By Digital
I requested Victor Karpenko, the CEO of Ukraine-based SeoProfy, to explain the frequent natural search errors of ecommerce retailers. Most are technical, he instructed me, including, “You’ll be able to reply 99% of any search engine marketing query by competing, high-ranking websites.”
To Karpenko, analyzing opponents is essential search engine marketing analysis. He ought to know. He based SeoProfy in 2010 in Kyiv. It’s now a world search-engine-optimization chief with 200 workers, subtle inner instruments, and a roster of spectacular shoppers throughout a number of industries.
The complete audio of my current dialog with Karpenko is embedded under. The transcript is edited for readability and size.
Sensible Ecommerce: What are the frequent search engine marketing errors of ecommerce retailers?
Victor Karpenko: Most search engine marketing errors are technical, equivalent to structuring an internet site with the precise classes, hyperlinks, and key phrases. Most errors occur on the preliminary setup, in the course of the analysis section. You’ll be able to reply 99% of any search engine marketing query by competing, high-ranking websites.
Right here’s an instance. I not too long ago spoke with a consumer who sells pillows and mattresses on-line by way of WooCommerce. He requested me if he ought to transfer to Shopify to acquire higher rankings.
To reply, he ought to search on Google for key phrases equivalent to “foam pillow” and have a look at the highest 10 outcomes. We have now a plugin that reveals the CMS of these websites. He may see 5 opponents utilizing WooCommerce and one other 5 with Shopify. He may slim the search additional by analyzing the highest three and finding out their knowledge and commonalities.
This method — analyzing ways of profitable opponents — solutions just about any search engine marketing query.
Past the CMS, we’d analyze totally different parameters for the highest outcomes, such because the variety of hyperlinks, content material dimension (what number of phrases and the way it’s optimized), and web page pace, which Google calls Core Internet Vitals. (Google doesn’t disclose all of the details about a website’s web page pace, by the way.)
Search Console offers lots of important information a couple of web page and a website — key phrases within the textual content, inner and exterior hyperlinks, and rather more.
We depend on Ahrefs, Majestic, and Semrush, too. Utilizing competitor evaluation, we have a look at the dynamics of different web sites’ hyperlinks — what number of hyperlinks, how lengthy it took to build up, and what number of pages are impacted. From there, we are able to estimate what it might take to rank on web page 1 and the way lengthy.
URL age is one other essential issue. If a competitor’s URL age is, say, two years and you might be simply beginning, it’s going to doubtless take a while to construct web page belief and rankings.
PEC: You talked about instruments — Search Console, Ahrehs, Majestic, Semrush. Does a service provider want all of these?
Karpenko: We have now roughly 200 workers, so we use many instruments. For hyperlinks, we primarily use Ahrefs and Majestic. For key phrases and search quantity, we use Semrush. We use a search metrics software to get knowledge. We have a look at cell and desktop search outcomes. Google says its rankings are mobile-first, however many companies analyze solely desktop knowledge, which may be inaccurate.
The vital components for an ecommerce website (or any website) are whether or not you’ve sufficient hyperlinks and content material, whether or not the hyperlinks are pure, whether or not they have anchor textual content, whether or not the textual content is over-optimized or under-optimized, and whether or not the technical elements want fixing.
PEC: Are you able to elaborate on the technical elements?
Karpenko: Think about your sitemap and whether or not your website has an indexing API, which notifies Google when pages are added or eliminated. The robots.txt and .htaccess recordsdata are essential, too. Have a look at titles, descriptions, headers (H1, H2, extra), and breadcrumbs. Analyze how inner hyperlinks are distributing authority all through the positioning.
PEC: Say I’m a longtime service provider about to launch a brand new line of merchandise. How would I obtain excessive natural rankings for these gadgets?
Karpenko: Go step-by-step. First, gather key phrases and separate them into teams. Prioritize which merchandise you need to rank organically for, then put collectively key phrases for that group. Subsequent, examine for search intent. Sort a key phrase in Google and see what pages are rating.
If an article ranks within the prime 10, it’s most likely not one of the best thought to attempt to rank an ecommerce product web page for that phrase. It’s higher to ask that article website to insert a hyperlink in its article. That might put you within the prime 10; you’ll get site visitors straightaway. And don’t tackle the excessive authority shops equivalent to Amazon, Goal, or Walmart. Give attention to opponents just like yours.
Decide the highest 15 opponents from a key phrase group, and slim it to 5. Have a look at belief and think about this group’s area and URL parameters. I’d use Majestic’s Belief Circulation and Quotation Circulation. URLs with a belief ratio of greater than 2 normally don’t rank effectively. Over-optimized web sites sometimes rank poorly. We collect that belief knowledge and assemble the key phrases. We’ll analyze which opponents rank for them, what number of of these key phrases they use, and their principal web page or product class. Then we have a look at the content material. We analyze content material construction from the scale of the web page to the Schema.org markup to headings, H1 to H6.
Have a look at what number of phrases are between H1 to H6. What’s the code? The content material may be checklists, photographs, quotes, or feedback. what they’ve in frequent. You’ll be able to glean one of the best practices from prime web sites. After that, construction your web page. A retailer with 100 classes must prioritize. You’ll be able to’t rank for the whole lot from the start. Manage the principle classes and pages, add a number of tweaks, after which process your designer for a mock-up.
It’s essential to design a website after implementing search engine marketing ways, not earlier than. In any other case you’ll redo stuff. As soon as we have now an search engine marketing technique, we code after which write and analyze textual content utilizing a software equivalent to SurferSEO or Copywritely.
PEC: You’re the founder and CEO of SeoProfy, in Ukraine. Inform us in regards to the firm.
Karpenko: We have now round 200 workers. Roughly 75% are in Ukraine, all through the nation. The struggle impacted us. We stopped working with the Russian shoppers. We completed the duties promised them after which stopped. That was about 25% of our total income. It was hurtful, however we didn’t lay off any workers.
The primary two weeks of the struggle had been worrying. Our human assets division coordinated with all the workers to see how everybody was doing, the place they had been, and if anybody wanted assist, equivalent to relocating. Issues are extra secure now.
Up to now, none of our workers have acquired accidents from the struggle. A few of our folks reside in Kyiv, however they’re protected and don’t need to go away. We’ve adjusted and adopted a type of darkish humor. A group member may say, “There’s a siren. We have to go to the bomb shelter.”
It’s laborious to seek out good expertise. We don’t need to fireplace folks. We have now a plan to outlive.
PEC: All of us worth our Ukrainian colleagues. How can folks attain out and assist you?
Karpenko: Our web site is SeoProfy.com. We have now a LinkedIn web page, too. I’m additionally on LinkedIn.
