The 3 Pillars of SEO

hello our welcome to another Facebook live broadcast with me Matt Edmondson
and we are broadcasting live at the same time as recording our podcast so for
those of you who don't know we have a podcast called the curiosity ecommerce podcast and this season we are in season
we are at the same time streaming the recording on Facebook Likes the
recordings on Facebook live are on a different schedule to the podcast obviously we get to record with guests
and the shows are going to come out at some point in march but if you're watching on facebook live welcome it is
great to have you it is great that you're here watching the video we've got a very very special guest today as we're
going to get into this whole idea of SEO for e-commerce a very amazing lady Elina
ghost is going to join us and share her infinite wisdom and knowledge I have no
doubt and I'm going to bring Elena onto the show in just a second but first before we get into that let me take a
moment to thank the sponsors of the show because where would we be without show sponsors right we just wouldn't be
anywhere and this show is sponsored by the amazing curious digital if you are
looking for a new e-commerce platform where you are just starting out in business or whether you are like me
you've got a bunch of ecommerce sites that are very well established and you're looking for something that is really going to take it to the next
level then checkout curious digital that's curious with AK a curious digital you
can actually go to that website www.theamazingspiderman.com and you need
help with products you need help with fulfillment you need to have with your e-commerce marketing lightbulb
or the company to check out so make sure you do check them out I will let you know when all of that sites life is
coming soon it's going to be epic anyway all of that aside the amazing show sponsors aside let me without further
ado introduce to you Lena Lena hi you are now on screen and I'm hoping people
can actually hear you hi guys hopefully you can hear me thank you so much Matt for having me on the
show no it is fab to have you thanks for joining really appreciate you taking the time to come and share your genius and
your expertise with us it says here you have worked for nearly a decade in
digital marketing is that right yeah exactly so I've been doing search engine
optimization so most people know it as SEO for sure and don't ever think that
it says CEO my sister's done you once told somebody that a CEO of Debenhams
when I was I wish yes I've been an
SEO for nearly years and have had the likes of working for ready big brands
like debenhams Tesco and carpet right at the moment I'm SEO manager at Amara a luxury interiors
brand I absolutely love doing this so I do host my own podcast called SEO is
never so you do your own party that's right and have you has that gone how do have you found that yeah it's been
nearly two years so definitely definitely progressed it was nice last
year to get to that stage where people work she coming to me to be guests
rather than the other way around but for me actually I don't do it for monetary
value I literally do it to have a bit of fun and get to know people around the business and get like enthusiastic about
digital not even iPad it's one of the amazing things isn't about doing a podcast this is our second season and
this is the third podcast or maybe the fourth podcast I've done over the last four to five years and I
love doing the podcast but you are right you do get to meet some incredible people in your industry don't you it's
it's one of the things that they never tell you about with podcasting when you actually start but it is one of the
amazing things that happens as a result of doing it as you've discovered right definitely there's so many talented
people out there trying out different experiments and doing tests constantly
so it's awesome to learn on them and then not make their mistakes now I get that totally so so you're
going to a podcast where can people find that podcast if they want it to go see it where would that be
yeah so I've got a website with all the show notes so simply go to a ghost code
at UK so very hard to forget it's
actually your personal safety exactly that's brilliant no no no it's
awesome so a ghost koto UK and they can find your podcast if people want to dig
war and delve deeper into e-commerce SEO that's fab so we jump into it should get
into this let's see where it goes let me pull up my notes here so the
title of this podcast is called the three pillars of SEO for e-commerce and this came out of our pre podcast called
Elina between you and I you talked about three specific pillars that you need to have for good SEO for e-commerce website
can you tell the audience briefly what those three pillars are and then we're
going to get into a bit more detail yeah sure thing so I do a lot of training with startups anyway so I think it's
really helpful to understand the basics of SEO and as I said like the three
pillars are usually technical so making sure that your website is seen and
understood by search engines by Google especially in this market because Google
owns over percent of the search market so I will be saying rather than
search and doing the second one in you see content so that's around
creating the right content for your potential customers for your current customers to ensure that you understand
the intent and where you get them at a particular time of their journey as well and then in terms of the third one
that's usually link building so that's usually the dark arts but hopefully
you'll be a little bit easier for you to understand once we go like this episode
sounds great because ladies say link building is a bit of a dark hole I cannot tell you it's like a few years
ago I don't seem to have it so much these days maybe the guys at the office get and I don't get the call so much
maybe that's why but it used to be every other day somebody would call me with you know a new way of building links
which would just take my business to the top of the tree and I always I always just ignored them and and I'm glad yeah
because I think was it a few years ago we had that penguin update from Google which just there's some updates
essentially there's the rules have changed dramatically and not five ten year so it went from like being able to
do spammy tactics on let's say like websites that you can buy and just push
loads of links towards one website and that helps you rank and at the same time
you could do the same thing with keyword stuffing so you can add the same keyword so many times so imagine you offer legal
advice so if you mentioned legal advice about a hundred times on one page you're
off at the top so see that now though don't don't do that now just tune in that don't do that exactly but apart
from that also like bribing awaiting top so actually getting following it yes so getting links from blog if you have to
do in a particular way so that it's actually within the Google guidelines and it's still relevant in the van
well I'm looking forward to getting this so let me just recap right you've got pillar number one which was technical
SEO this is all about Google and what Google things are your website right you've got content SEO
and you've got your link bump doing that they can't see my hand there he goes but they've got so link
