When searching for information online, more mobile users are taking advantage of the convenience of voice search in lieu of fumbling with web apps and small, mobile keyboards.

As one of many ecommerce companies in an increasingly aggressive market, you’ll need to stay one step ahead of emerging search trends to maintain an edge against the bevy of websites competing for consumer attention. Let’s explore a few ways in which your digital business can ensure that voice searches are populating your site’s content pages in Google – a vital tool for guiding prospects into the awareness stage of the buying cycle.

Update Your Keyword Strategy

Because Google continuously updates its search algorithms to provide the most relevant results for users, a digital business is often forced to update its keyword strategy to adhere to a new trend just as soon as it’s mastered the previous one.

Packing as many short-tail keywords onto a page was soon replaced by the need for a much more thoughtful long-tail keyword strategy. The long-tail approach now requires further refinement triggered by Google’s more recent Latent Semantic Indexing, which ranks pages based on the overall context of keywords and how they relate to one another.

As voice search carves out a larger space within total search volume, ecommerce companies should consider how conversational search phrases will impact their keyword approach.

For example, a laptop or desktop search might consist of, “Best security software PC,” while a voice search may consist of, “What is the best security software for a PC?”

Adapt Content Pages Appropriately

As your company builds and updates its content pages, think in terms of how potential users of your product would inquire about their needs, and provide information that maintains a natural, conversational tone. As a jumping off point, surveying your customer service department may give you some invaluable insight into common concerns and trends.

A Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page can be an effective way to build conversational content. Once you’ve identified common inquiries, dedicate a single content page to answering them. This will provide some additional voice-based SEO value, while slimming down the workload of your customer service team.

Occupy the Elusive Featured Snippet

A few years back Google implemented the featured snippet function in their search indexing, or as some refer to it, “position zero.” It’s essentially a highlighted content position that appears in a box above the No. 1 organically ranked page.

So how do you occupy that spot? Well, Google won’t tell us. Though experts agree that in addition to deploying commonly held SEO practices, a site featuring concise and explicit answers to commonly asked queries can significantly help your chances. The featured snippet represents an effective way to use voice search to your advantage because Google Home, Google Voice and other services often read back featured snippet content in response to an appropriate voice search query. For further insight on targeting position zero, check out these helpful pieces from Moz and Forbes.

Get HTTPS-Secured, if You’re Not Already

We’re all familiar with the “HTTP” before the “www” in web URLs. Without getting too technical, it stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. And “HTTPS” is the secure version of that protocol. What this means is that any information transferred between a website and a browser is encrypted, which offers a higher level of security.

According to Backlinko, 70.4 percent of voice search results maintain a secured URL, versus only 50 percent of Google desktop results. So those sites that use HTTPS will have a substantially higher chance of ranking in voice searches.

Maintain Strong Domain Authority

A website’s domain authority – or the rating that indicates the likelihood of a page ranking in Google – is important to consider for desktop and mobile search alike, but even more so for voice search, experts find. In short, the higher a company’s domain authority rating, the more likely they’ll appear higher ranked in voice searches.

Some common ways to increase domain authority:

– Boost shareability on social channels
– Increase inbound and outbound link portfolios
– Decrease bad or toxic links, and 404 errors
– Improve content readability and on-page SEO
– Maintain a fast page loadability

We’ve explored some of these issues in greater depth in a previous blog.

Keystone

The use of mobile voice services and voice-based devices has increased drastically over the last few years, with comscore predicting 50 percent of all searches – not just mobile – to be voice-based by 2020.

In light of continuous advances in technology and the evolving consumer behavior that follows suit, it’s becoming more and more difficult to know where online customers are coming from and where they’re going next. But according to forecasts, voice-based web searching is a strong prediction of what’s to come.

Want to learn more about our global commerce solutions? Contact our sales team.

Kyle Shamorian is the content marketer for cleverbridge. 

The post Prepare Your Ecommerce Business for the Rise of Voice Search appeared first on cleverbridge.

Developing a product or solution that has value and fulfills a consumer need is obviously a significant part of the success equation. But how do you reach your audience in the first place?

