Whether you’re a small business owner, a local service provider, or a marketer trying to capture the essence of a locale, understanding how to create content that resonates with a local audience is key to driving conversions.

Here’s how you can craft local content that not only engages but also converts.

Understand your local audience

The first step in creating compelling local content is to deeply understand your audience. This must be your starting point.

• Who are they?
• What are their interests, challenges, and needs?
• How do they speak, and
• What cultural nuances matter to them?

Use tools like Google Analytics, social media insights, and local surveys to gather data.

Remember, the goal is to speak their language, both literally and figuratively.

Leverage local keywords

SEO is as crucial for local content as it is for global. Use SEO and keyword research tools like Google’s Keyword Planner, Semrush, or Ahrefs,  with a focus on local phrases and terminologies.

For instance, a bakery in Paris would benefit from keywords like “best croissant in Paris” or “Parisian bakery near me.”

These localized keywords help your content rank higher in search results for people in your area, making it more likely for them to convert.

Highlight local stories and events

There’s nothing quite like a good story to capture the interest of your audience, especially if it’s something they can relate to.

Share success stories of local clients, cover local events, or talk about your participation in community activities.

This not only shows your involvement and investment in the local community but also builds a stronger emotional connection with your audience. And that’s important when it comes to converting website visitors.

Use local visuals

A picture is worth a thousand words, and when it comes to local content, this couldn’t be truer.

Use images, videos, and other visuals that showcase local landmarks, events, or even everyday life. This helps to create a sense of familiarity and belonging among your audience, making your content more engaging and relatable.

Optimize for mobile and local searches

With the majority of local searches conducted on mobile devices, ensuring your content is mobile-friendly is non-negotiable. Additionally, make sure your business is listed on local directories and Google My Business. This not only boosts your visibility in local search results but also makes it easier for potential customers to find you.

Be transparent with product and pricing details

Transparency is key to building trust with your audience. When creating local content that can potentially convert readers into paying customers, be clear about your products, services, and pricing.

Local customers value honesty, especially when it comes to understanding what they’re getting and at what cost.

Detailed descriptions, clear pricing, and honest portrayals of your offerings can set you apart from competitors and help convert readers into customers.

Successfully using customer reviews

91% of consumers say local branch reviews impact their overall perceptions of big brands in some way.

Incorporating customer reviews into your local content strategy can significantly increase your conversion rate.

Reviews serve as social proof, reassuring potential customers of the quality and reliability of your products or services.

Highlight positive reviews in your content, and respond to negative ones constructively and transparently. Sharing stories of satisfied customers, especially those from the local area, can make your content more relatable and trustworthy, encouraging others to make a purchase.

Offer value with a local twist

Whether it’s a blog post, a video, or an infographic, ensure your content offers real value to your audience. How-to guides, tips, and educational content that incorporate local issues or interests can be particularly effective.

For instance, a real estate company could create a guide on the best neighborhoods for families in their city, or a restaurant might share recipes using local ingredients.

Measure and refine

Finally, the key to successful local content is continuous improvement.

Use analytics to track the performance of your content. Which types of content are driving the most engagement or conversions? What are the common characteristics of your top-performing content?

Use these insights to refine your strategy and content creation process over time.

Conclusion

Creating local content that converts is an art that combines a deep understanding of your local audience with strategic use of SEO, engaging storytelling, transparency, and the effective use of customer reviews.

By following these strategies, you can create content that not only resonates with your local audience but also drives meaningful engagement and conversions.

Remember, in a world that’s increasingly global, local content is your secret weapon to stand out and connect with your community on a deeper level.

The post A beginner’s guide to crafting local content that converts appeared first on Improve My Search Ranking.

There are multiple reasons why some businesses choose to ignore SEO: a lack of SEO understanding, poor experiences with shady SEO agencies in the past, and not realising how important SEO is as a traffic-generation channel.

In this blog post, we will try our best to remedy the third situation. We will list a few big reasons why your business needs SEO and why you should not neglect it.

1. The most cost-effective channel

In the long term, SEO proves to be the most cost-effective channel for traffic and lead generation.

Once you have built the right SEO foundation for your website and your pages start ranking for important keywords, traffic comes in almost automatically and without spending more money on it.