technical content and links they're the three right yeah okay so let's jump in the first one what
do you mean when you say technical SEO what is that yeah that's the bread and
butter of the thing that probably most people shy away from because they hear
the word technical and they run away because it could be quite techie you
have to be quite savvy with a website so it's about creating a website in a particular way so that search engines
and their crawlers can understand the content that's on your website okay simple when you have I don't notice a
site that showcases a survey you can create such a rubbish that it means that
they could just see a blank page so effectively they don't see any words on the page they don't even know that your
website exists sometimes it issues there so essentially it's about creating a
website that is easily accessible easily used by customers and obviously
understood so that it can be taken by the search engine and then surfaced at
the right place at the right time or that you've done okay so if that's so
the thing that comes to my mind straightaway as you're talking is you know a super popular a few years ago
where you just had websites which very minimal content and a moon just a
massive image right with a bit of text in that image what the text wasn't even external to the image it was sort of was
part of the image and and so the search engines would have no chance really unless you told them what was going on
and understanding what that website was about would that be a fair example yes
exactly and we see platforms like Wix dare I say it that's still doing that
where you can drag and drop elements on the page and yes they're trying to fix the issue but people who I'm using
platforms like Wix unfortunately they're search like SEO isn't great because
search engines find it really there understand that content so the interesting point is near from the
technical SEO actually the platform you pick then becomes really critical for
SEO and I mean I don't have personally any experience with Wix and so I
wouldn't be able to join in that conversation too much but I get what you're saying that actually some of the bigger platforms do have issues when it
comes to creating a page that is SEO friendly and I mean that's right so yep
so essentially I'd say it's more around so like if you have WordPress which is
probably one of the most used platforms yes you can get plug-ins that are just
for SEO so like help me with sitemaps robots.txt file which will probably go
on to a little bit later on but essentially like creating content like that snippet that comes up on Google
search results ensure that there's snappy like call-to-action in there and
that's also SEO because you're enticing people to click through to your site but
essentially can get plugins to do that so usually it's like Yoast SEO which is probably the most known to be a plug-in
for like a website that uses WordPress but then there's also ecommerce sites
and usually they're using things like Magento for example and that's when a web developer who will actually create
those elements of the code the oil features so it depends on what stage of
your brand you are really yeah yeah no it's the same for us we use the Katy platform I mentioned at the start of the
show we have something called SEO Matic on that which is brilliant and all the
things that you've just mentioned it's there and the plug-in and it's in it's great so I guess technical SEO you first
first thing we've got to think about then is make sure that your platform can give you the a space that you need now
you've mentioned some of those things but what are some of the things then that we need to look it out for on our platform what's a little checklist we
can go into them maybe and but you mentioned robots.txt files some of those things
what are some of the things on the check list we need to look for oh yeah so the two fundamental files I would say is the
robots.txt file and the sitemap so sometimes the robots.txt file could have
simply two or three lines and what that would say is that yes I now any search engine to come and have a look at my
website so there are lots of examples online when you can easily do this it's
quite hard to explain without actually like visual but essentially it's like
using an asterisk and making sure that you're not blocking your website because
you can use this one file to block your whole website and it's important to know that right
because Google comes along and they look at this file called robots.txt right and
it will do what it says in that file and if it's not configured right then the
rest of it doesn't make because this the first thing that Google looks at is the first thing that comes to see yes so the
reason these two things are fundamental is because as the robots.txt file and
it's also the site map document which the site map outlines every single URL
that your website has but obviously some URLs you don't actually want to be shown
so if you've got like a login section you've got a customer service section you don't actually need to ensure that
those are on the site map the site map to help you to understand what pages you
have so that they can go on to those pages and crawl those pages so understand the content that's on those
pages so that then they take it in like search infants do put it into their
database so that when a user comes along and types into Google I'm looking for this particular thing they take this
information and bring it back out into the search results so that effectively
your website is now shown on page page so the critical thing then
robots.txt and the sitemap these are the two crucial pieces of technical SEO that
we need to get our heads around they're the top of the checklist and it and you can like you say you can google this and
with inside of -minutes via I mean I'm a big YouTube fan they'll be videos showing you how to set up these files
you pretty easy on YouTube and you can quickly do them even if we go back to
that whole Yoast SEO plug-in I'll do this for you so basically you can
essentially just do tick some buttons say yes I want this page to be shown
this be indexed they'll be done for you so it depends again
yeah the platform in the plugin and there'll be something on YouTube where it goes into there and specific details for your site for your plugins and of
course people can always reach out to you if they've got you know if they need a bit of sort of sign posting but so
we've got out we've got out two points we've got our robots.txt file we've got
our sitemap what else should we be thinking about what else should be on our checklist for the - the technical
SEO well I personally think that the navigation is one of the most
fundamental things that is on your website essentially the main navigation yes essentially it helps the user to get
around so your customer to get around your website you find the content that they're looking forward to find the
pages that you have find out more about you because you've got that like it's
about trust pages potentially you've got a blog and inspirational section but essentially you need to ensure that that
is categorized and put well put together in the sense that you are you have a
clear hierarchy you have like those categories at the top you've got the subcategories and then potentially
