Not to sound arrogant, but that does strike us. We assume others know what we’re talking about when we say things like search intent, keyword difficulty, organic traffic, and so on and so forth. 

One of the most important terms in this vertical is called an “impression.” It’s also one of the most vital statistics we SEO people look at when evaluating the performance of a campaign. 

But what is an “SEO” impression (it’s the same as a regular impression, by the way) and why does it matter? 

Let’s take a closer look. 

What Is an “SEO” Impression? (AKA, Just an Impression)

Fortunately, this is one of the easiest terms in all of digital marketing to explain. 

An impression is basically when you see something online – in SEO, an impression is when you see a listing for a web page in the organic search results. 

Open a browser right now and type something into the search bar. Look at the results. All of those listings that you just saw each received one impression from you. 

Think of it this way: They each made one impression on you. That’s how this works. 

It’s not the same as a page view or a click. To get a page view from an impression, first, the user must see the page (an impression) and then click on it. 

So in short, an impression is the precursor to a click. 

By this point, why this matters for SEO should already be pretty clear, but just in case it isn’t, let’s go one layer deeper. 

Why This Matters for SEO

An impression is sort of like a fundamental building block for SEO. To gain organic traffic, impressions must increase. 

But there are two prerequisites for impressions: search volume and organic rankings.

Take a given keyword as a thought experiment. Let’s just use “SEO” as a hypothetical example, with the caveat that I’m going to make numbers up completely. 

Let’s say that the keyword “SEO” had zero monthly searches. Let’s also say that you had a web page with a page one, spot one ranking for that search term. 

You’d get zero monthly impressions. 

Let’s say, conversely, that the keyword “SEO” had 10,000 monthly searches, but that you were unranked for that specific search term. 

You’d still get zero monthly impressions. 

So, to get impressions, you need these two things. Optimizing for SEO will improve your organic rankings, but without search volume, that’s kind of pointless. 

So, with that said, let’s take a look at some specific things you can do to optimize your website, so your organic rankings improve – that way, if there’s volume for those terms, impressions will improve too. 

How to Increase Impressions 

One of the great things about SEO is that, provided you choose viable keywords, improving impressions is actually not that hard. 

Here’s the thing, though. If you optimize for difficult keywords, you’re not going to see a sharp spike in impressions, if you see improvements at all. 

There are three main things that will influence whether or not you can increase impressions. Search volume, difficulty, and your website’s domain authority. 

To illustrate this, you’re going to need to use a tool like SEMRush. Look up a keyword, any keyword. If it has a difficulty below 40, it shouldn’t be that hard to improve impressions for it. 

If it’s below 20, you’re in an even better position. Remember, volume will influence how many more impressions you get after optimizing because this illustrates how many people are searching for that term.

Next, check domain authority. There are lots of free tools for checking. I like the Moz and Ahrefs DA checkers. Moz invented this metric, so their tool is probably the more accurate and reliable one. 

The higher your domain authority is, the easier it will be for you to improve your average position after optimizing. Just be aware of that. If your DA is below 10 (really low) it’s going to be hard for you to improve impressions. If your DA is above 30, there’s a good chance you can improve impressions within a few weeks (or even days) after optimizing. 

One more tip is to pick keywords that are topically relevant to your niche. If you sell shoes, you can get away with boot, shoe, and footwear-related keywords, maybe even laces and polish and stuff like that. Stay away from bike-related keywords (just an example).

Once you’ve picked a keyword you want to optimize for and improve impressions for, pick a page. It could be a blog page or a product page, it doesn’t really matter, but it helps if that page contains content that is relevant to the keyword. 

Here are some things you can do to optimize the page: 

• Insert the keyword in headers (this is tip number one and the easiest thing you can do to improve impressions for a keyword).

• Add the keyword in the copy throughout the page.

• Include the keyword in image alt text or image file names.

• Include the keyword in metadata and page titles.

• Draft an entirely new blurb for the page containing the keyword (1-2 instances of it) and insert that somewhere on the page.

• Use the keyword as an exact match anchor text on another page on your website, with the link pointing to the page for which you want to increase impressions.

Even if all you do is optimize the page headers, you should start to see impressions creeping up within a few weeks at most, but be patient. Sometimes it can take 6 months to a year, or even more, before you notice a substantial uptick. 

Now there’s one more thing I want to cover before cutting you loose, and that has to do with how to increase clicks, too. 

The Next Step: Impressions, Then Clicks

Impressions are great, and they are a sign that your website is not only well-optimized but that users are actually searching for terms that make your website show up. 

But in eCommerce, specifically, impressions are only half the battle. No one can buy anything through your website without clicking on it.

The bad news is there’s nothing you can do to force clicks. But, if you are getting impressions and a really low click-through rate (the average for all industries is about 2%), there are things you can do to change that. 

First, is adjusting your meta descriptions. This is a chance to sell your products or entice people to click. Advertise promotions or special discounts or sales. Use CTAs and urgency plays to get people to walk through your virtual doors. 

The other thing you can do is go back and adjust your keyword strategy. This is why search intent is so important. 

The problem might be that you’ve optimized for a keyword that is irrelevant to your target audience. Go into Google Search Console, figure out what your website is getting impressions (but not clicks) for, and then search that term. Look at the listings above you. Are they for similar pages to yours? 

You can’t be sure they’re getting more clicks than you are, but if they’re above you in the organic search results, they probably are. Also, if the page is not similar to yours, that’s probably the reason. 

People are seeing your organic listing but it isn’t what they’re looking for, so they click on a different one (or search something else).

Go back into SEMrush and see if you can pull up another related and relevant keyword, then optimize for that as well. You don’t need to remove all instances of your other keywords. Just add to the page (within reason) and eventually, you should start to see that page getting not only more impressions but more clicks. 

Just be patient. It can take a long time. 

The post SEO Impressions: What They Are, Why They Matter, and How to Increase Them appeared first on 1Digital® Agency.

Sometimes, we use these terms with slight inaccuracy, and sometimes, we commit an even more heinous act: we use them without carefully demonstrating what they mean to our audience. 

It’s natural to assume our audience knows what we know, but that is actually logically fallacious. Good communication occurs when both parties possess full understanding of what passes between them.

So, I was thinking about content marketing vs. traditional marketing the other day, and how these two terms are often used, as if there is a face value that we all understand. 

There isn’t. So let’s take a look at content marketing vs. traditional marketing and see what they each are and how they’re different. 

Content Marketing 

When we use a term like “content marketing,” naturally, there’s bound to be some confusion. 

For instance, what’s the difference between digital marketing and content marketing? Isn’t all marketing content marketing, in some way or other, since “content” is involved in marketing? 

Well, yes and no. there are some gray areas here. 

Content marketing is a form of marketing in which content itself is the pivotal piece. 

Of course, yes, there is content involved in all marketing, but in content marketing, the content piece is the most important part. 

It can be in any of various formats, and it can use mixed media. Content marketing can take the form of audio (like music or podcasts), video (like Instagram reels or YouTube videos), written material (like blogs and landing pages that are optimized for experience), or some combination of all three. 

Content marketing can also be much more complex. In their own right, if items like brochures, white papers, and even whole magazines, taken in sum, are optimized for the user experience, they can be considered content marketing. 

This makes content marketing unique from other forms of traditional marketing because content marketing is entirely optimized for the user experience, and in that way is based on “permission.” Because of this, some experts call content marketing “permissive marketing.” 

That is, content marketing doesn’t shove itself down your throat, nor does it even try to. 

It exists and its value is innate. If you like it, you consume it, and if you don’t you walk right on by. 

But content marketing materials can be immensely valuable to the brand managers that invest in them, because content marketing can be informative, educational, and even entertaining. Some content marketing is based on teaching, and others are predicated entirely on humor. 

Realistically, it has to do with what the target audience is interested in.

Take, for instance, meme pages on Instagram. Some immensely popular meme pages like “Memezar” and “Sarcasm Only” are based entirely on humor or entertainment. No one follows those pages for educational or informative purposes, yet they are immensely popular. 

This is sort of baked into the experience. People that follow the page know that they’re signing up for a laugh or two. In fact, too much advertising, pandering, or in-your-face messaging might turn users off and cost the account followers. 

It’s likely that the page administrators are very aware of this and are very measured in their approach to what they publish. This is the whole point of “permissive” marketing. The user makes the rules. If the marketer doesn’t follow the rules, the user leaves, and the marketer is out of a job. 

