enewton@brightedge.com

M Posted 11 years 7 months ago

t 9 min read

SEO is critical for eCommerce: organic search is the largest channel for traffic and revenue. In the spirit of the holiday season, we’ve hand-picked five great eCommerce SEO tips and wrapped them up in a bow, so you can ring in the new year with more search visibility. Optimal eCommerce SEO will translate into more traffic and revenue and a good bounce rate.

1. Discover and rank for your target keywords

If you’re not ranking for your target market’s keywords, you’re most likely missing sales from lost Web traffic. Check out this article on the 7 Things You Must Do to Rank for Your Keywords for step-by-step guides on discovering and ranking for your best target keywords.

2. Don’t forget on-page optimization

There are several elements to consider for on-page optimization from keywords to social media. Let’s take a closer look at each:

Keyword Optimization

We’ve identified several crucial elements of your site’s pages that should be optimized for keywords. (For a more detailed explanation of the terms discussed below, refer to part one of our basic SEO concepts).

• Meta Titles and Descriptions: Also known as Meta data, inform the search engines what Web pages are about overall. The Meta title is the clickable listing in the search engine results pages (SERPs), and the Meta description is the text that follows. Clearly, both the Meta title and description should be unique to each page and optimized with the page’s primary keywords to capture search share. The text should also be compelling and well written.
• Header tags: These function on a page of content to break up important sections of the content in a user-friendly and search-friendly way. When used well, headers help format the content in a way the search engines can crawl and understand with ease. As a best practice, include at least one of the page’s primary keywords in the H1 and in other header tags throughout the page to reinforce the topic to the search engines.
• Paragraph copy: Copy is the actual on-page text. Even though your site is geared to eCommerce, this doesn’t mean you should exclude content where it is useful and appropriate for the shopper. Search engines read and index sites via text, so feeding them the content they crave is strongly recommended.

Optimize site structure

Are the sections of your site appropriately themed? Meaning, based on your keyword research, is your site’s content organized well for both users to navigate across and search engines to deem relevant for a particular subject matter?

Creating a well-structured website defined by content and organized around keyword research helps search engines in indexing your site’s content. The easier it is for search engines to understand that your site is about a particular subject matter, the more relevant you can become for a query.

A well organized, optimized website also helps visitors navigate it more easily to find the products they’re seeking.

Internal linking

An integral part of an optimized site structure is internal linking. Search engine robots crawl the Web via links. Providing your website with a solid framework of internal links that logically lead from one page to another helps search engines in understanding the overall theme. Internal links also assist visitors with navigating your site – where do you want them to go next?

Part of an optimized internal linking strategy is using keywords where appropriate in the anchor text – the clickable words used in a link. You can read more on how to best approach internal linking and anchor text in Part 1 of basic SEO concepts (linked above).

Usability

Aligned with both optimized site structure and internal linking is usability. Essentially, usability refers to the ease with which visitors to your site can navigate it to find the information they’re seeking.

Besides making your site easy to navigate, you can increase conversions with a clear call to action (CTA) that facilitates purchases: don’t hide your sales pages or make it a complicated process for people to buy.

A second critical consideration when optimizing for usability is the growing trend toward mobile, as discussed by BrightEdge CEO Jim Yu at Search Engine Watch. Configuring your website for a mobile-friendly user experience will assist consumers in their shopping and purchase decisions.

Social media integration

There is no doubt that social media influences the search results. Optimizing your site’s content by integrating it with social media campaigns is a smart strategy that can help with your site’s rankings and thereby, eCommerce sales.

When considering your social media integration strategy it’s important to keep in mind the appropriate target audience. One size does not fit all: for some eCommerce businesses, especially those heavy with images, Pinterest may be the best social platform. For others, it may well be Google+ or LinkedIn.

3. Avoid duplicate content and use compelling product descriptions

Product descriptions are very important for eCommerce SEO and should be informed and optimized by your keyword research. Replicating the manufacturers’ descriptions is a common mistake among eCommerce businesses, resulting in duplicate content (which may invite a Google penalty).

