The Secret of Content Rich Documents

If you run an online shop, it is tempting to rely heavily on the pictures and imagery of the products to do the selling. But without any text, search engines will not know what they can recommend your page for, and nobody will even see them!

Descriptive Text and Page Titles

Let’s suppose you sell hats, getting to the top of Google for this phrase by itself will be difficult, and probably not all that helpful. Most searchers will already have an idea of the product they want (even if they may not have included it in their search query). If you win the click for ‘hats’, many of those clicks will be hard to keep because the user might be looking for a particular type of hat which you may not even stock! If too many people leave quickly (‘bounce’) this will start to have a negative impact on your websites rank.

By including a more detailed description, you can expect your pages to rank for more specific searches which will not only satisfy the users search, but will also be more likely to convert into a sale! Do you sell ‘wool hats’? Have you talked about the colour or design? Is there a clothing label or designer brand that has a strong identity which you could mention? Are they suitable for special occasions which you could spend a few sentences talking about? Do you stock party hats or fancy dress hats? Even the simplest product deserves a good description. If you cannot easily include the text with the product, perhaps you could have a separate series of information or help pages which link directly through to your product? It will help the search engines find a better search phrase that will bring you traffic. Remember :- if you don’t include the detail, you won’t be included in the search!

Giving Your Audience Helpful Information

Google’s job evolves around recommending websites that searchers will find useful. If your industry is quite competitive and you are finding it difficult to generate traffic, there are several neat ways you can get around this. Google only has 10 top spots, so it must choose the 10 most useful sites for each phrase. By improving the quality of information your website provides, you will be improving the overall performance of your site. Maybe you could include product reviews, advice or how-tos. Perhaps you could get users involved in discussing the product? Does it have a fan base you could somehow utilise? Would  Social Media be the way to tap into this traffic reservoir? If you have any informative PDF documents already (perhaps technical specifications, help manuals or product information pamphlets), it would be worth making those available on your site. Google will happily index these exactly like it reads regular web pages and this extra content will count in your favour.

Being Aware of Trending Topics

All sorts of interesting factors affect what people talk and write about. The Internet is just like other mediums – any big stories in the news headlines will stimulate search and readers. Is there some way you could utilise this? If you have a news or blog section you can use this to promote yourself. Because blogs are indexed sooner, you will find these more responsive and able to respond to sudden changes in peoples search habits.

In a nutshell, Google will reward you for including any information your visitors might find useful. As an expert in your industry, only you truly understand your potential customer base. Consider your competitor sites and ask yourself what you could do better!

Hosting that Meets the Needs of Your Business

So how does all this affect your hosting and SEO? Well, to help cope with the ever-shifting sea of search results, search engines will rapidly move an unavailable website down the rankings until it comes back online. This often causes downed websites to disappear in a matter of days, rather than weeks. Doing this allows the search engines to preserve their quality of search for users and ensure they rarely recommend a link that is broken. If people begin clicking your broken link, If you have a problem with hosting that is addressed quickly, you can expect your site to reappear back up to where you were fairly rapidly. However, if the problem persists for any length of time – say, a week or more – it will have far-reaching consequences for your search position which may take months to claw back.

I like to compare it to your shop or business premises – you wouldn’t dream of tolerating a building with major structural problems, where the electricity cuts out periodically or the water stops running now and again. Having a server that occasionally experiences problems is just like politely asking all your customers to leave until the issues with the shop are resolved. Do this regularly enough and some of the customers will stop coming back entirely!

The Importance of Getting Your Hosting Right

Getting your hosting right will provide a solid foundation upon which to build a successful online presence. But speed and reliability are just two ongoing factors. Before you begin building, it is important to consider the technical needs of your website are met in the same way your premises must meet the needs of your business. Do you need database support for an online shop, blog or content management system? Will there be sufficient file and SQL space for your website to grow? Do you have special requirements such as HTTPS and SSL which will allow you to take payments online?

As always, all of these questions can be easily answered by thinking about your target audience, and their needs. Doing this before you start building will help ensure you minimise any potential future headaches and avoid most major obstacles when promoting your site.