Keywords: The Basic Unit Of E-Commerce - Keywords, Tags & Copy - Don't Waste Your Time Unless You Know What Your Doing

Keywords: The Basic Unit Of E-Commerce - Traffic is the key right? The more targeted the traffic the better right? And how do you get traffic? Well the simple answer is that you need to have high search engine rankings but that is such a general and unhelpful answer.

So I am going to try and give you a better idea of the inner workings of a search engine ranking including the most fundamental and obvious and therefore most underestimated factors, namely keywords.

Keywords are just that key words that people type into the blank for the search engine that describe what they are interested in finding out about.

Basically the search engine tries to match the keyword with the content of millions of different web pages that it crawls through and ranks in order from most applicable to least the pages whose content has any thing to do with the keyword.

Now the search engine has different criteria that it weights in its evaluation of the relatedness of a web page to specific keywords.

Unfortunately for those interested in high rankings these criteria are for the search engines to know and for us in the internet marketing field to find out.

In other words they are unspoken. That isn't to say however that we don't know anything about them but it is to say that we have only found out about them through trial and error testing--we find out what works and stick with it.

There is another problem with this though. That is that the search engine, in order to give all pages a chance and to keep the content on the internet fresh are always changing their criteria and trying to improve their search results as far as relevancy is concerned.

So the testing is always going on and those who are good at seeing the trends and predicting changes are able to stay successful in their field.

One must remember though that despite all of these changes, there is nothing changing the way a customer searches for his interests on the internet.

So before you worry about all the complicated criteria you must target your content to the appropriate keywords. There are many tools that help you to research keywords, and many are free.

Basically you are looking for keywords that are searched for the most that describe your product or the market your product is included in well enough that people who come to your page through that search will agree that you have what they were looking for.

This is the essence of "targeted" traffic. Think about it for a minute, you can have all the traffic in the world come to your page but you will only get sales from those that are in need of what you have to offer. It only makes sense then to bring those people to your site.

Keywords, Tags & Copy - Don't Waste Your Time Unless You Know What Your Doing.

Keywords alone won’t create high search engine rankings for your eCommerce web site.

Combining keywords, repeated several times on your page, with copy that communicates well and provides good reading for the viewer will boost your rankings for your chosen keyword(s).

Your tags and the body of your page become critical elements for eCommerce success.

Your Title Tag should be the keyword or phrase you are targeting. Search engines ‘find’ title tags and display them.

Your title tag needs to be at the beginning of your copy, and repeated numerous times throughout your page.

Remember that people read search engine results and humans aren’t search engines.

If what we are reading doesn’t capture our interest and attention, we click the mouse and go on to something else. Repeated keywords or phrases and compelling copy are a winning combination.

Creating Meta Tags is very much like Title Tags, except they will be longer and more descriptive.

This tag is a page description and it’s also available for viewers to read in search engine results.

The keyword or phrase needs to be repeated and a compelling description about your product or service needs to catch the eye of the reader. You don’t want him/her to lose interest and move on to someone else’s web site.

Once your site visitors find you (because you have such great keywords and phrases!) the composition of your page becomes paramount.

You need to think about including pictures, slideshows and videos. They must be compelling enough for your visitors to want to hang around and not only see what you have to offer, but consider making a purchase.

Your Alt tag for your graphics needs to include your primary keyword or phrase again.

Staying with the assumption that you want the visitor to make a purchase, you create compelling copy that describes your product or service and suggests how it may be helpful and important to your viewer.

Be sure to use your keywords and phrases again in the first line of your copy and throughout your page. Search engines look for words and phrases that are repeated on a page.

We cannot over-emphasize the importance of compelling copy. Text that is boring simply means your visitor will move on to another site.

Your graphics (pictures, slideshow, video) will capture your visitor’s interest, but your copy will make the difference between a purchase and a lost opportunity.

Your visitor needs to be able to click on just one link to purchase your product or service. And that link must be available to the viewer on the page that is being viewed.

The key is to make a purchase as simple as possible for your cyberspace customers.

Using the tags we’ve talked about, keywords and phrases will get them to your page via their favorite search engine.

Your eye-catching graphics will pique their interest. And your compelling copy and simplicity of purchase will increase your average visitor value. Truly a successful cause and effect combination!