But there’s a whole other dimension to this. Take a popular magazine like AllRecipes, which is reportedly one of the most successful magazines in the country, and which supposedly has a subscription count of nearly 9 million, giving it a massive circulation even by modern standards. 

What do you think would happen to AllRecipes’ model if they started taking the approach of an IG meme page? 

Followers would drop like flies. 

It all goes back to permission. Subscribers of AllRecipes Magazine give the magazine permission to send them materials in exchange for meeting their expectations – they want interesting, unique recipes and culinary content. 

Is there traditional advertising nestled among the pages of AllRecipes? Certainly. Is there an occasional post that covers something unrelated to their core positioning? I’m not sure because I’m not a subscriber, but we can call it likely. 

But the point is this: the weight of the experience is on meeting user expectations and furnishing material relevant to cooking. That’s the meat and potatoes (no pun intended) of the AllRecipes model. 

The meme pages I mentioned and AllRecipes are diametrically opposed to each other. One creates sarcastic memes and the other teaches people how to cook. But in both cases, they must acquire the permission of the user, and in both cases, they must meet expectations.

Now, other business models can engage in content marketing as well. 

Let’s say you have a business that sells high-end footwear. Users are probably interested in how to care for their shoes, where the materials in their shoes come from, what makes the shoes unique, and other similar topics. They might even be interested in material that inspires them with ideas on how to create outfits. 

That business model might benefit from running a social media account publishing such content, or creating CMS or blog pages that have material dedicated to those topics. They don’t push the shoes which the business is actually selling, but they offer something that, though separate, is related, and adds a whole lot of value. 

So, in a nutshell, that’s how content marketing works. 

Now let’s take a look at traditional marketing. 

Traditional Marketing 

If content marketing is based on permission, what then is traditional marketing? Is it not also in a sense based on permission? 

Sort of, but not really. Traditional marketing is more like the classic advertising that annoys people. Think about PPC ads, that the vast majority of people ignore, or television commercials, that most people skip.

Basically, and in a (very) overgeneralized nutshell, traditional marketing is what you experience when you have no other choice. Print ads, billboards, radio commercials, and TV commercials are all examples of traditional marketing. 

When you were driving down the highway, did you opt to view the billboards? Did you ask to hear the radio ads playing between your favorite songs on the station you were listening to? Sure, television commercials are sort of dated, but you didn’t ask for those, either? 

That’s the difference, from a high level, between content marketing vs. traditional marketing. 

Oftentimes, traditional marketing is used to reach as wide of an audience as possible to increase brand awareness and exposure, even though the targeting is difficult (if any is even conducted) and it’s hard to measure results. 

Traditional marketing approaches (think advertising) are also conducted to raise awareness about sales, seasonal specials, and similar promotions. Some marketers also pay for traditional approaches to generate cold leads.

So now that we’ve covered some of the basic differences in approach between the two broad classes of marketing here, let’s take a look at some of the finer distinctions. 

Content Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing: Wherein Lies the Difference Between Them?

Content marketing vs. traditional marketing. One follows a permission-based approach and the other takes a more cavalier, take-it-or-leave-it approach. 

How else are they different? 

Well for one, traditional marketing focuses on branding, whereas content marketing focuses on adding value and building relationships. There is a much greater focus on satisfying the customer in content marketing than there is in traditional marketing, if there is any attention paid to it at all. 

Again, traditional marketing is “forced” on an audience, and an audience must choose to partake in content marketing. In a way, content marketing is its own product. 

Because of this, content marketing is interactive and traditional marketing is not. This often makes it very easy for marketers to collect data about user engagement with content marketing materials, and very difficult if not impossible to collect data associated with the success of a traditional marketing campaign. 

Since traditional marketing materials are not consumed in the same sense as content marketing materials, it is harder for marketers to draw direct correlations between the effects of traditional marketing and user behavior. 

For instance, if a user gets a promo code from a podcast (content marketing) and applies that to a purchase, or reads a blog and buys a product through that link (also content marketing) the marketing team will know those efforts were effective. 

Conversely, sales can increase after a commercial airs on a streaming platform, or after a radio or print ad (both traditional marketing), but there’s no way for marketers to know for sure if the sales increase was directly attributable to those campaigns. 

Another thing to consider here is that content marketing can be very finely targeted, even personalized, whereas traditional marketing materials are much more difficult to target and deliver accordingly. A print ad reaches the people that look at that page and that’s that. You don’t have direct control over it. But if it’s a carefully targeted ad on Instagram, for example, you can decide which demographics get to see it, when, and on what devices. 

This makes targeting efforts far superior, and more effective, with most content marketing channels. 

In addition, content marketing is more user-friendly and helps build relationships with users, making it a value-add by comparison. Whereas you can consider traditional marketing an expense, you can consider content marketing an investment, at least assuming the campaign is run successfully.

Because of the differences here mentioned, it is also much more likely that your content marketing materials will not be actively ignored, which is a serious problem associated with traditional marketing campaigns, like PPC ads and commercials. People get banner blindness and sometimes leave the room when commercials are on – but that doesn’t happen with good content marketing that has been properly targeted. 

Don’t take this assessment of the differences between content marketing vs. traditional marketing the wrong way. Traditional marketing is still valuable and can be a useful complement to content marketing, especially when it comes to spreading brand awareness among truly cold leads. 

As John Wanamaker once famously quipped, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” The success of traditional marketing is there, it’s just hard to track. 

At any rate, given the advanced analytical tools available to modern digital marketers, quantifying the overall engagement rates associated with, and success of, content marketing campaigns, is easier than it’s ever been. 

Now you just need to get with your digital marketing department and figure out what the prongs of those two approaches look like. Instead of seeing it as a dichotomy of content marketing vs. traditional marketing, maybe you should see it as a potential harmony of content marketing and traditional marketing. 

The post Content Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing: Covering the Essential Differences appeared first on 1Digital® Agency.

But when business grows – and for Perfectly Priscilla, operating from PerfectlyPriscilla.com, that offers unique designs in clothing, footwear and accessories, it did – it can create growing pains, if you’ll excuse the pun. Selling online requires a pleasant user experience, one in which the customer feels a connection to the seller, even if they’re only purchasing through a screen.

This was one of the main reasons that Perfectly Priscilla partnered with 1Digital^Ⓡ Agency. They wanted to migrate from their BigCommerce store to a newly designed and developed Shopify Plus website which, they hoped, would better align with their brand, present their visitors with updated and relevant imagery, and provide UX-enhancing, conversion-boosting functionality. They’d need a Shopify migration agency that provided holistic eCommerce web design and development services as well.

Partnering with a Shopify Migration Agency to Shift the Focus to a New Platform

Perfectly Priscilla had determined that the basic B2C-friendly features of Shopify Plus were better aligned with their long-term strategy. The problem is that the company fielded countless orders on a daily basis, managed thousands of different products, and had a significant corpus of content as well. Getting from BigCommerce to Shopify Plus, notwithstanding a redesign and the advanced development that would go with it, would be no small feat.

Poorly planned migrations can spell various disasters for eCommerce businesses. Without proper protocols in place, including established processes for accounting for data and ensuring it syncs properly, customer accounts can be lost, products can be lost – even orders can be completely lost, especially during the time that the migration is occurring. It takes a skilled Shopify migration agency with a well-developed process to deliver results without any hiccups.

Even worse, a poorly planned migration that does not establish 301 redirects in its wake can destroy all of an online business’s organic rankings. Luckily for Perfectly Priscilla, which had countless pages of products and categories in addition to plenty of blog content, 1Digital^Ⓡ Agency’s process was watertight.

To say that the corpus of data that we migrated for Perfectly Priscilla was large would be a comical understatement. Their website contained over 70 categories of products with over 1,000 product entries, containing sensitive information associated with SKUs, price, imagery, descriptions, and more, including SEO-sensitive data.

The scope of the migration also had to account for over 80,000 customer accounts and order history associated with more than 140,000 orders. We also migrated more than 200 blogs for the client.

Ensuring that all of their data would populate in the proper locations on the newly established Shopify Plus store required our migration specialists to perform more than one resync, even after all of the data had been migrated over in the first place. By the time we had completed the first data transfer, between 20,000 and 30,000 new orders had been placed. This required our team to do a resync to ensure that the original information had been migrated successfully, but that all of the orders placed in the interim would not be lost or corrupted.

