Part 3: Free Tools for Keyword Research
Optimized content helps your audience find you when they’re ready to make a purchase. And the more precise and defined we can be in our keywords, the better traffic we cand rive to our site – the kind of traffic that makes purchases. Keywords allow you to connect with your audience by understanding and targeting what it is they’re searching for.
We can do some of this research by talking to customers, hanging out in relevant forums and groups and investigating SERP features like ‘Related Searches’ and ‘People Also Ask.’ And while there’s value in all of these, they’re also time consuming. So let’s take a look at good free tools to jumpstart your keyword research: AnswerThePublic We love this one – you input a keyword and it’ll give back popular queries based on that keyword. It’ll even give you a cool graphic representation with phrase and questions related to your keyword. This gives you valuable insight into the desires and concerns of potential customers, allowing you to craft content specifically to address them. Ahrefs Keyword Difficulty This particular tool is going to tell you just how tough it’ll be to rank for a specific keyword – valuable information that allows you to target your efforts most efficiently and effectively. Keywords Everywhere Keywords Everywhere provides data on search volume, CPC and competition for a massive list of search sites, making it a must-have for most SEO professionals. Available for Chrome and Firefox, this one is absolutely worth playing around with as you search for the most effective and efficient keywords. Glimpse The Google Trends search extension for Chrome, Glimpse brings Trends into your browser for maximum efficiency. It delivers impeccable insight into trending topics, allowing you to stay on top of current interests and emerging trends. Definitely a valuable add-on to Chrome. Seed Keywords Leverage your network to do a little research with Seed Keywords. You’ll use it to ask a question or investigate a topic, sending it to your contacts to ask about the keywords they’d use to find the answer. It’s an organic extension of the initial research we all do, making it a valuable tool in your arsenal. Wordtracker Scout This tool is specifically focused on the keywords users search when they’re ready to make a purchase. You can search by domain – maybe a competitor or market leader – or by search, adding versatility to your toolkit. There are myriad more free tools in this category, many more than we can highlight, and we’d love to hear from you about your favorites in the comments below.
0 Comments
Part 2: Free Tools for Crawling and Indexing ![]() In part 1 of our Toolkit series, we explored a few of the best free options for SEO analytics. This time, we’re diving into free tools that improve your indexing and crawling. In order for a search engine to return your site in the results of a user search, your site needs to be indexed – because it’s really the index that Google (or Yahoo, or Bing, or…) is searching, not the entire internet, when you ask it how to fix your dishwasher or to find you a modern glass coffee table. But even before Google can index your site, it’s got to crawl it. Think of it this way – there are three building blocks to getting Google to return your site.
Ultimately, that’s your goal – to RANK on Google. Here’s a good explainer on how search engines work if you want a deeper dive. So let’s take a look at good free tools for those first two – Crawling & Indexing: Redirect Path Chrome Extension This is a great little plug-in that flags 301, 302, 404, and 500 status codes and meta and JavaScript redirects, giving you a better understanding of where your site is missing the mark. An added bonus, all of these details are easily copied to your clipboard to share in greater detail with your team or add to a technical audit. Link Redirect Trace Another Chrome extension, this one helps you to ensure that all your link redirects are actually taking people (and crawlers!) exactly where you want them to go within your site. Think of it as a quick QA tool that helps keep the train on its tracks. Screaming Frog SEO Spider and Log File Analyzer Technically, this is two tools – the Spider crawls your site (it’s not creepy, we swear) to allow you to discover things like HTTP header errors, excess HTML, crawl mistakes, duplicated content, JavaScript errors, and more. The Log File Analyzer allows you to upload your log files and then works its magic to tell you that yes, the search engine bots have visits, which URLs they’ve crawled, and helps you to study search bot data in greater detail. Together, they’re hugely helpful in getting your site crawled efficiently and effectively. Robots.txt Generator This one is used to tell search engine bots how to crawl your site. As it sounds, it creates a correct robots.txt file and advanced users can even customize their files. XML Sitemaps This one allows you to create a site map of up to 500 pages for free, without requiring registration. You’ll download your site map as an XML file or receive it via email, saving time (and probably a good bit of aggravation, as well). SERP Checker This one ties into your keyword use – determining potential ranking difficulties with a free tool from Ahrefs. Without using location-specific IP addresses or proxies, you can, from any location, check the top 10 search ranking results using this tool. A few honorable mentions in this category – which is chock-full of free tools:
