Jill Kocher Brown - Practical Ecommerce

SEO: 10 FAQs for Internal Links

Jill Kocher Brown — Tue, 09 Mar 2021 14:46:24 +0000

Internal links benefit search engine optimization. But knowing how to use them and understanding their value is not always clear. What follows are 10 frequently asked questions for internal-link management for SEO.

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10 SEO Tips for Podcasts

Jill Kocher Brown — Tue, 23 Feb 2021 14:42:44 +0000

Podcasts have gone mainstream — 37 percent of Americans over the age of 12 listen to at least one podcast per month. But podcasts are often poorly optimized for search engines. Drive more organic search traffic to your podcast with these 10 tips.

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SEO: Common Fixes to Core Web Vitals

Jill Kocher Brown — Tue, 09 Feb 2021 15:37:19 +0000

Google stated in November that Core Web Vitals would become a ranking signal in May 2021. When Google announces such a change, heed the warning. The sooner you prepare, the better the chance of preserving or improving your organic search traffic.

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SEO: Excellent Content Moves Shoppers through the Funnel

Jill Kocher Brown — Mon, 16 Nov 2020 10:00:49 +0000

Informational content such as buyers’ guides and how-to instructions can lure shoppers to your site while they’re in research mode. There, they could complete an action that delivers immediate or future value to your business. Examples include signing up for a newsletter, requesting more info, or the ultimate goal: purchasing a product.

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SEO: Google’s Product Knowledge Panels Drive Impressions (but Not for Amazon)

Jill Kocher Brown — Mon, 09 Nov 2020 16:25:18 +0000

Every merchant wants to beat Amazon in Google's organic search listings. The easiest way? Upload data for placement in Google’s product knowledge panel. Product knowledge panels contain information you’d typically find on a product detail page, such as a product description, images, and reviews.

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SEO: What Google’s New Passage Indexing Means for Ecommerce

Jill Kocher Brown — Thu, 05 Nov 2020 13:23:25 +0000

In its never-ending quest to improve search results, Google is extending natural language processing to "passage indexing," ranking individual sentences or phrases within a page. Google addressed this latest update in an October 15 blog post. The update will impact an estimated 7 percent of its search queries worldwide.

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Mobile Site Design Impacts Organic Search Rankings

Jill Kocher Brown — Mon, 26 Oct 2020 15:22:52 +0000

The design of a mobile website impacts its ability to rank in organic search results. Mobile design controls the availability and readability of text, the usability of navigational elements, and even access to entire pages that are critical to organic performance.

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SEO: How to Move Skydivers through the Funnel

Jill Kocher Brown — Tue, 20 Oct 2020 14:56:56 +0000

What happens when consumers parachute from organic search results and land on the page Google thinks is the most personally relevant? They skip as much as 95 percent of your prepared journey.

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SEO: 5 Tips to Convert Visitors to Buyers

Jill Kocher Brown — Tue, 13 Oct 2020 14:19:55 +0000

Search engine optimization focuses on driving consumers to your site. But traffic alone doesn't pay the bills. Success depends on converting those visitors to customers. Use these five tips to convert more searchers into buyers.

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‘Domain Age Impacts Rankings’ (and 8 Other SEO Myths)

Jill Kocher Brown — Mon, 05 Oct 2020 11:39:17 +0000

Many myths surround the complex signals that search engines use to determine organic rankings. In this post, I'll debunk nine such myths and share the four factors that matter.

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SEO: How to Target High-demand Keywords (or Not)

Jill Kocher Brown — Mon, 28 Sep 2020 14:06:45 +0000

Search engine optimization often has lofty goals, such as ranking on page one for a high-demand phrase. How can you reach a seemingly impossible objective? The sites that rank on the first page of the search results are Google's assessment of the best options.

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7 Google Analytics Tips for Measuring Organic Search

Jill Kocher Brown — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 15:23:22 +0000

Search engine optimization relies on the ability to measure performance. Google Analytics can make the task easier. What follows are seven tips to help.

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SEO: 9 Tips for Brand-friendly Content

Jill Kocher Brown — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 15:59:48 +0000

Branded marketing content and excellent organic search rankings are not mutually exclusive. Content is among the most subjective aspects of search engine optimization. It has also become the most important. And the best content is unique, well-written, and relevant. Here are nine tips to get started.

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SEO: Where to Start When You Need to Fix Everything

Jill Kocher Brown — Tue, 25 Aug 2020 14:39:16 +0000

Optimizing a site for organic search can be overwhelming when you’re staring at a blank slate. Where do you start? The good news is that there are three definitive steps when you're getting started.

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SEO How-to, Part 12: Technical Tools

Jill Kocher Brown — Tue, 18 Aug 2020 12:50:11 +0000

Implementing a search engine optimization strategy typically requires tools that can be dangerous when mishandled. Knowing those tools — when to use them and how — can make all the difference. This is the 12th and last post in my “SEO How-to” series.

