when it comes to learning SEO, the entire subject can make
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some business owners feel like they don’t know where to start.
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Between intimidating industry jargon and constantly evolving
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search engine updates, the subject of SEO to a beginner can feel as
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unapproachable as trigonometry.
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But it doesn’t have to be that way.
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It’s a shame that so many miss out on free, predictable
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high quality traffic, because SEO wasn’t explained in a way
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that felt easy to understand.
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So today I’m gonna explain the basics of e-commerce SEO
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in a way that feels simple and is above all actionable.
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If you’re completely new to the subject, you might be
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thinking what even is SEO?
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Search engine optimization is the process by which content
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is created and enhanced in a way that makes finding them on
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search engines, like Google, YouTube, Yahoo, and Bing easier.
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When you type a search term into Google, the search engine
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results page sometimes called a SERP for short, gives us a few
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paid ads and 10 organic unpaid search results below them.
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The goal of SEO is to rank within these 10 organic search results.
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The crown jewel being the number one ranking.
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As you’ll know from your own experience, searching things on
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Google, the vast majority of people never click past the first page.
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Just how many don’t?
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A study from a few years back found an astonishing 95% of
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Google users never click past the first page, as it turns out,
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the best place to hide from your customers is on page two of Google.
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For websites lucky enough to gain the first position on a
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search engine results page, they gain an astonishing 32.2% of
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traffic for that search term.
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When thousands of people are searching for that particular
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term every month, this can translate into a lot of people
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landing on your website.
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And if you’re targeting the right search terms, this can
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translate to a lot of sales.
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There are three basic categories of search terms.
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The first is navigational.
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These are the search terms you type in when you’re trying to
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navigate to a specific website, like when you’re looking
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for amazing digital growth strategies, so you type in learn
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with “Shopify YouTube channel.”
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The second is informational.
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These are the types of search terms you use when trying to gather
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knowledge or conduct research.
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Like when you type in how to build an eCommerce site, or what is SEO?
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And then there’s transactional.
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These are the types of search terms you type in when trying
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to take a commercial action.
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Like when you want a fresh new pair of kicks, so you type
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in .Buying Nike shoes online.
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Now that we have a bit of background knowledge on
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SEO, let’s get into how we actually get started.
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Since a user’s journey begins with a search term, it probably won’t
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surprise you that our process begins with keyword research.
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When conducting keyword research, content marketers
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and publishers often care most about informational keywords.
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And that’s because informational keywords
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often get a ton of searches.
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Side note; the number of times that users search for a given term is
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called ‘search volume.’ However, as eCommerce entrepreneurs,
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it’s a bit different.
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We’re less concerned with vanity metrics, like the number of
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visitors and more concerned with the quality of those visitors.
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Let me be clear.
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Having a lot of traffic is great, but we want people coming
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to us for the right reason.
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We’re looking for visitors who are most likely to
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buy what we’re selling.
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That’s why we want to rank for commercial keywords that show
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buying intent, like best standing desk or buy waterproof tent.
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Since it’s, by far the most popular search engine on the
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planet, I’m going to be showing you how to conduct keyword
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research using Google, but you can use similar processes on
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other search engines as well.
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Our process of finding the right keywords begins with the
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autocomplete feature of Google.
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The auto-complete feature is a great resource for finding what
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is known as long tail keywords.
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Long tail simply means keyword phrases that are
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three or four words long.
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Another great resource for keyword ideas is the related
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searches section at the bottom of the search engine results page.
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These sections can be absolute gold mine for keyword ideas and
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are a great place to get started.
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Amazon also has their own auto-complete feature.
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Use a search term that’s relevant to the product you
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sell, and Amazon will give you a bunch of ideas for keywords
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and product category names.
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Here’s a pro tip when using this process on either Google
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or Amazon, keep an eye out for long tail keywords.
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These are the key phrases that are three to four words in length,
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and they are highly specific.
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And as a result, they often have lower competition and
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higher conversion rates.
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These strategies are great if you’re just starting out.