During the migration, we also implemented a 301 redirect for every URL that was moved over to the new Shopify Plus website so that Perfectly Priscilla would not lose any domain authority as a result of the migration. We even monitored their Google Search Console just to keep a second pair of eyes on traffic in the wake of the migration.

Of course, building a better store for Perfectly Priscilla only began with migrating them to a platform that was more closely aligned with their objectives. We also created a brand new eCommerce web design and developed a brand new look for their online storefront.

Tweaking UX with Updated eCommerce Web Design and Custom Functionality Features

In conjunction with this migration, 1Digital^Ⓡ Agency performed a full website redesign for Perfectly Priscilla, updating all of the major aspects of their eCommerce web design, including their category and product pages as well as their content pages, about us page, and of course, their homepage.

Their homepage was originally more neutral and lacked bold, direct imagery that the client felt would be appealing to its customers. As you can see from the before and after pictures below, we used larger, brighter imagery in their branded design of their new homepage, especially in the creation of the custom banners that accompanied the redesign.

As you can see from the picture of their new homepage design below, the overall look is brighter, more colorful and more engaging, with bolder, larger pictures and imagery. Our client felt that this aspect of the redesign was necessary to create a better, more personable user experience.

We also updated the design of their mega menu to encourage customer engagement and navigation. Previously their mega menus offered only a simple, text-heavy drop-down. Our updated mega menu design offered a more user-friendly interface. It fills more of the screen, separates the categories more effectively, and augments the experience with colorful, brand-aligned visuals.

This client was also interested in the additional services of our Shopify migration agency as a Shopify Plus developer for creating custom features that would enhance the online shopping experience and foster additional conversions. For example, we created a pop-feature that displays at the right side of the page when a user adds a product to the cart, informing the customer of the additional order value required to attain free shipping, as shown below.

This feature offers two key benefits, despite the basic simplicity of the design. One, it informs customers that they may be eligible for free shipping – and all online shoppers want that – and secondly, it encourages additional conversions in order to get the order to qualify. It serves the needs of both our client, Perfectly Priscilla, and their customers.

We created other conversion-boosting features for this client, including a tool that would recommend additional products by popularity, based on the items in which a visitor to their website showed interest. Even better, we created a “Buy the Look” feature, enabling customers to purchase all of the clothing accessories displayed by a model in their product pages. For example, if a visitor to their website wanted to purchase the entire ensemble in the image shown below, they would need only to scroll down the page to see all of the products included in the ensemble. This significantly boosted customer engagement and satisfaction.

In order to further refine the customer experience, we also implemented faceted search features for the client, allowing for advanced filtering to provide a better customer experience by refining the accuracy of their search results. We also implemented a lazy loading feature for their search results pages, creating a scroll-friendly design that continuously loads the search results as a user scrolls down the page, eliminating the need for pagination.

In addition to completely redesigning this client’s website and implementing all of the custom features enumerated here, our Shopify Plus developers also integrated a wide range of business-critical apps to ensure the website functionality they wanted to offer to their customers.

In order to improve a variety of customer experiences, we implemented Amazon Pay, customized an add-to-cart pop-up and added InStockNotify functionality to their website. 1Digital^Ⓡ Agency also implemented a wish lift feature for the product page, displayed product reviews on their product pages to encourage conversions, and integrated Google and Facebook analytics to facilitate the client’s management of the platform.

By the end of the project, Perfectly Priscilla enjoyed a thoroughly rebranded, redesigned website that was more closely aligned with their customer expectations, integrated with tools to facilitate management and improve the customer experience, and suffused with custom functionality that created a delightful online shopping experience. Most importantly, they had settled on a platform that would meet their needs more effectively as the business grew – and it has.

The success story of Perfectly Priscilla is one that plays out for our customers time and time again. We’re not just a Shopify migration agency; we’ve migrated clients to newly designed and developed websites, offered our services as an eCommerce development agency to build custom apps, and created strategic partnerships with online merchants, offering eCommerce SEO and PPC management services that propel them to new heights – and we can do the same for your organization.

To learn more about our various client success stories, visit our collection of eCommerce case studies to learn more about the different projects we’ve completed for clients in a wide range of different industries. There’s probably one that illustrates your plight – and if not, your business may as well be the next 1Digital^Ⓡ Agency success story. Call our team at 888-982-8269 or message us at info@1digitalagency.com to get started!

Download PDF

The post How our Shopify Migration Agency Vastly Improved Our Client’s UX appeared first on 1Digital® Agency.

It’s all about marketing, of which a facet is advertising. Marketing specialists will tell you that marketing is all about the four P’s: Product, Place, Price, and Promotion.

They must have figured all of this out long before the internet because there’s more to marketing than this. There’s the aspect of marketing that gets you in front of your customers so they know you exist in the first place. If we had to pick a “P,” it would be “promotion,” but that doesn’t quite complete the picture.

Advertising, when adapted to digital marketing standards, is part of promotion. Pay-per-click advertising falls under this umbrella. Pay-per-click, which hinges on PPC ads and thus is more commonly known as PPC, is a big component of digital marketing, but not the entire picture.

Traditional forms of “promotion” like this are expensive, despite the fact that they are effective. Interestingly enough, digital marketing is not entirely about paid search advertising, anyway.

There’s another way to get in front of your customers. A long-term, effective, scalable solution that builds on the initial investment: eCommerce SEO.

What is eCommerce SEO?

Ah, eCommerce SEO. It’s oft-referenced but perhaps not as well understood as it could (or should) be. At its most basic, eCommerce SEO is just SEO geared towards eCommerce.

So, then, what is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which is a large (surprisingly large) collection of best practices that alert search engines to your website as an authority for a given number of queries, subjects, or keywords.

SEO stands in stark contrast to eCommerce PPC and associated PPC management services because PPC entails paid ads, whereas SEO initiatives are largely decentralized. Without getting too lost in the details of comparison, PPC takes the form of placed ads whereas the collection of practices that can be classified as SEO do not start or end in one given place.

Because of the vast nature of SEO best practices, it is much slower to generate results than paid search advertising. Oftentimes, it takes weeks or months for an SEO project to generate appreciable gains for your keywords rankings, authority, or traffic increases to your eCommerce website.

Hold on – eCommerce SEO can take a long time, even when it is well organized by an experienced eCommerce SEO expert? Why, then, would anyone want to pursue SEO services when the process is so complex and takes so long to generate results?

Why is eCommerce SEO Valuable?

Ask any eCommerce Ecommerce SEO Expert, and they’ll tell you: despite the fact that SEO takes a bit of time to generate higher rankings and organic traffic to your online store, the results build upon themselves and linger long after your stop pursuing SEO services or best practices. You can’t say the same for PPC services. Usually, when a Google AdWords campaign ends, traffic and sales fall off, too. It’s the same for other paid search campaigns as well.

Despite the fact that it takes longer to see results from the changes or content publication you make today when pursuing SEO best practices, the results will continue to compound after you stop.

Here’s the other thing. The cost of paid search does not diminish over time. You will continue to pay for clicks for as long as the campaign is active. It’s a lot harder to measure the cost of the results associated with SEO services, but at a certain point, they become much more cost-effective.

This makes eCommerce SEO a long-term game. Not only should you be able to afford to take some time to see the results pouring in, but you should gear your processes around it. Not every business can afford to pay for a lengthy, competitive PPC campaign; but every business is involved with customer engagement and has content on its website. Also, by its very definition, every eCommerce business has a website.

How you go about setting up the structure of the website, what content and images you use, how you build your site structure, and much more can and will all impact your SEO value. It’s just a matter of whether you are engaging in the right processes from the start.

Ultimately, eCommerce SEO is such a big deal because it is one of the most cost-effective and without a doubt one of the most sustainable avenues for building your online business. It is also, without a doubt, one of the most consequential pieces of the digital marketing puzzle.

Leveraging SEO best practices to your advantage will have long-standing benefits for your eCommerce business, including but not limited to higher organic traffic figures, more new users, and if all of your other ducks are in a row, higher conversion rates and sales figures.

So, How Can You Improve Your SEO?

Believe it or not, it’s not rocket science. There are a lot of things you can do to improve the overall SEO value of your eCommerce website. You just need to know where to look and how to make the changes.

