Are you a business owner looking to build a successful ecommerce website?

If so, then SEO should be at the top of your list.

Search engine optimization can make or break an online store – optimizing for search engines is essential for any ecommerce website if you want to stand out from the competition and increase traffic.

This ultimate guide to SEO for ecommerce websites in 2023 will give you insights into how SEO works, what are the best SEO strategies for ecommerce websites, and how to create an effective SEO strategy for ecommerce websites that will help grow your business.

Let’s get started with the burning question, “What is ecommerce SEO?”

What is Ecommerce SEO, & How Does It Work?

Ecommerce SEO is the process of optimizing your online ecommerce store for search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

This means taking all the necessary steps to make your website appear higher in search results when users search for related keywords.

SEO for ecommerce site involves optimizing your website’s written and visual content, as well as its structure and technical aspects. This makes it easier for search engine robots to crawl, index, and understand your website and ultimately rank it higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).

What does “indexing” mean?

Indexing is like registering your website on Google’s directory or database.

If your website is not indexed, users won’t be able to see it, which means you can’t rank on search engines.

How Does Search Engine Optimization Work?

SEO is a combination of on-page and off-page optimization strategies.

On-Page SEO

On-page optimization involves optimizing elements on your website, such as the design, content, coding, and URL structure.

Some of the basic on-page optimization tasks include:

• Writing keyword-rich website content, titles, and meta descriptions
• Setting up an internal linking structure
• Enhancing page speed and mobile-friendliness
• Optimizing images with alt text
• Using structured data (Schema markup)
• Adding quality external links

All of these factors help search engine robots understand the purpose and content of your website so they can compare it to other ecommerce sites in organic search results.

Off-Page SEO

Off-page optimization, on the other hand, involves activities outside of your website, such as building links from other websites, using social media to promote your content, and submitting your website to directories and webmaster tools like Google Search Console.

These activities all help to increase your website’s visibility and authority in the eyes of search engines.

These on-page and off-page factors are generally known as ranking factors in technical SEO language.

But what exactly is the purpose of ecommerce SEO besides boosting search engine rankings?

Let’s have a quick rundown of the benefits of SEO for ecommerce website.

Benefits of An Ecommerce SEO Campaign

SEO for ecommerce site is essential because of the following:

1. Boost In Website Traffic & Search Visibility

One of the most obvious benefits of ecommerce SEO is that it increases the visibility of your ecommerce site and promises better engagement chances with potential customers.

Doing so builds your digital presence, drives more traffic, and increases customer conversion rates.

2. Minimize Paid Ad Costs

Investing in your ecommerce SEO campaign could mean a significant reduction in your paid advertising budget.

But, thankfully, it would still offer a higher ROI.

Why? and HOW?

Because “53.3% of all organic traffic comes from organic search.” (Source = Ahrefs)

This means more than half of the users ignore paid ads and click on organic search results.

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So, cut your paid marketing costs, and double down your investment in SEO tools.

3. Enhance Brand Image

Customers are likely to trust and buy from top stores on search engine results pages simply because they are seen more often.

4. Sit Above Your Competition (Literally)

Ranking higher in search engine results not only puts you above competitor ecommerce sites on Google, but it also gives you the edge when it comes to capturing leads.

The higher your website appears in the SERPs, the more likely customers are to click through to it and make a purchase.

5. Improve Your Retargeting Campaigns

Retargeting campaigns involve targeting previous website visitors with personalized ads in order to remind them about your products and win back potential customers.

SEO can help you with this by providing you with data that lets you know how many people are visiting your website and which pages they’re viewing.

This data will allow you to better determine the right retargeting campaigns and optimize them for maximum ROI.

6. Better Usability & Customer Experience

Good ecommerce SEO practices mean that your website is optimized for usability, which in turn enhances the customer experience and makes it easier for visitors to find what they’re looking for.

This can lead to more satisfied customers and higher conversion rates, making SEO a great investment.

All in all, ecommerce SEO is one of the smartest investments you can make for your online store. It doesn’t just help you to rank higher in search engine results; it also helps you grow in every aspect and emerge as a trusted brand.

