Proudly serving the industry for which it was named for more than 50 years, Outdoor Power Equipment provides dealers who sell and service outdoor power equipment with valuable information to succeed in a competitive market.
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There are two sides to the search engine optimization (SEO) coin. On one side are the more technical aspects — meta data, keywords, alt tags — that are probably Greek to you, but are a crucial component to helping your site rank well in search. I'll touch a little on technical SEO throughout this article to guide you in a con - versation with your technology vendor, but my goal is to help you gain an understanding of the more human side of search. You want to attract real-live human beings in your local community to your website and help them make the decision to come into your store and pay for your products and services. The best part? The search engines recognize websites that of - fer site visitors a great user experience and reward good content with higher search rankings. So, what do you need to do to optimize the content on your website for search? It starts, but definitely does not end, with an effective keyword strategy. DEVELOP A KEYWORD STRATEGY Keywords are short or long-tail groups of words used by search engines to locate cur - rent and relevant websites. Long-tail key- words are descriptive phrases of three or more words while short keywords are broad- er in nature. As a result, short keywords are the foundation of your website identity, but long-tail keywords are what turn interested shoppers into paying customers. Short-tail example: mower parts Long-tail example: Cub Cadet re - placement parts in Orlando, Florida The more descriptive the long-tail key- words, the less search competition it has — resulting in a high search engine page ranking for your website. Another added benefit of long-tail keywords is that they yield 2.5 times higher conversion rates than short keywords, according to a Conductor.com study. Why? Because buyers that use long-tail keywords know exactly what they are looking for. That said, make sure you build long-tail keywords focused on descriptive searches within your website content to improve your search engine ranking and drive high-caliber local prospects to your website (skip ahead a few paragraphs to learn a little more about local optimization). Here's your keyword homework: Do a lit - tle brainstorming to generate a list of at least 25 keywords you think your website should rank for on Google. Take that list to Google's Keyword Planner (you'll need to login or sign up for Google AdWords to use the tool). The best keywords rate "Medium" to "Low" in the "Competition" column and have a high number of "Local Monthly Searches." Throw out keywords with high "Competi - tion" and/or low "Local Monthly Searches." With your newly generated keyword list, review your existing website content and in- sert your keywords as naturally as possible. Add the keywords not only to your main website content but also in your page titles, image alt-tags, links and social media posts. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, don't fret; ask your website vendor for some guidance on how to implement keywords into your technical SEO strategy. Just like all SEO work, developing your keywords and utilizing them in your content isn't a one-and-done proposition. Revisit your list of keywords on a regular basis to en - sure that you're still optimizing for keywords that will deliver buyers. PUBLISH QUALITY CONTENT Search engines reward websites with new and fresh content that match the users' key- word searches. That doesn't mean you need to completely overhaul your website content every week, but you do need to be sure that you are regularly publishing relevant content. Here's where to start: Ensure the products you stock in your store are fully reflected on your website. (If FEATURE STORY | Website Solutions 20 NOVEMBER 2015 OUTDOOR POWER EQUIPMENT www.outdoorpowerequipment.com ■ BY COLLEEN MALLOY More than keywords: SEO and content optimization IMAGE ©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/ALENGO.