Here’s the basic process that everyone follows – even eCommerce experts – when they’re making it a priority to improve the SEO value of a website.

It All Starts with Keyword Research

The basis of all successful SEO campaigns is keyword research. It sounds simple, but it’s really much more complex than just making assumptions about what keywords you should or should not target in all of your following initiatives.

For example, let’s say that your hypothetical business sells shoes. You would think that “shoes” is a great keyword to target, because, well, obviously your business sells shoes.

However, keyword research goes a lot deeper than this; it takes into account customer behavior and the surrounding climate of the industry. Yes, your business sells shoes, but so do all of your direct competitors. That means that “shoes” is theoretically a good keyword to target, but it’s undifferentiated, unlike your business.

All businesses have core value propositions without which they don’t have a competitive edge. Your business doesn’t just sell shoes. Something else sets it apart. It could be the style of shoes that your business sells, how or where your shoes are made, or the types of services your business offers.

Does your business sell boots? What kind of boots does it sell? Does it specialize in selling dress boots like Chukka boots or Chelsea boots? Perhaps your organization sells tactical boots, logger boots, or work boots.

If the latter is the case, a keyword like “work boots wedge sole” might make more sense for your organization to target. This keyword is more specific than “shoes” and despite the fact that fewer people are searching for it than “shoes,” you have a better chance to go after it to increase your ranking for it. Once you have built up additional authority, you can go after higher-volume, more competitive, generic search terms like “shoes” or “boots” as keywords.

This concept of keyword research brings up another interesting point that will influence the efficiency of search for the right target keywords, which is the difference between long-tail and short-tail keywords.

The Difference Between Long-Tail and Short-Tail Keywords

You want to go after the most lucrative set of keywords that you possibly can, but not every keyword is relevant to your business, your industry, or even to your customers. You can rank for a lot of keywords, but at a certain point, there are going to be diminishing returns. It’s better to settle on a well-selected group of highly targeted keywords and go for those. If you’re successful in your efforts, you can expand your focus keyword list to include more entries. By the same token, you can stop focusing on keywords that aren’t giving you good traction or those with dropping search volume.

In your search for the ideal keyword list, you’re going to come across what is known as long-tail and short-tail keywords. Short-tail keywords are less specific than long-tail keywords and are usually only one or two words long. In the example offered above, “shoe” and “boot” can be considered short-tail keywords.

The thing about short-tail keywords is that everyone wants to rank for them because they tend to have a huge search volume. The shopping process often begins with a short-tail keyword and gets more refined. However, because they are so competitive, it’s very hard to come into ranking for them, although this does depend on the industry, the number of competitors, and the keywords individual search volumes. Something else to note is that although short-tail keywords have high search volume because they are non-specific, conversion rates associated with them are lower than with long-tail keywords.

So, then, what are long-tail keywords? Long-tail keywords are longer, more descriptive variants of short-tail keywords. For example, “boots” is a short-tail keyword, but “wedge-soled work boots” can be considered a long-tail keyword.

A long-tail keyword doesn’t need to be a single concept, like an item. It can be a query or a process. For example, “wedge-soled work boots for civil engineering” is a long-tail keyword, albeit longer-tailed than the former example.

In contrast to short-tail keywords, long-tail keywords typically have a much lower search volume. The flipside is that the conversion rates and the interest associated with long-tail keywords are much higher than with short-tail keywords. There’s a tradeoff here.

It’s easier to come into ranking for long-tail keywords because there is less competition for them, and because they are so specific, the users searching for them are more likely to convert. The problem is that, since there are fewer overall searches for long-tail keywords, it’s rarely lucrative to target only them.

Instead, the best course of action is to target a healthy balance of long and short-tail keywords. That way you can appeal to a large number of different searches while at the same time providing the specific results relevant to those searching for associated long-tail variants. For example, you might target both “boots” and “wedge-soled work boots” because some of the users searching only for “boots” are actually looking for the long-tail solution.

So you know you need to target a balance; but how do you find it?

Volume, Competition, Search Intent

It’s not enough to know that you need to target a balance of long and short-tail keywords. You need to consider volume, competition, and search intent as well. This is where your critical thinking skills come into play.

There are some paid tools that you can use to see what the actual search volume is for keywords, as well as the competitiveness of any given query, term, or keyword. For search intent, you’ll need to put on your thinking cap.

Volume is how many searches are actually entered for a given keyword. As volume increases, competitiveness usually increases, which means it’s usually harder to rank for high-volume keywords than lower-volume keywords. Again, though, a lot of the money is in the high-volume keywords.

What you do need to know is that when you rank for high-volume, high-competition keywords, it’s very lucrative. However, ranking for them is difficult and you must balance how aggressive your tactics are with the desired outcome.

As for search intent, this has to do with what customers are looking for when they enter a search term or a keyword. To make an illustration of this we need to use a keyword that, with no added context, is ambiguous. We’ll use “cable.”

Can you tell if the person searching for “cable” is looking for cable or internet services? Probably not, since it’s 2021, but you still can’t be sure. Is the search intent to find electrical cable? Load-bearing cables? Google has to do its best to link up this ambiguous keyword with the best results, based on what other people entering the same word have clicked on or found.

That’s only one type of search intent. Sometimes, a search for “shoes” might be associated with intent to purchase a pair of sneakers. It also might be associated with an intent to figure out how to waterproof sneakers. It’s not probable, but you can’t be sure.

The reason for mentioning this is that you should avoid the temptation to target a keyword that looks like a low-hanging fruit if you have no reasonable justification to assume relevant search intent for your business.

To make a glaringly obvious example, you might be able to find a keyword like “rubber rain boots” with relatively low competition and high search volume. You could take efforts to come into ranking for that keyword, but if your website only sells work boots, what would be the point? Your website would rank for searches for “rubber rain boots,” but would end in frustration for customers looking for something else.

The point here is to balance long and short-tail keywords while accounting for volume, competition, and search intent. They need to be relevant to your business.

So, how do you choose them?

How to Choose?

Now you have some insight into what might make a good keyword for you to target in your SEO objectives to accomplish your goals. But just how do you choose a set of keywords? You are the expert in your industry, but guessing will only get you so far.

We’ve already shown how “shoes” is a relevant keyword to a seller of footwear, and that only took light guesswork to come up with. The thing is, a guess is still only a guess until you pair it up with the right critical thinking.

There are paid tools that you can use to help you perform your keyword research, but Google itself gives you some free tools that you can use on your own. Just visit good and come up with a keyword that you think is relevant to your business.

Let’s start with “shoes” and assume that your hypothetical business sells them, just to illustrate a point. Google has an autofill feature that will fill in relevant keywords, but long and short-tail, based on what you enter.

Just look what pops up when you type in “shoes.” Based on the location and other relevant search information, Google has connected this query for shoes with other relevant search terms like “shoes for women,” “shoes for men,” “shoes for sale,” and “shoes stores.”

These, however, are still not very well-targeted keywords. It might be valuable for your business to rank for them, but they’re likely to be competitive. Let’s consider that your online shoe outlet is a specialist provider of athletic shoes. We’ll see what Google has to pitch to us for “running shoes.”

Typing “shoes running” into Google as a variant of the keyword, we have a much more interesting and targeted set of keywords to choose from, as you can see below.

Google’s autofill doesn’t give you important insights into the actual search volume or competition of keywords like “shoes running best” and “shoes running Nike,” as well as valuable long-tail keywords like “shoes running vs. training.” Even though you can’t see how many searches there are for these keywords, you can assume that enough users are searching for them for Google to gamble on their relevance to you based on your input of “shoes running.” That means an appreciable number of searches for “shoes running” end up being “shoes running Nike.” That tells you a lot of search intent as well as volume. One, people are looking for running shoes, and two, a lot of them are hoping to find Nike shoes.

It’s a labor-intensive process with a lot of guess and check, and going about it this way isn’t particularly precise, which is why so many businesses work with SEO agencies and other providers of eCommerce SEO services. Without the help of a reliable analytical tool like SEMRush or the input and frame of reference of an SEO company, developing a solid keyword list is difficult. It’s the foundation of a successful SEO strategy, so it needs to be done right.

On-Page Optimization: Optimizing Site Structure

At any rate, once you’re confident that you’ve compiled a practical and effective keyword list, you can begin with technical and on-page SEO efforts.

The first and often the most basic things you can do to improve your SEO value involve some of the following.

