SEO-OH-OH It’s Magic!

One of my goals for May is to work on our SEO (Search Engine Optimization). If a site has better SEO, it will appear higher in the search results and more people will see your link. It’s always nice to have a great product, but not useful if no one can find you and we don’t want to be a one hit wonder, like poor Pilot. (don’t feel too badly for them, and they still managed to release FOUR compilation albums.)  We have plans to continue to evolve The Strap Saver, so we want people to find us and keep coming back!

When turning to Google, most of us don’t go past the second page, if we go that far, before we change search terms, so it’s very important to stake your claim near the top. Of course, there are ways to buy your way to the front of the line, but we’ve decided to try to change our rankings organically. (as in, through skill, luck and elbow grease, not funding)

I started by downloading a plugin from Yoast (I’m giving them a shout out because the free version of their WordPress plug-in is very powerful, not because they paid me. It has worked well for us, your results may vary.) and dug in. Although it takes me through the process of where to put things, I first have to understand how our customers will find us.  Is it through “bra strap repair”, “stretched bra straps” or “shorten bra straps”? Do people search for the problem or the solution? There are a lot of tools out there to help (thanks, Google, for your Keyword Planner and your Webmaster Tools!) but it’s also about knowing your product and your audience. Google will rank us on everything from how often our keyword appears on the page (although “keyword stuffing” sounds unnatural and you’ll lose points). We’re also judged on the length of our copy, the quality, the number of links that we have to other quality content and the number of sites that link to us. Are you dizzy yet? I am!

But, hurrah! Our efforts are paying off! (quite literally!) We’ve almost doubled sales in May. Our rankings are up significantly, as well as site traffic and our number of Facebook and Twitter followers. I’m only partially finished with my optimization plans, as well. This is key to the growth of our business, as it’s an ad and a map to our front door all rolled up in one. So, good things are headed our way – and perkiness is headed to mailbox near you.

How do you search for answers to your problems – is it by the problem or the solution?