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SEO How-to, Part 11: Mitigating Risk

Jill Kocher Brown — Mon, 10 Aug 2020 11:04:11 +0000

The risk to organic search performance from altering a website usually comes from changes to content, linking structures, or underlying technology. With careful planning and execution, however, you can mitigate the risk from those changes and increase the likelihood of better rankings. This is the 11th installment in my "SEO How-to" series

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SEO How-to, Part 10: Redesigns, Migrations, URL Changes

Jill Kocher Brown — Tue, 04 Aug 2020 13:38:24 +0000

Changes in content, linking, and URL structure can dramatically impact organic search performance. Thus it's critical to understand the search engine risks and rewards from a new design before you start developing it. This is the 10th installment in my "SEO How-to" series.

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SEO How-to, Part 9: Diagnosing Crawler Issues

Jill Kocher Brown — Mon, 27 Jul 2020 14:44:59 +0000

Search engines must crawl and index your site before it can rank in organic search. Thus optimizing your content is pointless if search engines cannot access it. This is the ninth installment in my “SEO How-to” series.

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SEO How-to, Part 8: Architecture and Internal Linking

Jill Kocher Brown — Mon, 20 Jul 2020 13:37:54 +0000

The structure of your ecommerce site — categories, subcategories, attributes — heavily impacts search engine optimization. This is the eighth installment in my “SEO How-to” series.

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SEO How-to, Part 7: Mapping Keywords to Content

Jill Kocher Brown — Mon, 13 Jul 2020 11:08:19 +0000

Keyword research is the process of identifying the words that consumers use to search for your products on Google and other search engines. Keyword mapping assigns those terms to pages on your site. This is the seventh installment in my "SEO How-to" series.

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SEO How-to, Part 6: Optimizing On-page Elements

Jill Kocher Brown — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 14:46:33 +0000

Keyword research can help improve your organic search performance. Search engines attempt to sync the words and intent of consumers' queries with web pages. Ecommerce merchants should therefore align their pages using the right keywords to convey the proper intent.

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SEO How-to, Part 5: Analyzing Keyword Data

Jill Kocher Brown — Fri, 19 Jun 2020 13:47:06 +0000

Keyword research is a search engine optimization tactic to identify the words and phrases of consumers who are looking for the types of products and services that your company sells. In this post, I'll cover four steps: seeding keyword research, collecting the data, organizing it in my free keyword analysis template in Google Sheets, and analyzing it to understand intent and demand.

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SEO How-to, Part 4: Keyword Research Concepts

Jill Kocher Brown — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 13:34:59 +0000

Keyword research is the process of analyzing the search-engine queries of real people. That data — a window into the desires of searchers — is a gold mine for search engine optimization.

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SEO How-to, Part 3: Strategy and Planning

Jill Kocher Brown — Fri, 29 May 2020 13:28:32 +0000

The planning phase of search engine optimization involves identifying a strategy and roadmap to reach your goals. The process can be daunting. This post is the third installment in my “SEO How-to” series.

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SEO How-to, Part 2: Understanding Search Engines

Jill Kocher Brown — Thu, 21 May 2020 14:55:49 +0000

Nearly half of shoppers turn to Google before deciding what to buy and where to buy it. Understanding how Google and other search engines work can help you choose which optimization strategies to apply. This post is the second installment in my "SEO How-to" series.

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SEO How-to, Part 1: Why Use It?

Jill Kocher Brown — Wed, 13 May 2020 15:45:15 +0000

This post begins a weekly primer in SEO, with the goal of addressing all foundational aspects. In the end, you’ll be able to practice SEO more confidently and converse with others regarding important SEO challenges and opportunities.

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Google Brings Back Free Shopping Listings

Jill Kocher Brown — Thu, 30 Apr 2020 14:07:39 +0000

This week, after a 12-year hiatus, Google reintroduced free listings to the shopping tab of search result pages. These free listings potentially fill a need that has been festering for years, enabling more ecommerce sites to compete in shopping searches.

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SEO: Target Informational Rankings with Pillars and Clusters

Jill Kocher Brown — Tue, 21 Apr 2020 15:06:56 +0000

Unless it's a major brand, an ecommerce site’s category and product pages may not rank organically for informational search queries. Creating pillar and cluster pages can help.

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SEO: Auditing Backlinks with Google Search Console

Jill Kocher Brown — Sun, 12 Apr 2020 14:46:46 +0000

The best backlinks are the ones search engines know about. Four reports in Google Search Console help analyze the strength of your backlink portfolio. Search engines use backlinks — the links from other sites to yours — in their algorithms as measures of value and authority.

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13 Free SEO Courses, Beginner to Advanced

Jill Kocher Brown — Tue, 07 Apr 2020 16:33:44 +0000

Being stuck at home due to Covid-19 is an excellent time to improve your search engine optimization skills. The following seven learning sites offer, collectively, 13 free SEO courses. Some include free certificates of completion to showcase your new skills on LinkedIn or elsewhere.

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