• URL Structure:

Believe it or not, URL structure is a ranking signal and it can affect your website’s rankings, depending on whether or not it is optimized. Some platforms give you more control over altering URL structure than others, but once you’ve selected a list of keywords and the target pages associated with them, you can alter the URLs associated with important category and content pages accordingly. Just make sure not to stuff your URLs – one target keyword per URL is a good idea, and shorter is better.

The URL above actually extends so far that getting an image of it that could actually be seen required cropping it. The URL is ambiguous at best and downright confusing. It is not evident where it goes and not only contains no keywords, it contains no discernible words at all. If your web pages have URLs like this, they could use some work.

• Page Titles

Page titles are an important ranking factor that search engines are looking out for. While you can theoretically assign more than one target keyword to a given page (so that the page will rank for more than one keyword) you should focus on one rather than stuffing the title. Another thing to remember is that bounce rate is also a ranking signal. Do not give your page titles nonsense title tags, because if users find them and then ultimately are frustrated and leave because the page was irrelevant to the title tag, that’s not good for your business.

• Image Alt Text

Image alt text (also known as alternative text) is a text alternative to images that search engines can assess while crawling a page. A lot of alt text is randomly generated numbers and letters created when you insert or upload an image. This is useful for the computer or the software to categorize and file the image, but utterly useless for SEO.

A lot of businesses simply don’t take advantage of the fact that you can use custom written alt text to improve a website’s SEO value. All you need to do is align the alt text with the keyword or keywords for which you want the page containing the image to rank. For example, if you uploaded a picture of boots to a page that you wanted to rank for “steel toe work boots,” you might want to insert the latter keyword into the alt text of the image in question.

• Meta Descriptions

In addition to the page titles which are metadata and important ranking signals, meta descriptions are another important category of metadata that will impact the ranking of your website.

When you customize your meta descriptions, you have a unique opportunity to positively impact not only your SEO value but also your UX. Write meaningful meta descriptions that succinctly inform the user about the page they are about to visit. Sew target keywords relevant to the page into the meta description without stuffing them, and you’ll increase your SEO value while at the same time potentially diminishing your bounce rate, another ranking signal.

• Site Security

Some users may not take notice of the difference between the HTTP and the HTTPS in your address, but it is a ranking signal, nonetheless, and an easy one to account for.

The purchase and implementation of an SSL certificate is valuable for many other reasons in addition to the fact that it will give you a slight SEO boost. For one, it will improve the user experience because your site will seem more trustworthy, and it will also make your site more secure and help prevent outside access to data that travels to and from your website.

• Page Speed

Page speed is another ranking signal, and slow websites have two distinct problems that can affect your SEO value. For one, as a ranking signal, Google will evaluate your website on its speed without any help.

In addition, users are intolerant of slow loading speeds, typically bouncing in under three seconds if the page fails to load. This will raise your bounce rate, which is a ranking signal; this “splash effect” due to low page speed will negatively impact your SEO value.

To make your website faster, optimize your images with smaller files where possible, cut back on the number of redirects on your website, and use compression software if you can, although there are many other ways to boost your page speed.

• Mobile Friendliness

Google made an announcement in 2019 that it would switch to mobile-first indexing, meaning that websites that lacked a mobile-friendly responsive design would suffer.

While some eCommerce platforms like BigCommerce have themes that are mobile-friendly or have responsive designs, providing a truly mobile-optimized design is critical not only for SEO purposes but also for UX. A design or a theme that is not responsive will quickly frustrate mobile shoppers, who make up an increasingly large portion of the eCommerce population.

In other words, mobile design is critical to eCommerce SEO success.

Onsite Optimization: Content Publication

In addition to the more technical aspects of SEO mentioned above, a lot of the value from the keywords you uncovered during keyword research can be extracted in the form of content publication. Here are some of the steps you can take to optimize your website’s content to appeal to both users and search engines.

• Removal of Duplicate Content

The most straightforward way you can bump up the SEO value of your website is to remove duplicate content. Wherever duplicate content appears and a search engine takes note of it, either or both of two things may occur. First, the website on which the content first appears will be given precedence over the website with the duplicate content. Secondly, the website with duplicate content may even be assigned a penalty.

Removing duplicate content should be easy since you should be able to identify where you got it from in the first place. It’s common on eCommerce websites in the form of manufacturer descriptions and other such snippets that eCommerce merchants sometimes copy and paste. However, copying and pasting is bad in SEO; you want to write your own original content.

• Category page content

One area of your website where you can provide value to your customers and sew in keyword-rich content to appeal to search engines (in one fell swoop) is on your category pages. Oftentimes, users will get to a category page while navigating through your website, before they get to a product page. This makes them a critical juncture down the sales funnel.

Provide original information on the category of products. Offer users insight into use, tips, and tricks. Catch their attention with humor. Give them a reason to want to learn more. After all, you sell these products, so you are the authority!

This will benefit the UX of your website and it will also tip off search engines that your website is an authority in your industry and should be ranked accordingly.

• Product page content

If category pages are valuable because they represent a vital stepping stone in the purchasing process of the customer experience, then the product page is the kingpin. It is at that point that a customer is typically going to make a decision to purchase or not.

To buy or not to buy, that is the question; Whether ‘tis nobler to infuse your product pages with optimized content and so take the reins of SEO within your grasp or allow chance rankings to befall you.

Just like you can optimize category pages, you can optimize your product pages, and it is vital to do so. Provide rich, keyword-optimized descriptions of provides. Discuss uses and complementary products. Think about what you would want to know about this product if you were a customer and then provide the information.

Customers will notice, and with the right balance of keywords, search engines will too. Bare product pages are a big SEO red-flag.

• Onsite blogs with optimized for keyword density and internal linking structure

As valuable as product and category page content is, your blog is the space where you can really provide information to your readers and capture the attention of search engines. Also, since you can vary the length of a blog according to your intended purposes, you’re less likely to get a penalty for keyword stuffing, which is including too many keywords in too short a piece of content.

Look through your keyword selection and write blogs regarding those keywords, varying the length. Remember, what one reader appreciates another might not. Think about how your products have been received by customers and what they use them for. Discuss little-known features of your products or make potential matches for supporting products. Write a blog on common hacks for your products. Keep it creative, infuse them with keywords and the SEO results will follow.

On The Importance of Backlinks and Link Building

Another critical component to eCommerce SEO is the process of link building and link strategy. There are three basic types of links. There are outbound links, which take readers away from your website to other websites. You should use these sparingly because although they can improve UX, they will show Google that you’re directing traffic to another source of authority.

Then there are internal links, which are links between pages on your website, and inbound links, which are called backlinks when you’re referring to the fact that the traffic originates on another website and is directed back to your website.

Internal linking and backlink strategy are crucial to SEO. Whenever you’re producing content for your website, if the content refers to valuable information that can be found elsewhere on your website, provide a link to that page.

As for backlinking, the strategy is a little bit trickier. You can’t just create backlinks to your website. You either need to work with an eCommerce SEO company that has an established network for generating and trading backlinks, or you have to trade for them yourself. Some online businesses and bloggers still engage in old-fashioned link-trading, where they will offer backlinks in exchange for writing about a product or some other type of service.

You can work with the best SEO experts to help generate backlinks for you, but one way or the other, if you aren’t securing them, you aren’t doing all you can do to improve your SEO.

See It in Action

The areas covered in this article are some of the most important aspects you can cover in your eCommerce SEO strategy, but there’s much more you can do if you want to get down to a much more granular level.

If you want to see specific examples of how we’ve used our proprietary SEO process to generate magnificent results for eCommerce clients in a huge range of industries, just take a look at our eCommerce case studies. In addition to our design, development, and migration case studies, there are many that focus on SEO campaigns we’ve executed for key clients and highlight the huge results generated from our activities.

Put 1Digital^Ⓡ Agency’s Process to Work for Your Business

There’s a lot of information here; hence the old saying, “if it was easy, everyone would do it.” True, there are a lot of changes you can make to your website to benefit its overall SEO value, but there’s a reason SEO specialists get big results.

We see what works and what doesn’t work. We build backlinks. We perform in-depth keyword research and industry analysis before we go so far as writing half a piece of optimized category page content. We overhaul your website to optimize many of the facets we addressed in this article and more.

