Take this simple test. Go ahead, humor me:
Contact a friend or colleague who isn't familiar with your website or business.
Ask him/her to listen to your elevator speech (keep it short, please).
Ask that person how they would search for your products or services. Try to elicit specifics, but listen for the Keywords and Search Terms in their responses.
Type those keywords/phrases into your website's search tool
If your friend's responses are completely off the mark, you may need to reconsider your Elevator Speech. If you don't have a search tool on your website, give me a call for some help (this is a must for most websites.)
If you ran your friend-feedback through your search tool, and no results returned or you got a 404 page, it's time to re-examine your SEO strategy. Those terms may need to be included in your page titles, descriptions or URLs— and should definitely be within your page content. We've covered SEO Basics in a previous post, so let's dive a little deeper to keep improving your ability to climb higher on the Google charts.
SEO is free marketing, so ignoring how your pages are set up is like giving away potential leads — or leaving money on the table. Unfortunately, keywords are no longer enough to get noticed by search engines. Site popularity, referring links, descriptions, images, videos -- and a host of other factors -- are also in the mix. This is why SEO professionals earn the big bucks to keep major brands on the hit list.
Google Business Account & Analytics
Assuming you have a brand name and URL for your website, your very next step should be to sign up for a Google business account. Even if you don't have a brick and mortar location, you want potential customers to see your business listing and post reviews. Google sends a postcard to verify your listing, so the business page may take a week or more to go live. Get this started while you're planning your new website.
The Google Analytics account can be set up the same day, and within a few minutes. Don't get overwhelmed. All you need at this step is the unique identifier for your analytics. You can find this when you click your business name link above the copy that says "All Web Site Data."
Example:
A small popup will appear with your account details. Copy the account info that begins with "UA-"
Note: You may also find this info, by clicking the settings icon at the bottom left of the Google Analytics dashboard, and going to "Account Settings."
Wix Website SEO Tools
Once you have your Google Analytics account info, you want to link it up with your Wix website. To do this, return to your Wix dashboard, look for "Marketing & SEO" under the Main Menu, and then select "Marketing Integrations." Follow the instructions for entering in your account info. You'll know your site is successfully connected, when a green "CONNECTED" message appears (top right):
Be aware that it may take a week before statistics begin to populate in your analytics account.
Wix users have a great tool, called the Wix SEO Wiz. You can find this tool under Main Menu > Marketing & SEO > Get Found on Google. This tool automatically assists you with a keyword plan, analyzes your page titles, and creates a sitemap. Your sitemap.xml file identifies your main menu and all supporting links. It also tells search engines how your site is structured, how to navigate, and how to identify important pages as they relate to one another within the site.
Under Wix's SEO Tools it states, "Every time you publish a site change, your sitemaps update automatically;" however, the Help Center recommends, "re-submitting your /sitemap.xml sitemap each time you publish changes to your page titles, URLs or other major content updates." The short answer is that all the major search engines will discover your site even if you don’t submit a sitemap — but you may have to wait awhile.
....BUT you can check that search engines are finding you with a very simple step. The minor effort may be worth your peace of mind.
Verify that Sitemaps are Indexed by Google, Yahoo & Bing
Please note: Bing merged with Yahoo's webmaster tools, so submitting your site to Bing is a one-step process for Yahoo as well. If you want to reach a Russian-speaking audience, include Yandex in your submission process.
I made this quick tutorial to show you how to check your sitemap status in Google and Bing/Yahoo:
Shopify Website SEO Tools for Google Shops
Unfortunately, there's no all-in-one tool for setting up SEO within Shopify. Your Shopify website is most likely prioritizing products over content, which means that product titles and tags are super important, and URLs need to be a specific as possible. More on this is my previous post.
Once your products are titled correctly, navigate to Marketing > Overview from your dashboard, and scroll to the tool titled, "Get seen on Google" [see screenshot above]. Follow the prompts to optimize your store and ensure that your catalog delivers results within Google's "Shopping" category. After you've completed your product SEO and store setup, follow the steps above to test your sitemaps.
What About DuckDuckGo?
If you never heard of DuckDuckGo, pay attention. This search engine handles about 2 billion searches per day, and has been doing a lot of advertising on highway billboards lately. It is also the default search engine for EU Android devices, and has received endorsements from bigwigs like Jack Dorsey of Twitter fame.
This search engine's claim is that your searches are kept private. They don't have a sitemap tool like the Google and Bing. They have their own "DuckDuckBot" web crawler, and use info from over "400 sources" including Wikipedia and Bing, but claim "none from Google." If you've tested your sitemap in Bing, you have a good head start. To improve your chances of getting traffic on DDG try submitting a "Bang!" This feature is a shortcut to a website or category, and requires a review process to make sure it's an active/non-robot-populated site.
To submit your own bang, go to https://duckduckgo.com/newbang. Enter your site's name the way it appears in your website's title tag. In the "!" field pick an abbreviation for you website. If your site name is "The Majestic Mr. Fox," your bang might be "tmmf" (without the "!") The search terms should be actually searchable on your website. For example The Wix Doctor would include a search for "Wix Website Designer" and my !bing URL would be "https://thewixdoctor.com/search?q={{{s}}}" Select a category for your site, and submit your suggestion for approval. If you supply your email address, you'll get a notification if/when your !bing is approved by the team.
If you want to show up on DuckDuckGo—and all the other browsers— submit your !bing, and stay on top of the following, or book a Success Session with The Wix Doctor :
Correct sitemaps in Bing, Google, and Yahoo (or Yandex)
Repurpose content for LinkedIn, Reddit, Quora, Amazon, and/or your social media channels
Request backlinks from quality sources and influencers
Use structured data on all pages [more on this in next week's post!]
Now it's up to you...
Hit up your friends for some testing help, and start searching! Also make sure to subscribe to The Wix Doctor newsletter to stay informed when the next chapter on JSON-LD Structured Data is released. There's a free — and helpful — gift in it for you!
No, friends? No worries!
Book a Free 15-minute consultation to learn how I can help you structure SEO for your Wix or Shopify website.
I always do my best to work within your budget and get you results quickly. Comment on this post if you have any questions, or shoot me a message. You can expect a reply within 1 business day [EST time zone].