Promotion of online store in search engines

We offer you the 7 basic steps that you need to take in order to get the flow of buyers for your store from search engines.

The steps concern both the optimization of the store site and external factors.

Step 1. Optimize links

It is necessary to close the pages that are not needed for search engines from indexing:

1. basket online store
2. registration page and the entrance to the back office store
3. other service pages

You can best close them by adding a parameter to the links to these pages: rel = '' nofollow ''

There is also no need to abuse links on pages: a page with 100-200 links for a search engine is almost useless and there is every chance that links will not be indexed, and the page itself will not be ranked adequately.
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The tag <title> One of the most important elements of the page, to which search engines pay very close attention. An example of an optimized header:

Category :: Item Name

Usually the title is displayed in the search results, so there must necessarily be the name of the product you want to sell. If the prices you have attractive prices or delivery terms, you can add to the header and, for example, “free shipping”.

Step 2. Optimize HTML Markup

Key keywords should be in headlines. Use the tags <h3> and <h2> - they have the greatest weight in the eyes of search engines.

In addition, keywords in the page texts can be bold or italic (or with the <em> tag). Pictures in the text should have the ALT parameter, and in the names of pictures it is desirable to include the name of the goods or categories of goods.

Step 3. Optimize product descriptions and individual pages.

• The percentage of keywords in relation to all the words on the page should be in the range of 2–8%.
• The higher the words in the HTML code, the more effective.
• Use erroneous queries (for example, a missing letter in a word or grammatical errors), if your product is sometimes searched for.

Step 4. Get external links to the online store website

The main task in promoting an online store in search engines is to get external links to the store. Moreover, it is desirable that these links look as natural as possible and contain the necessary keywords.

Main sources of links:

1. Site registration in search engines (it does not give links, but at the very beginning it is better to do it): Yandex , Google , Rambler , Aport , Gogo .
2. Social networks, news and bookmarks (it is especially effective to add articles and interesting news to them): new2.ru , memori.ru , Bobr Dobr , MyMesto.ru , (aggregator of bookmarks sendez.ru ).
3. Catalogs of sites (there are a lot of them, but not all are useful). The most famous: Yandex catalog and DMOZ (Google catalog).
4. If you manage to get into the encyclopedia such as Wikipedia, it will give a weighty link to the site, as well as traffic.
5. Answer services, where anyone can answer user questions — you can also get some traffic there. Examples: Answers.Mail and 42.Yandex
6. Buying posts and links on blogs. This can be done both through personal contacts with blog owners (usually it is cheaper, but takes much more time), and through specialized services: blogun.ru , profitblog.ru
7. You can also buy links through specialized link exchanges (usually with payment for the month of placement). The main Russian-language exchanges: linkfeed.ru , sape.ru.

Step 5. Improving the conversion into buyers

Recommendations for working on the site to improve conversion:

• “Call to action” should be on any page that can be an entry point for a user who comes from a search engine or contextual advertising. It can look like a banner, button or text block, and it must be visible in the browser window without scrolling, as high as possible on the page.
• Visual elements that do not “help” the user to decide on a purchase should be removed (at least from the most prominent places - there, as already mentioned, there should be a “call to action”).
• All product images should be in the same style and quality (and the quality should be as high as possible).
• Contact information must be in sight on every page of the site.
• If a product is mentioned on the page, then somewhere there must necessarily be a “buy” button, so that the person can immediately respond to the information that interests him.
• Indicate your competitive advantage on all pages (free shipping, warranty, etc.).
• Non-existent pages with a 404 error should not scare away the visitor; make a mini site guide on them so that a person can always continue to browse the site normally. It happens that some page is removed from the site, but remains in the index of search engines (or contextual advertising was bought for it, about which you have forgotten) - you cannot lose these visitors: if they go to a product page that does not already exist, then offer an alternative (or just a list of the best-selling products).
• And yet: the fonts are a bit larger, the sentences are shorter, paragraphs from 4-5 sentences, more often highlight meaningful words in bold or italics, do not skimp on explanatory pictures.

Step 6. Buying contextual advertising traffic

Pay-per-click systems are a stable and fairly high-quality source of traffic. If you can convert traffic, then this is exactly what you need. Main players: Yandex.Direct , Runner , Google AdWords .

Context Tips:

1. Mention ads and promotions (for example, free shipping or samplers) in ads.
2. For the best-selling (or most profitable according to statistics) products, you need to make several announcements and evaluate the effectiveness of each of them.
3. Calculate the income per visitor - spend accordingly less than he brings to you.
4. Use call to action: Order today, 1 hour delivery, Free consultation. Interest user.
5. Use ellipsis
6. Do not use extra words in the ad. Even prepositions can often be removed.
7. Price. If the price is competitive, then it should be indicated - this will improve ad clickability.

Step 7. Traffic landing page (landing pages)

Landings can be used to receive and process purchased traffic. In addition, landing can be promoted in search engines by itself.

Landing Tips:

• Use reviews from real buyers.
• Rotate visual elements (pictures, flash) and evaluate the conversion.
• Call to action: "Order now", "Call now", "Buy today and get a discount."
• More headlines, lists, color selections.
• The first sentence in any paragraph attracts most attention.
• Use BIG BRIGHT BUTTONS.

We hope our advice will help those who want to create an online store or start its promotion. And we, the service www.insales.ru , will provide you with any support and help!

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• Increase online store sales through merchandising techniques
• Marketing planning - the basis for the promotion of an online store