Higher traffic and sales are right around the corner, and it all starts with an SEO project with 1Digital^Ⓡ Agency. Call us up at 888-982-8269 or get in touch with us at info@1digitalagency.com to learn more about how eCommerce SEO can take your business to new heights.

The post eCommerce SEO: A Beginner’s Guide appeared first on 1Digital® Agency.

In 2019, after having grown exponentially since its inception, XLFeet accepted the fact that their online store platform, Volusion, could not offer them the functionality they needed at the optimal performance level that was required. So, they decided to migrate to another online store platform that was able to offer them the customization and functionality they needed: Magento.

This migration, however, almost cost them their business. The development company that XLFeet hired for this migration fell short of expectation. After the platform migration was complete, XLFeet realized that the 301-redirects that were needed to keep their site performing seamlessly had not been properly implemented. The detailed and thorough performance that was needed for XLFeet to thrive through this migration was seriously lacking.

As a result, XLFeet saw a massive drop in traffic to their site. Their new goal was to restore that traffic. So, Adrian Coulter, CEO and founder of XLFeet, started looking for an SEO company to help with this. When he started googling SEO companies, he was looking for an agency that was not only ranking highly in his search results but one that also had a visually appealing website. That’s when Adrian found 1Digital^Ⓡ Agency.

What drew Adrian to ultimately join forces with 1Digital^Ⓡ was the fact that we were not only familiar with Magento, but we had also done a lot of work on other Magento websites. As he dug deeper into 1Digital^Ⓡ, he found that our SEO process was more thorough, detailed, and granular than other SEO companies he came across. “I liked the organization of your process and how detailed it got. [Another company I looked at] was not anywhere in the universe of being as detailed as you guys were,” Adrian said.

The Process

There are a lot of things that go into an SEO campaign. The SEO process at 1Digital^Ⓡ starts with discovery, project setup, and keyword selection. After this initial stage, it moves into on-page optimization, content creation, and reporting. The process for XLFeet began with keyword research and a full site audit to find any duplicate content, toxic backlinks, broken links, and any other issues. Throughout the campaign, we monitor any onsite and offsite issues, optimize meta titles with target keywords, and follow a content creation plan that allows us to build high-quality backlinks and improve on-page SEO.

When we bring any client on-board, we not only give them access to their own private workspace in our CRM where they have access to see the daily, weekly, and monthly work that goes into the campaign, but we also give them credentials to a proprietary dashboard that tracks keyword rankings and pulls from Google Analytics and Google Search Console. The on-boarding set-up for XLFeet was no different.

Within the first month of SEO with XLFeet, SEO experts at 1Digital^Ⓡ narrowed down a list of keywords to start targeting in this campaign, disavowed all toxic links that came up in the initial technical SEO audit, optimized meta titles for all target pages, and revitalized and optimized the on-page SEO content on those same target pages.

3 Months In

After that significant dip in traffic, the main goal for XLFeet was to bring those numbers back up. To do that, XLFeet needed to improve their keyword rankings and link building. To get them started, we put XLFeet on a 50 keyword SEO campaign. Because their rankings were already relatively strong, we decided to target those keywords that were already ranking in the top few pages to bring them into top position rankings on the first page of Google.

Three months into an SEO campaign with 1Digital^Ⓡ, XLFeet improved in rankings for 37 of their 50 target keywords.

• 
• One of the metrics we track in our proprietary SEO dashboard is the Average Ranking Position Trend. This tells us where xlfeet.com is ranking based on the keywords we are targeting and tracking in our dashboard. Three months into the campaign, XLFeet went from an average ranking of 10 to an average ranking of 7. This means that the keywords being targeted were starting to gain traction and beat competitor rankings in just three months.

So, keyword rankings improved, but what about traffic? What about sales?

If we take a look at the first three months of the campaign and compare the first month and a half to the second month and a half, we see that organic search traffic alone increased over 14%. This increase in traffic and target keyword strategy resulted in a 22% increase in organic search conversion rate, a 43% increase in transactions, and a 45% increase in revenue!

This image below shows the traffic comparing the first half of the campaign to the second.

If we take a look at user behavior for the same time period, we see that many of the target pages in the XLFeet SEO campaign increased in both acquisition and conversion within the first 3 months.

In the image below, one of the pages being targeted saw a 21% increase in organic sessions but over a 200% increase in organic transactions and a 179% increase in conversion rate.

One keyword being targeted in this SEO campaign increased in rankings and is currently ranking on the first page of Google search results, second only to Amazon. Within the first three months of this campaign, the target page for this keyword saw a steady incline in sessions until a sudden jump only 2 months into the campaign.

Within the first three months, users coming to xlfeet.com on a daily basis via organic search doubled.

6 Months In

Six months into the campaign, organic search traffic was steadily increasing. There was still a long way to go to get the traffic back up to where it was before the migration occurred, but XLFeet was heading in the right direction. If we look at months 4-6 of the campaign and compare them with months 1-3, we see organic search traffic increase around 7% but we see much higher increases in conversions. eCommerce conversion rate from organic search increased by almost 43% and transactions doubled!

COVID-19

Not even halfway into 2020, the entire world experienced, first-hand, the effects of a fast-spreading pandemic: COVID-19. This pandemic started to really hit the United States in mid-March and, almost overnight, the effects of this pandemic could be seen internet-wide. While some industries thrived, others started to see their traffic and sales head down a steep decline.

While more and more people were stocking up on essentials, fewer purchases were being made in industries that weren’t considered essential. XLFeet saw this reflected via their business almost immediately. “In the week surrounding St. Patrick’s Day, it was the worst week in the history of my company,” Adrian said.

Traffic and conversions for xlfeet.com dipped right around mid-March and stayed relatively low for about a month until around mid-April when things started to pick back up again. In light of this crisis, Adrian said, “Just, accidentally, being a footwear company where 95% of our business happens online, we’re really, really fortunate.”

Where They Are Now

Currently, XLFeet is continuing to climb in organic metrics and overall growth. Throughout the course of the campaign, organic search has been bringing in the most traffic and the most transactions.

The image below shows users and transactions for each channel over the course of 10 months.

Due to their current status, XLFeet is starting to expand into strategic social media growth to broaden their reach and supercharge their online business.

“This is exciting,” Adrian said. “When I first brought you guys on board…the future was very uncertain and even though we’re in the midst of this crisis here, things are now more certain than ever for us and you guys played a huge role in that.”

Today, XLFeet is making around 70% of the revenue they were making before the migration pitfall with half the traffic they had. “Things are looking better than ever,” Adrian said.

For a company that sells big shoes to big men, you wouldn’t expect there to be a lot of competition for an SEO campaign to be warranted. But SEO isn’t just for businesses with a lot of competition. To gain any sort of traction online, you need to first be visible to your target audience, and SEO is an essential part of getting there. Whether you’re a supplier of books or a specialty supplier of extra-large shoes for men, SEO is important to getting you in front of the right audience that will convert.

To learn more about what SEO can do for you, visit our eCommerce SEO page or read our case studies for insight into what makes an SEO campaign effective and see how SEO experts can transform your online business with strategic SEO strategies. Give us a call at 888-982-8269 to get started or to speak with an SEO professional today!

Download PDF

The post XL Feet: Stepping Into A Fitting SEO Strategy appeared first on 1Digital® Agency.

SEO by Industry Tailored Solutions

Since 2012, 1Digital^® Agency has been delivering industry-specific SEO strategies that boost visibility, engage target audiences, and drive sales across platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, WooCommerce, and WordPress.

Our strategies combine AI-driven insights with expert-led execution, tailored to your industry’s unique needs to deliver measurable results.

Watch the Video »

The post SEO by Industry appeared first on 1Digital® Agency.

For over 50 years, Sherman Brothers has been serving the greater Philadelphia area by providing some of the finest footwear in the industry. With a commitment to selling high-quality shoes that can fit every need and budget, Sherman Brothers differentiate from their competition with their selection, prices and quality customer service that make every shopping experience a pleasurable one.

Sherman Brothers carries brands such as Alden, Santoni, Johnston & Murphy, Olukai, Alan Payne and Cole Haan with a variety of styles and sizes that will fit the footwear needs of anyone. With a retail store located on Sansom St. in the heart of Philadelphia and a large selection of products online, the experience and quality of the products from Sherman Brothers is second to none.