A second common, inadvertent source of duplicate content is from repeating Meta titles and descriptions for different Web pages. As emphasized above, it is imperative to create a Meta title and description that is unique to each page of your site.

Generic product descriptions also do little for conversions. Adding details – “warm,” “soft,” “cozy,” “comfortable” – that appeal to your readers’ senses can boost sales. In short, detailed and descriptive product descriptions start with unique Meta information and end with compelling marketing and advertising copy.

4. Optimize product images

When using product images, you’ll want to include image file names and optimized alt text (corresponding descriptions) to inform the search engines of what the image depicts. As discussed in part 1 of our basic SEO concepts, image file names are simple titles that accurately summarize the image’s content, while alt text describes the image in more detail.

Including image file names and alt text helps search engines understand them, as it's currently unclear whether or not Google bot has the ability to read imagery. Image file names also help to explain images to visitors with visual impairments who use screen-reading functionality. Image optimization is a very important part of eCommerce SEO. You'll also want to consider image weight and loading speed. If an image takes too long to load because it's heavy, your page load time will decrease and possibly cause Google to penalize your site. Most SEOs avoid rasterized images.

5. Boost eCommerce SEO - enable reviews and ratings for your products

Finally, enabling reviews and ratings for your products can give your eCommerce business the competitive edge.

A great way to accomplish this is to employ schema on your site’s content – and especially, its key product pages. While it sounds highly technical, Schema is really just a system of code that your Web development team can readily implement that helps search engines better interpret your site’s content.

With schema, search engines can display your Web pages in the search results with richer snippets that even include thumbnail images, reviews and ratings. These rich results are far more compelling – and more likely to be selected by shoppers – than generic SERP listings, giving you the competitive edge. Schema should be one of the first things to consider when doing eCommerce SEO.

So don’t waste another moment! You can readily implement these five tips so this is the year eCommerce SEO increases your organic search traffic and revenue.

ssharma@brightedge.com

M Posted 11 years 7 months ago

t 9 min read

Why blog? You’ve heard it time and again: producing fresh, quality content that engages your readers is key to building your brand online and driving Web traffic to your site. Doing so on a consistent basis is a challenge for most, especially when it comes to keeping your company blog updated with the most relevant, compelling topics. So how do you come up with interesting blog ideas? How to choose a blog topic? Aside from using marketing analytics software that can give you insights around topics driving demand, we wanted to explore some non-techy options that involve social listening as well as industry forums and news. Read on.

1. Social Listening

Social listening means just that: keeping an “ear” open for what people are currently discussing on social media channels. You’ll want to focus on your target market’s conversations. This strategy is predicated on knowing where in the social media sphere your likely prospects and customers are. Social demographics and well-honed customer personae can help you cut through the “noise” and direct your social media monitoring efforts. Here are a few of the social platforms to consider:

• LinkedIn

If your company is primarily B2B (business to business), you’ll likely want to lend an ear to the conversations occurring within LinkedIn groups relevant to your vertical – as well as your own LinkedIn page. (If you haven’t developed your own as a brand, it’s highly recommended you do so). Pay attention to the topics that drive the most heated or otherwise lively conversations. By identifying these, and tracking the original links to the blog posts and industry articles spurring these conversations, you’ll have the material you need to create a blog post that addresses the concerns of your niche market. Jim Yu explains more on ‘Optimizing LinkedIn like A Pro in this article here on Marketing Land

• Google Plus

As with LinkedIn, if you haven’t yet developed a Google+ page, now is the time to do so. Besides its ties to Google search results, creating a robust G+ community can also provide you with material ripe for blog posts, much like LinkedIn. To fully leverage this platform, you’ll want to share not only your own content, but also other updates that are useful to your target market. This makes your G+ page less about you and more about your readers, which will pay dividends in the long run in terms of establishing authority and credibility, as well as driving traffic to your site. In turn, you’ll have that much more raw material in the way of visitor comments and links from which to create blog posts that will capture your target market’s interest.

