Shopify Website Renovation & SEO: Edwards Providore Bendigo

Edwards Providore approached us to help with a renovation to their Shopify store and assistance with SEO implementation to help them increase their presence locally for hampers and take home meals .

They had a talented graphic designer onboard in Petite Pixel Design, some stunning photography and a well established physical store in Bendigo but their online presence was a lacking a little.

We focussed first on the site renovation, in particular migrating to a theme that better powered the usability and functionality they required. The involved shuffling the navigation and organising much of the content to create better flow for the user. We also created pages and collections that would facilitate the SEO objectives.

Once the Shopify website makeover design was complete, we undertook keyword research and optimised on page elements including headings, alt text, image file names and titles and meta descriptions for each product and collection. We ensured they we established with Google My Business, Google Search Console and that Google Analytics was correctly configured.

Edwards Providore now attracts significant traffic to the site from organic sources and ranks in top positions in the search and image results for ‘Bendigo Hampers’, ‘Gifts Bendigo’ and ‘Hamper Delivery Bendigo’ along with 298 other commercially focussed keyword phrases.

Theme: Turbo
Tasks: Onsite SEO, Local SEO, Shopify Renovation

SEO Optimisation growth chart

When Researching Keywords, First Look At The Numbers

When it comes to SEO I find people love chatting about ranking position but not so much the keywords in which they are ranking for.

I find this truly perplexing given that the two are mutually inclusive. Rankings are based on a keyword phrase and therefore any conversation about the position a webpage is ranking for in the search results should start with what phrase it is ranking for.

I was recently asked about the importance of keywords. The business owner shared with me that they didn't really didn't understand what keywords they should be focussing on at all. For a business that relies heavily on attracting new business via organic and paid search engine results, I found this is quite concerning.

Let's work though an example to see if we can simplify the importance of finding the right keywords for your business.

Lets use the example of a business selling wedding dresses. The business currently ranks in position 1 in the search results for the phrase 'bridal dress' and they think great - ranking #1.

Dig a little deeper.

Using SEMRush I discover the search volume of the term ‘bridal dress’ has a monthly search volume of around 2900 whereas the term 'wedding dress' has around 49,500 searches per month.

Let's talk about those numbers.

Research from MOZ suggests that 62% of desktop search clicks go to organic listing skipping the higher placed ad listings. For the #1 position result for ‘bridal dresses’ they’ve got 1798 searches potentially ready to click on their link.

If the position 1 result in the search gets 32.5% of that traffic as Research from Click Burst suggests, the listing in position #1 for ‘bridal dresses’ should receive clicks from 584 of those users searching. Sure, not a bad day out from one keyword.

But let's look at it if they’d optimised the ranking page for ‘Wedding Dresses’.

49,500 searches for ‘wedding dresses;’ x 62% of clicks to organic results v ad results = 30,690 users clicking on the organic results.

….and assuming they hold #1 spot for that phrase they can expect 32.5% to click on the result giving them 9974 searches per month.

584 or 9974? I know what I’d rather rank for.

That’s a whopping 112,680 additional visits to your page per year just based on optimising for a slightly different search phrase.

Unfortunately keyword research doesn't stop there. Other factors need to be taken into consideration including the searcher intent, conversion, zero click searches and keyword competition. But we'll cover that in another blog post. For now if you've taken on board that selection of the right keywords for your business is extremely valuable then this blog post has done what I'd hoped.

10 tips for doing your own Keyword Research

• Dedicate some time to do some keyword research. Half a day or a few hours would be a good start

• Try to think like your customer not as the seller. To brainstorm this see what questions customers might be asking about your type of business. Answer the Public is a great tool for sparking ideas.

• Ask your audience and friends ‐ What would you type into Google if you were looking for a business like ours?

• Use localisation if its relevant to your business ie ‘Best Coffee In North Geelong’.

• Use Google Trends to compare search queries

• Look closely at the content and links on the pages that are ranking for some of your desired keywords?

• Look at Google Suggest search results (the results that come up when you start typing in the Google search box) . These are popular searches terms around your keyword. (See image below).

• Think about terms to suit your deeper website page. Many people ie. not just your home page

• Google Search Console gives a whole lot of free data about Search queries phrases. So if you have Google Search Console set up (which you should) use it!