Traditional marketing efforts like email campaigns, affiliate marketing and social media remain an effective way to direct prospects to your blog, landing pages, or to sign up for a demo. But in the world of ecommerce, sometimes that’s not enough.

Ensuring your website is optimized for search engines will increase organic, relevant traffic, and ultimately broaden the top of your sales funnel – a key step in the evolving and competitive ecommerce market.

As 2018 unfolds, here are seven tips to help you supercharge your search engine optimization this year:

1. Develop Relevant, Quality Content

According to Moz, there are generally three types of search queries:

– I want to do something
– I want to know something
– I want to go somewhere

For those new to SEO, when a user enters a query in the search bar, Google will index and rank pages that match that topic based first on relevancy, then filtered by popularity. Whether you’re writing a blog about your latest product, or creating a landing page offering a free trial, create copy that includes keywords specific to your business. Services like Google Keyword Planner or Google Trends can show you which keywords to target based on how competitive it may be to rank for a specific word or phrase, or the size of the search volume.

But remember don’t go overboard with packing as many keywords as possible. You’re writing for your audience, not just for search engines. In fact, Google’s new Latent Semantic Indexing algorithm notes that the relationship between keywords and the overall picture the content frames is just as important as the keywords themselves. So focus on the topic overall and write as naturally as possible while keeping in mind what you want your visitors to do.

2. Lead with a Tight Title and Meta Description

The title and meta description of your page not only have significant impact on index and ranking, they’re also the two items that display for a user when your content appears in a Google search. Therefore, they significantly impact a user’s likelihood of clicking on your website.

For each page, develop a clear and concise but descriptive title that communicates exactly what a user will find on the page. Likewise, note that the meta description is the snippet of text under the title that expands upon what visitors will find when they click. Keep each meta description short (160 characters or less), and use it wisely.

3. Build a Backlinks Portfolio

Credibility remains a key metric by which Google indexes pages. Positioning your website as the authority on an industry topic will get you in the good graces of Googlebots far more easily than sites that seem less legitimate.

Backlinks: Reputable sources linking to the pages on your site will significantly boost your SEO. It shows that other credible sources deem your site credible as well, which Google will use to designate your page as higher-ranking. Pursue sources that have global popularity, are trusted (university sites, non-profits, etc.), post frequently updated content, and maintain thought leadership in your industry.

‘Linkless’ Backlinks: In fact, Google algorithms have become so advanced that even if a source doesn’t link directly back to you – rather it simply names your company or product – it will still have positive impact on your SEO. So have your PR team reach out to thought leaders and reputable tech and software blogs, and start building your link portfolio.

4. Stay Agile By Staying Mobile

According to Google, the popularity of smartphones and tablets has led to more than 50 percent of searches taking place on a mobile device compared to a laptop or desktop. If a consumer is conducting product research, there’s a very good chance they’re doing so from a mobile device.

In fact, Google has hinted at the mass rollout of a mobile-first index, which will prioritize its page rankings based on mobile versions of websites versus their desktop counterparts. Get ready for mobile-first indexing by optimizing the mobile version of your site for design, ease of use, and clarity.

5. Optimize Images

We live in a visual world, and web visitors expect no less. When a potential customer visits your site, they want to see what your product looks like, and how it operates. Not only should you include images on each of your pages, you must also add your keywords into the alt-text of those images.

Download the Ebook: 7 Tips for Growing Your Global Subscriber Base

6. Keep Your Pages Up to Speed

This one’s simple. With as many research options that users have at their fingertips, if your pages load slowly, you can bet visitors won’t stay there for long. Make sure your site is responsive (Google suggests five seconds or less per page load), to keep prospects and customers drilling down and converting.

7. Optimize for Voice Search

Whether Siri, Alexa, Echo or any other digital assistant, Google reports that as many as 20 percent of searches are voice-based. So, how do ecommerce companies optimize for this growing trend? Feature a conversational tone in your web content, include long-tail keywords, and – because voice searches often take the form of questions – design your pages with customer questions adjacent to your company’s answers. For example, a voice search may consist of, “What is the best malware software for my laptop?” versus “Best malware software for laptop.” Then, develop content around how your product fits that criteria in a similar tone.