you've got like the products underneath that so imagine it a tree like a branch
so it starts off but upside down in the sense that this is the home page weird
homepage go to underneath there's the subcategories except they're almost like
family tree isn't it these things to sort of cascade down so when you're doing categories at
the top I know let's pick something that we're going to sell let's say we're selling clothing for example how would
you what sort of main categories would you choose would that be data-driven would that be it's just a good field
Riven how would you figure out what a good way to do the navigation is I think it depends what stage you are of your
business I think when people start out usually they go by gut for you usually
you know what customers are looking for but essentially you could be using like tools from Google itself so like keyword
planner tool to help you understand how people search for particular thing and then use those keywords in the
navigation but essentially you should be
creating categories and subcategories by what users are doing so it's like
usability so like going back to that whole UX factor so like what is the user
experience are they actually clicking on the right category to find the right product and actually do some studies
which can be sometimes quite cheap in the sense that you get about people
who are your audience or your target market and then they actually answer those questions online for you or you
can do something much bigger so when we were Tesco's we actually have people coming in groups to talk about the
product and the categorization how they shot so you got people in you ask them a
whole bunch of questions exactly yeah yeah I mean we've with our companies we've got in clients how do
you use the menu we need to understand that better you can use programs like
hot joe now can't you you can record how people use it heat maps reporting
definitely a really good one because that's quite easy and cheap to implement
as well and essentially you can see who offers over what areas in your
navigation what is actually important but at the end of day user reporting issue on Google Analytics surely you'll be able
to see what gets clicked the most as well only about having the right categories but it's around where are you
positioning those categories as well so and I think the bottom line here all my
experiences you you've just got a test and keep on testing right yeah and just
keep trying to see what happens and keep moving the goalposts and see how people respond to that
okay so robots we've got navigation what else needs to be on a technical list so
something I've mentioned actually is around every page having a title and
metadata so like metadata could be like a good title that shows up in the search
result and the Meta Description which is like that call to action which is like we offer this service in this location
shop now ya know that kind of stuff so that's really important because that's
the first portal to your world especially if that person hasn't ever
interacted with your brand before it's a great way to get clicks to your site so
if you're looking for that new traffic and make sure that you're optimizing them and although they're not a ranking
factor they are really good way to get people to click through to your site and
actually get clients for the future so you're talking about the page title
which again is written in the code and this is what and I'm all right in saying that when you type something into Google
and they read dresses or something by their the title is the first thing that Google show you and then there's a
paragraph of text underneath that clickable title isn't there and that yep where does that text come from that
comes from the Meta Description exactly so it's not something that you see on the page when you actually visit the
page yeah but here's something that you see when you're on Google is that snip that piece of description underneath
let's say the title and URL underneath okay so we've got page title we've got
meta-description I'm just thinking down a typical e-commerce website we come across products I talk right so we've
now got the name of the product there has been some debate in recent years I'm kind of curious to know where you stand
do you put the products name in a htag
yes we do currently I think it depends
the great SEO answer and I have seen particle answer I have seen that the
product title I mean as a hso head of one which contextualizes the page which
helps people understand that this page is specifically this product does actually have significant impact I'd say
that obviously if you have numerous products on one page that you shouldn't
be using an hfor those it should only be when it's that sole product so that
as not to confuse you should only ever have one hon a page yeah that's that's
quite important actually isn't it I mean we've made that mistake in the purse before and and if you just feel like you
have no idea what we've just talked about htag is in the code behind the website and if you look at your website
and you right mouse clicking you click view source and it will show you all the
codes for that web page right which is what Google sees and you'll find that
there are these little triangular signs the less-than and greater-than sign and you'll find between those the letters H
and the number and that needs to appear only once on your website which
is what a Lina's has said and ideally around the product name and then after
the product name you'll close that tag so they'll be another less than sign a
slash then hwhich closes that off and you can quickly find whether you've got
more than one on your page but doing the control left thing the control find just type in hand see how many times
picks it up yeah and I'm I think just to
clarify it's her hper page so not their website webpage and yeah
essentially like the reason technical SEO showing away from is because it is
coding it is basically it's HTML you're learning the basics of HTML right now
but it's essential for us to optimize that code in order for a search engine
and a cruller or BOTS or spidered so many people call it different things she Wonderstone your website yeah and
this is where I'd say actually if you're doing e-commerce and you're serious about e-commerce you've really got to
get your head around the fact that SEO is gonna be critical to your business and you've got to make sure you've got the right plugins some really great
plugins which is going to help you deliver this stuff and deliver it well right I mean that's that's fair comment
and I think it makes a lot of sense so we've got the product title we've got
the image how do we how do we help Google with images is there anything that we should do there from a technical
SEO point of view yeah there's a few things that we can do actually read images it's funny because Google is
trying to get smarter and smarter with like she understanding or throwing artificial intelligence and machine
learning and images to understand it better but they're still not quite there yet
okay great let me tell you so essentially we can add things like image
alt tags so that are called image alternative tags or the longer term see
isn't it Oh alt you'll see that something in some other plugins do taking exactly and it's a matter of
