SEO

In this case study you will learn some of the common SEO issues that come with a Shopify store and how we addressed them to help our client rank.  It is full of actionable items with some massive bonus tips.

The client in the screen shots below is a smaller brand without many backlinks and has a two person marketing team with no developer.

The company is in a highly competitive retail niche and competing for big brand terms (think phrases like “t-shirt” or “clothing” where you’re up against Macy’s, Calvin Klein and Hanes).  Unlike tshirt, the terms here have lower search volumes.  This makes it even more competitive.

Here’s how we helped them beat the big brands.

Note: This is year two on the project and I’m comparing year two to year 1.  SEO is not a quick one and done or lets fix it and hope it sticks channel.  

How to do SEO for Shopify sites:

1. Fix the Shopify SEO issues
2. Add content
   1. PDP
   2. Categories
   3. Internal links
3.  Find ambassadors
4. Tech SEO

Fix the Shopify SEO Issues

Shopify is currently my recommended shopping cart for ecommerce stores.  The app store makes it affordable to have the whistles and bells of big brands without the big budget.

When combined with the reasonably good checkout process and excessive amount of affordable developers, you can build an awesome store as a small or mid-size company with ease.

But just because it is a good shopping cart platform does not mean it is marketing or SEO friendly.  The good news is the majority of Shopify SEO issues are known and can be remedied.

The biggest issue is that you don’t get access to your own code base making it really hard to speed up your site and optimize it. But don’t let that deter you, having Shopify host your ecommerce store has benefits like accessing their security systems and having them watch so that your servers and your store stays online.

Here are the big known Shopify SEO issues:

[Read more…] about Case Study – A Small Business Beats Big Brands in SEO on Shopify

If you’re a small business and you think you cannot compete with the big corporations in SEO, think again!

The case study below is a project I did for a friend’s company which is a small and local business in a very competitive niche with national and multi-national players. This company is not local to me and I won’t say which market or markets they are in.  This is at their request.

The traffic in the screen shot below might not be massive, but this company is up against a Google algorithm specific to high trust and authority (not E-A-T, E-A-T is a concept and not an algorithm with factors and signals).

Each conversion is worth $20,000 to $200,000 in revenue annually, and the users normally stay for multiple years. This makes it high value and really expensive to advertise for.

Needless to say all channels are saturated and there is big money involved making it really hard for small and local businesses to compete.

So how did we beat the big players?

1. I scrapped the entire site
2. We deleted more than 3,000 pages of copy
3. The company used their resources like friends to build trust
4. No backlinks were built, we did PR work
5. Schema and site structure were added
6. We kept each other accountable even when there was no time

So here’s the results YOY for 2019 and 2020.  Remember, they are a local company in one or a couple markets and they are competing with the big players.  There is also a limited amount of customers and users that exist in each market.

Please note that:

• Only the old lead form path is listed here for conversions.
• There are multiple new lead options based on the theme of the page the incoming traffic hits.
• The bounce rate started lowering later in the year when we upgraded the PHP and speed up the site.
• The pages per session lowering is a good thing. We added in lead forms and CTAs to the more important pages making it easier for leads to contact us. Less searching the site for contact information means easier conversions and more money, even if there are less pageviews.

Step 1 – Scrap the Entire Site

The very first thing I did was delete the entire site (after backing up all of the copy and pages of course).  The old site was built with outdated code, it lacked structure and had no solid calls to action. Only a button that leads the visitor to a form and a phone number to call.  It also featured giant rotating hero images.  This was the first thing to go!

Pro-tip: Giant hero images on the homepage kill conversions and can be incredibly bad for SEO.  If you have these on [Read more…] about SEO Case Study – Small Business Beats International Corporation

There’s a big difference in following proper English and grammar guidelines, and creating a proper experience for your end users.

A professional writer will write a word to follow guidelines created many years ago.  That is the issue.  There is a set structure which is not updated to meet current usage and regular standards.

Using common spoken versions instead of the “technically correct” versions is one of the ways I help my clients bring in more traffic and increase conversions, but only when it is appropriate.

Google does tend to prefer proper grammar and english, but it isn’t always the best experience for your user base (customers, readers, subscribers, leads, etc…).  That is why situationally we break from branding and corporate guidelines and do what is right for the end users.  By doing this in these situations we can increase traffic and increase conversions.

Finding the right balance should be your goal as a business owner, marketer and content creator.

Below are a few examples with explanations of these.

You can find these same terms and phrases using Google keyword tools as well as your own site search depending on how much traffic your website has.  I have the advantage of having some high volume websites as clients.  These are all based on campaigns and niches I have worked on for various clients in the past, but not the actual data or examples.

(please note I’m not comparing specific apples to specific apples in each example.  But I am keeping it in the family like a red delicious vs. a golden delicious, or a granny smith to a honeycrisp.  They are each to demonstrate a specific technique or SEO and conversion tactic).  

Example 1: Mother’s Day vs. Mothers Day

Mother’s Day is only 31 days away so I’ll start with this.  Browser’s and many writing tools will autocorrect Mothers Day to have an ” ‘ ” symbol before the “s”.  But if you look up the search volumes, the non apostrophe version has more traffic.

If you’re a blogger or content creator who does not have to deal with a branding team, this is an opportunity to capitalize where big brands cannot.

Bonus tip – One thing I’ve also seen in different niches is that the ‘s version can lead to different themes and topics.  Instead of a shopping page or review, a listcicle could be the better experience.  Checkout the double bonus tip in the next section for an even better one!  