Keystone

Because Google is constantly advancing its algorithms to ensure users are receiving the most relevant results for their search queries, SEO best practices are evolving in turn. So, stay educated on these trends to keep growing your organic traffic, and ultimately, your business.

Kyle Shamorian is the content marketer for cleverbridge

The post 7 SEO Best Practices for Ecommerce Companies in 2018 appeared first on cleverbridge.

This week, we’re staying on topic with another detailed guide to SEO. This time, SEO Optimizers are helping us understand something called search operators.

What are search operators?

Search operators are used to refine searches. In effect, these operators make searching the Internet more precise by asking the search engine to only display certain information. With search operators, you can ask the search engine to return results from a specific site, or any site that has a specific keyword in a URL, or in anchor text on a link, or in the title of the page.

But search operators are also useful in a business setting, as this infographic sets out to explain. It begins as a lesson in how to be a more advanced Google Search user, but it also shows how companies can do in-depth research into their web presence, as well as their competition’s. Search operators are a great way to save time for research when looking for industry experts, and they also can be used to locate potential partners for link building opportunities like guest posting on industry specific websites. As we noted in last week’s Ecommerce Eye Candy, link building is crucial to improving off-page SEO.

Just remember that the way to improve your ranking on the search engine results page (SERP) is to share quality content, not just engage in link schemes. The difference is that the former helps you become a more authoritative site and improves your search engine ranking, while the latter marks you as a black hat operative and draws the ire and condemnation of Google.

What is your strategy for off-site SEO?

Tell us in the comment section!

The post Ecommerce Eye Candy—SEO Advanced Search Operators [Infographic] appeared first on cleverbridge.

There is some truth to this: SEO, done properly, requires considerable time and effort. And with limited resources, SEO often takes a back seat to developing better products, closing lucrative sales and supporting customers. With this dilemma in mind, it’s important to know that there are ways to improve search rankings without sacrificing other priorities. One of these ways is off-page SEO.

On-page SEO involves activities like making sure your content has the right titles, tags and descriptions, URLs are structured properly, the page displays well for mobile users, etc. Off-page SEO relates to link building and getting authoritative sites to share your content.

This infographic from Shane Barker, an SEO consultant, explains the benefits of these off-page SEO activities, showing how they help establish brands and improve rankings. He explains that a lot of tactics that once worked in SEO are now penalized by Google. He then teaches the benefits of doing SEO properly, and shows which tactics lead to those benefits. Most importantly, Shane details how to execute off-page SEO by:

• Building quality backlinks
• Creating quality content
• Increasing co-citations and co-occurances

Ultimately, the way to build trust and rank higher is to create quality content that is shared by diverse and authoritative sites.

The post Ecommerce Eye Candy – Off-Page SEO Factors appeared first on cleverbridge.

For our Ecommerce Digest series, we’re showcasing content that centers around using keyword research for optimizing search results, planning editorial calendars as part of an effective content strategy, considerations for taking your ecommerce global, and understanding why it is that the sales and development teams sometimes appear to be on different wavelengths.

Keywords and SEO, PPC

How to Estimate the Total Volume and Value of Keywords in a Given Market or Niche | Moz

Banishing overly simplified research techniques like relying on (often inaccurate) AdWords keyword search volume data alone, Rand Fishkin offers a practical lesson in targeting keywords for SEO and PPC. He shows how to properly research keywords, and he then explains how to take that research and use it to conduct sample tests for long and short tail versions of your keywords.

The overall lesson here is that advertisers should not just target the highest volume keywords. Finding theright keyword to target, it turns out, involves a delicate balance between search volumes, competition levels, potential ROI and the ease of creating content around that keyword.

Content Marketing

6 Tips for Planning an Editorial Calendar | Marketeer

Examining the content marketing landscape several years ago, I wrote that, “An effective content marketing strategy … can help every company in their quest to not only acquire and retain customers, but to showcase leadership and authenticity.” This analysis holds up even today as more companies across all industries attempt to win customers by wooing them with engaging content.