Now that we’ve covered the working and benefits of ecommerce SEO, it’s time to dive into the ecommerce SEO best practices you should be using.

12-Step Proven & Effective Ecommerce SEO Strategy (+1 Bonus Step)

Here is what a comprehensive ecommerce SEO strategy should include:

1. Registering Your Ecommerce Site On Search Engines

The very first step to kick off your ecommerce SEO campaign is to submit your website on Google, Bing, and other search engines.

Why?

Registering your website with search engines will ensure that your website is visible to search engine spiders and crawled more frequently.

Moreover, it will send you notifications about any technical issues related to crawling or website usability in general.

How to register your website with search engines?

By adding your website’s URL to the respective search engine’s webmaster tools.

For Google, it’s Google Search Console, and for Bing, it’s Bing Webmaster Tools.

2. Setting Up & Optimizing Your Website Structure

Optimizing your site architecture is one of the key ecommerce SEO tools to benefit from. A well-organized and structured website tells search engines that your ecommerce site is easy to crawl and index.

Moreover, a well-structured website appeals to customers and helps them find the information they are looking for quickly and easily.

So, you need to optimize your website structure for both.

How to optimize ecommerce site architecture for search engine bots?

It’s easy. Simply add your sitemap file to Google and Bing using the respective webmaster tools.

A sitemap is basically a visual representation of all the pages on your website that you want search engines to crawl. This should essentially include all of your product pages, category pages, blog posts, and other content.

What does a sitemap do?

It helps search engine bots crawl and index all the pages of your website. Plus, it also helps users see how your website is organized and where they can easily find the information they’re looking for.

You can create a sitemap yourself or take advantage of automated solutions such as Google’s Webmaster Tools. XML and HTML are both used for sitemaps, but HTML sitemaps are a user-friendly option.

How to optimize ecommerce site architecture for website visitors?

Besides adding a sitemap, make sure that all major pages of your ecommerce store aren’t far away from the homepage.

Users like it when a product or category page is easily accessible within three clicks from the home page, as this lets them navigate your website easily.

So, have a clear navigation system with well-defined categories and properly labeled product pages. But avoid adding unnecessary layers of pages; it could make customers feel lost.

Also, add an easy-to-spot search bar somewhere on the page (preferably in the header area). This will allow customers to quickly search and find what they’re looking for on your website.

Bonus Tip: Want to build more trust with your visitors?

Add an About Us and a Contact Us page so customers know who you are as a brand and where they can reach you.

3. Performing In-Depth Keyword Research

The next step to setting up an effective ecommerce SEO strategy is keyword research.

Why?

Because keywords are the foundation of any successful search engine optimization campaign.

They help you understand what people are searching for when they look up something related to your business and the products you offer.

So, how do you find keywords?

Two of the most effective methods are:

Use a Keyword Research tool:

There are plenty of free and paid keyword research tools available online. Ubersuggest, Answer the Public, and Ahrefs Keywords Explorer are some of the popular ones.

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These tools will provide you with a list of keyword suggestions related to your business and products, their search volumes, CPCs, keyword difficulty scores, and more.

Or, you can use a free tool like Google Keyword Planner. It’s a great way to find relevant and popular keywords for your website.

Bonus Tip: You can use the auto suggest feature on Amazon, Etsy, and other platforms to find more relevant keywords.

Google’s Autosuggest:

Another easy way to find keyword ideas is through Google’s auto suggest feature. All you have to do is type a keyword into the search box, and Google will automatically suggest related terms.

For example, if you type ‘running shoes,’ it’ll give you a list of related keywords such as ‘best running shoes,’ ‘running shoes for women,’ and so on.

These keyword suggestions will give you a better idea of what people are searching for, allowing you to create targeted content and campaigns.

Plus, you’ll uncover excellent long-tail keywords with high buying intent — which brings us to another aspect of ecommerce keyword research.

