3 Ways Ecommerce Websites Can Grow or Maintain Organic Search Traffic

Given the measurement, SERP, and PLA challenges, what can an e-commerce site do to maintain or even grow their organic search traffic? Three things:

1. Adjust for Tracking Issues

To quote Tony Stark, "It’s an imperfect world, but it’s the only one we’ve got." In this imperfect world of attribution, it’s important to recognize that:

• You can’t rely purely on your analytics system;
• You must adjust your organic search reporting to estimate "no query" and "mobile" traffic properly for more accurate numbers; and
• All attribution models have inherent biases, so interpretation and intuition are critical - don’t just rely on last click. Ask questions about your assumptions and the implications of each attribution model you use. Last click is a poor representation of the value of organic search given that consumers may begin their journey on organic search, but end it via an affiliate program or a branded paid search ad. Plus, with more consumers beginning their purchasing process on smartphones, connect the dots between a first click on mobile and a purchase in-store or elsewhere online.

2. Measure and Mitigate Cannibalization

Rankings alone won’t cut it if the starting line for organic results is further down the page. So, periodically test a sample of queries (ideally from the head, torso and long-tail) to see how the SERPs evolve over time.

Looking for relationships – correlation and causation – between the locations on the SERP, organic ranking for that query, conversions and revenue can be quite revealing. As many have noted, ranking first in both the organic and paid results for any given query solidifies the brand’s reputation with the customer and increases conversions. Also, as you’re thinking about organic, work with agencies and solution providers that have technology and expertise across both organic and paid search.

3. Get Strategic

Continuing the status quo without any creativity and optimization will yield diminishing returns and/or increasing costs-per-acquisition. If the head and torso clicks are drying up, look to the long-tail to make up ground.

In the long-tail, there is less competition (both for organic and paid, which means there’s often less downward pressure on the organic-listing location on the SERPs) and stronger signals of customer intent. Strategically targeting the long-tail in a scalable way can pay dividends.

If faced with less organic traffic, make sure those clicks you do get turn into customers. Work with the rest of your e-commerce team to make it effortless for those prospects to find what they are looking for, whether on the desktop or mobile device.

When you measure and optimize, net-new customers will still come walking through your virtual door. Plus, in an age when Amazon reigns over many categories, acquiring, converting and cultivating net-new customers is the key to unlocking more revenue potential.

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SEO : Search Engine Optimization from 2012-2013: 7 Key Factors That Will Take The Lead

This time of year is suitable for retrospection. We’re able to take a good look at how things played out in 2012, and get an idea of the trends and patterns that are most likely to dominate the coming year.

2012 was rough for SEO experts due to radical changes in Google’s algorithms, including many updates to Panda, as well as the the introduction of Penguin. While content quality and inbound links continue to play major roles in organic rankings, let’s take a look at the other factors that will govern SEO in 2013.

2013: The 7 Key Factors That Will Determine Your Survival in SEO

If it were up to me, I’d simply focus on creating value for the reader — because ultimately, that should be the goal of any website. However, increasing competition may require you to employ strategic practices in a pragmatic approach to assist your rise to the top of the SERPs. Here are the tactics and strategies that will dominate the SEO landscape in 2013.

1. Quality of Content

Ultimately, it all comes down to the quality and value of the content on your website. Google has been very explicit this year about good-quality content, and we expect this trend to carry over into next year in full force. By content quality, the metrics are:

1.     uniqueness of the content/topic
2.     resourcefulness and information richness (i.e., no thin content)

2. Content Marketing

Content marketing is being touted as the next big thing. Experts have called it the new SEO. To an extent, this is true. As a general rule, content marketing attracts backlinks, and adds value for the user/reader. It is more challenging, because you have to generate more content of high quality, circulate it, and make sure your content gets published widely with ample social signals to generate substantial SEO value.

Since Google takes valuable content seriously, a solid content marketing strategy will be the key to climbing to the next level in SEO.

3. Author Rank and Profile

Author Rank has emerged as a vital metric in deciding SERPs, although studies about its value are still ongoing. One thing that we can be sure of in 2013 is that AuthorRank will add credibility and value to your website, and it will be vitally important for every webmaster.

4. Social Signals and Social Networking

After much debate and discussion, social signals have largely been accepted as valid ranking factors. In the next year (and probably in the years to follow), social signals will play a growing role. Shares, retweets, mentions, and perhaps most importantly, +1s are trophies every webmaster should be amassing.