adding a few words to explain what this image is about so if it's like a cat playing with a mouse toy literally type
in cat with mouse way yeah if it's easy you could also get smarter with it so
you can actually use keywords to in that image alt tag and something that I've
done in the past actually if I've worked with a brand who's quite in luxury and
weren't keen on using were kids against children though and
smart way to showcase that but not to the customer just say that actually this
page is about kids toy instead of showing the customer that we've added it
into the image alt tag so it will kids toys or rather than children's toys say
that both keywords are actually essentially on that page yeah but something else that I wanted to mention
is Google looks a lot of accessibility so accessibility for those who are hard
of hearing kind of seeing etc so obviously with tools that actually read
out the content for us on like a particular website page these image alt
tags will also be read to these people and you'll be surprised how many people there are you do use these things so
essentially if your image doesn't appear that's also something so if your website
doesn't load for any reason then that image alt tag also appears instead of
the image there's no report not know the old takes and two nine times out of ten
they're in the code on the page is what you're saying so you don't see them but
if you are using you know accessibility tools like you know there's tools which
will read out to you the web page if you're visually impaired then obviously if you've got an image and you're
visually impaired people can't see that so the old tags the way you describe that image is what's read out to them
and so it's just good manners and good practice to describe actually what's on your website right and yeah accessible
for people exactly and something else that was going to mention actually the for site speed
specifically because we're moving into this whole mobile first world where good was looking at your mobile devices and
your mobile website before it doesn't of your desktop first it means you need a responsive site yes
because you need a speedy website you need good science speed and that could be one of the fundamentals of SEO as
well actually there's a state loads up yeah but essentially you need to ensure
that your image is alone quickly and the way to do that is to sure that they're low Reds but high
quality though essentially you can use tools like mini fie yeah she reacts
really good imagery but they're actually gonna be low file
so those sized files which means that they can be shown up like this and
that's a really important point really important thank you for sharing that I mean we actually have it on our site
where if someone comes on a mobile if they you know if they're on their phone and they're looking at the site and the
image we show them is different to what we would show them on a desktop so the system goes right you're on a mobile to
show you this image which is smaller you know fast and actually is often a
portrait image Robin the landscape image so it's easier to see what is on a desktop the images might be slightly
bigger but that we learned scape rather than portrait and so it's just a better viewing experience as well we found that
works really well actually yeah I totally agree make sure you've got a responsive site and part of that
basically means being aware of the fact
that different elements could look differently on different devices yeah you've always got to check right I I do
coaching I do ecommerce coaching with people I'm literally on Friday I'm just gonna drop this in here because I can
it's my show this Friday I'm I'm heading off to New Zealand to go work with some
amazing people over there it's brilliant right and the amount of times I sit down with clients not just in New Zealand but
in the UK all over the board and takes them have you ever bought anything off your own website through your mobile
phone try to do that like you've never shopped on your site before yeah amazed
how many people actually turn around and go no and it shocks me I'm like well
let's let's have a go see let's see what happens shall we wow it's amazing everyone's like wow you know it's just
anyway I digress yeah Bri I totally agree and I think that's important for
SEO make sure that it's within your processes to actually be checking your mobile as I mentioned before Google looks at
your mobile website first before it does your desktop so actually my wall is more
important how you shake showcasing your content do people want to read chunks and chunks of content before they get to
your services or your product probably not I have a think about how you actually for training lay them out so
technical wise um is there anything else that we want to touch on because I'm aware of time and I know we've got a lot
to cover right we can go into
JavaScript as well if you like okay maybe in another show and maybe my
friend offers to come and do that show cuz I'm go clear any why I have but not not as much as here and so so yeah so
we've got one of the questions we've got here actually just going back to the sitemap statement so we've got our
robots.txt s we've got our sitemaps we've got title tags we've got meta descriptions we've got products in h
tags and we put alt tags on our images but just back up to the sitemap stuff
and have you got any setup tips for how to do that well it's one of the
questions that we do get asked from people how do I do that well is that to some thing you would say again just head
on over to YouTube there's good stuff there I think it's a mix like obviously
you can see the basics on YouTube and essentially that's about showing the URL but you optimize that as well so not
only are you showing the URL you can give Google a priority number so it's
between Norton one one being the most important and usually one is the home page home pages one but then other
content so you can choose whether it's not and for example this gives you the
opportunity to say how often you might be changing a particular page or if
you're not at all like an inspirational content piece that could be opened up when because Google will only need
to see it once or twice a month to ensure that that content is still there and then pull it through to the user
when it NEADS - yeah but that's a way of you showcasing the hierarchy again but in a
different method not just using the navigation yes if you do that rather than Google trying to figure it out but
you tell Google what you think is important again the baby has a certain capacity to be on your website so I
think SEO and a way to help Google to get their information quickly without
actually wasting their time so that they can do their job get out and actually
have the information but you are helping them as much as you can yeah that's a good top tip I like that but essentially
the other thing I'll mention is especially if you're a global brand so you're across territory I think it's
to actually hey Trev line information so essentially you're adding information
about the territory within the site map as well so you're basically saying that
this page is in this country it's in this language so that you're helping
them to actually understand that and surface it in the right territory okay
