McCarty DavidMost users turn to search engines when searching for goods and do not look at offers beyond the second or third page. That is why it is important for an online store to be at the top of results. Its promotion in search helps with this. In order for it to be effective, you will need to plan your actions.
The online store promotion strategy is a list of goals and actions, divided into activities and stages. If it is clearly planned and broken down into time intervals, it is easier to implement.
Preparatory phase
The online store promotion strategy takes into account all the steps, from the choice of business niche to adjust and expand the semantic core. Therefore, for its drawing up is necessary:
Set a goal. Do you want to reach the top of the search for the main requests, to increase awareness of your brand, to bypass competitors, to increase traffic or to raise sales? The choice depends on the set of SEO-tools that will be used in the promotion strategy. As a rule, its main goal is to increase the flow of customers by promoting your store in search engines.
Find your niche and determine your market share. If you know what you are going to offer customers – great. No – analyze competitive offers, compare wants and budget, find promising products. Services such as Google AdWords and Google Trends help with traffic analysis and product popularity dynamics.
Develop a product catalog to further optimize your site for a clear, intuitive structure – create transparent, user-friendly navigation and easy search. This will help to clearly present products, simplify management of assortment and goods turnover, increase sales and improve indexation of the resource by search engines.
Promotion requires at least three months of intensive work. Consider each of the stages – with an approximate time schedule.
First stage: audit and analysis, semantic core, content and links
In the first four to five weeks there is a lot of work, but this is the “golden time”, which greatly affects the final result. The first step is collecting analytics. To do this, use Google Analytics and analyze the positions on key phrases, traffic.
You will also need to master special services for the selection of key phrases and words that characterize the USP and the products of the store, their regional frequency. Among them there are free services such as Google AdWords. Keywords form a semantic core (SN) of a website, which is used to attract audience from Google searches. For an online store, the broader it is, the better.
It is important to carefully check the KMS for “empty” queries – common phrases that are thoughtlessly included in lists for promotion and then artificially “tweaked” frequency.
Analysis and audit
The next step – analysis of competitors and a detailed technical audit of the online store. Sites from your market niche need to study the prices, the successful strategies used, keywords, their density. Without experience in analysis, a lot of time will have to be spent on each of the sites.
Content generation and link building strategies
In the first month of promotion, a content strategy is developed – without useful and unique texts, it is almost impossible to attract users. It indicates:
a plan for page optimization of the site;
the schedule of publications on the site – news, articles in a separate section, if any, or assumed (with keywords from SN);
scheme for writing and posting content in accordance with the available budget – the preparation of materials can be broken down into several months, starting with the major sections, and then moving on to the secondary.
Content strategy is created for a long time, it must be the most perfect, professionally made. Texts containing the key queries for promotion, you can write yourself, order a freelance copywriter or a specialized company (so safer).
No less difficult than the content, the stage – linkbuilding strategy development. It is an accumulation of links to the online store. This helps to optimize the site. Links can be external, from third-party Internet resources, or internal – with the help of link building in the store are promoted pages to which they lead.
Link building requires caution – any errors are fraught with search engine penalties if the online store does not meet their quality standards. Buy eternal links should be little by little, but with a strict selection, leaving the mass repurchase on exchanges in the past. By correctly identifying popular and promising sites, you get:
A new audience and an increase in visitors;
increase confidence in your resource;
Strengthening the reputation of the online store – it will establish itself as a resource with reliable and trustworthy partners.
The second stage: publications, social networks, contextual advertising and e-mail
