Wednesday, March 23, 2011

How SEO can benefit your eCommerce business

So you've spent a lot of time and effort decorating your online store – in fact as much thought, creativity, energy and expense have likely gone into designing your website as would be required in the fitout of a non-virtual boutique or store – but where are your customers? Like any retail business venture, the profits of an online store can wax and wane in relation to the general economic climate, as well as shifts in popular trends, but, without an on-street presence, the approach to attracting customers needs to be slightly different. Although, as you will come to understand, surprisingly not too different...

While a regular store can acquire a great deal of business through casual walk-ins as potential customers pass the store-front and are captivated by sandwich boards and vibrant window displays or signage, an eCommerce business is situated in the virtual world of cyberspace. In order to attract new customers, eCommerce business owners need to employ the principles of seo because search engines are the equivalent of browsing strips and window shopping when it comes to the world wide web.

There's no doubt that search engine optimisation is critical for the success of eCommerce businesses, just as it is for any website and the same seo tactics are just as successful. For example, all of the written content on your eCommerce website should feature combinations of two, three and four word phrases that include the key words relevant to your business. You should also try to devise some unique word phrases that are not as competitive as the main key words in your industry, but are still likely to generate attention, and scatter these throughout product descriptions and section headings.

When revising an eCommerce website for seo, keep in mind that key words can be placed in page titles, within category names, and in the URL of each page as well as in text. However, while any key word placement boosts seo, it is important not to exceed four or five percent in key word density as higher percentages of occurrence may be considered key word ‘stuffing’ and earn penalties with important search engines.

Many other popular SEO techniques such as blogging, video and meta tags, can also prove a huge advantage when it comes to generating custom for eCommerce businesses. To guarantee that your online store is a profitable and thriving investment, seo is one area that cannot be overlooked.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Let's talk SEO

We've talked about SEO (or Search Engine Optimisation) in the past, what it is and what it does. In the following posts we'll take a look at some specific applications of SEO and how it works for you.

With Google's new Caffeine algorithm, it's easier to make changes to your website and see the results quickly, with websites being indexed much, much faster than in the past. The practical implications of this are endless, but one of the main benefits is that you can change things on your website and see how it affects your SEO almost instantly.

In this post we'll talk about internal linking and how it applies to SEO.

Internal linking is critical to SEO, and is something a web trawler will take into account when indexing your website. It is important to have a strong navigation system, not only for SEO but also for ease-of-use for the site, but there is more to linking than that.

Notice how almost every website you visit has a 'sitemap' page, but no one actually ever uses the map? That's because it is there to help the web trawler understand the website and find out what the most important parts are.

Another important part of internal linking is in text, like in this blog. Linking keywords like web design to their relevant pages builds a stronger linking system through your website – which trawlers like – and also increases the importance of those keywords, which helps you boost your SEO for those words.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Web design developments & Apple iPhone 4 – Part 3

With Web design & Apple iPhone 4 – Part 2 we finished listing the most important and impressive new characteristics of the updated device, but now let’s turn our attention to a few of the other little apps and upgrades and might be right for your business:

HD Video: You can now record video with your iPhone that’s of a much higher quality than with previous versions of the device, and even edit the footage right there with the upcoming iMovie app upgrade. Ideal if you’ve interested in creating video content for your website or business presentations.

Folders: You can now create folders for particular kinds of iPhone applications, making it much easier for example to switch between work mode during the day and the more fun apps you can play around with in your spare time.

iBooks: This will be familiar to anyone who paid attention to the launch of the iPad, with Apple now making the popular iBook app available in a version for the iPhone, making use of the amazing screen resolution and powerful operating system updates.

Read Web design developments & Apple iPhone 4 – Part 4 for further details about the pros and cons you can expect to encounter from the latest upgrade of this market-leading smartphone.

For more information about the Apple iPhone 4 and also about some fantastic web solution services including SEO, web designers Melbourne, website development, graphic design, eCommerce websites and online marketing, contact the experts at Infinite IT Solutions in Melbourne.