so if you are doing a site that was in multiple territories would you have multiple pages of the same product but
in different language sets for each of those territories and reference that in the site map exactly so you'll have
different site maps for territories that are connected by one site map okay
so each territory has its own site map yeah okay yeah you can also have different site
maps for like your image your imagery videos or different parts of the website
so if exam if you have an inspirational section you can have that in a separate
page but that depends how big your website in okay and so if you've got quite a large
website which is you would separate out the site map for the products the site map for the blog the site map exactly
right yeah exactly and again you would you would categorize
the content in those sitemaps on based on how likely you want to change that
content in the next month or so yeah so you can get smart with it once again
make sure that there's a hierarchy just giving them some tips saying well this is updated daily especially if your news
magazine website you want them to come every day you need the priority is very
high okay so I feel like we could carry on talking about this all night but I'm
at one of time and we haven't got let's move on that's all some really great
stuff there so let's move on from the technical side of things and let's talk about the content pillar that you talked
about so we've done a fair bit on the technical SEO there's some really good basic stuff you can get your head into and work around there what is what do
you mean when you say content pillar what what's that why should we care
essentially it can start off with contextualizing your pages so that
Google can understand what you are even offering are you are service are you
offering products are you offering inspirational content or like magazine style content all you do that is with
words so initially the first search engine was called Archie and the way that websites
used to write words where you would add a certain capacity of keywords so I
mentioned he went nothing before but that's how the essence of search engine
started it was how many keywords were on that page so that they would rank for
that keyword when somebody searches for it and essentially it's the same thing but being a lot more natural with it so
instead of trying to bombard of one page with a particular keyword it's about
actually understanding that Google is now very smart it uses natural language
understanding so artificial intelligence machine learning etc to understand conversational content so I've dug deep
very quickly I just realize that but it's essentially about creating content too much a user's
intent very quickly and very easily so that Google can basically show you at
the right place at the right path okay so I think what I'm hearing you say here
is one don't try and outsmart Google with you know old strategies like keyword stuffing google his waste more
than you just deal with it right the best policy yeah but when you're talking
about this content then and be and creating that sort of content let's
specifically for example let's say let's go back to the site and I'm selling dress's or you know clothing or whatever
it is that I'm selling jewelry is a popular one isn't it at the moment and what sort of things would you be looking
to do if that was your website what sort of content from an SEO point of view
would you be looking at practically speaking so usually how I teach the
startups it's about figuring out the search intent so there are four
different types usually its navigational yeah like you can go onto google and
actually like if I'm looking for a dress I'll be like okay I mean a sauce red dress exam I know exactly where I'm
going I know the exact brand and I just want a simple way to get into that page without gray sauce homepage that's
navigation then there's informational so like how to how to cook something how to
make something what is this yeah so that's information then there's around
actually purchase intent so actually wanting to buy something knowing a brand
but maybe you're just looking around as well so it's just it's around like
bye-bye now be another example and so
was it informational navigational purchase are we on a spot here
Oh one plate is just like it's
essentially you're not quite sure what you're looking for so you could be you could start with
something really generic just like a dress but I don't actually know the brand I don't know the color I don't
know to style them so you're basically Google is offering
you because of that personalization it could offer you anything so it could be
because you've browsed something previously it knows that you like a particular brand or it could just show
you something because of PVC so pay-per-click and adverts and things
like that so essentially what you want to try and do when it comes to content is understand the keywords that are
people are searching for your brand and where in those buckets
those pool of search intent do they actually sit okay so are there any
services or products that you sell have a purchase intent do people have that if that's the case make sure that it's
likely the product pages make sure it's in the service pages so that people can
find your pages when they need to so
yeah there's apart from that I guess it's about going and actually using that
information for a complete content strategy so like understanding where in
that search journey can you get that
that user with your content so for example if you know that somebody takes
six months to research a particular sofa - before they buy it they deem you -
yeah there you need to so you've got a buying guide for it you need to make sure like how to find like what types of
sofa are there is a corner so for the normal so make that try that
but yeah it's about understanding a how people are searching for something using the
particular keywords and be understanding the intent of that keyword as well so
not just adding anything really new yeah yeah okay so I understand the intent side of things like I mean I liked your
four buckets there they were they were great so just remind me what those four buckets so we've got purchase and
navigational navigational it's great inspiration relishing discoverability so
we've got those four buckets and so it's putting content on your side that
connects with each of those buckets and understanding how how the user is going
to connect with those I get that so practically does that mean things like
blocks for example like content marketing with a blog and and putting stuff on there like your couch idea how
to choose the perfect couch for your front room you know six questions you
need to ask yourself before buying any couch yeah you know is that is that is
that is that on the right track am I am I getting this right yeah I think so
most blogs are in informational / inspirational it's about getting people
to think more about a product or service or lifestyle a lot of blogs obviously I
have like affiliate links they're basically where they sell the product so sometimes it's about reviewing a product
and obviously they do it from that angle but in terms of like informational it's
about using the tools I've already mentioned one in terms of like the keyword planner tool that's a Google
