Any advice on SEO for a new dropshipper

[O_OWHISPER]

I’m relatively new to dropshipping and I’ve already got my website up and running. What I really need is help with SEO. It’s such a broad topic and covers many different elements. It’s overwhelming. What are the primary areas I should focus on? What advice can seasoned resellers give this newbie regarding SEO?

[webrobot]

This is a great question, because, unequivocally, SEO can make or break a company. If you do it right, you quickly climb the ladder of success. If you do it wrong, it can do more damage than you think.

To use search engines to your advantage, you want to focus on a few areas that are of critical importance to successful SEO: keywords, search results, and optimization.

There are some buzz words that you’ve undoubtedly come across and will hear about them in this forum as well: usability and relevant.

• Usability means that the site or page is optimized for search engines.
• Relevant means that users want and even need to know what your website is focuses on.

Both usability and relevancy make a site optimized for search results. If your site lacks usability and isn’t relevant, like in any traditional business, once you lose a customer, because there was nothing of significant interest on your page, you lose that customer forever.

However, the end-goal of using SEO is not solely to rank high in search engine results. It’s to rank high AND have a solid business model and content to back it up.

Keep in mind that the primary purpose of a search is designed to get a user to your website or web page. Therefore, think of SEO tools like a helper that walks customers across the virtual street and into your store. Once they are there, you need an entirely different set of tools in order to keep their attention and make the sale (like a good products and quality customer service).

Here are a few things you should focus on to get good SEO results:

1. Page Title: this is akin to the title of a magazine article. It’s the first thing that catches a user’s attention.
2. Meta Description: this description expands on the title by including other relevant search terms or phrases that you can’t possibly fit into the title.
3. Domain Name: this is your selling point. It’s a significant investment, because paying for that domain name is pricey, but it’s yours forever. Think of the domain name in terms of attraction. If I am selling baby items, but my domain name is completely irrelevant, www.elephantsrus.com, it won’t attract users. Even though a graphic of an elephant is part of my brand, users don’t know that and the title doesn’t even hint at what I sell. I just blew a big chance to increase search results, but now I’ve impeded them by including terms that are completely irrelevant.
4. File names: each file you use and upload to your site must have a name. A filename that is more descriptive adds that much more usability to your page, especially since some websites will take the name of the file and use it as an anchor text when linking.
5. Rankings: with better and more relevant keywords, titles, etc., search rankings increase. This means that when someone types in “baby clothes” and “dropshipper,” your site will pop up first – if you have the best page rankings. This makes it all the more likely that users will actually visit your site, increasing traffic and sales.

[Windowslite]

Those are five important steps. Underlying these steps, however, is the larger issue of keywords. Without keywords, you’d get nowhere with search engines and SEO. That just means, as Webrobot described, if you sell baby clothes, but your keywords aren’t relevant to that industry, you definitely won’t be ranked high – and you might not get ranked at all!

A few important factors to keep in mind, especially if you’re using Google Adwords, are:

• Fresh content is critical. If you update or add new information to your blog or products or sales, then that increases your page rankings. This new information must include keywords that are relevant to your industry. To find keywords, check out Google’s list here. For example, if you submitted the words “baby” and “clothing” you’d find how often each one appears individually, as well as other similar keywords that rank lower or higher.

• Density also impacts SEO. Using “cheap baby clothing” just once in your content is a low density. While there’s not a “rule” for density, most people go by the guidelines of using a keyword 3-5% for every 350-500 words. Keep in mind that Google does punish for keyword stuffing (having too many keywords that affects the content’s relevancy).

• Use top keywords in the first paragraph and the title.

• You can link to other blog or website posts, as long as the links are truly relevant to the keywords for that page.

[borisnoone]

If you’re completely new to SEO and how to effectively use a blog (or website) to enhance search results, I would recommend using a service to help you get started. Unless you’re prepared to spend a large portion of your time on SEO building practices, you can’t do it justice.

There are companies out there that do the writing, posting and developing of blogs for you. I feel, it’s worth paying a service so that I can focus on the product, working with vendors and customers.

[webrobot]

I think it depends on your desires and skill level, because I think SEO is something that anyone with a little bit of time can do. I guess if you don’t have the time, you can pay someone, but it’s not that hard to figure out. Most search engines provide the tools. You might want to hire someone to do the writing, though. There’s nothing worse than coming across a blog post that’s completely unreadable and full of errors.

[emaill337]

You should also know that you can use keywords to really plunge quite deeply into a topic. Some topics may require just two posts, while others are heavily used and you can discuss them multiple times. Basically deep links mean that I have keywords that are relevant all over my site, not grouped in large numbers on the homepage where most users would land. Deep links show search engines that my content is high quality and it exists all through my site.

It’s like each link is equal to a vote; however, not all links get an equal vote. Think of it this way: some links get two votes, so that increases the overall authority and quality of the site across the board, which increases page ranking.

Deep links increase relevance. If a particular keyword appears in the URL, title page, meta description and the content on the page itself, that page ends up ranking higher in a search than the homepage will rank. This means that users go right to the most relevant content, instead of the homepage first and the desired page second.

[O_OWHISPER]

Thanks everyone for the tips. I’m excited to get started.

[melanieup]

I used to work for an SEO agency so know quite a lot on the subject, will be happy to help

Firstly I'll talk about on site:

- Page Titles - Keep below 60-80 characters. They must be unique to every page of your site. Try and get your keywords related to that page in your title tag, but make sure it reads well.
- Meta Description/Keywords - It's thought that Google disregards these but who knows for sure? It's good practice to include them regardless. Keep short (less than 25 words).
- Content - The most important on-site element!! Each page should have at the very least 350 words of keyword rich content. Don't stuff it with keywords, again it needs to read well. Make sure you have some form of dynamic content (news, blog, articles) and update it regularly. Google loves this.
- Internal linking - Link to other areas of your site from within your sites content. This helps search engines discover other parts of your site.
- Other - Sitemap.xml, robots.txt, image alt tags. You can create a site map here. Create a robots file here

Off site, there is so much to say here but:

- Don't overdo it on the keyword anchor text. Especially since Googles penguin update. Mix it up with uses of brand names, 'click here', and 'naked links' (the url itself www.test.com)
- Quality over quantity. It's better to have a handful of quality links rather than a ton of low quality, spammy links!
- Link relevance. Try and build links to sites related to your niche.

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions. :-)

[Joshjdojohn]

If you are absolutely new to SEO and how to successfully use a weblog (or website) to improve search results, I would suggest using a support to help you get began. Unless you are ready to invest a large part of your time on SEO developing methods, you cannot do it rights. There are organizations out there that do the composing, publishing and creating of weblogs for you. I feel, it’s worth spending a support so that I can concentrate on the product, working with providers and clients.
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