On the other hand, if you are generating traffic from a paid medium, such as Google Ads, traffic stops as soon as you stop spending. 

That makes SEO or Search Engine Optimisation the most cost-effective channel when it is set up and running.

2. Huge market share

Compared to other marketing channels, such as social media or email marketing, search has the biggest market share.

Whenever a potential customer wants information, more often than not, they would use a search engine (such as Google) than, say, using a social media website like Facebook

3. Authority

Authority and credibility play vital roles in the success of an online business. Anybody can buy their way to the top with Google Ads — that does not add credibility.

However, when your business name pops up for a relevant search query (such as ‘best plumbing service in Liverpool’), that adds a ton of credibility. 

Online searchers (potential customers) see your business as an authority in your niche and you as an expert in your industry.

4. Insights into customers’ needs, intent, and motivations

Organic data also gives you valuable insights into your customers’ needs, wants, intent, and motivations. This data can be used to not only improve your business website’s SEO, but you can also use it to improve other areas and departments of your business.

When you look at organic data in Google Analytics, you see what your customers search for, what they want, and how they engage with your website once they land on it after using a certain search query.

In addition, SEO also helps you understand macro shifts in your industry or niche. You see which products are becoming more popular, how your customers’ search patterns have changed over a period of time, and what is gaining more traction on the SERPs.

5. SEO helps improve user experience

Not many online businesspersons may realize this, but good SEO helps improve the user experience on your business website. 

You cannot optimize your website for SEO if it does not offer an excellent user experience. This is especially true nowadays with the introduction of Google’s Core Web Vitals and other factors related to page and user experience.

A good user experience not only improves user engagement, but it also helps with a higher conversion rate — which is vital for the revenue and financial health of your online business.

6. Automation

Perhaps one of the best parts of search engine optimisation or SEO is that once set up, it almost works on autopilot.

You do not have to revisit every page and manually optimize it every week. Pages that are ranking for relevant keywords continue to bring in targeted traffic, leads, and customers, month after month. 

Organic traffic to your website won’t stop as soon as you stop your SEO-related activities. But that is the case with most other digital marketing channels.  For example, to get more traffic via email marketing, you have to continue crafting and sending emails. As soon as you stop sending emails, traffic from that medium stops coming to your website.

Moreover,  with new content and further optimisations, you build on top of the foundation you already have and increase your organic traffic potential by exploring new keywords and topics.

Lastly, this automation allows you to focus on other areas of your online business. 

Conclusion

As you can see, SEO is an integral part of today’s online business — and one that you must not neglect.

Apart from bringing in free, consistent traffic in an automated fashion, SEO also gives you valuable insights into your customers’ intent and wants. Moreover, it also helps you understand macro market shifts in a timely manner as well as encourages you to improve the user experience on your business website.

Make sure you are fully utilizing this extremely important traffic-generation channel to its full capacity.

The post Why Your Business Needs SEO appeared first on Improve My Search Ranking.

In a recent SEO Office Hours session, a person who has been unsuccessfully working on product pages, asked Google’s John Mueller what he could do better.

The SEO mentioned that they have been doing SEO for an e-commerce website that has 30-40 products in total. They have been spending time on “regular back-linking process, on-page SEO, and structured data.”

According to them, their efforts on the company blog have yielded results, but it is the product pages that haven’t produced good results.

“It is just that the product page, they don’t rank well.  They don’t rank at all.”

The difficulty with ranking product pages

As we mentioned earlier, ranking product pages can sometimes be more difficult than ranking blog posts. That’s because promoting product pages and getting backlinks from reputable, industry-relevant websites can be significantly more difficult.

John Mueller also acknowledged the difficulty in ranking the product pages.

“I think that’s always challenging.  And I don’t think that there is a simple trick to make that happen.”

Having said that, John Mueller did share a few valuable tips and ideas to help rank product pages.

Google Shopping Feed

John Mueller suggested exploring the Google Shopping feed and explained the connection between Google Shopping Feed and Shopping Search results.

“The one thing I would watch out for is if these are products of this ecommerce site, make sure that you have all of the merchant center set up correctly because I don’t know if this is in every country yet, but we do have kind of the Google Shopping Feed where you can …submit your products for free and then we can show those in the Shopping Search results.