tool that's free then you can use and sign up so if you just go to google and type in keyword planner they don't come
up won't it yes exactly there's Google Trends so you can actually see the
seasonality of some keywords or some product you might actually want to be selling or using the keyword war yeah
and then you can use something like answered the public one of my favorite
tools and essentially it gives you those loads of questions around a particular topic so you type so I've got a huge
white German Shepherd at home Casper the Friendly goes I basically can type in
German Shepherd dog into answer the public and come up and see all of these
questions that come up that say everything that's relevant to German Shepherd dog so how to clean them how to
train them anything that people have typed in into Google there would be
lists and this was a question so that could be a way to create a content
strategy for that inspirational informational section specific with you so you go to answer the public is it
calm coat UK don't I'm sure is calm but just google answer the public it'll come
out so you get answer the public you're putting your topic German Shepherd Casper the Friendly Ghost and then
you'll see a whole list of questions and you can use those questions to go actually we could do content around
those questions so when people type them into Google hopefully Google throwers onto the search engine results and
people because it's the title of the post or whatever is the same title is the question that you've typed in you
know a high chance you're gonna click through and read it and I think that's a great tactic especially if you're just
starting out yeah because I massive brand you don't often have to work so
hard dare I say it in order to optimize every single page so that you show up and the
reason for that because people already trust you people already trust your brand people know what kind of products
you sell on the site if your niche if you're quite a small brand you need to
go for those long tail keywords and don't help here are three words or over
so ricci were together for example red
velvet cushion rather than just like a cushion yeah so
you have more opportunity because it's less competitive because you let say
optimize for that particular page more there's less search volume so in terms
of like people searching for it there may be less people actually less traffic coming to your site but I found
personally that actually the conversion rate is so much higher because you know
exactly what they're looking for as much as % higher conversion rate that's
massive right that's much so actually by optimizing your page for the longtail
keywords red velvet cushion and you're more likely to get traffic from Google
than if you just do cushion and actually the traffic that's coming to your site is more likely to convert because they've typed in red velvet cushion and
so ain't giving them exactly what they're looking for rather than them having to come to your website and then try and find the right
Barry cushion right so you're yeah you're marrying I don't which is great now if I if I go to my e-commerce site
right and I've got my red velvet cushion and I've got my product page and I've got some pictures and I've got the title
and the price and a mini description block but let's say I've also got some
posts that I want to do around how you know how to layout the cushions on your
couch so it looks like you know a lifestyle magazine every time or so I don't know to remain those kind of
things all and the best color combinations to go with your red velvet cushions or you know there's there's all
these ideas that you could do around it that maybe you've got from you know answer the public do I put that content
on the product page or do I do a blog post around each of those questions and
link those to the product page and the product page to those blog posts just to see the difference in the questions yeah
Amen that's a separate page and the reason I say that is because you might want to use it more than one example you
might have lots of cushion so if you're doing lots of the same content so imagine you
literally copy and paste your content that's what I'm in imagining now on every single product page that's very
naughty and basically Google doesn't like that either so duplicate any content makes sure that
there's unique content on every single page so essentially having a separate
page for this buying guide and then linking from all of your product pages to this separate page would be ideal
scenario but make sure that there's always a way back for them to shop back to it so this is where your breadcrumb
trails come in this is you know your browsing history and all that stuff so that's an important point
let me just re-emphasize that it may be framing in Matt's language just make
sure I've got this it is better to have a page a single page with your buying
guide and link from a hundred products to that buying guide than it is to copy
the content from that buying guide on to the hundred product pages yeah is that
summarized that correctly perfect mm-hmm brilliant awesome okay so we've got a
technical SEO we've got our content SEO what is some of the I mean some of the
have you got any more tips on how to create good quality content so you've given us some look at Google Trends look
at Google Keyword planner look at answer the public have you got any other yes
I'm gonna cheat in this one because this one is a mix of content and tech and I
think it's price of one it's not cheating but essentially it's about
having you've got the right content and it's going back to like why don't we
optimize it and make it as easy as possible for people to understand that content so what you do is actually use
schema markup so go to schema.org essentially it's got loads and loads of
day I say at coding so that you can markup your page in a particular way to
showcase Google the content and the information that you have on the page so I'll give you a couple of
examples firstly product pages you have things like price you have things
whether they're in stock out of stock you've got their information obviously
the title and things like that essentially you use that schema markup to show Google exactly that so what is
the price and you use a particular wording and coding to showcase that
price you do the same with the descriptions you do the same with that out of stock in stock essentially what
that does is in a technical way it formats your content so that Google can
understand it and showcase it in the search results so that people when they looking for a particular product your
price will actually come up on Google as well and you'll be able to see whether it's in stock or out of stock so you'll
get less bounce rate example yeah so it's just clever ways of understand and
it doesn't stop there I guess the other way is actually about having instant aunts and so the position is zero where
you have a search result so on Google you can see a snippet that's larger than
all the other snippets there you can yep and it answers usually a question yeah
so usually you can use schema markup to encourage to be at that top section you
get share voice on you by doing that so those snippets come from the schema
content in your website and and if you if you just Google how to do that you
