Search engine optimisation has been (and still is) one of the most effective ways of boosting traffic to a business website. Optimising a site for search engines does not cost a lot of money and is known to be more effective than paying for online or offline advertising.
However, it is very important to note that search engine optimisation has changed a lot over the last five years. Techniques that were effective in the past would cause more harm than good if used today. Additionally, techniques that did not exist in times past can be very effective right now. Following is an overview of a few important changes that an e-commerce site owner should be aware of.
Content Writing
In times past, many website owners wrote multiple articles and posted these on article websites such as Ezine, Hub Pages, Suite 101 and Buzzfeed. These sites allowed users to put a link to their website page at the end of the article, thus referring traffic to webmasters who generated articles for these sites. What is more, Google noted that a site got a lot of links and this helped to build a site’s standing on the web.
Unfortunately, these sites were misused by many. Individuals posted the same article on multiple sites, which resulted in a lot of duplicate content on the web. What is more, many of the articles contained misspelled words, poor grammar and/or questionable information. As a result, Google demoted the standing of article websites. These sites do not generate as much traffic as they used to; what is more, Google will demote site owners who overuse article websites and syndicated content. This means you have to be careful when you publish content that is not unique. Make sure that you make the pages that this syndicated content is on unindexable by Google and other search engines.
Link Building
Link building, much like content creation, is a search engine optimisation strategy that was misused by multiple websites. Link farm websites that gave out links in exchange for a small fee multiplied on the web. Sub-par websites could earn a high ranking by simply paying for tens of thousands of links online. Google caught on to this game and subsequently cracked down on sites that had a lot of links from unrelated or less than professional websites.
At present, the quality level of a site’s links is even more important than the number of links a site has. What is more, webmasters now have to be creative in their link building to ensure that it looks as natural as possible. It is also important to note that many blogs have now marked links as being “no follow” links, which means that adding blog comments to other blogs (with your website URL at the end) will no longer boost your site’s standing on Google.
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Mobile Search Engine Optimisation
Smart phones have become increasingly popular over the last several years. Tens of millions of people are now using a smart phone to browse the internet, pay bills and shop online. An e-commerce website that does not have a mobile compatible website page is missing out on reaching tens of thousands of customers. Additionally, a webmaster also has to ensure that search engine optimisation is done not only for computer users but also smart phone users.
Staying abreast of search engine optimisation developments is very important. It is clear to see that search engine optimisation techniques that were effective just a few years ago are no longer effective today. Additionally, Google is continually updating its search engine algorithms and chances are that techniques used today may be counterproductive tomorrow. E-commerce website owners who depend on the web to gain customers will either need to pay close attention to on page and off-page SEO or hire a professional, experienced SEO agency that can take on this important task.