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But if you have a little bit of money to invest, I
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highly recommend getting a subscription to a keyword tool.
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Keyword tools like SEM rush can really make finding
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better keywords, easier.
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SEM rush is such a powerful tool for finding keywords and
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conducting a competitor analysis.
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Simply type in the domain name of the competitor into the search bar.
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Scroll down and you can see so much useful information, like
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what keywords they’re ranking for by country, their keyword
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trend, their search engine results page features, and more.
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Go to the dropdown and click organic research, scroll down, and
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now you can see all the keywords that your competitor ranks for.
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You can even see their top position changes.
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Then click on the tab that says competitors.
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And now you’ll see a list of websites that you can use
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to mine more keywords from.
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Now click the sidebar that says gap analysis, simply
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put in the competitor’s name.
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And once it loads scroll down and click the tab
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that says unique keywords.
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Now you can see a list of all the keywords that your competitors are
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ranking for that your site isn’t.
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Now that you have a large list of keywords, it’s time to whittle
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them down, to find the keywords that will be most valuable for you.
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Here are four factors that you should measure
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your keywords against.
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Keyword search volume.
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The higher the search volume, the more potential traffic.
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Competition the lower the competition.
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The more likely you are to rank for that search term.
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Relevancy.
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How relevant is your product page or category page to
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the given search term?
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Don’t try and trick search engines, the Google gods see all.
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And intent.
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You want to make sure your keywords shows buying intent.
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These types of keywords often have higher conversion rates.
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Factors like page authority and domain authority give you
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insight into how difficult it will be to outrank the current
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results, the higher this number, the tougher time you’re going
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to have, but the lower, the all entitle number, the better.
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All entitled essentially means competition.
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So the lower the competition, the better chances you have to rank.
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You might be surprised to find out that the design of your
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site affects a lot more than just your user experience.
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It also affects how easily search engines can find the
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product pages on your website.
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It’s really important to take the time to get this right, as it’s
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going to save a lot of time and heartbreak later down the road.
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Make sure that your site structure is simple, but easy
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to scale as your site grows.
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Every page of your site should be as few clicks from
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your homepage as possible.
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You don’t want your users having to spin in circles or
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click the back button to get where they’re trying to go.
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The further away your product pages are from your homepage, the
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less authority they will have.
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Less authority essentially means less likely to rank and less
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visible because search engines see them as less important.
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I’ll talk a little bit more about authority later
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when we discuss backlinks.
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So stay tuned.
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Here’s a pro tip, be highly selective of which levels of your
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website structure are indexed.
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To put it simply, the index is essentially the database that
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powers search engines use the supply and demand principle to
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choose which categories, filters and attributes are worthy of
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indexing before indexing a page.
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Make sure to answer these three questions.
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How relevant is the query that is used for the search?
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Does your audience search for the term enough to compensate the time
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and effort to index that page?
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And do you have enough relevant products, services, and offerings
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to be featured on that index page?
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Here are some really common mistakes that e-commerce
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SEO beginners make.
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Unlike blogs, eCommerce sites often have a lot less rich content.
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Arbitrary product and attribute filters can make this a lot worse
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as they’ll create pages that only have a few products on it,
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with really thin descriptions.
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These random product and attribute filters can also
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cause content duplication issues, which is exactly as
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straightforward as it sounds.
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This is when the same content can be found on
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multiple areas of your site.
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Search engines absolutely hate it when you have overly similar
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content featured on multiple pages.
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This is because search engines aren’t sure which content they
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should rank, and as a result, they can penalize pages or
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sometimes domain names altogether.
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Shopify makes avoiding content duplications so much easier by auto
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generating canonical tags for you.
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A canonical tag is essentially an invisible sign that tells
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Google which page is the master version and which one
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you want them to look at.
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It’s highly recommended that you add these tags as you don’t want
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Google ranking the wrong page, or getting frustrated and diluting
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your ranking ability altogether.
