Use SEO to improve visibility in internet searches
SEO stands for search engine optimization. In simple terms, this involves improving your website content, or your other digital sites (like YouTube or social media pages), so that they appear higher up in the results given by search engines, like Google.
Learn more about what SEO is and how to improve your own web presence from Chief Digital Officer of Peak Activity and Klaviyo Champion, Ali Riveira.
Add SEO terms to your marketing vocabulary
You’ve heard from an SEO expert; now, let’s pause and define some core SEO vocabulary. These terms are imperative to understand before you take action on SEO best practices. Click through to learn more about each term in this gallery.
Already fluent in these 5 terms? Great! Head to the section below to take key action steps to improve your SEO.
Keywords and long-tail keywords
A keyword is a term or phrase that your customers often use to search for your brand or product. Search engines, like Google, look for these words across webpages to determine what relevant sites should appear in search results, and in what order they should appear. Put simply: the more relevant keywords you have on your site, the higher you’ll rank in an organic search.
A long-tail keyword is a longer, more specific phrase. These boost SEO since, the more specific you are, the more likely someone is to search that topic, see your content, and convert.
Examples:
- Keyword: Mascara
- Long-tail keyword: SWAK original long-lasting waterproof mascara
Title tags
Title tags, also referred to as “meta title tags”, are the clickable titles that appear in search results, browser tabs, and even on social platforms, to promote your website.
You’ll use these title tags to define your website's value proposition for a browser; thus, they should include top keywords and clearly convey the value of your brand so that someone is compelled to click to learn more or shop.
Meta descriptions
Meta descriptions are the short descriptions of your website that appear in search results.
This lives below the title tag and is the first impression that a consumer has when they search for content and see your brand appear in results. They’ll read this content to better understand what your brand or product is and if it is the right fit for them.
Alt text
Alt text stands for “alternative text.” This is a phrase that you will add to images, as a label or definition of what appears in the graphic, that helps search engines understand the content.
Adding alt text to images is also an important requirement for accessibility. It allows screenreader tools to describe what an image entails to those who are otherwise unable to view the content.
Backlinks
Backlinks are links that live on other external websites that direct site visitors to your page.
Having backlinks across the internet will build trust in your website, as search engines like Google or ChatGPT see that other sites recommend your content as relevant and accurate on a given topic. As such, this can improve your rank in search.
Note that there are 2 types of backlinks:
- Dofollow backlinks: These are the default link type that directs search engines to your website. You'll want to increase the number of high-quality dofollow backlinks that route to your site from other reputable websites in order to improve your SEO, as they act as an endorsement of your content.
- Nofollow backlinks: These have a rel="nofollow" attribute in their HTML code, which informs search engines that they should not follow the link. They do not directly contribute to your website's ranking in search results, but can increase site visibility in general.
Follow SEO best practices
Now that you’ve heard about what SEO is and a few ways to improve, let’s dive deeper into concrete steps you can take today to show up higher in search engine results.
Identify your top keywords and longtail keywords
Identify relevant keywords and longtail keywords that your target audience tends to use when searching for your content. To do so, you can:
- Brainstorm what you think your ideal customer would search based on your research, testing with real customers, and asking for feedback.
- Test common branded and non-branded words and phrases yourself in search engines and chatbots to see what results populate.
- Use SEO specific tools that can take the guesswork out of this process. Common tools include:
- Google Keyword Planner:
Helps you find relevant keywords, estimates their search volume, and assesses competition for this phrasing. - Google Search Console:
Details your website performance data, including current keyword performance and search ranking.
- Google Keyword Planner:
Then, integrate those words directly into your marketing content: on your website, within social pages, and in any other relevant avenues where your brand may be found on the internet.
Optimize your title tags, meta descriptions, and URLs
Write compelling and keyword-rich title tags and meta descriptions to encourage someone to click on your search result.
Title tags should:
- Be under 60 characters.
- Include your main keyword.
- Be specific, direct, and tailored to each webpage.
- Accurately reflect what exists on the page it’s promoting.
Meta descriptions should:
- Be under 160 characters.
- Include your top keywords and longtail keywords.
- Have a clear, direct call to action (e.g., to click the link above).
- Be specific to each webpage (do not reuse the same description for each page).
- Accurately reflect what exists on the page it’s describing.
URLs should:
- Be concise, relevant, and descriptive.
- Include keywords where applicable.
- Reflect your website's navigational hierarchy (e.g., example.com/collections/specific-product).
