Member Article

5 SEO no-nos for online retailers

The top 5 SEO pitfalls and tips for multi-channel retail

We can only guess at where SEO is headed, but we do know for certain that it will remain crucial to website success. Current statistics show that:

• Retail ecommerce sales passed 10% of total retail sales last year in the UK, and will climb to 11.7% this year, for total sales of £35.3 billion
• 90% of search engine traffic worldwide is driven by Google
• 60% of people only ever click on the top 3 search results.

It is therefore essential that retailers consider Google when designing, implementing or improving a multi-channel retail website.

Over-optimisation will cost you

Keyword stuffing is a turn-off for Google. Recent changes to the way the search giant analyses and ranks sites means that simply repeating keywords endlessly is no longer effective. In fact, repeating keywords in an unnatural way will see your ecommerce site demoted in search engine results.Google’s own search engine expert Matt Cutts argues that it is always better to write web content for your customers, rather than search engines:

“People can overdo it to the point that we consider it keyword stuffing, and it hurts. I would just make sure you do it in natural ways where regular people aren’t going to find it stiff or artificial. That tends to be what works best.“

Google continues to refine and update algorithms, ensuring that over-optimisation will continue to be relevant in perpetuity. Google is also working hard to stamp out plagiarism and content duplication. Retailers should be aware that simply copying manufacturer’s product descriptions could also see them fall foul of anti-duplication measures.

By creating content aimed at people rather than Google, your multi-channel retail website is of higher value both to your audience and to search engines. Look after your readers and shoppers, and Google will look after you.

Unnatural links are a no-no

In the past, volume of backlinks trumped virtually every other factor for search engine rankings. This led many retail website owners to:

• Buy links from other sites
• Request reciprocal links from other webmasters
• Join link directories and networks

The Penguin update to Google’s search algorithms has been specifically designed to identify these “unnatural” link techniques. Any site, multi-channel retail or otherwise, found to be using “spammy” links has since been penalised in search engine ranks. According to Google, approximately 3.1% of search queries in English have been affected by these algorithm changes. A very significant number seeing as Google handles 1 billion queries every day.

How to Make Good Links & Find and Delete Bad Links

It is far better to build links organically by:

• Building relationships with bloggers and website owners with similar interests
• Encouraging community participation with giveaways and competitions
• Soliciting product reviews from suitably qualified and authoritative websites

Auto-translate is an auto turn-off

To be part of the global retail marketplace, your business needs to rank highly in regional search engines too. Although Google remains the world’s largest search engine for the widest coverage a business should also look into competitors like:

• Baidu – China
• Yandex – Russia
• Yahoo! – Japan

Even if a business chooses to focus solely on Google and its regional variations, it is essential that the text used on a website is perfect. Spelling mistakes and grammatical errors look bad on English-speaking websites; the same goes for regional websites, damaging a retailer’s brand reputation and trust levels in the process.

“When a consumer might be wary of spam or phishing efforts, a misspelt word could be a killer issue“ - William Dutton - Oxford Internet Institute

For the very best results, a retailer should try and secure the services of a native language speaker to create regional web content. Auto-translate tools are good up to a point, but they will never be able to capture the precise nuances of a foreign language.

95% of people surveyed by Search Laboratory reported that spelling, grammar and layout are essential for online copy, separating the good from the bad. Just 5% believed it was not essential and had no effect on the reader.

Paid clicks only pay back so much

Paid search results definitely have their place in the online retailer’s toolbox. However:

• The benefit only lasts as long as the budget
• Paid clicks constitute a significantly smaller proportion of search traffic
• Competition for AdWords has got stronger and prices have risen as a result
• Surveys suggest shoppers are naturally suspicious of paid search results

“For paid listings to yield the financial results that are anticipated by the business community, it is critical that consumers perceive paid listings and their descriptions as relevant to their transactional tasks. The results of this study support previous findings that this may not be the case, but also provide some guidance for the development of paid listings. Participants in the study showed a bias against paid listings in several ways. They reported an explicit suspicion about paid listings in their verbal protocols. They rated the relevance of the paid listings as lower than the organic listings despite the content of the descriptions being controlled across listing type“ - An Empirical Study Of Paid Listings In Product Search And Purchase - Marc Resnick

Up until last year, retailers were able to list their stock in product searches on Google for free. However changes to the system means that retailers now need to bid on product listings in the same way they would for standard paid clicks. There is always the potential for increased sales through the new “Google Shopping” service, but it requires some in-depth technical set-up and ongoing management - both of which could be costly.

The paid search situation is not a case of either/or though. Some experts claim that dropping AdWords campaigns resulted in matching losses of up to 20% in online retail sales (http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/62352-is-ebay-wrong-about-the-value-of-paid-search).

Retailers should focus on creating organic search engine results, complemented by PPC.

SEO is about sales not traffic

51% of senior marketers focus their online marketing efforts on search and keywords, and a further 48% believe that optimisation of their ecommerce site is key. However less than 40% of marketers emphasised the importance of converting retail website leads into customers.

To get the best return on SEO investment however, marketing expenditure should be focused on creating sales, effectively flipping the current budget breakdown. The focus of any multi-channel retail SEO campaign must always be creating sales. Anything else is simply wasteful. Optimise your ecommerce webpages to influence your customers rather than Google if you want to get a proper return on your SEO investment.

So the top 5 SEO actions you can take for your own multi-channel retail website are:

• Create original website content that people want to read.
• Reach out to your customer base and retail industry experts, encouraging them to create organic links to your ecommerce site for you.
• Always use a native speaker when creating content for regional websites.
• Use PPC to complement your organic SEO efforts, not as a replacement.
• Always focus on SEO for sales, not clicks.

For more tips and advice, read the eGuide: How to choose the right multi-channel software system for business growth. (Just copy and paste the following URL into your browser to download http://bit.ly/1Oo1Z8F)

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ian Newcombe .