Retail SEO Techniques

Retail website SEO traditionally is the hardest to perform, as the coding of the software used in many e-commerce packages out on the market is very search engine unfriendly. Luckily the Intelligent Retail 'Connect' system offers class leading search engine friendliness right 'out of the box'. This is of course great, and just what you want as the Connect system offers product level optimisation to allow fantastic search engine results without any further code optimisation, but things can be drastically improved with a good viral campaign as part of a well thought out SEO program.

What is viral marketing?

Ask any marketer what is the most effective form of 'spreading the word' about any particular product or service and invariably the answer will be 'viral marketing'. The idea is that you get the buying public to create a buzz about your products and watch the snowball effect whilst you wait for the money to roll in. Sounds great... but how can you get this sort of effect for your retail website?

Viral marketing can be achieved online using a variety of methods... infact because of the international and 'linked in' nature of the web, viral marketing is actually much easier online (not to mention cheaper!) than trying to create a viral marketing campaign offline.

So what kind of things create the viral effect?

Look to create thought provoking and useful content whenever you interact with any social media channel, and avoid any over-promotional language as this will be a turnoff for your readers / viewers. With videos especially, try to create funny / interesting / unique content which perhaps provokes a response (this is called 'link baiting') so that people are tempted to forward the link to your video to many others. If you can interest 3 people into forwarding your video to video to three others then that could potentially turn into thousands of visits for little or no effort (apart from creating / uploading the video to your account on YouTube!).

Which websites can I use?

There are many channels that can be utilised to create a viral effect, some of which are:

• Online Media Depositories - YouTube is a good example.
• Online community websites - Facebook, MySpace, MSN.
• Micro-blogging platforms - Twitter etc.
• Forum communities.

The inexorable rise of online media

Statistics suggest that the boundless popularity of YouTube is not only rising, but rising at such a rate that it is seriously threatening traditional media channels such as TV and film advertising. If you think this is nonesense, then look at some of the companies who have switched large parts of their advertising budgets to providing enticing online media utilising YouTube, affiliate ads and 'sticky content' such as downloadable applications. Large corporations now utilise the viral nature of YouTube to launch, for example, teaser trailers for up-coming motion pictures and employ specialist SEO and media experts to construct their campaigns.

So how can you get a piece of the YouTube phenomenon and use it to promote your retail website? Simple really... sign up for a YouTube account, create an enticing user profile (don't forget to add your website address to your profile!) and start creating compelling, interesting video content to upload.

The best video content to create a 'buzz' is generally associated with highly searched for terms, but you can still generate useful amounts of traffic to your website by creating informational videos about your products and services and by above all making your videos interesting.

Try to think of an amusing and / or controversial way to promote your products through your videos, as these convert into 'views' the best and have the best chance of going 'viral'. Be aware, of course, that anything you launch onto the web could potentially have an impact on the reputation of your company, so try to create video content which is perceived not only to have quality content but which is filmed in a professional way. Putting up a series of photos with some 'borrowed' backing music is definitely not the way to promote your business on this very high profile media website!

Online communities and how to use them for SEO

Utilising online community channels to boost website performance is a subject which could probably fill several large books, but there are a few pointers which are worth stressing as they are the basis of using social media channels effectively.

Follow these simple rules if you want to create a viral effect from Facebook, MySpace etc. :

• Create an account which has a keyword focussed name.
• Create a good looking profile which contains your website address.
• Make regular posts under your account, with content which is focussed on your website's area of trade.
• Invite users into your network of friends who may have an interest in your product or services.
• Link your account into others you have set up on YouTube, blogs, forums, Google and Twitter

Remember that although most of the social networking websites use 'nofollow' links (links which block search engine spiders from following the link to external websites), you will still gain useful traffic from people visiting your website from your user profile and any embedded links you put in posts on the social media website, plus you will get an association of content between the profiles you have set up and your own website if it is linked in, as not all search engine spiders obey the 'nofollow' command.

Tweeting around

Twitter is gaining huge popularity amongst the online population world-wide as it offers a lightweight, protable way of staying in touch with friends, relatives and business contacts, and the good news is that you can use this to your advantage to promote your retail website. Again create a profile using your company name or primary business area as a profile name, and once you have your profile set up with picture (or company logo), contact details and web address, start to tweet away about your products or services. Search for and follow people who have related business interests to yours - this will bring you followers who will get updates every time you tweet about something. Once you have a lot of followers, then you have a ready made viral community that can be plugged into other social media channels.

Forum communities and how to utilise them

Probably the oldest of the new breed of 'web 2.0' applications, forums are the ground force for all viral communities.

Used primarily for niche area interests, forums offer a continually building community of like-minded individuals who join the forum and add focussed content on a daily or even hourly basis... exactly what you want as a retail website owner who wants to promote products or services!

There are two ways to utilise forums for your retail seo efforts:

• As a contributor on someone elses forum
• As a forum owner, with a forum set up for your own website

As a contributor to someone elses forum, you have to bear several things in mind:

1. You're joining a community... it's no use going in and creating posts which say 'hey, look at my products'... this approach will get you thrown out for blatant commercialism.
2. Only post to relevant forum threads, and only reply to forum posts that you have something to say about.
3. Don't try to spam.
4. Respect your fellow forum members and don't over-express opinions.
5. Build up trust from your fellow forum members before going in and trying to promote products or services. Successful manipulators of forums have to put a LOT of effort and provide free help and advice in order to get traffic from their forum posts.

Setting up your own forum is probably the best way to get continual traffic and drive website loyalty, as long as the forum is focussed strongly on the area that you are trading in. Your forum should be tied to the company website by utilising a sub-folder of your company domain name (i.e. www.yoursite.com/forum), so that any incoming links to the forum from users are pointed towards the website domain www.yoursite.com - this way you get the maximum benefit from the search engines.

If you fancy setting up your own forum, then this can be done for you by your web host or a friendly web person... there are lots of free to download software packages out there which can be used to set up a community. All you will need is a developer who can make the forum look the way you want it to (by adding graphics) and then you have to set up the categories you wish the forum to be targetted around. If you wish to know more, and want a forum setting up for your Intelligent Retail 'Connect' website then contact Intelligent Retail and we can talk you through options for this service.

Please bear in mind that running and maintaining a good forum is a time-consuming task, but once a community is established the results from both direct traffic (from people going direct to your website) and from search engine results can be spectacular, as search engines (and Google in particular) favour forums and social media channels above all other forms of website because of their large user bases and constantly changing, focussed content.

So that's it... to get the viral effect:

• Set up focussed accounts on many different social media, video and blogging websites
• Set up user accounts on micro blogging websites
• Join community forums which are related to your business and build up trust
• Consider setting up your own focussed forum under your own domain
• Network all of the above together
• Create valuable, thought provoking content

Responses[2]

Posted by David Fairhurst on 11 March 2009 15:29:00 GMT #