Our SEO Process

Our standard process goes as follows:

1. SEO Audit
2. Keyword Research
3. On-Page Optimization
4. Content Strategy and Creation

Each part of this process can be conducted independently if your store has a specific need, but we prefer to conduct each part of the process sequentially. This helps us to take a top-down approach to your store, ensuring that we don’t miss anything.

SEO Audit

The SEO audit is the start for any ecommerce store when we begin. This is part of the planning phase of a successful campaign. Here we evaluate the existing website content and information structure.

We’re looking to make sure everything on site is going to be properly interpreted by search engines.

Here are some of the initial areas we evaluate:

• Page load speed
• Content
• Current search engine traffic and ranking
• Headlines (H1, H2, H3, etc.)
• Meta descriptions
• Meta data
• URL structure

Our SEO audit serves to inform the direction we take for your store. With this information, we’re able to identify the most critical areas of need for your site. Often there is an abundance of low-hanging fruit identified which we can quickly correct to start seeing some improvement.

For instance, two of the most critical pages for the SEO of an ecommerce store are the product and the category pages. These types of pages are both deep funnel (close to the point of sale), and often have the highest impact on revenue generation.

Through the SEO audit we may realize that meta descriptions or metadata is totally lacking on either product or category pages. This task is then added to the top of the to-do list for when we get to ‘On-Page Optimization’.

Keyword Research

Next, we begin Keyword Research for your store. We identify which keywords are most essential to rank for your store’s success.

Keyword Research is also part of the planning phase of our SEO process. Sometimes we encounter clients who view planning can seem like a waste of time and money. As for these types of clients, we’re probably not the best fit because we’ve found that it’s far more costly to go in without a plan.

Conducting SEO without a plan is sort of like driving without a GPS, map, or tacit sense of where you’re going. Sure, you’ll get somewhere and you may even arrive at your destination eventually, but it will be at the expense of time and significant resources.

Part of the keyword research process involves our team evaluating the keyword density used by top competitors. We build what we like to call a ‘Keyword Density Map’. Basically this looks at the percentage of content consisting of primary and secondary keywords that they are ranking for. This helps us build a map of secondary keywords which help to provide context to the keyword in question.

Through the keyword research process, we’re able to discover uncompetitive long-tail keyword ranking opportunities which serve to inform our ‘On-Page Optimization’ and ‘Content Strategy and Creation’ processes.

If your site was selling, for example, natural hair oil, we might identify keywords like ‘low porosity natural hair’, ‘natural hair products for kids’, ‘growth oil for natural hair’, and ‘cant do anything with my nautral hair’. As you can see, we’ve identified common pain points that natural hair individuals have such ‘low porosity natural hair’ and ‘cant do anything with my natural hair’, as well as future content opportunities like ‘natural hair products for kids’.

Once we’ve done enough keyword research, we are set to begin On-Page Optimization.

On-Page Optimization

The next part of our process begins the implementation phase of SEO. On-Page Optimization entails updating headline content and structure, meta descriptions, metadata, and on-page. We make sure, for instance, that your website’s headline structure (h1, h2, etc.) follows a logical structure and adheres to SEO best practices. This is just one of the many, many things we do in the on-page optimization process.

We integrate the identified keywords on web pages where appropriate. Our method for determining the density of keywords included on pages is based in part on what your successful competitors are doing and in part on SEO best practices. A rule of thumb here is that keyword density should be between 1-3% of content on page (including non-visible content such as alt text and page titles).

With this rule of thumb in mind, we bring in the keyword density map developed in the Keyword Research process. We use this map to inform what kind of context we are to provide search engines are using to build their search engine results page (SERP).

A core practice of the On-Page Optimization Process is evaluating the site linking structure. Your site’s linking structure helps search engines understand what is most important on your website as well as providing context to the keywords in pages being linked to.

Our team makes sure that every page on your website is accessible within 3 clicks. This is best practice not only for Google but also for the users who will be on your site.

Once we have strong on-page SEO, we’re ready to move onto content strategy and creation.

Content Strategy and Creation

When developing content its essential to start with a proper strategy. I’ve worked with clients who had hundreds of pages of content with very little traffic to show for it simply because they did not create with a strategy in place.

Creating content without a plan in place is about like throwing darts while blindfolded after being spun around—you may eventually hit that target, but it’s going to be after many missed shots and lost opportunities.

Using the groundwork laid in the Keyword Research Process, we identify 3 things: what types of content we should create, how it should be published, and how it will be promoted. Once we have answered these three questions we’re ready to create a content schedule and begin creating!

Interested in hiring us? Call today at (864) 651-9814.