But inefficiencies in developing and distributing content are costly for businesses, especially B2B companies, with their dependence on a variety of content types for all stages of a very long sales cycle. Following the steps in this post will help you develop effective content more efficiently.

Global Ecommerce

Making The Case To Go Global | Forrester
Entering new markets is no easy feat, and produces worrisome questions like, “How do I expand sales globally without it costing too much?” Or, “Will a channel that worked well for me in one region perform just as well in another?” Assuming that the way to sell to customers in foreign lands is identical to the way you do it at home is foolish, as is assuming that one’s sales performance in a new market will be just as strong as in your mature one.

Forrester research director Zia Wigder helps us out with those questions as we figure out the right way to develop business in a new market, or if we should even try at all. Investigate not only the market opportunity, but your organization’s ability to withstand the vicissitudes of launching in a new place.

Software Development

What Is Code? | Bloomberg

If you’re selling and marketing software, but don’t really understand why you and your developers seem to be on different wavelengths, this post is for you. It is a blog post that ostensibly sets out to answer the question, “What is code?” for people who don’t code, but it is actually so much more, both in terms of content and design.

Centered around an entertaining account of a fictional meeting between a VP of Sales and a Scrum Master about budgeting for a development project, this post explores the complexity of getting a coding project ready for market. This is a lengthy article that contains some bits about the technical aspects of coding that you might want to skip, but there is also some great information about why software development projects are often delayed and over-budget.

Ecommerce Tips

How to Grow Your Ecommerce Business: Experts Reveal Secrets | FEInternational

Enjoy these 33 pieces of expertise for growing your ecommerce business (including one from yours truly). These diverse range of opinions come from some of the most respected names in ecommerce, and offer advice about removing friction from the checkout process, finding the right channel for acquiring new customers, offering excellent customer service, and creating a unique and consistent brand.

Vote for your favorite one!

The post June Ecommerce Digest appeared first on cleverbridge.

This process isn’t just about ranking for specific keywords. In fact, the infographic advises organizations to not target keywords based simply on their own perspective. Rather, the process of targeting keywords begins by interviewing your customers, discovering their pain points, and listening closely for words or phrases that they likely used in the online searches that ultimately led to your company.

Next, you must begin blogging consistently. Blog posts must feature the words, phrases and questions discovered while interviewing your customers. Then, link your keywords to hub pages, or cornerstone content, that serve as the central pages of your internal linking strategy. Finally, review all your pages and make sure the metadata is thoughtfully completed.

Ultimately, as the author points out, improving your position in SERPs isn’t about focusing on the search engine robots; it’s about focusing on your customers.

Review this infographic and tell us about any customer interviews you conducted to help with SEO.

The post Ecommerce Eye Candy – How to Do SEO in 2015 [Infographic] appeared first on cleverbridge.

This infographic was created and sent to us by Linkbird, a Berlin based provider of SEO management software. It summarizes the results of a survey that Linkbird conducted last year to try to answer questions related to “current trends, strategies, challenges, and practices of the SEO industry.”

In it, you can discover information regarding how much money ecommerce companies spend on SEO, how they find the right SEO agency to partner with, and what kind of activities they looked for the agency to perform.

The survey also looked at the challenges that motivated these companies to seek out an SEO agency in the first place. It found that companies were primarily interested in improving Google rankings, building quality links, and increasing organic traffic. Another big challenge companies looked to agencies to help them solve was how to use their content marketing for SEO.

Additionally, the survey investigated:

• What the goals for companies are when they partner with SEO agencies
• The challenges companies face when it comes to the actual relationship with their SEO agencies (e.g., How do they know the agency will deliver a satisfactory result?) and vice versa (e.g., educating clients on the ever changing landscape of SEO)

All in all, this survey is a good read if you are considering hiring an outside agency to help you with SEO. It will give you insight into the capabilties of SEO agencies and the challenges involved in working with them to improve your brand’s online presence.

State of SEO Agencies 2014 is an infographic by www.linkbird.com

The post Ecommerce Eye Candy – State of SEO Agencies 2014 [Infographic] appeared first on cleverbridge.