And sometimes we mix that in with the normal search results.

So that’s kind of a way to additionally get your products a little bit more visibility.”

Internal Links

Creating contextual internal links from relevant blog posts to product pages is another tactic that can help improve the search visibility of product pages.

“With regards to the … products themselves, if you’re saying that some of your content like the blog posts are ranking well, but the products aren’t, then sometimes you can help that by making sure that there is clear internal linking between those things.

So the pages where you are seeing that they’re working out well, make sure that there’s really a clear linking from those pages to your actual products.”

However, Mueller also asked to resist the temptation of linking to every product page, because that may dilute the importance of those links and the product pages you are trying to improve rankings for.

“If you have really long kind of blog posts that are ranking, the challenge there might be that it’s very tempting to link to a lot of different products from there.

And by linking to a lot of different products, you’re kind of saying, well, everything is a little relevant, but nothing is really relevant. Whereas if you link to a few products from those pages, then you can really say [that] these are really important products.”

Links from the home page

In addition, if you have a few very high-profile product pages, you can also link those pages from the home page. There are added benefits of linking to pages directly from the homepage.

“If you say that you have a few products at the moment, then it’s sometimes tempting to link to all of these products from your shop home page.

And if you can find a way to, kind of, funnel that a little better, then that can make it a little bit easier for individual pages to rank better.”

Conclusion

If you are struggling with ranking product pages, here are some tips that are worth exploring.

It is important to note that, despite using all these ideas and tips, you may still struggle with product pages and their search visibility.

That’s because, sometimes, it is just the competition, and the industry is a bit harder to crack in the SERPs.

“It’s sometimes just that the competition is quite strong, and it takes a while to grow,” said John Mueller.

You can find that conversation and more in this video.

The post Google shares tips on how to improve search visibility for product pages appeared first on Improve My Search Ranking.

In this blog post, we are going to share five tips for minimising the cart abandonment rate on your website, increase revenue, and improve your return on ad spend (ROAS) and return on investment (ROI).

1. Establish trust

One of the biggest problems online e-commerce stores face is the lack of trust by potential consumers. In this day and age, privacy and protection of data are major concerns. Data gets stolen all the time.

On top of that, not all e-commerce stores deliver as they promise. While some are actively involved in shady practices, others just fail to provide the required customer service.

Fortunately, there are ways to eliminate those concerns and establish trust — which goes a long way in decreasing the cart abandonment rate.

For instance, you can include the various “trust icons” on your checkout page. It is, however, important that the trust icons or logos are recognisable. 

Here is an example.

Secondly, do not forget to add real customer testimonials and positive feedback on the checkout page.

Watching or reading a real customer testimonial can go a long way in establishing trust and credibility of your business. According to Shopify, 61 percent of buyers may abandon the cart if they do not trust a store.

With these two techniques, you can easily minimise that issue.

2. Offer multiple payment options

Sometimes, everything is great. The buyer has found the right product, she trusts you, and there are no price-related surprises.

In short, there might not be any obstacles — except for the payment option.

By offering multiple payment options, you can minimise that possible friction and allow buyers to pick their most favorite option. Not having enough payment options can increase the cart abandonment rate by up to 7 percent.

There is no shortage of payment options in today’s world. From credit cards to mobile payment systems to PayPal, the average online buyer has plenty of options. It is important to acknowledge that diversity and use it to your advantage.

3. Be upfront about price

Often, e-commerce stores are not entirely upfront about the final price. You’d notice that many stores keep the shipping cost hidden until you reach the final checkout stage.

While this tactic may often work, it is also a leading cause of higher cart abandonment rates.

Almost one-third of all ecommerce online shopping carts get abandoned because of shipping costs that the buyers didn’t see coming.

Instead of dragging a user to the very end, only to disappoint them, it is generally a better idea to be upfront about your pricing options.

Be transparent and wear that badge proudly. This will not only decrease the cart abandonment rate, but it will also help improve the credibility of your business — especially when your competitors are involved in keeping certain types of charges hidden.

4. Make the checkout process effortless

It is very important to regularly revisit the checkout process and make necessary improvements. Your goal should be to make it as seamless, logical, and quick as possible.