In their partnership with 1Digital Agency, Sherman Brothers is undergoing a new web design that includes branding, custom home page design, category page design, and Megamenu design. In addition, a development project that includes Stencil migration on BigCommerce and responsive web development is also part of the work completed by 1DigitalⓇ. Finally, a national SEO campaign is also a part of the digital marketing campaign that Sherman Brothers is strategizing for with 1Digital Agency.

1Digital Agency is a Philadelphia digital marketing agency that provides digital design, web development, and strategic marketing services to clients both locally and nationally. With every client, the priority is the same. 1Digital Agency creates success stories for clients with design, development and digital marketing that show real results that help to increase search engine rankings, build domain authority, and provide a greater digital presence with excellent user experience.

Clients who partner with 1Digital Agency work directly with experts in the industry on all things digital, from designers and developers who know the leading platforms inside and out to digital marketing and SEO experts who know the best practices to build rankings. Clients always remain an important part of the 1Digital process from beginning to end. 1Digital uses this ongoing relationship and sets the goal to achieve success for clients.

As a full-service digital marketing agency, 1Digital Agency prioritizes its clients’ needs to build greater online success. Call the eCommerce experts at 1Digital Agency at 215-809-1567 or send an email to info@1digitalagency.com to get started on a project that will boost the success of your eCommerce business or visit 1DigitalAgency.com to learn more about the varying services offered by this Philadelphia digital marketing agency and to see client success stories.

The post 1Digital Agency Adds Sherman Brothers to Client List appeared first on 1Digital® Agency.

Transform Your Footwear Digital Strategy with Expert Men’s Shoes SEO

In the footwear industry, a strong online presence is essential for driving sales and customer engagement. At 1Digital^® Agency, we specialize in SEO services for men’s shoes that improve your visibility and attract the right audience to your online store or physical shop.

Our SEO solutions are tailored to meet the unique challenges of the men’s footwear industry. We ensure your business stands out in search engine results through optimized content, improved site structure, and comprehensive SEO strategies.

Partner with us to boost your digital footprint, engage more potential customers, and drive your footwear sales forward. Our team is dedicated to delivering results through expert men’s shoes SEO practices.

Did you know? 70% of consumers use search engines to find local footwear stores, and 80% of shoe buyers research online before making a purchase. Make sure your business is at the top of their search results.

1Digital^®‘s Men’s Shoes SEO Services Include:

• In-Depth Keyword Research: Identifying key terms that your potential customers are searching for.
• Comprehensive On-Page Optimization: Enhancing your website’s content and technical aspects to improve search engine rankings.
• Effective Off-Page Strategies: Building quality backlinks to increase your site’s authority and visibility.
• Technical SEO Mastery: Ensuring your site is optimized for speed, security, and usability.
• Ongoing Strategy and Analysis: Continuously refining our SEO strategies to keep your business ahead of the competition.

Get Your Free Men’s Shoes SEO Assessment Today

Featured Case Study

XL Feet

Following a migration to a new platform, XL Feet saw a huge drop in traffic and needed a solution to rebuild their traffic and grow their business.

1Digital® Agency crafted a custom SEO campaign focusing on a large number of high volume keywords and a site audit to expose and remove duplicate content, broken links and other issues while enhancing the site structure overall.

Read Case Study

Men’s Shoes SEO: Strengthen Your Local Store Presence

Enhance your local shoe store’s visibility with our expert Google My Business Optimization services. At 1Digital^® Agency, we specialize in boosting your store’s prominence in local search results, essential for attracting nearby customers and increasing foot traffic. Our team employs advanced GMB strategies to ensure your store excels in the competitive footwear market.

Through meticulous optimization of your Google My Business profile, we help your shoe store draw more local interest and improve its online reputation. Our approach includes precise keyword optimization, accurate business details, and compelling content to enhance your local SEO performance.

Did you know? Over 46% of all Google searches are seeking local information, and 76% of people who search for something nearby on their smartphone visit a related business within a day. Make sure your shoe store is at the top of their search results.

Learn More About Local GMB Services

Financial Performance Of Our Clients Across Industries

Fast Moving Consumer Goods

B2C & B2B: Design + Build, SEO, PPC, Social Media, Maintenance & Support

• A $164MM annual revenue Fast Moving Consumer Goods merchant came to us because they had a desire to increase traffic to their website, improve their conversion rate, and to modernize their user experience on the website that would then translate to improved profitability.
• What we were able to accomplish with their redesign in their primary marketplace was an increase in their conversion rate of 55.90% over the 4 months after launch.
• We accomplished this by strategically helping this merchant target new audiences for their product to capture new business and revenue they’d never had before.
• Our secret sauce was working with this client to really look and do the deep dive on the analytics that speaks to how they differentiate themselves from the competition to capitalize on the new opportunity in the market and improved conversion rate from our designs.
• Our results, on the revenue trajectory post-launch, is net new revenue that’s carrying 17.9% of their total paid revenue by implementing our strategy.

Automotive

B2C: Pay Per Click (PPC)

• A $13MM annual revenue Automotive merchant came to us in 2020 to help them increase their revenue through paid traffic to the site.
• When we took over to 2023, we successfully increased their baseline revenue on their paid traffic by an astronomical 495.32% which was achieved by the strategic initiatives we put in place to achieve their revenue goals.

Fashion Apparel

B2C & B2B: SEO, PPC

• We increased a merchants annual revenue by 131.3% from 2020 to 2022.
• 92% of that revenue being driven by initiatives we created, using SEO, PPC and Design.
• In addition to revenue growth, our targeted SEO and PPC campaigns significantly boosted the merchant’s online visibility, resulting in an increase in traffic and an improvement in PPC conversion rates.

Alcohol and Tobacco

B2C: Design + Build, SEO, Social Media, Maintenance and Support

• A start-up with minimal existing annual online revenue came to us in 2020 for strategy.
• Over the next 2 years we increased online revenue by 471.2%, with 1Digital’s strategies driving 56% of that trajectory.
• The main turning point for that merchant was the complete redesign and strategy that we did which we then supported post launch with SEO and social media to drive traffic and sales.

View Full Portfolio

Choose 1Digital^® Agency as Your Premier Men’s Shoes SEO Partner

Seeking exceptional SEO services for your men’s shoes business? Partner with 1Digital^® Agency, where our proven expertise and bespoke SEO strategies will enhance your footwear brand’s online presence. Discover why we’re the top choice for men’s shoes SEO:

Specialized SEO Expertise

We create tailored SEO strategies for your men’s shoes business, driving significant increases in organic traffic and conversions, establishing us as a leading men’s shoes SEO agency.

Dedicated Expert Team

Our team of men’s shoes SEO specialists is committed to optimizing your SEO strategy, delivering superior results and staying ahead of industry trends.

Global and Local Insights

Using insights from global and local markets, we develop SEO strategies that are precisely tuned to your target audience’s needs.

Proven Success Stories

Our extensive portfolio of success in the men’s shoes industry demonstrates our capability and innovative SEO approaches.

Trusted By Clients

Our commitment to excellence has earned us a reputation as a reliable men’s shoes SEO agency, supported by numerous client testimonials.

Results-Focused Approach

We prioritize achieving your business goals through impactful SEO strategies, with a focus on results rather than contracts.

Engaging Content Strategy

Our content strategies are designed to not only attract but also convert, perfectly aligning with your overall SEO goals.

Conversion-Driven Strategy

We focus on enhancing traffic and ensuring that traffic converts into revenue.

Strategic Partnership

We align our men’s shoes SEO strategies closely with your business objectives, acting as an extension of your team.

Partnering with 1Digital^® Agency for men’s shoes SEO services means choosing a path to digital excellence. Ready to elevate your business?
Call 888-982-8269.

Request Your Free Men’s Shoes SEO Consultation

Men’s Shoes SEO Experts: Driving Measurable Success for Your Business

Our team of men’s shoes SEO experts specializes in keeping your business ahead in the ever-changing search engine landscape, allowing you to concentrate on your core operations. We implement advanced strategies to enhance your visibility and engagement, delivering measurable results.

Get Your Free Men’s Shoes SEO Consultation

Key Deliverables from a Leading Men’s Shoes SEO Company

Comprehensive Website Audit

A detailed website audit sets the foundation for customized SEO strategies, addressing the specific needs of men’s shoes businesses.

Strategic Keyword Research

Identifying the most relevant keywords is crucial for SEO success, forming the basis of targeted men’s shoes campaigns.