• Facebook

Facebook’s organic reach may be next to nothing, but if you’re primarily B2C (business to customer), you should establish and nurture a Facebook business page. As with Google+, posting useful links not only to your own blog, but also to other (non-competitive) sites can spur discussions that inform your blogging strategy; you can answer questions, provide helpful follow-ups, and elaborate on topics that are driving discussions!

• Twitter

Twitter Trends is a list on the social platform provides that captures breaking news and real-time trending topics. As its 2010 official blog post explains, Twitter’s Trends are generated by an algorithm “that attempts to identify topics that are being talked about more right now than they were previously.” Obviously, not all of Twitter’s trending topics will prove relevant to your target market. If you’re in the search marketing industry, #search or #SEO discussions trending on Twitter may well be your target niche. Keeping a finger on the pulse of these developments is a great way to keep a step ahead with a blog post that captures the latest and greatest topics being discussed on this platform. Tiny Prints saw a 47% increase in search rankings by using Twitter and BrightEdge. Read the full case on the Twitter website.

• SlideShare

Another social media platform that you may want to include in your social monitoring efforts is SlideShare. If you haven’t yet leveraged SlideShare for your presentations, consider doing so. This simple PPT presentation platform drives industry awareness and interest; for those presentation uploads that prove more popular, consider re-purposing the content into a blog post. http://www.slideshare.net/brightedge

2. Industry Forums and News

Is your brand represented in a professional organization or industry association? Does it publish a regular newsletter or authoritative articles? The topics covered may well be ripe for a blog post, or a series of articles, depending on how in-depth the original content is. Look for an angle on a timely issue or news item introduced by the newsletter or forum, and elaborate on the subject that others in your profession or vertical would likely appreciate (while avoiding plagiarism, of course!).

3. Blog Post Comments & Questions: Yours and Your Competitors’

While it may seem painfully obvious, your own blog can provide interesting post ideas via reader comments and questions. Pay attention to those posts that foster considerable reader interest as gauged by social sharing, comments, and questions, then create follow-up posts that elaborate on the initial post and/or address specific comments or questions.

4. Help Section

Contact your Customer Service department and generate a ranked list of what topics and questions come up the most on the phone and in email or the online forums. The Customer Service knowledge base used to answer the questions will give you significant content to use in the post itself. Writing blog posts on customer questions has the additional benefit of providing more exposure of the answer and how to self-solve, which will also help lower CS calls and costs.

5. BrightEdge Platform

A second source of compelling post ideas can be gleaned from your competitors’ blogs. See what topics are driving interest in the way of social sharing and discussions, and beat them to the punch with your own blog post that answers their readers’ questions or concerns. BrightEdge customers have an incredibly powerful resource in the Data Cube.

The Data Cube can provide a comprehensive list of keyword topics that rank on page one, two, or three and which pages on your competitor site they point to. This query for recipe.com returns over 300 blog post topics that rank on page one, two, or three and should help seeds dozens of blog topics for your blog calendar. These five ways to come up with interesting blog ideas only scratch the surface.

Do you have any suggestions? Please share them with us in the comments below.

enewton@brightedge.com

M Posted 11 years 7 months ago

t 9 min read

There was much discussion about “SEO vs. PPC” this past year, with many search marketing thought leaders arriving at the same conclusion: they need to learn to get along as one not only complements the other, but improves its performance. As Andy Betts wrote here at the BrightEdge blog, when your organization’s paid and organic search teams are competing rather than collaborating, it makes for a no-win overall in terms of search performance and ROI with redundant - and sometimes counterproductive - efforts.

Heading into the New Year, a more profitable and enlightened enterprise search strategy should consider how to corral paid (PPC) and organic (SEO) team efforts for a greater share in the search engine result pages (SERPs) and smarter resource allocation. So here we thought we’d highlight what search marketers had to say about PPC and SEO in 2014.

Frenemies? How SEO and PPC complete each other

It’s seemingly unavoidable with enterprise-level search firms: one department competes with the other as it hopes to win a bigger slice of the annual budgetary pie in a zero-sum game mindset. Heading up your organization’s search marketing, you’re likely well aware that such divisiveness between your SEO and PPC teams doesn’t serve your bottom line well.