Minimise the barriers, the pages, and the number of clicks a buyer has to go through. Fewer barriers mean less friction — which will likely improve the conversion rate.

Also, make saving carts effortless.

The online buying experience can be fairly different than buying at a local brick-and-mortar store. With online, you do not have to commit to buying something. It is possible to change your decision at the last moment.

The ability to return to your cart and all its items — while browsing and/or adding a few other products — effortlessly, without losing any progress, is extremely important.

5. Let consumers buy without an account

Approximately 14 percent of online buyers indicate that they abandon the cart if the website does not offer a “guest checkout” option.

Forcing users to create an account before they are allowed to checkout is the equivalent of creating an unnecessary hurdle — one that goes against the philosophy of removing barriers.

Make sure your website offers the option of a “guest checkout”.  There are other ways to gather buyer information and generate leads for upselling or cross-selling.

Conclusion

High cart abandonment rate is a big issue that most e-commerce stores face. However, that’s one thing that often gets neglected.

With the above-mentioned five tips, you can dramatically improve the cart abandonment rate, the overall conversion rate, and the ROI.

The post 5 Tips for Minimising the Cart Abandonment Rate appeared first on Improve My Search Ranking.

This is one of the reasons why so many website owners and marketers struggle with maintaining a profile return on investment (ROI). Driving traffic visitors to websites requires time, effort, and money. If a huge majority of those visitors is not buying anything, it just increases the cost of operations without yielding any profit.

By improving the conversion rate on your website — by encouraging more than 8 percent of traffic visitors to purchase — you can directly affect the bottom line of your business and increase profits.

Here are a few simple tips for improving the conversion rate on your website.

1. Website design

The websites that have an excellent conversion rate are the ones with user-friendly and intuitive designs.

Simplicity is another important factor that the website design must be based on. If the design is too cluttered, visitors would be easily distracted. A simple and minimalistic design also gives you more opportunities to highlight the primary call-to-action.

Take a look at the following design example by Basecamp.

2. Navigation

The navigation of the website also plays a key role in guiding visitors to the call-to-action.

In the previous example, the primary CTA could simply be displayed above the fold. However, that isn’t always the case — especially for e-commerce stores.

Sometimes, a website — for example, an online clothing store — may have dozens or even hundreds of products to sell. Each product will require a separate landing page. 

It is the role of the website navigation structure to ensure that visitors are able to reach all the landing pages easily and quickly. An intuitive main menu, a robust internal linking structure, and a logical website structure are a few things that can help you improve the navigation system of your website.

3. Copywriting

It is unrealistic to expect a high conversion rate without good web copy.

While the design may hook visitors in, it is ultimately the text on your website that would convey the real benefits of a product or service and encourage them to complete the transaction.

Here are a few tips to follow:

• Use action verbs.
• Clearly state the benefits of your product or service.
• Do not just rely on features and technical jargon.
• Pay special attention to your headline.
• Brainstorm multiple headline options and then choose the best possible option. 
• Use the Headline Analyzer tool to gauge the emotional marketing value.

4. Fewer form fields

It is easy to get tempted and use multiple form fields for gathering as much data as possible right away. However, it is not always a good strategy.

The idea is to remove the barriers for potential barriers and make it as easy and simple as possible to complete the transaction. 

Even one additional form field may decrease the conversion rate by 11 percent.

5. Use testimonials and social proof

Customer testimonials are an essential part of online businesses. Verifiable testimonials increase credibility and make it easier for visitors to complete the transaction.

Consumers crave social proof — especially if they are visiting your website for the first time. Moreover, 70 percent of consumers look at online reviews before they buy a service or product.

According to a study by Nielsen, 70 percent of people will trust a recommendation from a complete stranger, and 92 percent will trust a suggestion from a peer.

By demonstrating credible social proof and independent validation from others, you can have a positive impact on the overall conversion rate of your website.

6. Optimize the conversion funnel

Last but not least, to maximize the conversion, rate you will need to optimize the conversion funnel.

Different businesses may opt for a slightly different conversion funnel — depending on their niche and audience type. Generally, a conversion funnel usually has four stages:

1. Awareness
2. Interest
3. Consideration
4. Decision

Ideally, you want everything on your website to work together in accordance with the conversion funnel. We recommend starting from the behavior flow report in Google Analytics to understand how your visitors engage with your website and its different pages.

