Search Engine Optimisation
We look at the most popular search engine Google, looking at the SERP and what search engine optimisation means for e-commerce customers.
General Google Searches
- Organic Search (or Natural Listings)
- The organic search (or natural listings) is an index of websites, ordered by relevance for a given keyword or phrase. Websites in the organic listings do not pay Google for placement, they are instead graded on qualities such as trust, popularity, quality and relevence. Your websites position in the Natural Listings can vary dramatically based on a number of factors. Getting these factors right and better than the competition is commonly referred to as search engine optimisation. It is the job of an SEO to make recommendations to the site owner, which will improve a number of factors relating to your websites ranking in the organic search/natural listings.
- Sponsored Links
- Websites advertising in the Sponsored Links (positioned above, and to the right of the organic search) pay Google every time someone clicks on their link. Depending on the amount a website is prepared to pay (per click)* depends how high and frequently their website will appear in the sponsored listings. *Other factors such as quality of the advert, quality of the destination page are also factored in.
- Query Information
- Information about the query you've entered. In this example, Google is showing the first 10 results out of a possible 37 million, 300 thousand. Google also shows that it took 0.18 seconds, which is incredibly fast. The blue link to search engine takes the user to the most relevant explanation of a phrase (in this case Answers.com)
- Google News
- Google has been, and will be including more media results (maps, scores, directions, facts, figures, images etc) into its results pages. Another way of returning relevant information is by searching the google news archive. Sites which provide up to date, relevant information in the form of news stories may be eligible for entry into the News section. eSeo can provide google news consultation and development services for helping get your site listed in Google News.
Google Product Searches
This feature has previously been called 'Froogle' and is also known as 'Google Base'. For this description, I am referring to the system as 'Google Products'.
- Google Products
- If Google finds the search query relevant to products listed in Google Products it will display the top 3 results from it's google products index. The Google products index is a seperate ranking index from the main 'organic search', and concentrates solely on products (which are available for purchased). A number of factors affect your google product ranking - eSeo offer google base consultation and expertise in ecommerce product optimisation
Google Video Searches
We believe video to be the future for e-commerce, and offer services such as video sitemaps, social video submissions and promotion.
- Google Videos
- Searches can also have a video associated with the phrase. Again, videos are ordered by relevance and come from a variety of sources. The most popular video platforms include Youtube, Vimeo and many more. There are several particularly useful video sites like Videojug which are an excellent place to market services and interesting snippets.