- Use HTTPS to prove the validity of your site to search engines.
Enhance your website’s user experience (UX)
User experience (UX) is exactly what it sounds like: the actual usability of your website for someone who lands on your page. As you design and improve your website, you should strive to make it easy to navigate and accessible to all audiences.
From an SEO perspective, search engines look at your website's UX to determine whether or not your site should be recommended to users based on their search.
To improve your UX and thus bump your search ranking, focus on the following aspects of your site:
- Content navigation:
Is your site easy to navigate for the viewer? Do you have directories (or catalogs) set up to intuitively organize your content for ease of access? - Visual hierarchy:
Is there ample white space, headings, subheadings, and an overall structure that makes the content easy to read? Does each text section have a very clear visual hierarchy of sections and subsections (e.g., Header 1, Header 2, Header 3, Body content, etc.)? - Accessibility:
Is your website easily understood by all users, taking into account disabilities? Have you included alt-text and captions for images, transcripts for video content, and color contrast for text on a colored background? - Site speed and reliability:
How long does it take to load your page and navigate to different sub-pages? - Accuracy:
Have you addressed any technical errors on the site? Are there any broken or missing pages, redirect issues, etc., that may lower your site's search ranking? - Schema:
Is your site set up to make it easy for search engines to understand and dynamically pull webpage content? For instance, if you have an FAQ schema on an info page that lists frequently asked questions about your brand, these can be pulled into the "People also asked" section of Google search results.
Enhance your website product pages
Product pages are paramount to how you show up online, especially for ecommerce brands. With the rise of AI chatbots that surface product feeds directly from catalogs on your website, it's more important than ever that each page follows SEO best practices.
Within your product pages, make sure to:
- Give your products clear titles that are reflected in the link for that product page.
- Add clear, keyword-rich descriptions of your products.
- Categorize your products in an organized fashion on your site.
- Use high-quality images of your products.
Have Google crawl and index your site
Within Google Search Console, you can submit a site map to Google so that it will crawl and index your site. This is the process of making Google aware of your website and ensuring it appears in search results based on their review and approval of the content.
During this process, Google will complete 2 key steps:
- Crawl: Access your website and add it to their list of known webpages.
- Index: Review the content on-site to ensure it is accurate, unique, user-friendly, and relevant.
This process is crucial. If you do not submit your website for indexing, then you'll leave it up to Google to find and crawl it, which can take weeks or even months.
Learn more about this process in Google’s SEO documentation.
Build your website's reputation across the internet
Over time, other websites and brands may reference and link to your website. This builds credibility for your brand and bumps up your ranking in search for related topics.
While this is mainly word-of-mouth driven, here are a few suggestions to build your reputation:
- Partner with other brands on content, and ask them to link to your site when referenced.
- Encourage customers to share user-generated content (UGC) on their own social media (e.g., images and videos of them with your product).
- Set up a product review system so that customers can review your product on-site and across the internet.
- Set up a customer referral and/or influencer marketing program to incentivize loyal shoppers to spread the word about your brand online.
Use AI to improve
If you’re struggling to implement SEO best practices, say, because you’re experiencing writer’s block or you aren’t sure what to improve next, AI is your new best friend.
Use a tool like ChatGPT to ask AI to help you with the following strategies:
- Ask what keywords are best for your brand or common among competitors.
- Have the tool scan your website for accuracy, UX, broken links, etc.
- Brainstorm and automatically generate copy for descriptions, titles, content pages, etc. that you can then revise and refine.
Measure success
As you implement the above best practices, track your baseline results (the performance you are seeing now), your goals (what you want to improve), and your ongoing growth (the performance you are seeing over time, say month over month). That way, you can measure success over an extended period of time.
This will help you answer the ever-present question: Are my SEO efforts actually working?
Below are a few key metrics to monitor and improve:
- Web traffic: The number of visitors who reach your website.
- Keyword ranking: How high up your website ranks in the search results for a given keyword.
- Click-through rate (CTR): The percentage of people who click into your website from search results.
- Conversion rate: The percentage of people who take an action (e.g., place an order) after clicking your link.
- Bounce rate: The percentage of people who click your link and then leave that page without taking further action.
- Page indexing: The amount of your website content that has been crawled by Google, and will thus appear in search results. Find this data within the Page Indexing Report in Google Search Console.
You can monitor these metrics with a variety of tools, including Google Analytics.
Note: The benchmarks and goals you set for yourself will depend on your industry. Do your due diligence to research what target rates are across these metrics for your business type and among competitors.