can add that and hopefully Google picks that up get you to the top of the page one yeah sometimes it can be as easy as
putting in a list so if you've got so like step one step two step three yeah
sometimes it's just a matter of adding so like in coding world world
it's like ill with in like old square bracket and it's essentially just
something as easy as that like implementing simple it changes that actually won't make a
big difference well okay so that was a for the price of one check out schemer
SCH EMA dot org yeah there's all kinds
of top tips there again and again that's going to come down to the platform you use but it is worth doing that and doing
that right because you're right you're in effect putting your website in Google's language so Google can
understand that your website an awful lot easier which is super important for e-commerce right because you know we've
all got price tags we've all got you know and if we're all got different names for it Google doesn't know which way is coming so using schema I think is
is a no-brainer okay yeah so in the last few minutes of the show let's talk about
the dark arts of linking and why I should ignore perhaps the guy that calls
me every two minutes to tell me you know he can do it great linking strategy for me yeah at the end the day you can get
really great information about linking rich new people hmm like you can get
hundred link in one day and you will probably write for let's say a day maybe
an hour on page one or a really good term and then some industries people
still unfortunately do it for example family they're really competitive industry so so before people do still do
it and sometimes there is a use for it there I say it but when you're starting
out it's about having credible and relevant and link and how to do that
essentially you should be able to really get both so actually going to other
websites and offering them up offering up good content in return or a good
thing and it's just about getting that follow link it's about actually having
in being relevant and so that you might
be able to get traffic and referrals from them so for example you might put
your expertise say I go to your website and I say okay
I've got all these tips for SEO if you my quote on your website and then link
back to me then that's great for me because they are digital marketing website and I
might get flying obsession customer come through that link to my website because
not just about that link Authority sometimes Google basically so when I
mention about like that first search engine ya know there were two things
that used first was the keywords the amount of keyword and the second was the
amount of references that you brought because it started off as a university document sharing platform so essentially
the things that ranked at the top was the keywords that they use and the references that they got so the links
were the reference is and before Google even existed how people used to find
content is through the links from other website go on to their friends website they look to someone else they'd find
the next website and so on etc yeah you follow the rabbit trail will you see it
and now essentially it's around being smarter than that use you need if you're
growing business you need press links so you can go on to things like Haro which
is help a reporter out where you will actually get a few emails a day asking
you votes and content or data and if you actually give that to them they're
likely to link back to your website because of it so that's har-har oh yes oh okay yeah or
there's like response a response sauce I believe but that's a paid one so it's
essentially about helping journalists and press and they will essentially
reference you so you're creating that whole credibility around your brand and
authority which is fantastic and it's not just about bribing your way
to the top say for example there's a time and a place for using bloggers for
example we went through a stage a few years ago maybe more than a few years ago where he would give bloggers
products and services in return for the links yeah but now you'd use it for
different purposes for example you'd want an awareness piece you want brand awareness you want
that traffic so if you get good traffic from bloggers that's exactly what you want also actually having reviews about
your products and services still does really well sorry I've used bit away
from your site so people reviewing your products and services externally exactly
so it's not always about the link and actually when your local business it's
been suggested time and time again that even nofollow things so there's two
types of Link's which I'll get onto in a second um actually mean a lot to that
this even especially if you're local yes um to explain the follow and no follow
links so Google at some point came out with some guidelines and said that
actually if you get paid for this particularly or if you are given a
product for this particular link it should be a no following so it's something piece of coding that you add
on to your website to that link yeah that's it do not follow this and the reason for that is because it does not
pass any page rank to that website okay essentially it's a way of google
ensuring that people can't manipulate the search results okay cool
oh yeah exactly and essentially if for google a blogger
doesn't conform to these practices they'll be taken off Google themselves
oh so it's a real strict kind of yeah okay wait
so obviously firstly it's a legal requirement to make sure that the heisman I've shown on your website so
for example if affiliate link or if you've been paid for link yeah sponsored
post basically you need to make sure that it says sponsored that's eggs they guidelines in general but then google
says obviously if you do that then it has to be a no following what I'm saying is that even if you're in the local
business even those nofollow links do you mean a lot to you and your brand to create that
brand Authority credibility essentially yeah I've mentioned like guest posting
I've mentioned the fact that you can do press so if you've got really great data and um you you don't mind actually
sharing that data why not actually go to like a magazine online press and tell
them okay well did you know that there's like this part of the UK absolutely
loves this service whereas this part of UK like there's other service you know so it's like a comparison or something
different it's about being smart with what you have but in this other brands that actually
go out to find this data by doing surveys and actually questioning them it
just depends how big your customer base is okay okay so if you are starting out
and you know this whole I did someone says y'all you need to stop building some links you know you're just starting
out you've never done it before and you told us about help a reporter out and
how would you I mean this is a third of your SEO strategy is link building right
so it's an important part what would you what would be your sort of first steps
that you would do to to build that well if that makes sense and if you've not got the hundred
thousand customers on your email list you know you've literally got ten and you're just starting out you're trying
to build that in that case I'd say stick to it being