4. Understanding Search Intent & Creating Relevant Content

Search intent refers to the intention behind search queries: the reason why people are searching or looking up a particular keyword.

Identifying search intent and optimizing your content accordingly is the key to driving more organic traffic and conversions.

For example, if someone is searching for ‘running shoes,’ their search intent could be learning about features, pricing, and different options available in the market.

You can optimize your content around this intent and write product-review articles, comparison articles, or guides, including informational keywords.

On the other hand, if someone’s searching for “running shoes for men under $200,” it means they’re almost ready to spend that amount. You can create website pages targeting those keywords and include relevant calls-to-action in your product pages, category pages, and product descriptions.

The key is to understand what people are searching for and create content that aligns with the search intent. This will surely help improve your SEO rankings.

5. Optimizing Your Website

Once you’ve done your keyword research and identified search intent, the next step is to optimize your existing website content.

Add Keywords

Include your keywords in the following:

• Title tags, meta tags, and meta descriptions on your home page, ecommerce category pages, product pages, and blog posts.

Why?

Because users see these tags and descriptions first when they search for a keyword on Google, so it’s important to make sure they are optimized.

However, you would want to stay away from keyword stuffing and place them naturally throughout your content.

• URLs.

Write descriptive URLs including your primary keyword, to get an edge over your competitors.

Having keywords in the URL helps you stand out in the eyes of both the search engine and visitors.

• Alt tags (or alt text).

This is the text you add to images to serve as an alternative text for search engines. This gives Google the ability to read what your image is about, giving you an extra boost in rankings.

Tip: Adding modifiers such as “Coupon,” “Discount,” and “Free Shipping” in your meta description can increase clickthrough rate (or CTR), which is a strong ranking factor in the eyes of Google.

Focus On Link Building

Link building is an indirect ranking factor, but it can make a huge difference in your SEO rankings. There are two sides to it:

Internal links – Link to other pages on your website. This helps Google better understand the structure and content of your website, which can help boost rankings. Moreover, it also helps visitors stay on your site for longer.

External links – Link to other relevant websites and blogs. This helps Google verify that your content is valuable and trustworthy, thus boosting rankings.

But make sure you only link to relevant and credible websites and don’t link to irrelevant or low-quality sources. Not only is it bad for SEO, but it also ruins user experience and reflects poorly on your reputation.

Also, try not to link to direct competitors, as it will give them free traffic and a possible ranking boost to outrank your website.

6. Creating High-Quality Backlinks To Your Ecommerce Website

Backlinks are one of the most powerful ranking signals for Google and an excellent way to strengthen your SEO strategy for ecommerce website. The more high-quality backlinks you have, the higher your website will rank in search engine results pages (SERPs).

You can get high-quality backlinks from authority websites in your niche. Consider guest blogging, directory submissions, and leveraging social media to get some relevant backlinks. You can also reach out to influencers in your niche to get them to link to your website or products.

Lastly, make sure the backlinks are from credible sites and use relevant anchor text to increase the chances of getting a higher ranking.

7. Enhancing User Experience

Google uses a number of factors to determine the quality and relevance of content, one of which is user experience. It looks at how long users stay on a page and whether or not they find the information useful.

A good user experience is essential for ecommerce SEO success, so make sure your website is easy to use, and navigation is simple.

Here are a couple of things you can do to improve user experience.

Have a Responsive Design:

Make sure your website is optimized for mobile devices and has a responsive design. This will ensure that users on all types of devices have a good experience navigating your website.

Reduce Page Load Speed:

Page load speed is one of the most important factors for user experience and SEO. If your website takes too long to load, users will quickly leave, and it will hurt your rankings.

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Make sure the page is optimized for speed by using caching, compressing images, and minimizing scripts.

Add a Search Bar:

Adding a search bar to your website makes it easier for users to find what they’re looking for. This helps reduce bounce rate and keeps users on your website for longer.

Create User-Friendly Checkout:

The checkout process should be simple and straightforward. Make sure the checkout process is easy to navigate and keep distractions to a minimum.