Group 1: without the apostrophe

Keyword	Volume
mothers day gifts	201000
mothers day gift	74000
mothers day gift ideas	60500
best mothers day gifts	12100
good mothers day gifts	9900

You’ll see “best mothers day gifts” above has 12,100 searches but “best mother’s day gifts” has 6,600.  That’s a big difference in traffic and sales!

Group 2: with the apostrophe

Keyword	Volume
best mother’s day gifts	6600
last minute mother’s day gifts	4400
top 10 mother’s day gift ideas	4400
mother’s day delivery gifts	2900

Example 2: Microneedling vs. Micro-needling vs. Micro Needling

The spelling here and also capitalization make a difference.  If your audience uses two words and capitalizes both, using this on your website could make it more relatable to them.  But it might not follow brand standards or trademarks.  The added benefit here is that you’re speaking your customers’ language. [Read more…] about SEO Keywords & Conversions – How an ‘ or – Can Make You Seven Figures!

One of the most common obstacles that cause stagnation with content, SEO, affiliate earnings, and PPC teams is that there are “no more keywords, modifiers or topics to go after”.  A lesser known, but common issue, is that SEOs and Affiliate Managers get blocked from having access to PPC accounts.  That is why I’m writing this step-by-step guide on locating new keywords for SEO that drive sales.

Below you’ll find a new way to discover keywords phrases that can convert into revenue, because they are based on data, not assumptions, and you’ll have a solid reason why you need PPC account access to give to your boss or clients.

After I show you how to locate these keywords and phrases, you’ll learn when, why and how to incorporate them into:

• Product and category pages
• Location pages
• Blog posts

Let’s start by figuring out how to find the keywords that have volume and also drive sales.  This is important for ecommerce stores, lead gen companies, service providers, and affiliates.

1. Log into your adwords account – if you don’t have one, create one and launch campaigns with conversion tracking on.
2. Set the date range to at least 3 or 4 months, the shopping season you’re building content for (Valentine’s, Back to School, Engagement, etc…), or the year to date if you have a solid amount of data.
3. Click on Campaigns > Select an Ad Group > Click the “Search Terms” tab on the keywords page
4. Modify the columns so you have these five showing:
   1. Search term
   2. Match type
   3. Impressions
   4. Clicks
   5. Conversions
5. Now export to a spreadsheet or sort by match type.
6. Delete or exclude all rows that have zero conversions from your spreadsheet or ignore them within the interface.

This is your gold mine. As long as you do not have “broad match” for everything, [Read more…] about How to Find Keywords & Content Topics That Convert Into Sales

Your .htaccess is kind of like the front door in your home or the directory you see once entering an office building.  It helps you find the right path to the room you’re looking for, a direct route to the person you are visiting, or to navigate to the nearest restroom if you have to go.  However, in many cases when it comes to SEO, .htaccess is more like the attic.

It’s where you store items you use once a year like holiday decor, things you don’t want to throw out, and all the junk which could land you a runner-up position on the show hoarders.  When you have to open your .htaccess (much like an attic), you remember all of the things you’re supposed to do, but you put it off and let the clutter continue to pile up.  That is where you run into a lot of SEO issues that can prevent your rankings from growing.

By not having a clean and direct .htaccess, you make search engines have to work to find the right pages and versions of your website.  Think about showing up to an interview and being 10 minutes late because the directory was wrong, and the security desk kept giving you wrong instructions to find the HR team, then the administrative assistant sent you back downstairs to start over again.  Now that you know what the .htaccess does for SEO, here is how we used this to increase a client’s positions from the lower part of page 1 in Google to the upper.

Our team is working with a client on SEO, and they have tons of content and backlinks, but their positions had plateaued and they couldn’t figure out why.  It turned out to be a tech SEO issue with one of the big fixes being .htaccess.

During the first round of cleanup, we reduced the file by more than 1,100 redirects and instructions.  We also reset other directives to properly point to the correct pages, or versions of the pages.  From there we reduced redirect chains by stripping them out, and reset the options that needed to remain.  This was only round one.

After this round of cleaning, the results helped the client to remove the stagnant positions, and get them to climb higher on page one.  Often times your SEO will say you need content or backlinks, but that often isn’t true when you already have them, and the content is good.

In the screenshots below you’ll see current ranking positions in the columns (Google, Yahoo, Bing), and then the search volume for the keyword phrases.  I pulled the report on 7/29/2019 with a comparison to the previous 30 days because I want to show the climb that happened once the pages and files were reindexed.  The green number next to the ranking position is the amount of spaces it moved up.  I used this tool to track, just like I do all clients.  If you’re wondering why there are some with 0’s across, we haven’t launched those sections or the content yet.  I add the tracking first so we can watch as it appears and properly monitor.

The niche is fairly competitive with lots of big money players.  The goal was to move from the lower part of the first page to the upper, and this is the way we started the progress.  Keep reading below to learn more about how .htaccess impacts SEO (without all of the other things it does).  BTW, if you’re a programmer and yelling about the explanation above, don’t continue down.  This post isn’t for you.  It is for people like me in marketing, so I changed it to be non-techie for marketing teams.

How .htaccess Impacts SEO

Your .htaccess file is going to be big, scary, and complex.  This is especially true for older sites which have had numerous designs, URL structures, and developers working on it.  Knowing how to properly implement, test, and then retest is an art form rather than a science.

.htaccess files require a lot of patience and frustration, so if you’re going through a clean up, get ready.  Here are some of the things that the programmer will be doing, looking at, and trying to fix. [Read more…] about SEO Case Study – How Your .htaccess Can Increase SEO Rankings