In her recent article for Search Engine Watch, Erin Everhart underscores the need for SEO and PPC “to stop being enemies” as both search strategies contribute to the same conversion funnel. She writes that organic search is a research-based “top-of-the-funnel marketing tactic,” while paid search is an action-based strategy that “targets consumers who are further down your marketing funnel and thus further along in the buying process.” Everhart emphasizes a point made by BrightEdge CEO Jim Yu in his column for Search Engine Land back in June, namely that SEO and PPC is not an “either/or” strategy. He writes:

Most marketers would agree that to be competitive, we do not operate in an either/or environment. It’s not a choice between either SEO or social, or SEO and PPC. It’s a requirement that we understand how these channels work together to impact one another and a website’s ability to stay afloat in the growing search results.

Discussing how SEO and PPC work together for site visits (“clicks”) and conversions, Jim refers to research from Google at Search Engine Land, which shows the synergy of the two search strategies. According to the search giant, even for brands that position first in organic SERP rankings, paid ads provide a hefty 50 percent in incremental clicks - meaning that half of the No. 1 site’s visits would not have occurred in the absence of PPC ads. The contribution of PPC to organic SERP incremental clicks increases even more for listings No. 2 and lower, as detailed by Google in its study (noted above).

On the flip side, SEO informs PPC with page-level metrics such as Web traffic, conversion rates and revenue. Crispin Sheridan also recently addressed how SEO helps PPC strategy in his article for ClickZ, writing, “the need for content creation in SEO provides PPC with more landing pages to satisfy the intent of the user. Learning what content is most effective through SEO can provide PPC with new avenues for growth.”

Sheridan also discusses how PPC can inform SEO via immediate results, noting that the “time advantage” of PPC allows for the testing of keywords and “phrase matches” that drive Web traffic, leading to the creation of content that bolsters SEO. He further notes, “having your company displayed in both paid and organic results can be an indicator of trust to a user.” Google Analytics (GA) provides a multi-channel funnel report that shows what channel contributed to your firm’s conversions, including SEO, PPC and social media. Tapping into Google AdWords data here at BrightEdge, we can further determine:

• Which of your Web pages have a better Quality Score.
• The keywords on which of your site pages have the best Quality Score.
• How users “judge” your Web pages via metrics such as bounce and exit rates, as well as time on page.

We hope this post assists you going forward with a healthy, integrated picture of how SEO and PPC work together for search strategy!  

Anonymous

M Posted 11 years 8 months ago

t 9 min read

Many people I know have been asking me about what life is really like post-grad, and I can say it’s pretty great. There are a lot of factors that have put me in an ideal situation. I thought I’d share a little about the transition between college, “real life,” and a few lessons I’ve learned in between.

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity” - Seneca

This is the most important lesson I’ve learned so far. Essentially, you can’t always predict what’s going to happen to you, but you can prepare yourself to handle the situations as they arise and position yourself for potential success. Here are three lessons:

1. Do your homework

I had a slightly different job search than a lot of my friends. For starters, I was convinced I was going to work in entertainment. But, after a few internships at big-name entertainment companies, I realized it wasn't for me. Personally, I needed more upwards mobility, more room for growth and industry disruption, and immediate financial returns on my work. I also wanted to be located in San Francisco for a variety of reasons, and I can now say it’s probably the coolest city to live in. So, I made a checklist of the ideal post-grad job with a lot of these requirements and headed to the job fair. There, I found BrightEdge by total accident. But, after doing a little homework, I realized it was the ideal opportunity: late-stage start-up with both financial stability and an impressive Year on Year growth; industry leader; lean operation; TONS of opportunity for growth; very competitive salary; The perfect storm. But I wouldn't have made it here without a little leap, which brings me to my next point.