Also, provide features like guest checkout and payment options such as PayPal and credit card to ensure customers have a smooth checkout experience.

Following these tips will help you make your ecommerce website more user-friendly and help visitors stay long enough to convert into paying customers. It will, in turn, signal Google to rank you higher than websites with poor design and high bounce rates.

8. Having An Optimized, Simple URL Structure

Having a simple URL structure is super important from an SEO perspective. Why?

Because it simplifies navigation for users and helps search engine crawlers understand the structure of your website more easily.

Here are a few URL tips to keep in mind:

Your URL should be short. 50 to 60 characters is the recommended limit.

• It should be easy to read and understand.
• Include your target keyword in the URL.
• Don’t use stop words in URLs, such as “the,” “and,” “of,” and “a.” This will help keep your URL short.
• Also, make sure you use hyphens (-) to separate words instead of underscores (_).

For example, a bad URL structure would look like this:

On the other hand, a simple URL structure would be:

9. Using Schema Markups To Facilitate Google And Users

Schema markup is a type of structured data that helps search engines understand the content on your website. It’s basically a code added to your HTML that provides additional information about what’s on the page.

Using schema markup can help search engines display your website’s information in the form of rich snippets, like product markup snippets and review snippets. These snippets help users spot useful information faster and easier.

The most common ecommerce schema are:

• Product schema: For displaying product-related information like price, availability, and images. This extension also allows more efficient displaying of product ads.
• Review schema: For displaying review ratings and summaries on the search result page. Users can see the reviewer’s information and verify if the review is credible.
• Video schema: For displaying videos in search results. This extension helps search engines understand the type of video and its content.
• Price schema: For displaying pricing information of products. It is often used to display price ranges for product variations.

Using schema markups will help you get more visibility and clicks from search results, which eventually leads to better SEO rankings (and more sales).

10. Tackling Duplicate Content

Duplicate content is when one page has the same or similar content as another page, which is a common issue for ecommerce stores.

Having duplicate content on your website is bad for SEO because it creates confusion for search engines and makes it difficult to determine which page should be ranked higher in search engine results pages.

You can avoid this by using canonical tags. These tags essentially tell search engines which page is the original or “master version” and that all other pages with similar content are to be ignored.

Or, you can use the Robots.txt file to block duplicate content from being indexed.

Both methods work, but the canonical tag is preferable since it offers more control over duplicate content.

By avoiding duplicate content, you will be able to improve your SEO for ecommerce site and get better SEO rankings.

11. Monitoring & Tracking Your Ecommerce SEO Efforts

Finally, you should monitor and track your ecommerce SEO efforts to measure their effectiveness.

How?

Google Analytics is one of the best ecommerce SEO tools out there, and it can be used to track your website’s performance. By setting up goals and tracking metrics like bounce rate, time on page, and click-through rate (CTR), you can get insights into how well your SEO efforts are working.

You can also use other tools like Screaming Frog, DeepCrawl, and Ahrefs to audit your website and track changes in the backlinks.

You should also use A/B testing to determine which changes have a positive impact on your SEO rankings.

By tracking your ecommerce SEO efforts, you will be able to identify areas where you need improvement and make the necessary changes. This will help you achieve better SEO rankings and more organic traffic in the long run.

12. Keeping Up With SEO Trends

SEO trends are constantly changing, and you need to stay up-to-date if you want to keep up with the competition.

You can do this by attending SEO conferences, reading industry blogs, and staying up-to-date with the latest Google updates.

You should also keep an eye on your competitors’ SEO strategies and use tools like Ahrefs to monitor changes in their backlinks.

By keeping up with SEO trends, you’ll be able to create effective SEO strategies for ecommerce websites, stay one step ahead of the competition, and stay on top of the SERPs.

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And now for some more value, here is a BONUS that most ecommerce brands ignore.

13. BONUS = Leveraging The Power Of Pinterest SEO

Did you know that Pinterest is a search engine in itself?

People search on Pinterest just like they would on Google or Bing.

However, instead of delivering traditional results like Google, it offers visuals.