Once you have enough data, try to test different elements.

Try to make content “sticky” and engaging to decrease the drop-off rate. Add fresh content, update information and old references, and include new images to make the pages more interesting.

Conclusion

Improving the website conversion rate is an excellent way to quickly increase revenue without spending more on paid ads or inflating operational costs.

Use the tips mentioned above and A/B test different elements on your site to increase conversion rate.

The post 6 simple tips for improving the conversion rate on your website appeared first on Improve My Search Ranking.

But why do some content marketers and businesses succeed in content marketing, while others fail? It’s mostly to do with the content marketing strategy.

Let’s look at the four pillars that a successful content marketing strategy is usually built upon, and what you can do to make sure your strategy has all of these important pillars.

1. A thorough understanding of your target audience

90 percent of the most successful B2B content marketers prioritise their audience’s informational needs over their own sales/promotional message.

But you cannot do that unless you fully understand who your target audience is, what their problems are, and who would find your content useful and why.

Understanding your target audience and potential customers is the first step. Without studying them and understanding their needs and challenges, you cannot formulate an effective content marketing strategy that caters to your existing and potential customers.

2. Alignment of your marketing strategy with overall business goals

Marketing is a part of your overall business strategy. Therefore, your content marketing strategy should not only work to support your marketing objectives, but it must also be aligned with the overall business goals.

This includes tackling a few different dimensions:

• Creating a knowledge hub where a list of all your content resides.
• Creating a document that helps keep external messaging consistent.
• Collaboration with the sales team.
• Create a sales funnel on your website that also reflects your business and sales strategy.

The last point is extremely crucial.

Online users go through different phases, e.g., awareness, interest, decision, and action.

An effective content marketing strategy accommodates all types of users in all the different phases of the sales funnel.

You can also divide your content into three phases: top of the funnel content, middle of the funnel content, and bottom of the funnel content.

• For the top of the funnel content, you can create informative content that is more basic in nature, e.g., 10 tips trucking companies can use to save fuel.
• For the middle of the funnel content, it is a good idea to mix more information that is specifically related to your product or service, e.g., how your product can help save fuel.
• For the bottom of the funnel content, the assumption should be that the reader is already interested in your product and just needs a little push. The content could be in the form of case studies, e.g., How ABC company saved $5,000 per month in fuel expenditure with your product.

3. Content creation

While it does seem like an obvious “pillar”, you have to be strategic about the process of content creation. 

For instance, different types of content may produce different results. Based on your marketing and overall business objectives (as we discussed earlier), you should select and create specific content to achieve specific goals.

For example, if your goal is to acquire the most organic traffic, long-form content would be your best bet. After all, studies indicate that web pages with over 2,000 words are more likely to be ranked on the first page of Google.

On the other hand, if social traffic and virality are your main objectives, you should focus more on creating infographics and list-based blog posts.

Related Posts:

• On-Page SEO Guide
• Content Marketing Strategy Tips
• Content Marketing Metrics
• How to Measure Content Marketing ROI
• International Content Marketing
• Content Marketing Mistakes
• Common Content Marketing Mistakes
• Why Content Marketing Fails

The post 4 Content Marketing Pillars for Success appeared first on Improve My Search Ranking.

• What dwell time is
• Its role in search engine optimisation and the impact on a website’s search engine rankings
• What steps you can take to improve the average dwell time on your website

 
What Is Dwell Time?
This is what usually happens when a user searches for something online via search engines.
They type in their search query, the search engine displays a list of relevant results, and the user clicks on a result that he thinks would have the best information.
After that, there are two possible scenarios:

1. After landing on a website, if a searcher likes what he sees, he will continue reading. He will probably even browse the website further, checking out different web pages on the site.
2. On the other hand, if the searcher doesn’t like what he finds on the website, he will click the ‘back’ button to come back to the search engine result page and try another result.

Dwell time refers to the time a user spends on a website before going back to the search engine results page. In other words, it is the period in which the user evaluates the site and determines whether he should continue browsing or go back to the search engine result page and find another, more useful link.
As you can see, contrary to common misconceptions, dwell time is different from bounce rate, session duration, average time on a web page, and other similar metrics that it often gets confused with.

