Any business with a website serving as an online portfolio is prone to a technical SEO audit at least twice a year. Why would anyone need an inspection on their site? The answer is simple. If you’re willing to retain your customers and attract new ones, your website must be in perfect condition. And not only this, but it helps keep the competition at bay.
Having an SEO-friendly site with high-ranking keywords is one thing, but there’s another issue – what if it takes too long for it to load? According to statistics, pages loading in two seconds or less have an average bounce rate of 9%, while those loading for at least five seconds result in a bounce rate of 38%.
These small statistics can be crucial to making a difference between small-time and aspiring companies. They also affect a company’s revenue, to a point. In order to analyze and see how your site performs, it’s best to follow this short guide to SEO for dropshipping store. Follow the steps below to check for any errors, and waste no time in fixing them.
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Perform a quick website crawl
To check for any errors that need fixing, you need to perform a quick check. To do this, you’ll need some kind of software. For example, Google’s PageSpeed Insights can provide a basic and accurate analysis of your website, giving it a score based on its current performance. If you’re willing to make the most of it, you can find companies offering technical SEO audit services.
Remember, there are two versions of website crawling – mobile and desktop. Google’s PageSpeed Insights will check both and give different results for each one, so make sure they are both well optimized. In general, search engines place more value on well-organized sites, over those stuffed with tons of keywords.
Find out how well your site ranks
Start by typing in Google’s search bar “site:yourdomainurl.com”, and see which pages turn out first. By default, your homepage needs to appear first in the results, as it’s the first thing search engines would crawl. If anything other than your homepage comes up first, insert more contextual content using keywords that best define your business. This is the key point in making sure a website will receive higher Google rankings.
Think of it as a pyramid. The homepage is positioned at the top, while the rest of the site’s pages will remain arbitrary. Nevertheless, they still are as equally important, being closely related to the homepage in terms of keywords. In a way, they will aid your site to achieve better search engine exposure, with keywords similar to the ones you’ve placed on the homepage. Most importantly, when search engines inspect your website, they will quickly notice how every page contains a number of keywords related to the homepage.
Also, by inserting focus keywords in the first 80-100 words of each page, many people have noticed improvements in their site’s rankings. This helps better define the site’s purpose and is a great indicator for when performing SEO for your dropshipping store.
Checking page titles, title tags, and meta descriptions
To further improve your site, you need to make sure all your page titles, tags, and page descriptions are in order. For example, to increase your chances of Google publishing your content in the ‘featured snippets’ section, there are a few simple rules to follow, listed below.
– Meta descriptions shouldn’t exceed over 155-160 characters in length
– Page titles and title tags shouldn’t be longer than 50-60 characters, to display properly
To assist in counting all the characters, you can use free online tools like LetterCount to check all your pages for character length.
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Backlinks inspection
This is one of the most important checks when performing a check of SEO for your dropshipping store. Meaningful backlinks will increase your site’s authority in the industry. For example, if your company is offering any financial services, all your satisfied clients will recommend you via ‘word of mouth’ advertising. They will let everyone know how well you’ve taken care of their financial assets. However, you need these praises to be present somewhere online, so that people browsing for services such as yours can find you more easily. They are called backlinks.
There are tons of places where you can find backlinks. Some will share your website on their social media channels, Quora, forums, and literally on any place where your site has been mentioned. However, not all backlinks will increase your rankings.
Quality backlinks can be obtained by posting meaningful content, or by offering great services. However, as helpful as backlinks are, there are two important things to know about them. You can find many online directories to list your dropshipping store.
There are two types of backlinks, ‘do-follow’ and ‘no-follow’. The first type is much more valuable because search engine crawlers will know that someone put it there with a valid reason. A ‘do-follow’ backlink will surely increase your site’s authority and credibility, as well as an online presence. They are more valuable, and (in most cases) haven’t been placed there on purpose. Besides increasing your site’s value, you are more likely to receive visitors coming your way.
On the other hand, ‘no-follow’ backlinks will provide you with potential customers just like the aforementioned type. However, they aren’t of much value to search engines. This is why, when performing a complete SEO audit, you’ll need to separate those two types of backlinks and define where you can find some more of the ‘good’ ones. Tools such as Ahrefs are great to find and analyze your site’s mentions online.
Focus keywords
Analyzing keywords is as equally important as finding how fast your page loads. Without organizing them, you can’t expect to beat your competition. They are closely related to your site’s structure. To make it simpler, you’ll need to choose the main keyword around which hundreds of others will evolve and strengthen it. The main keyword upon which the foundations are built should always be present on your homepage. It defines your company, i.e. what you do.
The other pages should contain similar keywords, as you can get suggestions from any good keyword software. Also, it’s well worth mentioning how long-tail keywords. which are more lengthy and consist of several words, help your website. Basically, long-tail keywords are more like search phrases and represent the perfect alternative to voice browsing. Any business owner should pay special attention to keywords, group and distribute each one evenly, and use keyword variations in order to rank higher.
Conclusion
In short, these are the few things you need to consider when checking the SEO for your dropshipping store. No matter how old the website is, checkups need to be done regularly. As search engines constantly evolve, so do your competitors. It’s of the utmost importance to adapt to these changes. You may start by scanning your site’s SEO state every once in a while. In the long run, practicing this site evaluation will give you a better picture of what brings so many potential customers to your site.