We are on the journey of discovering how we can sell more gifts online in 2020.
Let’s face it, if there is no traffic, there are no sales.
It’s simple. The more people visit our website, the more sales we will get.
What is the first name comes to your mind when we say “traffic”?
That’s right. Google.
Platforms like Google, Facebook, YouTube has always been some of the biggest sources of traffic for Gifts Stores.
Follow this guide to learn how to do Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) for your gifts store.
Google wants what the visitor wants. A clean, secure and amazing shopping experience.
Do that and Google will gradually reward you with more visitors.
Here are simple steps of ranking your gifts store on Google.
Want results like this from your online gift store
month after month? Keep reading!
On-Page SEO: You can finish this in the next 30 minutes!
If you think “SEO” is a heavy word, don’t worry. On-Page SEO is one of the easiest and most important types of SEO.
Here’s what it means.
The Optimisation you do on your website is on-page SEO.
The optimisation you do on everywhere else (other blogs, social media) is off-page SEO.
Simple right?
Some of the oldest SEO tricks in the book that are still working in 2020:
- Keyword Optimisation
Have you ever wondered how Google/YouTube/Facebook know what is on a particular page? It’s because of the text on that page! Means keywords.Google’s intention is simple. Find out what is the best match for the search queries of people and show it to them.
When it comes to gifts, here’s an example of what people are searching.
You see? Google notes all the keywords people are typing and suggests back to you.
Now imagine that there is a blog article on your store that explains how personalised mugs are made, what is the general price and how the shipping happens…
If the article includes the keywords we want to rank for, the chances of people finding that article upon search will increase.
(of course, the keywords will be there where it makes sense. Keyword stuffing is against the guidelines of Google.)
It doesn’t have to be articles. If you optimise the “description section” on the product page to include all the keywords Google is suggesting, the chances of you getting the first-page rank will increase tenfolds!
You see? Google notes all the keywords people are typing and suggests back to you.
Now imagine that there is a blog article on your store that explains how personalised mugs are made, what is the general price and how the shipping happens…
If the article includes the keywords we want to rank for, the chances of people finding that article upon search will increase.
(of course, the keywords will be there where it makes sense. Keyword stuffing is against the guidelines of Google.)
It doesn’t have to be articles. If you optimise the “description section” on the product page to include all the keywords Google is suggesting, the chances of you getting the first-page rank will increase tenfolds!
Just try different phrases and keywords. You will find a lot of ideas.
Check out the image above. The above phrases suits perfectly for Gifts Categories, don’t they?
Now you know what to name the categories of gifts on your online gifts store.
Keywords are the way search engines “see” your content.
Just note down what people are searching by doing a simple Google search.
Naturally use those keywords while editing the description of your product or writing a blog article.
- Linking (Internal and External)
Think of the spider’s web. Every point is linking to another point and allowing the spider to move.
Internet is like this. There are millions, if not billions of webpages. They connect with each other in a specific manner.
There is a structure to this.
If we link to relevant sources from our web-page, Google will recognise that and reward us with improved ranking.
When you link to the (relevant) pages on your website, that’s internal linking.
When you link to the (relevant) pages on other people’s websites and stores, that’s external linking.
Both are very important for SEO.
If we link to the pages that are not related to the topic of that page, then it’s spam. Gift Store’s ranking will decrease if that happens.
Internet is like a spider’s web. Links are important for SEO.
If a page is linking to different pages on your website, then it is internal linking.
If the page is linking to pages on a different website, then it is external linking.
Both are important for SEO.
- Internal Linking
To sell more gifts online in 2020, you don’t just need more traffic on your site. You also need to KEEP people on your site as much time as possible.
In the technical terms, it’s called on-site time.
The more time people spend on your site, the better the ranking Google will give you.
Plus, think about this. If people are spending an additional 2 minutes on your site, clicking around, the chances of making another sale increases!
- This is why it’s important and how to do it.
Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal and every single major e-commerce brand has this thing figured out.
Did you notice, every page will have a section of “related products”?
That section increases the chances of your online gift store getting another sale.
So many times it triggers the impulse purchase. It all happens in that split second.!
Make a list of closely related gifts for every gift in your online store.
Add a section of similar products on your store.
Make sure you test which combination of gifts is getting more clicks and sales.
- External Linking
External links will tell Google that which type of store you have.
Here’s what I mean.
If there are 5 blog articles on your website linking to different gifts and novelty blogs, then Google will say,
“All right, this store links to gifts related articles. This store must belong to the gifts category”
Imaging your gift store links to several dog-training videos on YouTube and a couple of golf training articles on the golf-related website.
That wouldn’t work, now would it?
Make sure to link at reputable and relevant sources wherever it makes sense.
You can learn more about On-Page SEO by checking out this On-Page SEO guide by Brian Dean from Backlinko.
Did you observe the internal and external links in this article till now?
That’s because I am letting Google know what category this website belongs to.
Hope that makes sense.