twofold so firstly creating content that you can share on your website so for
example create a blog post with other contributors say for example yet I don't
know an example will be digital marketing experts let's say there's five digital marketing at first with fire
quotes and therefore I'm going to add them onto this piece of content and then
it's going to be all about this schmuck right so now you've got five people who
all have different followings and who are likely to share your content on
their social media or likely put you on their website cheer actually showcase
and amplify these content but the same time actually builds links to your website yeah and not need that but it
also gives you new customers new potential customers that comes by
collaborating yes exactly get getting contributors in getting that authority
from others yeah in order to put your opinion onto things as well I guess okay
and then the second thing I would say will be the other way around actually this is to kind of consuming
but is essentially about creating content for other people's websites yeah
so that you can link back to you so it's about you providing quotes it's about
you providing data it's about you providing content that people don't mind
sharing so for example we went through another phase of like infographics which
is basically putting together imagery of information in a visual way and actually
people still do that and sometimes it works it's around being relevant it's about not just putting out content
willy-nilly it's around actually putting out content that is relevant to you and
your audience as well as I've mentioned there has to be a reason why the other person is going share it right an if is to shoot talking
about your product that no one cares I mean they genuinely don't care so I must
I must explain for the listeners outside of the UK willy-nilly is a phrase we use
here it's very very colloquial English and so you can use that to your heart's
content willy-nilly quite funny because me being Russian but using very English
words it's confusing if you use it words
like willy nilly you're English it's just the way it is you know it's it's
it's great so so collaboration and
putting content out there that is you know that is helpful for people to share
that adds value to their audience and so that they don't mind sharing it some of the top tips there I mean to be a coming
back to the which we started off the show by talking about the podcast and how you meet some really extraordinary people during the podcast one of the
benefits of doing the podcast has been whenever we do a podcast with a guest
and the guest not all the time and low pressure
alena aha but not all the time the guest quite often will share that podcast with
their audience right so not only do I get to me some great people like
yourself some experts SEO I get to learn stuff we put together these shows and they're great shows but
then quite often they'll go and share that content with their audience because they enjoy the podcast enjoy the
experience enjoy the conversation being part of something and and actually I
found this a really great way to build your audience and build your network so if your e-commerce site could benefit
from podcasting and having guests on your show from your industry why would you not do it it just it makes a lot of
sense to me and people are more than happy to come on your show talk to you for an hour answer your questions and then if it's
good they'll share with that their audience it seems to be the most easiest content marketing that I've ever done
the podcast I and I should write a book about it one day maybe and oh yeah it's
been fascinating it has been absolutely fascinating listen Alina I'm aware of
time and I want to be especially your time I really appreciate you coming onto the show and sharing your wisdom I have
got a lot out of this let me tell you and I've been around ecommerce for a long time
I only a long time and I've learned some stuff I've got some questions for the team tomorrow which I I want to know
what's going on which is great they're all down in my notes whenever I switch to just this view here where they just
see you use normally because I'm writing notes in my notebook anyway and how do
people get hold of you early know if they want to reach out and connect to you how do they do that how do they connect with the ghost yeah I love that
there's a few ways obviously LinkedIn if you want to be professional if you want
to be more casual then go onto Twitter I can be found at mrs. Alena ghost or you
can email me using SEO with mrs. ghost at gmail.com so essentially like tune in thank you so
so much Matt for having me on the show absolutely been lovely and again just to mention you do have a podcast that
podcast on iTunes yeah iTunes Spotify you name it voices
and the name of the podcast is SEO with mrs. ghost SEO with mrs. ghost I like it
I like it a lot listen Melina just hold for a second I'm going to close out the
show I'm gonna campaign talk to you but thank you so so much it's been absolutely fantastic big thumbs up
thanks well I hope you got a lot out of that that was fantastic wasn't it Alena
sharing her experience her SEO wisdom and knowledge and if you got something out of that make sure you connect with
Alena on Twitter or on LinkedIn or by email which she you will put all those details in the
show notes if you want to reach out to industry chat and say hey thanks for that that was super valuable content really helped me out we all can do with
saying thanks little bit more so make sure you connect with a it's awesome and make sure you subscribe to the show
wherever you get your podcasts on stitcher on itunes and if you get chance i'd really appreciate you taking the
time to give us a review as it helps us get the word out and people you know we
get to share with more people and help more people out which is always always fantastic and if you haven't yet seen
the Facebook live videos you can now check the podcast out on videos you can watch them online - we'll be posting
them on YouTube and like I say we record these podcasts live by broadcasting live
on Facebook at the same time so if you do get the chance make sure you connect with me Matt Edmondson on Facebook sign
up for the notifications and whenever we do a facebook live they are on there you can come you can join in you can write
your comments and your questions so if there's a specific guest like with ally in estate you can write in your questions ashes talking and at the end
of the recording when I go back those of you that ask questions can get them
answered by the podcast guests I mean that's just mind boggling right so make sure you do check out the Facebook lives
they are worth getting involved with I will be back again tomorrow actually we have yet another podcast recording
tomorrow we're trying to cram in a few before I head off to New Zealand tomorrow's show is going to be epic so
make sure you join in for that details are coming soon they will be on the Facebook page probably tomorrow morning
UK time so make sure you join us for that all that's left for me to say is thanks again to Alena and thank you for
watching I hope your e-commerce businesses are starting to do that wherever you are around the world it's
been great to connect with you and I will see you next time