So, when someone enters a query in the Pinterest search bar, it will work to find the most appropriate (read: optimized) pins for that individual’s needs.

This means with a proper Pinterest SEO strategy, you can increase your profile’s visibility and get more website traffic from this unique search engine.

Here are a few actionable tips to optimize for Pinterest SEO:

• Get a Pinterest business account, as it has more optimization features.
• Use relevant keywords in the pin description and post titles.
• Create visually appealing pins optimized for Pinterest.
• Include links to your website in the pin description.
• Incorporate rich pins into your strategy.
• Optimize the board titles and descriptions for keywords related to the content you are sharing.
• Use keyword-rich headlines on your blog posts and link them to corresponding Pinterest boards.

Follow these simple tips to improve your SEO for ecommerce website, drive more traffic, and increase your overall visibility online.

Build Your Way To Success With Ecommerce SEO

Following the above-listed strategies will surely help you build a successful ecommerce website that ranks well and drives more sales.

But remember, ecommerce SEO is an ever-evolving field, and staying up to date with the latest trends can be a challenge.

This is where an Ecommerce Marketing Mastery Certificate can help – it will equip you with the most up-to-date knowledge and competencies to make your ecommerce business succeed.

Or consider having an expert team that understands SEO strategies for ecommerce by your side to implement the latest tricks of the trade.

No matter which way you decide to go, your ecommerce business will surely benefit from the power of SEO.

The post Best SEO Strategies For Ecommerce Websites in 2023 appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Your ability to track conversions is one of the most important foundational pieces of knowledge you can have in the world of paid advertising. 

Biggest Mistake Marketers Make With Paid Ads

The number one mistake we see marketers make across all advertising networks is incomplete or non-existent conversion tracking. Google and Facebook are the closest things to artificial intelligence that humanity has publicly accessible to us. They are trillion dollar machine learning mechanisms. Believe it or not, they’re working towards trying to accomplish your goal!

We want to make sure you have the principles that help you contend with any ad network regardless of what new ad networks pop up or what changes are made.

If all we do is teach you how to push the buttons and build the specific conversion actions inside of a certain ad network…that’s going to be antiquated information the second we publish this video.

Key Terms For Running Paid Traffic

Every landing page on your site should have a specific goal. What do you want each page to accomplish? This is true even if you’re not running paid ads.

On most pages, you should have a primary call to action. The primary call to action is the thing you want your potential customers to do. It is your conversion action. So the primary call to action is the same as the conversion action.

From a content marketing perspective, the call to action is the thing you want your customers to do. From a paid traffic perspective, the conversion action is the way you track it. 

Example: 

Call to action: Sign up for a free action plan

Conversion action: Fill out the contact form

A transitional call to action requires a smaller commitment from your customer. If the primary call to action requires a lot of time or money from your customer, include a transitional call to action. I would add these to the more important pages in your sales funnel.

A lead magnet is a great way to capture the lead and makes a solid transitional call to action. 

With a primary call to action and a transitional call to action on the page, you have the opportunity to capture the most traffic. And identifying those conversion actions helps tell the search engines what kind of traffic you want.

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Examples Of Primary Conversion Actions

Different users engage in different ways. 

• Some people want to chat. 
• Some people want to call. 
• Some people want to fill out a form. 
• Some people love quizzes or surveys. 

Everyone will engage in different ways. It’s up to you to figure out what your target audience wants. It won’t always be just one thing, so offer a few different ways for people to take that next step.

Pro Tip

ALWAYS direct conversions to a custom thank you page. (More on that in just a moment…)

Form Submissions

If you don’t have forms on your site you should. These are one of my favorite ways to engage users because it allows you to capture the most information. But you have to be careful. Keep forms short in the beginning. Only ask for the absolute amount of information you need for them to convert.

• Name
• Email
• Phone

Asking for the phone number keeps lead quality high. If you only ask for only the email address, you might end up chasing phantom leads. 

According to HubSpot, every field you add to a contact form decreases the conversion rate by 11%. So start by running paid ads to a short form.