Play around with a few and let us know what’s the most useful for your site. Next up for us is part 3, which delves into keyword research. Part 1: Free Tools to Amp Up your SEO Analytics
Let’s take a look at a few of the top choice for SEO Analytics: Google Analytics 4 If you only use one tool, this is the one. It’s the favorite for a reason, offering an invaluable resource that delivers abundant data about your website/s. From site visits to locations demographics and traffic drivers and sources, Google Analytics gives you all the nitty gritty detail you need. All this data makes it easy to tweak strategies and drive growth of both site metrics and revenue streams. Looker Studio Previously known as Data Studio, Looker is a Google tool that allows you to seamlessly merge data sources to creates easy, sharable visualizations. This is what you’re looking for when you need incredible dashboards and customized reporting. Looker Studio is great for tracking KPIs, visualizing trends and comparing performance across time. Mozcast It’s designed to track all the changes to Google’s search algorithms, from the big ones we all hear about to the little ones that you might not notice. Mozcast is great at helping you keep on top of all the changes so you’re sure to be doing everything necessary for the best SERPs. It bills itself as a “weather tracker” for Google and we think it’s a pretty adept analogy. Keyword Hero Keyword Hero integrates with Google Analytics to put organic keywords back into your SEO strategies. It fetches data from your Analytics and uses advanced math and machine learning to generate keywords. In addition, it’ll provide data like semantic clusters they belong to, brand vs non brand, CTR, and more, to provide you a complete picture. While it’s technically free, there is a cap, and you can pay for additional access – perfect when you’re just getting started. Google Search Console Enhancer The first in a series of Chrome extensions, Enhancer works with your GSC to provide additional insights and features. Think of it like a turbo charge that allows you to fine-tune your Seo approach with detailed, usable data points. Better Regex in Search Console Another Chrome extension, this one amps up your GSC experience when you’re craving nitty gritty data. Its aim is to help you create modern sophisticated search patterns that allow you a deeper dive into query data from your website. It features presets specifically designed for SEO use and allows you to create and save your own – the best of both worlds. Lost Impressions Index Check Finally, Lost Impressions Index Check is from TameTheBots and its goal is to help you identify where you’re losing visibility in search results. It’s essentially a URL inspection test, allowing you to compare one time period to another, helping to identify gaps and fix them quickly. Now that you know where to start, go play with a few of these tools and let us know what you think in the comments below. We’ll be here working on additional posts in this Toolkit series, looking at more free tools for crawling and indexing, keyword research, dealing with linking, and mobile SEO.
![]() If a picture is worth a thousand words, what are words worth? For ecommerce merchants, a lot – especially when you’re hoping to entice buyers to try your products. Product descriptions are a useful tool, obviously, but when presented correctly, they can make a difference between a sales conversion and the departure of a lookie-loo who will move on to something more palatable. Yet product descriptions have positives and negatives; parameters, if you will. We’ll address some of the objectives you should embrace if you hope to turn words into sales. What is a good product description? Despite the term “description,” it’s not always wise to use valuable text space merely describing an item. Through photos and bullets, customers typically have that information already. What you need to do is create a narrative that infuses a need for your buyer to experience the product in her or his life. Most everyone is swayed by persuasive writing, and striking a balance between personalizing a product and making it sound way too personal is a must. Keep these tips in mind when you generate product descriptions:
Above all, be honest. Don’t promise the moon. Avoid committing to a long life of use if you are not sure of a product’s actual shelf life. There are ways to get around that without implying that you’re peddling inferior inventory. Simply stay away from descriptions playing up a steller level of sturdiness or wearability unless the product is well known for those, and especially if there is a warranty involved. Making product descriptions bring your products to life takes a bit of practice, and you may want to farm out that service to professional writers. But if that’s not in your budget, do yourself a favor and scan the web for an array of sellers who get it right. Don’t be afraid to emulate their tactics, without word-for-word reproducing of their copy. Soon you will get the hang of it. A message to ecommerce merchants: your diligent efforts to run a thriving business and gain satisfied customers may pay off in a way you’d never imagined, by just putting one strategy to use.
