Bead Patterns Boutique Just for the beads & the people that love them

Get the basics:

This article will simply touch on a few points to consider when writing for a web page or conducting a search on the internet. SEO, or search engine optimization is an extremely complex subject that can’t be covered in just a few paragraphs. I could talk for days and still not manage to cover everything. There many things to consider when taking on the heavy chore of SEO.

First and foremost, give some thought to what these search engines are and how they make money. When you have a general understanding of why and how they work, it becomes a little more clear how you can use them to your benefit.

One of the ways they make their income is to run ads for companies. Their goal would be to reach a target audience with these ads. The best way to do that is by the terms placed in the search engine. The more accurate the results, the more likely someone will actually click on an ad. So it stands to reason that they will want to crawl these sites to get a feel for what they contain. The more accurate their results are, the more customers or surfers they keep. The more they keep, the more ads get clicked and the more money they make.

As an ecommerce website, or online store, your goals are primarily the same as the search engines would be. You don’t just want a 1000 visitors, you want visitors that are interested in what you carry. That is called a target audience.

If you were running a corner bead store in your neighborhood, you would place an ad in the paper. Have a “Grand Opening” to get shoppers to come see what you have. After all, people are not going to know that they want what you have unless they know you’ve got it. I’m sure you’ve heard the term, it’s the noisy wheel that gets the grease? Well it’s the same out here on the net. If you want attention, you’re going to have to make some serious noise!

On the internet, it can be a whole new ball game in comparison to running that neighborhood store. You are not dealing with a small corner of the world. You are competing with a global market. Seemingly an endless supply of websites all out for the same customers. So, how do you get found? How do you get noticed? With structure, quality workmanship and proper planning and of course, lot’s of promotion!

Your site should be aesthetically pleasing, informative, user friendly and an entertaining place to be. You won’t have sales people to lead your customers to what they are looking for, so take the time to plan your site with very clear navigation.

Describe your products effectively. When your customers can’t pick up your product and flip it around to get a good look at it, you need to make up for that with great descriptive text. If you were shopping for this item, what would you want to know about it? What would induce you to buy this piece instead of getting it somewhere else?

Now, go through what you have learned about your own product to plan for your keywords.

Plan for your keywords:

Take the time to stop and think about what words someone is most likely to use to find what you have. Using keywords is basically describing what you have as accurately as possible using simple terms, phrases or single words.

Work up a story board using your keywords as a guide.

Write Effective Text:

It’s not enough to just impress the crawlers. You have to keep your visitors as well. Write to interest your customers not to impress the crawlers. Tell them all about what you have. Use your keyword story board to do it. Make constructive use of paragraph titles or bold text to highlight the most important aspects of your products.

Sounds difficult doesn’t it? Well, it is. You’re not going to just throw up a few paragraphs and become number 1 over night. It’s going to take intensive planning and a multitude of hours to get anywhere near where you want to be.

Pictures With Articles:

Most definitely! Use those pictures. Your readers are going to love them. Unfortunately the crawlers can’t see them. They can only crawl text. So make good use of the Alternates or “Alt” tags and the title.

Alternates and Title Tags:

This is what crawlers see. You want to make sure you have a descriptive title for your picture. Then extend that description in the alternate. Your alternate will come up as a mouse over when the cursor is hovered over the photo. This is how those photos are listed when you run a search in Google or what ever for images. Your alternates and titles are how they get listed.

Search Engines & how to use them effectively:

Despite many of us run searches every day, many aren’t sure exactly what to put into the search engine to find what we want. Proper syntax is ignored here. You are actually running a query on a data base. Use only the key words that you feel the product you are looking for will contain. It will help you to eliminate or greatly reduce the unwanted search results.

The search engines completely ignore words like: and, the, with, of, etc. Complete sentences don’t count here.

Let’s go for a beady type of example here. What if you were looking for an earring pattern for Christmas. Not just any pattern though. You want holly on it. Maybe pearls in it too. What about brick stitch? My goodness, what would you put in the little box to find this pattern as quickly as possible? Here is where key words help you as a consumer. You surely wouldn’t put all that in the search box! Okay, let’s take a look at what key words could be included here.

• Christmas
• earring bead pattern
• brick stitch
• holly
• pearls

You would enter each of these words into the search engine box separated by commas. You also want to pay attention to the order of the words. Put the one that is the most important to you first and then move down the ladder.

Each of those words will be searched for using your search terms, or words,  as a prioritized list. So when you are looking for something, take the time to think about what’s most important before beginning your search. It will pay off in finding exactly what you are looking for much more quickly.