Also, avoid using captcha codes. They frustrate users. If you get lots of spam leads, add it. But wait until you have data to back up that decision.

If you’re using a CRM (Hint: you should be), use embedded CRM forms whenever possible. If you use integrations, they’re more likely to break.

Pro Tip

If you get an insane amount of leads that aren’t qualified, add form fields to the contact form to help qualify them.

Appointments

If your primary conversion action is a tour or demo, remember these three things:

1. Have consistent availability

2. Meet your customer where they are

3. Have a very clear offer

If you don’t have availability, don’t offer a tour or demo. You should have at least two slots available every day if this is going to be your primary conversion action. This makes it easier to meet the customer’s needs. 

Also, when it comes to having a tour or demo, the offer should be very clear. Will the tour be virtual or in person? Is there something the customer must do before they show up? How long will it take? Do they need to be in front of a computer?

For appointments, you need to collect the phone number so you can follow-up. You also need the email address so you can send the confirmation email for them to add the event to their calendar.

Phone Calls

When you use a phone number on your website, it needs to be visible. We like to put it in the header, in the top right. That’s where most people go for contact information. But don’t use a button or an image, use text. The click to call button works great on mobile, but not desktop. And when you use an image, you can’t use call-tracking software.

Why should you use call tracking software? When a call takes place, the software can tell you:

• Where the call came from
• Whether it was answered
• How long the call lasted

And, it can record the call. With all that information, you can weed out the poor quality leads and define what a high-quality lead looks like.

Pro Tip

Use call tracking software to track, record, and score your calls. 

If you’re in the Saas or eCom space, you may not want to take phone calls. I get it. Not every business does. But in many cases, this puts you at a disadvantage.

When in doubt, check your competitors. If they’re taking phone calls, you should too.

Then, make sure you answer the phone. We had a client who didn’t answer 30% of the calls we generated for them! They kept wanting more traffic, but their entire sales process was broken. They didn’t need more traffic, they needed to pick up the phone!

When it comes to tracking conversions, make sure you only track quality calls as leads. If you’re using Google’s threshold rule for call tracking, but it doesn’t match how you score a quality lead, Google will get a false positive and start sending you MORE poor quality leads.

Lead Magnets

Lead magnets are solid predictive indicators of intent. What is a lead magnet? A Lead Magnet is a nearly irresistible offer made in exchange for a customer’s email address and/or other valuable marketing information.

A lead magnet gives people who aren’t ready to convert an opportunity to engage with you. The point of the lead magnet is to build relationships and start conversations. So give massive value up front. Nothing is more frustrating than getting excited about a lead magnet, downloading it, and finding out that it sucks. 

Finally, make sure not to let the lead magnet outshine the core offer. I like to put them at the bottom of the page or have a pop-up.

How To Avoid Wasting Ad Money

The entire network of paid advertising platforms want you to win. How do you help them help you? How do you tell Google, Bing, Yahoo!, Facebook, etc. your goal?

Tell them what conversion event you want. If your strategy isn’t properly outlined or you’ve missed the technical implementation, then you’re sending these super smart, trillion dollar machines a false positive. What happens then? They fly off in the wrong direction with your ad money!

Your conversion strategy is critically important. The technical implementation of your conversion events is critically important.

Want to become a traffic master? Click here to find out how!

NOTE: This content came directory from DigitalMarketer’s Paid Traffic Mastery Certification.

The post The #1 Mistake Most Marketers Make When Running Paid Ads appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Search engine optimization (SEO) gets a bad reputation as being one of the hardest parts of marketing to succeed in.

We’re not going to say SEO is easy. It isn’t. But we also don’t want you to think that it is impossible to improve website rank. Boosting your SEO rankings isn’t out of reach, even if you do all the work yourself.

When it comes to SEO strategy, you should have a long-term strategy to land you as the first search result for a keyword or keyword phrase. The long-term strategy will be fairly complex. You’ll do an SEO audit, conduct keyword research, create internal links, do some external link building, build-out relevant content for related keywords, and dive into the world of technical SEO. Google Analytics will become your best friend and worst enemy.