For this month’s Ecommerce Digest, we will discuss tactics for reducing churn rate, look at some of the hot new trends in B2B website design, and investigate the intersection between data, SEO and content marketing.

Churn Rate

8 Advanced Tips for Never Losing SaaS Customers | KISSmetrics
The subscription era of ecommerce came into its own with the influx of SaaS. With the advent of these cloud-based products, the market turned from ownership to access, and ecommerce shifted accordingly. Instead of selling a lifetime license to a customer and hoping they would upgrade with the next release, subscription business models force merchants to prove their value to buyers on a more frequent basis. This post from KISSmetrics provides practical tactics that subscription companies can use to make sure that their business model is providing them with the predictable revenue they desire.

Web Design and B2B

15 B2B Sites That Put Design First | NewsCred
Prospects and leads consume a good amount of content through independent market research and resources offered on prospective vendors’ websites. Therefore, they already have a good idea of what they will hear by the time they speak with a sales agent of a B2B merchant. That is one of the many reasons it is so important for B2B merchants to fine tune their websites, and make certain that design and content are focused on communicating value to prospective buyers. If it’s been a minute since the last time you updated your site, you need to think about how you can improve the face of your brand. Use this blog post for inspiration.

Content Marketing, SEO and Data Analysis

Using Data to Create an Effective Content Marketing Strategy | PerformanceIN
One of the goals of your content should be to educate prospects and leads so that by the time they reach the bottom of the sale’s funnel, they are already well-versed in the value your company offers. This post teaches businesses that they should focus not just on blog posts and landing pages, but every page on their site. One idea to keep in mind, according to this post, is “Would somebody want to read this if Google didn’t exist?” Additionally, businesses have an imperative to look at their web analytics tools and survey their audience to find out which content is most effective.

The post February Ecommerce Digest appeared first on cleverbridge.

We also offered our readers six guides on essential ecommerce strategy and tactics, including information on handling VAT rates, conversion optimization tips, making the most of November and December ecommerce, and other crucial elements of ecommerce success.

We hope your holiday season ecommerce plans are in place and that you’re starting to see a bump in traffic and sales. Now, get ready for tips on ecommerce fraud prevention, Singles Day ecommerce, the importance of mobile-friendly sites, the basis for effective loyalty programs and the evolution of social media marketing.

Fraud Prevention

How I Detect Ecommerce Fraud | Practical Ecommerce
While the amount of attempted fraud transactions have decreased the last five years, the actual amount of money stolen by fraudsters increased. When you process payments through your online store you can’t rely solely on your bank for proper fraud screening. This post emphasizes that your understanding of your business, and your understanding of what constitutes a typical order, should impact your fraud prevention strategy. Criminal attempts to steal and use your customers’ payment information are subtle, and your revenue is at stake. Make sure you are doing everything you can to maximize valid orders and minimize fraudulent ones.

Global Ecommerce

Singles Day | MarketWatch
This post from MarketWatch reports that Alibaba, the Amazon of China, raked in over nine billion dollars on November 11, which is about four times as many sales generated online by all U.S. companies combined on Cyber Monday in 2013. For merchants looking to expand their sales beyond North America and Western Europe, start establishing your presence in new territory using evergreen localization tactics, and make sure to take advantage of local shopping bonanzas.

Mobile SEO

Mobile Laggards Beware – Google is Exposing Your Shortcomings | Forrester
Everyone knows from personal experience how frustrating it can be to click on a link from your phone or tablet and land on a page that has not been optimized for mobile. By placing little notes on search results, Google now lets searchers know whether the site they are about to click on is optimized for mobile or not. Certainly, you can understand how these notes might affect a customer’s likelihood to click on your company’s link. Thankfully, this post has resources for getting your site started on the road toward mobile friendliness.

Loyalty Programs

Smart Framing as the Basis for Effective Loyalty Programs | Nir and Far
Alright, raise your hands: how many loyalty programs have you joined that you haven’t used except the day you enrolled? The results of a loyalty program test in this post indicate that the reward of a loyalty program may be less important than how that reward is presented. This presentation ultimately influences a customer’s behavior with your brand.

