Here are 3 important SEO tips I gleaned from this podcast: 1. Title tag key words and structure are important.
You must have descriptive words in your product titles. Search engines won't pick up on fancy names or quirky lingo. Describe what you are selling and use the most descriptive words first. Remember, search engines are looking for these word!
2. Use descriptive names for your images. I failed miserably with this one. Search engines read the image URLs to hone in on what it is trying to reading. You don't want them to be reading numbers or obscure product names but rather a description of the image. For example:
Most digital cameras save photos with a default number such as image021611.jpg. I always change the name to something I recognize but failed in being descriptive. For example, I may have changed the image name to Manhattan_bag.jpg. The best way to name the image is seatbelt_messenger_bag_manhattan_blue.jpg. Now, a search engine can read it and can pull the image up during searches with those words.
3. Don't lose sleep over SEO. It's is a lengthy process and one that seems to change constantly. Fact of the matter is that the best way to be found online is with human interaction: blog comments, Twitter conversations, Facebook discussions. It is far more effective and worthwhile to develop long term relationships with your customers than it is to spend hours pouring over words for the search engines.
I highly recommend listening to CraftyPod #125: Talking SEO, with Cory Huff. You can also find more helpful information on the show's summary page. I'm sure you will learn something new about SEO for your crafty business.
[image source, APizm]
This is a nice SEO 101 blog post for crafters, Linda, especially with the importance of titling images of your work. I was looking at an artist's gallery online yesterday, and all her images were still titled with the original file names -- just numbers with the extension .jpg!
ReplyDeleteHere's another simple SEO tip -- put links in the text that will hopefully get your readers to click on them to go to other pages on your website, especially if the posts are similar in content or topic.
For example, if you're writing a blog post about knitting a hat, and you've written other posts about knitting, hats, or knitting hats (even better!), be sure to include enticing links back and forth between posts.
~Michelle for New England Multimedia
@Michelle Quillin
ReplyDeleteThank you, Michelle! You have been a source of great information. I appreciate all your suggestions and tips.
Great information. Also if you bold or italic things naturally it also sticks out to the search engines.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great post Linda, thanks! I'm going to go and give this a listen as SEO stuff has been on my to-do list forever. Thanks for your suggestions!
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