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If you’re not on a platform like Shopify, that automatically
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generates these tags for you, you can generate them manually
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and add them in, using a snippet of code, into your HTML header.
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Now that you’ve laid the foundation for your SEO success, it’s time to
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optimize your two most important pages, your product pages and
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your product category pages.
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Now, if you’re using Shopify, one of the beautiful things
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about this platform is that this is going to be so much
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easier, because it generates these four things automatically.
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Canonical tags are automatically generated, which we spoke
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a little bit about before.
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Sitemap.XML and Robots.TXT files are also automatically created.
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A Sitemap.XML file is essentially a roadmap to your website.
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Robots.TXT files tell Google bots which webpages to crawl.
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Title tags that include your store name are also included,
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and this is great for SEO.
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Social media, linking and sharing options are also included.
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Truth be told, those things can be pretty annoying to do yourself.
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So I highly recommend going with the platform
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that does them for you.
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Once those things are complete, here are the next things
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that you need to optimize.
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A title tag is essentially just a fancy name for the blue
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clickable headline that appears when you conduct a Google search.
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An amazing title tag will include the following a hook
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that grabs your reader by using emotion and curiosity.
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Click through rate is really important to Google, so make
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sure your title tag is engaging.
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A primary keyword and if possible, a long tail variation.
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Try front-loading your title with your primary keyword as
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it’s sometimes a ranking factor.
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Make sure it’s short and sweet.
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You’ll need to be below 60 characters to ensure your title
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tag doesn’t get cut off on the search engine results page.
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Make sure that your title tag is descriptive of the qualities
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of your blog post or page.
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For a blog post that’s in depth try using words like ultimate
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definitive guide, or step-by-step.
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For a product page, make sure that you described the product fully,
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like five piece barbecue sets.
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For a product category page, make sure that you describe the items
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and the ideal customer, like three piece suits for groomsmen.
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Also, if your platform doesn’t do it automatically after your
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headline, it’s a best practice to include your brand name
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using the naming convention, pipe symbol, brand name.
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Also make sure that all the title tags on your websites are unique.
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If they’re not Google may ultimately penalize
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you in the long run.
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Meta descriptions are basically just the paragraph
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that appears beneath the blue headline on Google.
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When writing meta descriptions, you’ll want to make sure that you
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include your primary keyword and any relevant secondary keywords.
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However, the most important part is that the meta
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descriptions are enticing enough that a user clicks through.
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So don’t jam them full of unnecessary or repetitive keywords.
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Next, we have your URL.
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Your URL should include your primary keyword phrase and
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it should be short, no longer than three or four words.
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Getting rid of stop words like the, and at is a great call.
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You’ll also want to make sure that it matches your
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title as closely as possible.
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And also, it should be unique enough from other URLs on
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your site that search engines aren’t going to get confused.
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Now let’s talk about images.
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When including images, it’s important to note
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that original images can help your page rank better.
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Now, if you don’t have thousands of dollars to spend on professional
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camera equipment or hire a photographer, don’t worry.
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Just check out our video on how to shoot product photos on your
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cell phone, and that will give you everything you need to get started.
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Beyond having original images, it’s really important that
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you optimize them correctly.
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We’ll start with the alt text.
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The alt text provides a description of the contents of the photo.
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It’s really important that you fill this out, as it helps Google
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understand what is going on the image and how to rank it correctly.
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While you do want to include keywords in the alt text, make
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sure that you accurately describe what is going on the photo, as it
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does help the visually impaired.
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Also the file names of your media files need to
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include the primary keyword.
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Make sure to never upload a nondescript file name,
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like the ones your camera or computer will auto-generate.
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Now let’s talk about header tags.
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It’s really important that header tags are used properly
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as they help Google understand the order of importance
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when crawling your webpage.
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H1’s , H2’s, and H3’s should always be used in a hierarchy
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with H1 being at the top and H5 being at the bottom.
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Use header tags on your product descriptions.
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Not only do they make it easier on the eyes, but they
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also help Google bots more effortlessly crawl your site.