• Use Google Ads or tools like Keyword.io, Ubersuggest or to check search volumes and get Keyword ideas or paid tools such as SEMRush and Ahrefs if you have access to them. (HINT: these powerful paid tools offer free/low cost trial periods, so if you plan your timing you can get your keyword research done without forking out the big ongoing software fee.)

Example of Google Predictive Search to gather some search term ideas

If you’re rather leave the keyword researching to us, that’s totally ok. We love getting all up in keyword data. Just get in contact with us and we can get it underway for you.

SEO 2010 - 2020. Just look how far we've come

There’s a significant amount of reflective social media posts happening at the moment and while we’re just as reflective as the next guy, its got us to thinking about SEO and how its changed in the past 10 years.

We’re not too ashamed to say that we were playing in the SEO space back in 2010, albeit as part of Digital Producer duties rather than as a dedicated SEO specialist. That in itself is testament to what a decade can deliver, 10 years may have given increased rise to SEO stepping out of the all encompassing marketing department box and evolving into a true skill to be continually learning, trying and testing.

But while we’re feeling all reflective, lets take a look at some things that have evolved in SEO since 2010.

What did SEO look like circa 2010?

• Thankfully we’ve moved from keyword stuffing to unique and aligned keyword phrases mapped to unique URLS

• Thanks to Penguin we’ve shifted away from spammy backlinks to best practice of quality links within relevant content

• Socials were becoming increasingly important in 2010, but today’s search engine results pages now index and rank various social media posts, tweets, images and social profiles

• The Google search results page has continued to have a big makeover. That number one spot on used to be a whole lot higher and the page far less interesting. Thanks to new result types such as Rich Snippets, Featured Snippets, Local Map pack, People Also Ask info and Image and Video results, the search results page circa 2010 is quite different to look at. Just check out the relic below!

• Increased space ‘above the fold’ is being allocated to Google Ads results. Those search engines gotta make bank somehow!

• The Google Mobile update in 2015 (aka Mobilegeddon) made responsive design the go to website design preference.

• Reviews. The importance of trust factors has become increasingly important. Google reviews provide a strong signal of authority and trust. Genuine reviews of products, people, stores and businesses is the currency that can move a cautious online shopper straight to the add to cart phase

• Lets get local baby. Whilst the lofty goal for a plumber might previously have been for world ranking domination, local SEO has been huge for local businesses keen to rank well in their local region where there customers actually reside

• Pop ups. Apparently in 2016 Google were cracking down on mobile pop ups, but given every other site seem to be throwing multiple pop ups at me ALL. THE. TIME. I’m thinking that crackdown might be on hold for now.

• We’ve seen Search get smarter. In 2014 Google started recognising spelling variations and synonyms. So it began to understand that when someone searched for ‘PJs’ a result showcasing Pyjamas was potentially valid. Search engines started to understand the relationship between search phrases too so when we asked for BIG Q, search understood we’d likely made an error and delivered results for BIG W.

• Intent. As search engine professionals we started to recognised that not all keywords are created equal. The users intention and journey thought the buying cycle was an important factor in determining the value and potential of a keyword phrase

• We’re all smarter. Back in 2010, SEO seemed like the closely guarded secret sauce only for those big companies with the deep pockets. Today, we’re thrilled to hear from so many keen small and growing businesses who are keen to roll up their sleeves and dive into SEO to improve the search engine visibility. Their ready to learn and if they dedicate the time, the resources are on offer for them.

• Schema. Schema was introduced in 2011 and we don’t want to get too techy in this post but we can’t signed off without mentioning schema as an advancement of search in the past decade. The move to encourage small, individual pieces of data (micro data) to be identified throughout a website points strongly to a future in search result for voice and AI.

Search Engine Result page circa 2010. Source: Authority SEO.

This list is by no means exhaustive, merely a reflective view of how search has refined, changed and been honed over the past decade.

We’ve been SEO tragics for a long time and the constant changes are just part of what keeps it interesting.

No doubt the next 10 years will bring cries of ‘SEO is dead’ (it won’t be!), many major Google Updates (there’s bound to be many) and hopefully slimy black hat tactics becoming ineffective.

What do you think the next 10 years in Search will bring?