Then, you should have a short-term search engine optimization strategy that helps generally boost your search ranking. It doesn’t have to be overly complex and most of it can be done in a few hours of work.

We’re going to focus on the latter in this article. We’ll show you the small ways that you can boost your search ranking. These are all tasks that you can fit into a few hours of work and can make a big difference in the future.

Quick tip:

Update your content marketing strategy to start using these tips on your new content. If you start now, you won’t have to go back and add them in later.

Here are 5 small ways to boost your SEO rankings.

#1: Structure Your Content For Readability

Part of a website page’s SEO ranking factor is page duration. This is a measure of how long the visitor spent on a certain page. There are a few ways to make sure that visitors don’t bounce off of your page. A bounce is anytime someone visits one page of your website and exits. We’ll talk about more about those later.

One of the top ways to reduce bounce rate is to make your content reader-friendly.

For example, you’ll notice in all of our DigitalMarketer articles that we have descriptive headers, bolded text, italicized text, emojis, images, and bullet points.

The goal is to make you want to read our content, not see a wall of text and run the other way.

Here’s an example from our article, [Case Study] How DigitalMarketer Cut Our Cost Per Conversion By Over 50% In Less Than 7 days

To make content reader-friendly, use:

• H2, H3, and H4 headers
• Bold and italicize text to break up longer paragraphs of text or to highlight a particular sentence
• Emojis to bring some color and familiarity to our content
• Images so website visitors can see what you’re talking about instead of just reading about it
• Bullet points to help show your point without adding unnecessary filler words

All of this helps website visitors when they come to an article, sales page, or landing page. Structuring key pages like this allows visitors to skim it over to see if it’s the content they were looking for. If the answer is yes, they’ll stay a while and read more of what you have to say.

On top of making our content easier for humans to read, it also helps the search engines determine SEO rankings.

When you use keywords in headers, the search engines see the title tag and read the words in the heading. If relevant keywords show up on key pages of your site, your site authority increases. To win the keyword you want to rank for, create quality content that answers your customer’s questions, first. Then make sure the search engines understand what you’re talking about by including keywords in headings.

This shouldn’t be confused with stuffing your headers with keywords. If you do that, it will make sure your content feel unnatural and salesy. That will immediately turn off customers. Even if the search engines love it, if customers don’t, you’re still not winning.

Use this article as a blueprint for your own articles. You can also take a look at our sales page and landing page to see how we’ve structured those to be human and Google search bot friendly.

#2: Fix Your Broken Links

Part of any search engine optimization strategy is a periodic review of internal links and external links. This may not sound like a huge deal but it is. If your content is full of broken links that lead to 404 pages, your readers and Google are going to be disappointed in you.

Consider User Experience

Let’s say you land on a website you find interesting. You see a hyperlink to another piece of content that looks like it could give you a better understanding of your problem. When you click the link, the web page you land on says 404 Page not found.

You would be frustrated, right? You most likely wouldn’t hit the “back” button. And you would likely make a mental note not to visit that business website again.

If a website visitor is new to your brand, when they land on your website, they are in the Engage stage of the Customer Value Journey. At this stage, your customer is looking for valuable content. They’re also subconsciously deciding whether you or your business are trustworthy. 404 pages do not tell them that.

Search Engines and Broken Links

Now consider a broken link from the perspective of a Google search bot. A redirect web page shows the bots that your site isn’t offering quality content to visitors. When that happens, the algorithm deducts points from your domain authority and you lose rank.

Instead of putting your page in the Google SERP (search engine results page), your competitors will show up instead.

There are 2 types of broken backlinks that you want to fix:

1. Internal backlinks from one page of your website to another page on your website
2. Outbound backlinks from your website to another website

#3: Don’t Skip Out On Your Meta Description

The meta description doesn’t have to do with your SEO ranking in terms of the content that you put into it. It does, however, affect whether people click on your content or not. You can boost your SEO ranking by having a killer meta description that makes people feel like it’s IMPOSSIBLE not to click on your article.