Off-Page SEO: What it is and how to do it to get better Ranking
The optimisation you do on everywhere else (other blogs, social media) is off-page SEO.
Here’s how to do off-page SEO for your gifts store.
- Guest Posts
- Press Releases
- Influencer Marketing
Like all the worthwhile things in the world, SEO takes time to kick-in.
Google recognises and ranks pages in about 8 to 12 months.
Just keep optimising your pages and getting backlinks.
Gradually, you will be one of the most dominant players in the gifts industry.
You can contact the blog owners and ask to write a blog post on their blog. In return, they will give a link to your store in the author-section.
There are thousands and thousands of bloggers writing about gifts every month and millions of people are searching for gifts.
Gifts industry is BIG!
There will always be more bloggers wanting to get more content on their blogs and willing to trade a link for it.
There will always be more topics for you to write about.
Here’s a guide about how to come up with new ideas to write about.
Write an article on other people’s blog. (or outsource the writing part to good writers who knows the gifts industry.)
Get a link to your gifts store in return.
Optimising your gift store for search engines is a simple but slow process. But doing this will surely get you on the first page of Google.
- Press Releases
As a business owner, you probably already know about press releases.
Get ready to take branding this to a whole new level!
While working on SEO and getting more traffic to your gift store, understand this.
Your job is to increase the percentage of chances of people finding your mention online.
If you have one out of a billion pages with your mention on it, your job is to take that to 10 out of a billion.
That’s still less but it is at least something.
The beauty of a press release is you can submit one press release to multiple distribution sites and they will distribute it for you to different bloggers and sources.
Which means you will get a link back to your site, the mentions of your brand will increase and all of that for a very affordable investment or free!
Want to learn more about press releases? Check out the ultimate guide to press releases by HubSpot.
Press releases were always in fashion. Because they work amazingly in the long term.
Even Bollywood and Hollywood movie promotions are using press releases. When done right, they will, of course, work well for your online gift shop.
Have you tried HARO to increase your press-release distribution this month?
- Influencer Marketing
On every platform (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TickTock) there are influencers.
One of the major sources of earning for them, apart from ads, is influencer marketing!
People like you and me pay these influencers to feature our products in their videos, posts and stories.
SkillShare and Curiosity Stream examples.
Before you go paying people up for a mention, remember that the content of these influencers should be close to the kind of gifts we are selling.
For example, I will not ask a Tomato Gardening YouTube channel to feature the personalised photo frames or a hexagonal explosion box.
Because it’s not related.
I will try to find channels, pages and profiles that belong to lifestyle and luxury category.
Does that make sense?
Plus guess what? A mention on a reputable and trustworthy channel or page means more SEO Juice for your gift store!
Subscribe to, follow and engage the influencer channels, pages and brands in gifts industry.
A simple search on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and TickTock will give you a lot of material to work with.
Contact them asking for promotion on their channel. Repeat the process as many times as possible.
Want to learn more about Off-Page SEO? Check out the Off-Page SEO Ultimate Guide by Neil Patel.
Remember to track the conversions from each marketing campaign separately.
This will allow you to see which campaigns are profitable for you and which are not.
You can ask your developer to build the tracking functionality on your online gifts store.
If you don’t have a developer yet, you can use CartFlows to create a different marketing campaign for every promotion.
This will bring ease in tracking the sales and revenue came from each promotion.
Want my guidance with it? Feel free to book a consulting session with me.
SSL: It’s not optional anymore!
About three to four years ago, SSL was only “recommended” but not essential.
But nowadays, if you don’t have an SSL certificate on your online gifts store, then your ranking suffers.
Please ask your developer to install an SSL certificate on your website. It will make all the traffic flow from HTTPS instead of HTTP.
That https and secure-lock sign fills your customer with trust and assurance of safety.
Plus it is risky to operate an e-commerce site without an SSL.
Especially when customers are purchasing and filling out their info on our online stores.
Get a FREE SSL for your online gifts store by following this guide.
If you don’t have a web developer, no worries! You don’t need a web-developer for this. You can install SSL on your website all by yourself.
All you have to do is, follow this tutorial and install Cloudflare on your website. IT’S FREE!
Want me to do an SEO Audit of your gift store?
If you want my help pinpointing the issues with the SEO of your gift store and ironing them out, book a consulting session with me. I will throw in a free SEO Audit.
The consulting session with Kaivalya includes a lot more than an SEO Audit.
We discuss and strategise how you can sell more gifts online in 2020 by transforming your current gift store into a smart store.
Takeaway:
SEO is a huge topic. There are a lot of things you can do to optimise your gift store.
But the benefits are tremendous. I mean, nowadays, the ad-costs are touching the moon and Google is providing you, free customers, when we optimise our gift store for it.
It is worth taking efforts on SEO.
The best way to do this is to hire a competent SEO specialist for your gift store.
For affordable investment, you can optimise your gift store and get the rewards.
If you are a solopreneur, you can optimise all the things we discussed so far.
Try out RankMath for your gift store.