By now, collecting and publishing customer reviews is a household concept. Studies show that consumers making a first-time purchase decision often divert their eyes automatically to the review score, even if they do it subconsciously. This might not be a fair measure of a product or service, but get used to it. It’s here to stay. But there’s something you haven’t considered, and it is a big deal. Customer reviews posted on your site will improve your SEO (search engine optimization) rankings. Algorithms in Google alone show how advantageous that can be. When customers offer detailed reviews of a product, they may include a specific word string of the function or features of their purchase. Example: “I was searching for a good wireless mouse that would pair with my keyboard for smooth operation” just happens to be a keyword string that registers. The phrase “good wireless mouse” reflects a common search phrase that potential buyers enter into a search engine. Boom. You’re there. Want some motivation to give this a try? Here are stats collected by Brightlocal.com:
How to hook buyers with a high-converting websitE Far from the days when advertising was limited to an alphabetical listing in the Yellow Pages, or a pricey newspaper display ad, the modern era of internet-based commerce opens up untold opportunities to harness technologies and reach customers without emptying the bank account. Strategic coding formulations now digitally link sellers to buyers who may be poking around cyberspace to find just the right purchase.
But with a sea of competition, bringing your business to the attention of consumers whom you know you can satisfy is not enough. You need engagement. That requires turning a look into a sale. It’s called a conversion. When you convert searches and page views into a proactive behavior, you begin the process of earning a customer. The critical part is learning how to use your web page to convert as many customers as possible. And here’s how to do that. Recently, we were talking to a colleague and everything was about driving traffic to their site. And all I could think as we had this conversation was that traffic isn't everything. It's great, don't get me wrong, but if traffic doesn't lead to sales, is it really worthwhile? Nope. Not really. And it got me thinking about how to turn traffic into conversions. And as I was trying to put together a post about exactly that, I came across an article on Search Engine Watch that is precisely what I was looking to convey. So instead of rewriting, I'm going to send you all to their site to read more about the small things we can do to turn traffic into sales. How to Increase Conversions: Ideas, Tools, Examples I think there's a lot here that we can put into use almost right away to create an uptick in conversions -- which is really the whole point, right? Optimizing for voice searches is a great new strategy
Let’s face it: Gen-Xers are masters at pounding out text, rapidly, on the tiniest of device keyboards. The rest of us stumble through frustrating errors, many of which launch hilarious misfires thanks to autocorrect. But there’s nothing silly about understanding that voice control will continue to permeate the computer use experience for all groups. The mercurial rise of digital voice assistants on smartphones and—most recently, lovely Alexa from Amazon—is a good indicator that we’re moving into an era that is at least partly keystroke free. And why not? It’s quick, convenient, and increasingly accurate. What merchants are discovering is that it can also be profitable. Think it’s a longshot? Fasten your seatbelt. OC&C Strategy Consultants recorded a month of sales rates for 2,000 Amazon-posted products, and found that voice-powered devices and products totaled $1.8 billion in domestic retail revenues in the year 2017. They predict that number will increase to $40 billion by 2022. Big players such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Apple have jumped ahead of the game to integrate voice searching on their platforms. The most searched brands are ranked at the top for voice searches. Maintaining a presence on these seller sites, in conjunction with optimized voice search strategies, will put you far ahead of the game. If the calendar hasn’t tipped you off to the upcoming holiday season, then a growing spate of TV commercials will. The retailers’ most prolific season seems to start earlier every year, and it’s never too soon to jump on board.
Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, and even Festivus—all these marquee events bring out the generosity and giving spirit in consumers worldwide. And as the ratio of onsite purchasing versus online sales continues to shift, it’s even more important to rev up for a hot holiday commerce opportunity. You may have some sentimental ways to make your end-of-year sales period special, and that’s critical for your brand. But if you’re open to some tips from experts, pay attention to these specialized strategies. It’s never too late to change, even if you’re looking for a fresh new start with a website. Ecommerce vendors will be evolving virtually on a constant basis as they go forward with adjusting to new technologies and the growth of their business.
By now you’ve either heard of or have been using WordPress as a content management system. Its transformation over the last decade has been astounding, becoming one of the most sophisticated, adaptable, and even user-friendly platforms. At $25 per month for a business site, it’s a phenomenal bargain. What makes it even better? A boat load of extra options. Plug-ins for WordPress can increase its functionality and convenience to the point where your site is practically running itself. And they offer up handy features that you would otherwise have to search for and install separately. If you’d like a primer on starting or upgrading your WordPress site, check out this guide. |
Archives
October 2021
Categories
All
|