SEO as a cost-saver

This is a guest post from Gretchen Cawthon, www.girlscantwhat.com. I met Gretchen via an online group I participate in and we were all sharing cost-saving tips for 2009.  She was kind enough to explain her solution which was to implement Search Engine Optimization techniques and drive more traffic to her site.

How to SEO Your Website by Gretchen Cawthon

My SEO (Search Engine Optimization) attack was three-fold. My shop is hosted by cafepress and I themed the cafepress shop to look identical to my main site so most folks never realize they are on a different domain until they check out. ;)

Part One

At first, I tried all the keyword tools and did some research and threw away some money on [Google] adwords (to rapidly test the results of specific keywords), but then I figured out that I am pretty darn smart and after all I AM one of my target audience so I relied on intuition and common sense to get results that worked. I'll try to use an example from my site to explain....

Each section of my shop is in a main category...sports music, etc.  Within each category, each subject has a section...like "Army" for example. On the "Army" page, rather than having the title say "Army", I changed it to say "Army T-shirts and Gifts for Girls". I also wrapped it in an H1 tag so Google recognizes it as being important text (most blogging software does this for you, but in a cafepress shop it is not automatic and has to be hand-coded).

This seems like common sense, but I was just assuming the "t-shirts and gifts" part because that it what a visitor physically sees with their eyes when they land on that page, but Google doesn't know that the images are t-shirts and gift items. I had to explicitly tell the search engines what was on each page.

Now the best part is I don't stop with just one tag. I get to add a small description under that title and this time I wrapped it in an H2 tag "Select an Army design below to see the image on t-shirts, hoodies, posters, stickers and other gift items" making sure to mention popular products. ;)

Even better....I have at least 2 sub-sections for every design I create - one for light skin tones and the other for dark skin tones. More sections means more shots at the SEO. ;) So for my sub sections, I mixed up the titles a bit and changed parts of the description. So for the other 3 sections under Army, I have:

• Army T-shirts and Gifts for Girls
• Army Gifts and T-shirts for Girls
• Army T-shirts and Gifts for Women

All variations of the same basic thing, but these are also highly searched for terms. The H1 and H2 tagging are basic skills, but the slight changing of the wording and making the titles and descriptions more relevant to each product page made a huge difference in what Google sees as worthy.

Prior to these changes, searching for "Sky Diver Ornament" would have found me on about page 15, but now if you Google that phrase, I show up right at the top of the first page under the shopping listings. ;) I'm not #1 on everything (yet). Some keywords are very competitive like basketball or hockey, but I am getting hits for those terms which means I am showing up on some searches, but not necessarily all the searches. I had to pick the best keyword matches for my designs and run with them.

The bottom line is that I majorly increased my visitor count just by tweaking a few titles and descriptions and getting noticed in the search engines.

This is an ongoing process. I am going back and tweaking different sections as I get ideas. I might think of a good keyword and try to find a way to work it in. I watch my Google Analytics stats religiously and pay close attention to how people land on my site...keywords search phrases, topics. I usually make small changes, wait and then check results a few weeks later. It can be a slow process but when you hit a winner - watch out! I've sold more "shot put" related gear in the last eight weeks than I ever thought possible. In fact, I can honestly say there isn't a single design in my shop that hasn't sold in some form or another.

Part Two

I also tweaked out the description of my site and the way the title displayed in bookmarks, etc. which effects how it shows up in Google. It's short sweet and to the point and fits within Google's recommended length for a site description:

Ever been told you "can't" because you're a girl? Check out these unique T-shirts and Gifts for girls who can. Designs for careers, hobbies, military, law enforcement, music, sports and more.

If you Google "Girls Can't WHAT?" - those three sentences are what you will see under the link. It doesn't seem like much of a change but if my site comes up in some other random search, I want it to be enticing

enough to make someone click on it and I only have so many words in which to make that happen so I thought long and hard about that and went through a lot of revisions.

Part Three

My next move is the study of web color for my target audience and I've come up with a completely new theme idea which I plan to launch on January 1st It will help with the SEO because I will end up with a lighter, faster-loading theme and I will be cleaning up a lot of redundant code-bloat by starting the theme from scratch again.

I hope this helps some folks out there. For the geeky ones among us, this is a no-brainer lesson in the power of proper tagging and keyword use. Again, it was common sense to me and I was just failing to use it to my own advantage and I do this for clients all day long. Doh!

Have you ever been told you "can't" because you're a girl? http://www.GirlsCantWhat.com.