Social Media Marketing

Let’s Get Social | Six Pixels of Separation
Social is a complex channel, and many companies wonder how to approach it or if it is even worthwhile. Is social media a form of advertising or is it a content channel? If you don’t have the creative budget for an Old Spice or Oreo sized campaign, should you even bother? In this podcast, Mitch Joel and Jason Keath discuss whether companies should be focusing on creating “high intensity” pieces of content and using social as a distribution channel. Also discussed is how to connect social media followers with your CRM.

Do you have any suggestions for improving fraud prevention, how to enter the Chinese software market, SEO, loyalty programs or social media? Let us know in the comment section below.

The post November Ecommerce Digest appeared first on cleverbridge.

Yes!

Even software manufacturers are capitalizing on holiday season ecommerce and can expect significant growth in November and December, which often precedes a relatively lackluster January. Bottom line: You want to get customers in your cart and make sure they convert.

Getting Customers in the Cart

According to HubSpot, succeeding in November and December ecommerce is all about the inbound visitor. By definition, inbound means attracting visitors, converting them into customers, and delighting them with content delivered at the right time through the right medium.

Let’s just meditate on the purpose of your business for a minute. Think about your product and why it was built in the first place. It was built to solve a problem, right? Now think about the people who have the problem that your product solves. How can you help them understand the connection between their problem and your product without giving them the hard sell?

For holiday season ecommerce, the key is to drop some knowledge on your website visitors, social media and email audience about typical situations that cause problems for their friends and families.

According to HubSpot: “Offer special holiday deals with a very clear expiration date. You could also do well to place that special holiday price immediately next to a crossed off “regular” price that will highlight just how much money your customers stand to gain by purchasing now.”

To illustrate, let’s look at an example:

Strangely, the only purely independent software vendor that displays for either paid or organic search for the term, “black friday software deal” is Adobe. I’m not saying this term is widely searched for, but it does show that Adobe is covering all their bases. And the landing page for both the paid listing and organic search result is highly relevant too. It offers a discount and creates a sense of urgency for the customer by limiting the discount’s applicability to a specific time frame. The one thing they seem to be missing, according to HubSpot’s advice, is the “crossed off ‘regular’ price,” which makes it difficult for visitors to understand precisely what kind of value they are getting:

Email Marketing During the Holiday Season

Email will obviously be an important channel this time of year, and software companies must make sure to capture their audience’s attention through their inboxes. Corel, for example, does an excellent job of catching their email list’s eye with a highly compelling offer that also creates a clear sense of urgency (“Ends 19 Nov 2014 at midnight”). Plus, they make sure to highlight the value of their offers by crossing out the regular price.

Chargeback and Fraud Rate

With an increase in traffic and a spike in paid orders, you can be sure that fraudsters are lurking in the background to try to abuse your system by placing orders with stolen credit cards. According to Verifi, a provider of risk management solutions for card-not-present merchants, your chargeback volume can spike by as much as 50 percent, and up to 86 percent of those affected by chargebacks won’t contact you until after a dispute is filed.

Fraudsters are probably relying on your company’s desire for more orders to exploit a laxity in your fraud detection system. Don’t let them create a chargeback and refund headache for you as you try to meet your revenue goals.

Bandwidth and Infrastructure

Bandwidth is going to be important if you’re expecting an increase in website traffic. But it’s not just about being able to handle website visits. With each conversion and payment submission, you’re probably generating a download link or password, a PDF receipt and other items that your servers need to process.

If you outsource your ecommerce capabilities to a third party, coordinate your email marketing sends and when they should expect a surge of visits to the checkout process. This is a great way to prepare and can potentially save you from an overload of customer contacts.

Just the Beginning

One of the great advantages of selling software is that its not holiday specific in the same way that pine trees or crepe paper turkey decorations are. This means that you can capture some initial attention from customer who are not ready to buy your product for the holidays, but who can be persuaded to convert and purchase at a later day.

Keystone

Make sure your November and December campaigns cover all the important channels, including organic search, PPC ads and email, and make sure that your infrastructure is capable of handling a surge in visits and orders.

The post Holiday Season Ecommerce appeared first on cleverbridge.