Market and Competitor Analysis

Understanding the competitive landscape is essential. We provide insights that help position your strategy to outperform competitors.

On-Page and Technical SEO

We optimize all elements of your site to enhance visibility and functionality, adhering to the latest SEO standards.

High-Quality Content Creation

We develop engaging, industry-specific content that enhances user experience and SEO performance for men’s shoes businesses.

Optimized Website Architecture

An organized site structure improves user navigation and SEO, essential for both search engines and user satisfaction.

Data-Driven Insights

Our analysis reveals key growth opportunities and areas for improvement, offering actionable insights across the men’s shoes sector.

Advanced Content Marketing

Effective content marketing boosts SEO and drives engagement and conversions, critical for establishing online authority in the men’s shoes market.

Strategic Link Building

We develop robust link profiles that support your SEO efforts, enhancing your site’s authority and ranking.

Transparent SEO Reporting

Our detailed reports keep you informed about the progress of your SEO campaign, ensuring transparency and clarity.

Integrated Multi-Channel Marketing

We synchronize SEO with other digital marketing channels to amplify your online presence and achieve superior results.

UX and Conversion Optimization

We enhance user experience and site performance, aiming to convert more visitors into customers, suitable for any men’s shoes business.

Unlocking the Power of Comprehensive SEO Insights from 1Digital^®

As men’s shoes SEO experts, we provide top-tier SEO services to help your business achieve higher visibility and improved search rankings. Rely on us as your trusted men’s shoes SEO company, delivering in-depth audits and comprehensive SEO strategies tailored to your specific needs.

Get Your Men’s Shoes SEO Audit Now

Refining Your Path to Success with Our Tailored Men’s Shoes SEO Strategies

At the forefront of SEO services, our agency specializes in developing customized strategies that address the unique demands of the men’s shoes industry, enhancing your visibility across major search engines like Google and Bing.

Did you know that a significant portion of clicks are concentrated on the top search results? This fact underscores the importance of expertly crafted SEO strategies, ensuring your men’s shoes business ranks prominently and attracts substantial traffic.

With our deep expertise in men’s shoes SEO, we help you achieve top rankings, driving more traffic, leads, and sales for your business. Contact us to discover how we can elevate your SEO performance.

Get Your Free Men’s Shoes SEO Quote

Personalized SEO Approach

We recognize that every men’s shoes business is unique. Thus, we start by crafting an SEO strategy that aligns with your specific needs. Our customized approaches address various aspects of your digital marketing, creating a cohesive and effective campaign.

Technical SEO & Site Health

We delve into the backend of your website to fix essential SEO elements like broken links, 404 errors, and missing meta descriptions. Addressing these technical issues ensures your site is optimized for both search engines and users.

High-Impact Keyword Strategy

We prioritize high-converting keywords relevant to the men’s shoes industry. This enhances your site’s visibility and potential for driving sales, emphasizing the importance of targeting long-tail keywords.

Page Speed & Usability

In today’s digital age, page speed significantly affects user experience. A one-second delay in page load time can lead to a 7% loss in conversions. We focus on optimizing your website’s performance and usability to prevent these losses.

Comprehensive SEO & Site Audit

We conduct a thorough audit of your site, assessing everything from content and backlinks to navigation and calls-to-action. This comprehensive review helps us identify opportunities for improvement, laying the groundwork for a robust SEO strategy.

Content Development & Amplification

Effective content is vital for SEO success. Our team produces engaging content that not only boosts your SEO but also informs and entertains your audience, ensuring a strong return on your content investment.

The post Men’s Shoes SEO appeared first on 1Digital® Agency.

XL Feet is a footwear business that offers larger sizes of shoes, socks and other footwear from sizes 7-13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 and extra-wide feet to EEEEEE – 6E. XL Feet serves the Metro area of Minnesota with a physical location in downtown St. Paul and offers a large selection online for bigfoots all over the country. 

XL Feet has expertise on brands that manufacture extra-large footwear and how those larger sizes and widths actually fit, allowing them to help the big and tall community and people with wide feet find the perfect fit. 

XL Feet became a client for 1Digital Agency in July 2019, starting an eCommerce SEO campaign that focused on keywords that targeted those searching for large shoes, boots, and sandals. The project is expanding to custom design, using Magento Enterprise as the platform for a new look to their website. 

The project consists of the Magento Enterprise framework installation, using Magento 2.0 Enterprise eCommerce framework for functionality, the development of custom designs for website pages, responsive website development that will allow the website to automatically adapt to different screen sizes, and a video integration allowing YouTube videos to seamlessly  integrate into the About Us page design.

XL Feet joins a growing list of design, development, and SEO clients for 1Digital Agency. Since inception in 2012, 1Digital has specialized in BigCommerce design/development, Shopify Plus design/development, and partnered with platforms such as Magento Enterprise and Volusion. Additionally, 1Digital is an eCommerce digital agency that focuses on growing online sales and success for clients with SEO, PPC, and other digital marketing efforts.

1Digital Agency is an eCommerce SEO digital agency based out of Philadelphia, PA, and the 1Digital team strives for success every day to improve the quality and digital presence of client websites. There is potential in every client, and 1Digital strives to achieve the success that they deserve. 1Digital has launched hundreds of custom websites and completed integrations, migrations, optimizations and development projects. Each project is an opportunity to deliver clients the online presence, eCommerce store, and success they envision and to boost online sales with proven digital strategies that help increase traffic from organic search results.

To learn more about 1Digital Agency and the design, development, and digital marketing services available to businesses who need their brand promoted or their website to represent their brand effectively, contact 1Digital Agency today to discuss the specifics of the project, company goals, and the ways 1Digital can maximize online presences and create a strategy specific to eCommerce businesses. Call eCommerce professionals at 215-809-1567 or send an email to info@1digitalagency.com. 1Digital discusses business and goals with each client to create the perfect online marketing plan for their industry and needs.

The post 1Digital Agency Sign XL Feet as Client for eCommerce Design, SEO Projects appeared first on 1Digital® Agency.

HB Sports Inc. is an eCommerce retailer of baseball and softball bats and equipment from some of the top brands such as DeMarini, Rawlings, Marucci, and Louisville Slugger. Outside of bats, HB Sports Inc. also sells other gear like fielding gloves, batting gloves, bat grips, New Balance footwear including cleats, turf shoes, and sandals, equipment bags, protective gear such as leg guards, sliding mitts, sunglasses, and more.

HB Sports also has a line of apparel that includes hats, jackets, jerseys, hoodies, and t-shirts. 

With HB Sports Inc., you get a personal experience with customer service catered to you. Items are shipped on the same day if placed by 4 p.m. EST and are always on time. Free standard shipping and returns are also offered.

1Digital is proud to welcome HB Sports as part of our SEO agency’s growing family of SEO and digital marketing clients that include Casa M Spice Co, White Mountain Knives, Wendell August Forge, Mac of All Trades, J Devlin Glass Art and many more. 

As an eCommerce SEO Company, 1Digital creates success stories for clients. In addition to digital marketing services that include search engine optimization, pay per click (PPC), social media and email marketing, we also can help clients complete custom website design and development projects to build out their website so it functions effectively and looks completely unique. Since our inception in 2012, we have launched hundreds of custom websites and eCommerce stores and done even more integrations, migrations, and optimizations. We view every project as an opportunity to deliver our clients the eCommerce store they envision, and to boost online success with digital strategies designed to increase traffic from organic search.

1Digital is a digital marketing agency based out of Philadelphia, PA, and our team spends every single day working to improve the quality of client websites and their digital presence. We see the potential in every client and every website. We strive to maximize that potential and help clients reach new heights in their online presence. 1Digital has been assisting clients in the mid-market and has partnerships with leading enterprise eCommerce solutions like BigCommerce Enterprise, Shopify Plus, and Magento.

If you have struggled to find that perfect design, or need help growing your business by expanding and maximizing your online presence and digital marketing strategy, contact 1Digital Agency and let’s discuss the specifics of your project and create a content marketing strategy that individually fits your eCommerce business. Give us a call at 215-809-1567 or send an email to info@1digitalagency.com and let’s connect to discuss your business and your goals for online marketing. We’re ready, are you?

The post HB Sports Chooses 1Digital as Their SEO Digital Marketing Agency appeared first on 1Digital® Agency.