Posted by Amanda Brooke on Tue, May 11, 2010 @ 09:46 AM
If you are a new ecommerce entrepreneur, you are probably already aware of the importance of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, to help drive traffic to your website, although sometimes it can all seem a little intimidating when you are just getting started.
Great SEO will work wonders for your new online business!
Once you gain a good understanding of what constitutes best SEO practices, and a grasp of how to use them for your business, you will have taken a giant step toward success!
Here are some top tips for how to use SEO effectively:
- Think like a customer. First of all, in determining which keywords or keyword phrases are best for your business, ask yourself what keywords you would use if you were an online shopper searching for the products you are selling.
- When using SEO for your ecommerce website, the two most critical spots to use your prime keywords are in the page header and the title tag. You will want to use SEO other places, of course, but always be sure that you apply SEO to those two important areas.
- Don't "stuff" your content with keywords. The search engines take a very dim view of websites that have an overabundance of keywords, and you could actually find yourself blacklisted by the search engines, which would be a complete disaster for your business.
- Make sure to provide the search engine crawlers with plenty of fresh content. You can do this across multiple platforms---your business blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and of course your website.
- When you add fresh content, always link back to your archived content. Search engines like these internal links. When you do this, make sure your anchor text contains relevant keywords so that when someone does a search, your page will appear in search results.
- Your URLs should be search engine friendly, which means that you should use words that plainly describe the page content. For example, instead of using your category code for a web page: www.flowerpots.org/223388/s309.htm.; use this one: www.flowerpots.org/copper/planters.
- Your images should all have an ALT tag so that the search engines can pick them up, and be keyword rich, as well as descriptive.
<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/H8v3UnMDC5M&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/H8v3UnMDC5M&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>
These tips can help you make a success of your home dropship business or other ecommerce enterprise! If you enjoyed this article, you may like this one: 10-Tips-For-Building-An-eCommerce-Drop-Ship-Website