5. Mobile/Responsive Design

Although this does not directly influence the ranking of a page, it will play a role in your fortunes. Google was one of the first companies to become aware of this trend in web browsing due to the growing presence of tablets and smartphones. Responsive design may not be an explicit SEO factor, but in terms of usability, it is likely to be a highly influential element to consider in 2013.

6. Localization / Info-graphics

Google’s growing preference for local websites and information has become evident in many searches. It’s safe to assume 2013 we’ll witness an increase in this preference. Websites that apply local SEO will enjoy higher rankings and visibility. This includes map data, listings, citations, and reviews on local information sites.

7. Social Media Marketing

Images and videos have become staples on the Internet. We’ve consistently seen that relevant results that include videos get ranked higher than text-only content. The further emergence of media content is an important development you can expect next year. It’s becoming essential to add relevant non-textual media to text content, because this adds value and makes the content more resourceful.
Source

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How Panda-Proof Your Website

Since Panda first hit the scene two years ago, thousands of sites have been mauled. SEO forums are littered with site owners who have seen six figure revenue websites and their entire livelihoods evaporate overnight, largely because they didn’t take Panda seriously.

Last year Google unleashed the most aggressive campaign of major algorithm updates ever in its crusade to battle rank spam. This year looks to be more of the same.

When you have a business or blog hosted online, you need steady and huge amount of traffic to the site. It should also be user friendly to drive the traffic. Attracting organic traffic from search engines can be the effective and cheapest way. But post panda effect, online marketers feel attracting traffic from search engines has become relatively tough. Google panda is a set of algorithms designed to get rid of low quality hosting websites or which are less user friendly.

Five Tips in Panda-proofing Your Website

• Avoid depending on auto generated content, this content are not on the favorites of search engines. If a search engines recognizes such content on your site, it will be regarded as spam content. And you might lose your traffic. 
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• Try to write unique content as your posts every time, pay specific attention on the length of the posts as well. A well detailed and lengthy post is entitled to be useful to the user as it will contain more information on that specific topic. The length of the posts should be at least 400 words and get rid of all the articles which have low content from the search results. You should also note that Google panda causes a wide-site penalty as opposed to page-by –page penalty. So, if one of the pages has low quality the whole site might be shut down. 
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• Get rid of all the pages that add little or no value to the site, such as disclaimer, about us, contact. Either assigns no index tags to all these pages or Robots.txt to stop crawling of these pages where ever possible.
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• Learn and implement SEO techniques on the site. A well researched and applied search engine optimization is likely to have positive impact on the site. Prior to writing the posts do a thorough research of all the high searched rich keywords and try including them in your post. But avoid stuffing keywords in the posts; this may affect the quality of your site. Build quality back links to your site. While looking for the back links be aware the Back links should be within your niche and from popular and authorized sites else they won’t be adding any benefits.
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• Building social media relations can be handier in tackling the panda effect. You can start with creating pages on popular social platforms such Google+, Face book, twitter and Digg. Link back these pages with your site and add various share bottoms on the site. Social trust adds huge difference to the rankings, specially +1 vote of Google. Google can give you high ranking based on these votes even if the posts may not be optimized, owing to the trust of the user on the social networks.

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SEO: Search Engine Optimization

Rand Fishkin recently filmed a Whiteboard Friday about paying one forward to people in your network with the hopes of having a hand to reach for some day when you need one. In the moment, it sounded like a loaded favor. “Here, let me give you something you didn’t ask for so I can offer a way to repay me.” Unfortunate.

As I drifted from my desk in thought, it became clear that actually, that is what link building really is. Regardless of how it is packaged, Rand’s technique is used by SEOs every day.

    “Dear Webmaster…”
    “Dear Blogger…”
    “Dear Reporter…”

Each outreach method includes a line about a great resource/article/idea that helps them, contributing to your SEO in the process. We are essentially offering (or begging for, really) something in exchange for a favor, also known as a link. So, how is how is going through an address book any different?

Most of us have tried broken link building, or what I call The Exchange. It reduces cold call syndrome by offering while asking. “Here are a couple broken links that you might have missed” is a much more successful ice breaker than “Hi, I work with… Hello?” The webmaster gets a gift and (hopefully) gives you enough time to ask one little, itsy-bitsy, tiny favor that would mean the absolute world to you. If this is a new concept, check out the many great resources on broken linking building tactics, like this and this.

The Exchange is a great angle, but it doesn’t give anything back to our digital or local communities. A webmaster catches a couple 404s, you get a link, but what about the kids?

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