2. Trust your gut

I’ll be frank, I had some options coming out of school. No guarantees by any means but very strong leads. But, for the reasons above, I decided to gun for BrightEdge full force. Despite the pretty quantifiable benefits that I’d done homework on, there was something about the atmosphere that drew me. The work hard play hard mentality. The close mentor-ship between senior BrightEdger's and the new guys. And a competitive environment that was more friendly and supportive than cutthroat and discouraging. Most importantly, though, were the people.

I wouldn't be at this company if it weren't for the people I work with every day. It’s an incredible team of similarly-minded twenty-somethings who are fun, outgoing and interesting. Not only do we grind it out on the floor but we know that it’s okay to have a beer after hitting goal or cut a little loose at the end of a good week with some happy hour. Together we celebrate when things are good, and support each other when it’s just been one of those days. I couldn’t ask for a better group of coworkers.

3. Work hard

This goes without saying but is important to address nonetheless. Regardless of where you go, what profession you pursue, hard work is necessary for success. At BrightEdge, specifically, it’s incredibly important. This is a company that is a get-out-what-you-put-in kind of place. Not only is it extremely noticeable when you’re constantly staying late (I’ve had a lot of conversations with our CEO Jim as the cleaning crew is coming through), but you get immediate financial returns on your work. The equation is simple: the more you work hard, the more successful you are and the more money you make - end of story. Plus, given the fast-paced nature of the sales team, you know that if you can succeed here - if you can develop the good habits early - you can probably succeed anywhere. I know that these are all a little cliche and easier said than done, but they work. At the end of the day, you can’t control luck or the ‘breaks’ that you get--but you can control how you prepared you are to handle them. And, in my experience, there’s no better place than BrightEdge to do just that.  

A BrightEdger

M Posted 11 years 8 months ago

t 9 min read

It’s a wonderful time of the year here at BrightEdge and we want to help make your holiday season merry and bright. And what’s merrier than receiving more data, available in more ways, on a global basis? We can’t think of anything. In partnership with our clients we’re fortunate to be the global leader in enterprise SEO. We now employ over 300 employees, across seven offices around the world. We invest where our customers are, their success is our success. With this release we’re excited to announce we’ve expanded the Data Cube Coverage to also include France and Japan which adds to our existing coverage in the US, UK, Australia, and Germany.  

What is the Data Cube?

The BrightEdge Data Cube is a massive content repository, and the industry’s largest data set, made up of billions of pieces of information which include: keywords, search terms, rich media, and content, along with its web performance metrics. BrightEdge processes over 100 terabytes of data each week. We do so because we realize today’s marketers need a massive data set to be able to understand their entire organic search footprint and take action based on that data. With the Data Cube you also have a view into your content performance score. With the Data Cube Score you have access to our powerful content performance rating to understand your potential site traffic.

You can also see performance over time with the Data Cube Time Machine, and understand what content has performed well historically. Together, the insights from Data Cube Score and Data Cube Time Machine are delivered as comprehensive, lightning fast, actionable intelligence, that help marketers set budgetary priorities for content development and marketing.

Access the power of the Data Cube in Page Reporting

With Secure Search we added capabilities to calculate estimated keyword values (revenue, conversions, visits) for a given page to help customers restore partial keyword visibility. Page Reporting also shows Actual keyword value. Additionally, we enabled customers to “Discover Keywords” that drive traffic to their page by leveraging our BrightEdge index (monthly and quarterly). In our Holiday Release, the “Discover Keywords” functionality now pulls data directly from the Data Cube. Pulling data directly from the Data Cube allows you to quickly access a larger data source that is updated more frequently, providing you with the freshest, most accurate data possible for your keyword discovery.  

Mobile & desktop site audit enhancements

Our gift to you this season is adding features that help users really up their search marketing game. We’ve continued to keep you ahead in mobile as mobile market share continues to increase. Our mobile research shows that tablets and smartphones now make up 35% of organic traffic. With new mobile Site Audit Enhancements, you can now perform more sophisticated analysis of your websites.

How site audit works

Site Audit ensures your site is healthy by doing the heavy lifting and identifying various SEO issues across different page types, and of course, telling you how to fix them. We’ve added six new Site Audit rules alerting you to problems that may be affecting your search performance. 