Your meta description is the excerpt that goes underneath the title of your page or post when it shows up in Google SERP. For example, here’s the meta description for the website for the annual Traffic & Conversion Summit.

The meta description is the section below the title that reads, “The Premier Gathering of Digital Marketers on Planet Earth!”

The goal of this meta description is to create curiosity in the person who landed on the search result. You want the visitor to click and learn more. What does a premier gathering of digital marketers look like? Well, they have to click to find out.

A meta description can be applied to a landing or sales page of your website. It could also be for a blog post. If you’re writing a meta description for a blog post, make sure that you highlight what the reader will learn by reading the blog post. Plant a seed that makes them want to click and learn more.

For example, here’s an example of a meta description from our article, How To Attract Your Ideal Client:

“Attracting your ideal client doesn’t have to be mind-boggling. With the help of 1 tool, you’ll be able to successfully attract and convert your dream clients.’

The title of the article and the first sentence in the meta description must be compelling. Here, they tell the reader they’re going to learn how to attract their ideal client and that it’s not going to be as hard as they thought.

The second sentence mentions “1 tool” that will help them. This plants a seed of curiosity that helps them choose our article over the one mentioned below it in the search results.

Use your meta description to grab extra attention and motivate searchers to choose your content over the others.

#4: Update Older Content and Republish

Efficiency is key for every part of your marketing strategy (from WordPress SEO, to Google analytics, to social media).

If you have blog posts on your website already, you don’t necessarily need to write brand new content on a regular basis. What about that post from a year ago that did kind of well but it’s pageviews are going lower and lower each month?

Instead of leaving it in blog post purgatory, bring it back to the front lines.

Browse through old blog posts to see what you can add to them. Is there information that needs to be updated? Can you implement a better structure to improve how the article flows? Try adding more descriptive headings, bulleted lists, and images. When you’re done, republish the blog post under a new date.

We do this regularly at DigitalMarketer with our long-form “Everything You Need To Know About…” articles.

These are ultimate guides for content marketing , digital advertising , getting clients, etc. We’re in an industry where strategies change pretty fast. To stay on the first page in search ranking, we update articles often so our target audience (that’s you) gets value for the current moment.

By updating your best articles you make them super valuable to your readers. And by republishing them, you’re showing the search engines that you have fresh information for visitors to consume.

#5: Prioritize Your Content

What happens when you read an interesting headline, click the link to read more, and are immediately bombarded with:

• A drop-down ad
• An ad on the side of the content
• Ads spread out every few paragraphs of the article
• An ad coming up from the bottom of the page

You probably don’t think, “Wow, this is a great experience!” What typically happens is people click the “back” button on their web browser.

That website owner can say goodbye to page duration and hello to an increased bounce rate.

It can be tempting to put pop-ups, Google ads, or ads for your own products all over your website. But be warned. It’s a dangerous SEO game to play. You could end up losing more than you’re gaining by driving away customers. That loss will certainly surpass your Google ranking.

The high bounce rate from a poor user experience will have a negative effect on your ranking. More importantly, it will also have a negative effect on how website visitors view your brand.

When you’re focused on your digital marketing strategy, that means you’re optimizing the first 3-4 stages of the Customer Value Journey. These stages are:

• Aware
• Engage
• Subscribe
• Convert

Putting out quality content will get people to subscribe or even convert on your tripwire. That’s a win. But if somebody feels like your website is a digital billboard, they may worry that you’re just trying to get the sale, not actually help them solve their problem.

Guess what that does to your click-through rate? Yep, you guessed it. It declines fast!

Always prioritize your content so you’re building a trustworthy relationship with your new website visitor. This increases your page duration (and SEO ranking) and your chances of turning that visitor into a lead.

As promised, these are all fast ways that you can improve your SEO ranking without having to spend hours (or dollars) on getting the results you want.

And remember, these aren’t just tips that you can use on your current website. You can also use them when creating all of your future content so that you’re the most efficient SEO marketer possible.

And who doesn’t love the sound of that?

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