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On a daily basis, online businesses find themselves in a Catch-22:

Do I want to focus on reaching more and more customers every day?

Or

Do I want to focus on increased competition?

Of course, your main concern should be to make sure that the growing number of customers finds you quickly and effectively. This places places SEO at the top of your list when creating your website. Instead of diving into a topic that is more than adequately covered online; I am going to take you through the most common questions clients have regarding SEO and then discuss what you can do when working with a Magento site that can move you from mediocre to star of the show.

 

1) What is SEO?

Search engine optimization or SEO is a process of keep changing the position of a web page or website in a search engine results by using keywords or phrases. The two Types of SEO are:

  • On Page Optimization
  • Off Page Optimization

2) I have heard people say SEO is dead, is this true?

According to Sam McRoberts, CEO of VUDU Marketing and a widely published expert in the SEO field, “SEO is far from dead, ”however, he noted that “it’s changed drastically.”

3) Does SEO really work?

Joshua Guerra, CEO of marketing firm BIZCOR says “As long as you are focusing on optimal user experience while performing methodic SEO strategies, you will be rewarded with higher positioning and organic traffic.”

4) What about cost effectiveness?

The true beauty of SEO is the fact that it allows costs to be extended over a long period of time. It is not a quick fix, as it will surely take some time to reach the top of the search engines. However, it is well worth the investment to stay on top and continue to draw in increased traffic.

5) Doesn’t Pay per click get faster results?

Sure, it will quickly drive traffic and sales, but you are paying for that traffic. This makes it a risky game, until you have perfected your method.

For long term cost effective online marketing SEO holds the greatest potential.

SEO Tailored to Magento

It is well documented that Magento is designed to be search engine friendly by default. This is why you don't need to do much in order to improve the on-page SEO of a Magento website.

Generally, to do well in Google, you must   Be Visible and Be Relevant, popularity is also key, but without visibility and relevance you cannot compete.

  1. Be Visible- the basic mechanics

Many e-commerce sites cannot be read because products and their descriptions are hidden deep inside databases. However, this is not the case with Magento websites.

  • The URLS are flat (i.e. don’t have odd characters and are succinct)
  • The pages are made of well-structured HTML
  • Clients have detailed control over SEO assets such as Page Titles are meta data
  • Google sitemaps are automatically generated
  1. Be Relevant

You need the elements of your site pointing in the same direction, with the same context and keywords.

  • Your Page Titles should contain the keywords you want to target. Usually it's better to have these closer to the beginning of the Page Title.
  • The Page Title should be written for the user, not the search engines. Although you're going to include keywords, make sure they work to provide you a good click through rate from the search engines.
  • Meta titles and descriptions should always be relevant to the content on the page. They should be descriptive and encourage people to click through with confidence.
  • Don't go above the character limit recommended by Google for page titles and descriptions.
  • If you have Magento multi-store set up, all of the above values can be changed on a per-store view basis.
  • Build Backlinks because they are necessary to give authority to a site and for ranking as well.

The greatest part about using Magento is the ability to markedly customize all aspects of the development. If you have an expert development partner with highly skilled Magento developers, you can design just about any store imaginable. However, if you want it found by potential customers, it is important to ensure you follow these basic s in SEO set up.

 

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