The process of getting your products or services found in Google is called Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). And there’s many factors that influence where you appear in Google search results – it’s not a transparent or simple process. There’s stuff to do on your website, things to sort off your website, technical and structural considerations.
Onsite. Offsite. Technical – there’s a lot in the mix!
But don’t panic; equally it’s not rocket science. There are best-practice guidelines and there are experts in the marketplace – like our own team here (well virtually!) at inspiration. Professionals are familiar with the right procedures and – critically – will know what lever to pull and when.
Here’s a good example of how we helped one of our ecommerce clients to improve their visibility in Google and drive more sales, and in practice it was simply a case of going back to basics; by getting their website sorted to be more google-friendly (onsite work).
Background
In this case we hadn’t built the website, which was implemented on Shopify. So we kicked off our work by researching the keywords – what relevant terms were people using in Google to search for relevant products. We also looked at search volume (how many searches in Google.ie each month for these terms) and the search intent behind these terms. By search intent – what is the user looking for when they search a given phrase and critically what is Google rewarding by adding text and links around relevant “search intent” terms e.g. Buy a Fiat Here.
In this example the client isn’t a car manufacturer but for the sake of explanation e.g. were they looking to “Buy a Fiat” or for information e.g. “Is fiat a good car?”.
The intent behind the search for both are quite different and thus Google is showing different types of pages. So we had to make sure the type of page we had was matching the intent of the searcher and in line with what Google is rewarding.
From there, we researched where in Google was the client currently appearing for these searches. We use specialist tools which can identify all these factors.
Consequently, working with the client, we found the low-hanging fruit – people were searching for key brands that the client was selling but when we looked at where the client was appearing in Google for these brands – they were typically languishing on page 2, and page 3 of the search results. This is good news and bad news! On one hand, few people ever click past the first page of search results; on the other hand, it’s a lot easier to get from the top of page 2 over to page 1 – than from page 10 to page 1 etc.
If we could get web pages with the most popular brands stocked by the client – to appear in google on page 1 – we could get more relevant clicks with a much better chance of converting to online sales.
What did we do?
In conjunction with the client (and with specific key phrases in mind) we updated a number of fields that are available to input on the admin area of the website – this included:
- Updated Page titles
- Added a page description
- Updated Meta Description
We also
- Updated cross linking with other relevant products/pages on the site (internal linking), using targeted anchor text e.g. “More about buying a Fiat” as a link as opposed to just “More”
- Implemented ongoing content marketing, adding content and links with the targeted key brand terms; similarly we updated existing site pages for this purpose.
- Made sure it was matching search intent (ie the page was the type of page google was rewarding and showing for that search term)
What was the result?
Taking one of the main brand pages as an example:
There were 1,520 clicks in the last 2 months – there had been just 286 clicks in the previous 2 months. It’s gone up over 5 fold. If we go back earlier in the year to before we started working with this client, the same page was getting single digit clicks per month.
Page impressions, Click throughs and average position in Google search results – all went up.
And Critically…
Revenue also increased directly as a result. Looking at Google Analytics for this page over the last few months -we can see a direct correlation between the increased traffic to this landing page through organic google searches – and rising sales. And this example above is only one brand page. Also all the key terms that we focused on for this brand have steadily climbed onto page 1 and with some only being pipped to top spot by the brand page itself
(There’s some battles you can’t win!)
The Takeaway?
Every site and business is contextual. These simple tweaks might not work as well for you. In fact, it’s likely they won’t work as well for the more competitive general terms e.g. Buy a Car instead of Buy a Fiat – we are also looking at these general terms for the same client but this will need a totally different approach.
But with the right advice, you can easily get the basics right – even if this work wasn’t done initially. With every right step – you are giving yourself the best chance and stacking the odds in your favour. This is particularly true if you’re eyeing up a Search results page that is a little less competitive.
Why not take time out to look into this?
SEO is a melting pot with lots of different parts of the puzzle.
The key point though is knowing what to focus on and when.
This is where accessing expert SEO knowledge and building your own skillset can be very worthwhile form a commercial perspective.
If you are interested in an opportunity to up your SEO Game, to bring in more traffic, more leads and more sales, then please get in contact with us today. We can audit your site, make recommendations, implement the tech work and train you to take things forward.
Go for Google!