What does dwell time matter for SEO?

Before understanding the impact of dwell time on search engine rankings, it is important to realise how search engines work and what their business goals are.
Search engines are just like any other service. They browse the internet and present users with the most relevant and useful results, based on their search queries. The best search engine is the one that presents the most useful information to the user.
If a website has a very low dwell time, it means that people do not find that site very useful in the SERPs. It does not serve its purpose, and the online searchers eventually have to go back to the SERPs and click on another result to get the information they wanted in the first place.
This is why search engines ultimately demote web pages that consistently have a very low dwell time. It is because their goal is to present users with the most useful links, and a site with an unreasonably low dwell time certainly isn’t one.

How to improve dwell time on your website

As you can see, poor dwell time is likely to have a negative impact on your website’s search engine rankings.
Here are a few steps you can take to improve the dwell time on your site:

1. Remove any early pop-ups and interstitial ads. When a user clicks on a result, they want information as soon as possible. Annoying pop-ups at the start of the browsing journey will only make them quit your website and go back to the SERPs.
2. Create a pleasant website design that is easy on the eyes.
3. Write interesting headlines that grab readers’ attention without sounding clickbaity.
4. A web page’s meta information (meta title and meta description) helps set the correct expectations of what the user is going to find on the web page. Use that to your advantage strategically.
5. Create digestible content. Use short sentences and paragraphs. Use images and bullet-points to make your content easy to read. Also, divide your content into smaller sections with images, paragraphs, and subheadings.
6. Make sure your content is interesting and useful. The opening paragraph needs to be at its best to draw the readers in.
7. Use internal links to keep the visitors on your website for longer.

Conclusion

Dwell time isn’t just a measure of how long search engine users spend on your website before going back. It also shows how well your website is serving its intended audience.
Above-average dwell time is also a testament to the quality of content you’re producing. Make sure you use the tips mentioned in this article to make the most of your SEO efforts and achieve the best possible rankings in the SERPs for your website.

The post What is dwell time and how to improve dwell time on your website? appeared first on Improve My Search Ranking.

With more traffic comes more conversions, sales, and money. Tracking all of these factors is the key to online success.

Keeping that in mind, Google has decided to officially introduce a new conversion metric — the Relative Mobile Conversion Rate, which is being referred to as Rel McVr.

What is the Relative Mobile Conversion Rate?

The Relative Mobile Conversion Rate metric measures the ratio of desktop conversion rates in comparison to mobile conversion rates. In other words, it tells you how is your mobile conversion rate competing with the desktop conversion rate.

With this information, online marketers and businessperson can identify gaps in mobile performance and take necessary steps to remedy the situation.

Google explained the Rel McVr in the following words:

“As more and more of your customers are using mobile devices, you need to ensure your mobile conversion rate is keeping up, and maintain your revenue.

…The high traffic share for mobile, with lower conversion rates, will show your stakeholders that there is a gap the company will need to bridge by improving the mobile site.”

Desktop conversion rate vs. Mobile conversion rate

Depending on how your website is designed, your niche, and audience, you may be getting a different conversion rate on desktop and mobile devices.

That is normal.

In fact, Google stated that mobile conversion rate would typically remain lower than the desktop conversion rate. The reason is that mobile users are mostly in the research phase and don’t tend to shop a lot.

Lina Hanson, a conversion specialist at Google, suggested that you should aim to get at least a 50 percent mobile conversion rate. Anything less than 50 percent may indicate serious problems in the site’s mobile version and customer journey. She also recommends targeting 70 percent Rel McVr by the end of 2019.

“I would recommend that you set a target for your Rel mCvR when you start working with site speed and conversion rate optimization. Make sure you’re above 50% now – and then start going after 70% within 2019,” said Lisa.

Click here to read the announcement blog post by Google.

The post Google introduces Relative Mobile Conversion Rate metric (Rel mCvR) appeared first on Improve My Search Ranking.

If you are still on the fence, here are a few benefits of HTTPS and installing an SSL certificate to your website to help you make the right decision.

1. Improved search engine rankings

Increased website security is an important search engine ranking factor. Google announced in 2014 that HTTPS would become a relevant search engine ranking factor for all websites.