As always, we’re focused on keeping you ahead of the changes in search. With new Site Audit rules added to Mobile/Desktop Site Audit we help you comply with Google’s best practices, and keep you ahead in mobile.

Voice of customer – two new features

With our Voice of Customer program we’ve taken our commitment to customer success to the next level by enabling customers to submit ideas through our new Feature Ideas Portal. Through our features ideas portal, we’ve built new features you’ve asked for including streamlined data exports, and enhanced task management. With BrightEdge Tasks & Workflow we’ve added new functionality that enables you to easily identify completed work for a given reporting and associate that completed work with other performance metrics reports. You can also align the new features with how you are organizing your teams and allocating your task recommendations.

ssharma@brightedge.com

M Posted 11 years 8 months ago

t 9 min read

Having data that tells you exactly where your web traffic is coming from is an absolutely essential part of successfully running a website. The ability to see exactly what types of marketing initiatives are driving the best results can be the difference between a massively popular vs any largely forgotten website. Of course, with “not provided” it isn’t as simple as using Google Analytics to see which search terms are driving the most traffic. While those secure search terms might currently be the drivers of traffic to your website, the Internet is a rapidly-changing place, with new websites cropping up to compete for your traffic every single day. On top of that, Google’s search algorithm is constantly being updated, all but guaranteeing massive shifts in how search queries generate SERPS.

Analytics is the source of truth

Every time Google comes out with a new search algorithm, SEO marketers and webmasters alike are reminded of how important having robust analytics data truly is. It is simply not possible for anyone trying to earn top levels of web traffic to assume that what works one year will work the next, or for that matter, that what works one month will work the next. With the recent launch of Google’s new “Pigeon” algorithm, everyone was once again reminded of this very important lesson. Google provides webmasters with a robust suite of tools that make it easier to learn what works and what doesn’t.

How to utilze Google Webmaster Tools within the BrightEdge platform

The Google Webmaster Tool is free-to-use and connects to your website to provide a vast amount of useful information. Perhaps the most useful information it provides is “search query data”. Search query data is exactly what it sounds like: detailed information about the search queries that Google users typed in before landing on your website. Search query data will show you exactly how many total search queries returned your webpage, as well as the specific queries that were used to generate that number. Just as important, search query reports will provide exactly how many clicks your website received after being shown on a SERP, and the clickthrough rate (or CTR), which is just the percentage of times your website was clicked after being shown on the SERP. Finally, Google’s search query reports will tell you exactly what your website’s position is on the SERP. For those concerned with SEO (which is likely to be almost everyone reading this), knowing your SERP position, as well as knowing how it changes (hopefully higher) over time, is truly a gold mine of useful information. Google’s Webmaster Tools also allow users to take the search query reports and drill even further into the data. For example, one obvious use is filtering for only search queries that contain a specific word or phrase, or only search queries from a specific form factor (such as a smartphone or a desktop).

However, despite all of these great features, one feature that is sorely lacking in Google Webmaster Tools is the ability to look at data that is more than 90 days old.

Why do you need data that is older than three months?

While Google certainly does provide a robust suite of services within their Webmaster Tools, the fact of the matter is that any webmaster or SEO marketer worth their salt knows that they need access to more than just the last 90 days of data. For some, the solution is to manually copy down the information into an Excel file every month. Not only is this tedious and a waste of time, but it prevents them from using a user-friendly interface to analyze and extrapolate from the data. Google comes out with a new search algorithm frequently, and being able to compare specific data points can be crucial to developing effective SEO content and driving up SERP positioning.

BrightEdge solves the problem of 90-day data

The BrightEdge S3 platform solves the 90-day search query data limitation as all historical search query data is stored within the platform, for use at any time in the future. Instead of being limited to just 90 days of data, or being forced to slave over an Excel spreadsheet every month, BrightEdge clients can access the wealth of information and insights that long-term search query data can provide.  

The importance of understanding what search queries are driving traffic is one of the most powerful tools available to webmasters and SEO marketers. With the BrightEdge S3 platform, that tool’s power is magnified many times over.