Have you read the first blog post, ‘The Importance of Digitalisation’? Make sure you read the post if you haven’t already as you will learn about the importance of digitalization and how it helps Singapore’s youth in this regard.
eCommerceFest 2021: How Search Works
Now we’ve come to the second topic of eCommerceFest 2021. ‘How Search Works’ is the topic of discussion in this session. When people are looking for products or services, they are more likely to use search engines to find what they want.
As Google is the most widely used search engine on the planet, online eCommerce business owners must understand how Google search works and how they can better manage their Google search presence.
Before moving on to topic 2, keep in mind that organic search is not the same as Google ads. Google does not take any money in exchange for your website visibility in organic search results.
The keynotes of topic 2:
How does search work?
Crawling
Google will send out a Google Bot to search the internet for websites. Because of the large number of websites available online, Google Bot is extremely active and must schedule its activities.
This implies that Google will not be crawling your website all of the time; nevertheless, you can use Google tools to prioritize your content.
Indexing
After Google has covered all of the pages, it will combine them into a single index. Despite its size, the index is not infinite. As a result, when it comes to choosing what should or should not be included in the index, Google is extremely picky.
For one, your web pages must provide value to your users. For instance, if your pages include duplicates, they may not be picked for inclusion in the index. Google also includes information such as how old the page is and what it’s about in this phase.
Instead of merely looking for keywords, they render to try to grasp the context and meaning of the page.
Ranking
This phase is more difficult since Google uses hundreds of signals to rank your webpage so that Google can adapt the result as closely as possible to searchers’ intent.
5 Best Practices for eCommerce
1. Perfect Product Detail Pages
The product detail page is where you describe your products and the benefits they provide to your customers.
Content
On the product description page, you must always provide clear, detailed, and relevant text about the products you offer. The facts should also be consistent with how you connect with consumers through other channels, such as social media.
Aside from that, you must constantly keep your customers in mind, providing them with the information they want and writing it in their language.
Title & Description
A clear and unique title, as well as a clear explanation, are critical for your website. It informs potential consumers about what your pages have to offer, resulting in increased traffic to your online business.
Your title and description are frequently used by users to select whether or not to visit your website. A clean, succinct, one-of-a-kind and descriptive line help Google and people decide whether or not to visit your website.
Page experience
Users like websites that load fast and easy to use. Focus on a good user experience since it improves your business conversion rate, which translates to more revenue.
Page experience is one of the ranking criteria for Google search results, therefore a good user experience is excellent for the search engine as well.
As a result, websites that offer a better user experience will rank higher in Google search results.
2. Be Eligible for Special Features
Product structure data
You could use product structure data in your eCommerce business. To begin, you will be able to display your product rating, price, and availability on Google search.
Customers also prefer to utilize picture search rather than an online search to find the items they want.
When a client clicks on the picture in the image search, product information such as rating, price, availability, and other details can be displayed on the search result page.
You’ll be able to get your product information shown in search experiences like Google Maps or Google Assistant if you have product structure data.
3. Use Google Merchant Center
Google Merchant Center is a free tool that allows you to make your store and product information available to all Google users.
You’ll be eligible for Google Shopping if you use Google Merchant Center, and you’ll have more control over product details. You can show your items as unpaid listings on the Google shopping tab if you’re a Google merchant center member.
You do not need to do anything to be eligible for a free listing if you are currently a Google merchant center user who has already advertised on shopping advertising.
Moreover, utilizing Google Merchant Center has the advantage of allowing you to update data more rapidly and give additional information about your products, such as taxes and shipping costs.
Instead of waiting for Google to scan their page, sellers may push the data feed through the merchant center, giving them more control over the data.
4. Use Data and Insights
Google Search Console
It’s a tool that provides you with all of the information you need to know about your organic search performance. It will show you how many clicks there are from Google to your site, how many times you appear in search results, and how well you rank.
It also gives you the percentage of people that click into your site versus the number of times your site appears in a Google search and the top searches that led people to your site.
Google Analytics
It is also suggested that the site owner employ Google analytics to better analyze and understand user behaviour.
As a result, the e-commerce business owner may learn more about the conversion rate, revenue, and purchase time to improve the growth of the e-commerce business.
5. Perfect Images
The photos in image search include informative titles, captions, and file names. You should utilize high-resolution, optimized photos that are accompanied by appropriate text.
It is critical to provide relevant text next to the picture to assist clients in better comprehend the image.
A decent caption is required to describe the image; alternatively, you may use the alt tag (which is an HTML tag that is used to help the browser and users that might have difficulty understanding the text to understand the image better.).
The file name, on the other hand, should have a friendly filename to make it easier to comprehend. Finally, providing photos from a variety of angles can assist consumers in making more informed purchasing selections.
The Bottom Line
If you are an eCommerce business owner, understanding how search work is critical so that you can better optimize and manage your visibility in search results.
Knowing how search work isn’t enough; you also need to make use of the Google tools offered to improve website performance and search visibility.
In this session, Cherry Sireetorn Prommawin, Google Search Advocate, shared and explained how search works and provided tips on how to optimize search presence to drive more traffic to websites.
Additionally, she demonstrated how to utilize several tools to improve search results.
Watch the entire video of this session to discover more about the strategies and tools for improving your search presence; you’ll be able to take away a lot of useful information!