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Here’s a pro tip, save H1’s for your primary keyword
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and then use H2’s and below for secondary keywords and
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long tail keyword phrases.
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Let’s talk about another best practice, writing
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rich product descriptions.
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If there’s anything that search engines hate, it’s obscurity.
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If you’re writing overly short product descriptions,
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you’re not giving your product pages a fighting chance.
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That’s why you need to write rich product descriptions that
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include reviews to help potential customers, and Google understand
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what you’re really selling.
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If you want tips on how to write product descriptions that actually
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sell, check out this video here.
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Let’s not forget about internal linking.
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The longer that you can keep a visitor on your site, the larger
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chance you have of snagging a sale, including relevant links to other
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pages on your site is a great way to help your customers browse so
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they can discover other information and stumble upon other products
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that they might find valuable.
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In your anchor text, the words where you should we
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place your link, make sure to include the keyword verbatim.
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Internal linking can be used to drive customers to
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product pages, categories, and even educational content.
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Here’s a pro tip, if you understand your audience’s decision making
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process, create content that helps them through the various
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stages in the buyer journey.
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Also, don’t go too crazy with internal linking.
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One or two links every few hundred words is more than enough.
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Finally, let’s talk about backlinks.
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We spoke a bit about authority earlier on in the video, and
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I think the most interesting way to explain it is to give
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a brief history of Google.
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The basic concept of Google was created by Larry Page and Sergei
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Brin, when they were working on a thesis project that attempted
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to organize the entire internet.
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So after downloading the entire internet, Yes.
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You heard that correctly.
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They proceeded to find a better way to make search engines work.
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Rather than simply drawing results by keyword, they believe that the
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highest quality information could be surfaced if webpages were given
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authority, similar to the way that academic papers are given authority
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based on the number and quality of citations, except in this case,
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citations are called backlinks.
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While there are hundreds of other ranking factors
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used in their algorithm.
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Google uses the quality, relevancy, and number of backlinks to judge a
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site’s quality and trustworthiness.
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As a result, new sites have less authority in the eyes of Google.
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While time can fix this, building backlinks can be a great way
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to get search engines, to recognize your authority faster.
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respected .com, .gov, and .edu sites will provide
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you the most authority when they give you a backlink.
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However .com’s are probably the most accessible place to start.
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One of the best ways to approach building backlinks
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is to focus on partnerships.
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Look for other websites that are closely related to your
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niche and find the ways that you can exchange mutual value.
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Guest post can be a great way to build backlinks, provided that the
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content is relevant and provides your audience with real value.
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As a pro tip, you can analyze competitor’s
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backlinks using SEM rush.
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This is a great way to unearth backlink
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opportunities in your niche.
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Another way that you can build backlinks is
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through press mentions.
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While building your own press lists can be labor intensive
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and hiring a PR firm can be incredibly expensive.
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Here’s a simple growth hack that anyone can do.
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Sign up for helpareporter.com and you’ll get a daily
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digest of reporter requests right to your email.
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When you see a lead that matches your brand story, respond
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to the email with a pitch.
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If you get an interview, make sure to ask the journalist for
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a backlink to your website.
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Lastly, be weary of backlinking services.
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Sometimes they can try and sell backlinks based on
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quantity rather than quality.
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And this can really hurt your SEO overall.
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Invest time in creating quality backlinks.
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It will really help you out in the long run.
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SEO is a rabbit hole that is incredibly deep and techniques
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are constantly evolving.
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Hopefully this video has given you a strong enough
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foundation in e-commerce SEO for you to get started.
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Got anything in your business journey that
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you could use help with?
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Well, comment below and we’ll make a video happen so that
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we can set you up for success.
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Don’t forget to smash that like button so that more
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entrepreneurs can get empowered by the information we’re sharing.
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Remember, we aren’t just a channel.
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We’re a movement of online business owners with big plans.
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Thanks so much for joining me on Learn with Shopify, I’m your host
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Tyler and I’ll see you next time!