Now, this correlation between higher search engine rankings and the use of HTTPS can be easily observed.

Brian Dean from Backlinko analysed over one million Google search results and found a direct relationship between the two. Take a look at the following chart.

As you can see, domains with HTTPS and improved security are more likely to rank on the top position in Google SERPs.

Assuming all other ranking factors are equal, HTTPS could literally be the difference between outranking your competitors and getting outranked by them.

2. Safeguarding user information

As an online business owner, safeguarding user information is your responsibility. In fact, it should be one of your top-most priorities.

You do not want your website visitors to lose their private, sensitive information as a result of visiting and navigating your website. An incident like this can destroy your business.

If you are collecting personal information, such as name, email address, or credit card information, on your website, safeguarding user information becomes all the more important. E-commerce websites often have to deal with this added layer of security.

HTTPS ensures that everything is encrypted and safe and that there is no chance to lose your site’s visitors’ personal information.

3. Higher credibility and customer confidence

Reputation and credibility are essential aspects of online success. You need to make a good impression — consistently — on your target audience.

If your site does not have HTTPS, that objective cannot be accomplished. It’s because internet users will see something like this whenever they visit your HTTP website.

This is a major red flag that raises valid questions on a website’s security. Many visitors will quickly abandon a site after seeing this error.

It can be a tough job recovering from that kind of a negative impression.

Using HTTPS makes sure that your website visitors do not get any notification or warning like this. This increases your website’s credibility and your customers’ trust in your online business.

4. Better conversion rate

All the points mentioned above lead to one result: increased user confident that eventually translates into a higher conversion rate on your site.

When website visitors — especially first-time visitors — feel more confident about your website, they are more likely to complete transactions and buy products on your website. Otherwise, most will not even feel comfortable sharing their email address.

In today’s digital age, people are concerned about the possibilities of identity theft and credit card fraud. You need to make a great impression through the quality of your content, authenticity of your product images, and professional design. Using HTTPS and increased web security is just another part of that puzzle.

That extra sense of online security will encourage more users to purchase on your website and help increase the conversion rate.

How to get HTTPS for your website

Getting HTTPS for your site is a three-step process.

• The first thing you need to do is to purchase an SSL certificate for your website.
• Next, you will need to install the certificate on your server.
• Once you install the certificate and check it for any errors, the third step is to notify Google that you have added HTTPS to your site. This is done through Google Search Console.

Conclusion

Using HTTPS isn’t optional anymore. It is mandatory if you are serious about the success of your online business. The various benefits mentioned in this article should only enforce its importance and why you need to install an SSL certificate to your website in case you haven’t already.

The post Benefits of HTTPS & How to Get it On Your Site appeared first on Improve My Search Ranking.

Following are a few proven tips on how to optimize your product pages, increase organic traffic, and improve the conversion rate.

Title of the product page

The title of a web page is always important. A product page, therefore, is no exception.

There are a few points you need to remember when creating the title of your product page:

• Make sure it has the right keywords that you are targeting for your product. Give your web page the best chance to rank higher in the SERPs for the right keyword and keyword phrase.
• The title should be displayed clearly on the top of the page. Readability is the key here.
• Wrap the title in the H1 heading tag to let search engine crawlers know that this is important.

Meta description

Many online marketers may forget the importance of meta description — perhaps because it is not always meant for users. However, the meta description is essential because it helps search engine crawlers understand what your web page is about.

Furthermore, the meta description also plays a key role in the SERPs and encourages more users to click on your result.

Make sure your product page has an engaging and keyword-rich meta description.

Long-tail keywords

Product pages are not always created with search engine rankings in mind. That’s fine, but you still can’t leave opportunities on the table.

Give your product page the best chance to rank higher in the SERPs by including relevant long-tail keywords in the content. From the title to the copy, include long-tail keywords naturally.

This will optimize your web page for higher search rankings for relevant keyword phrases.

High-quality, compressed product images

A product page is incomplete without product images. Depending on the design, you might need one or many product images.

The best practice is to include as many product images as necessary. If it’s a product that the user will need to examine thoroughly, add images from different angles.

However, the key part is to include high-quality and compressed product images that do not hog your site’s resources. The loading speed of your product page is extremely important, and you don’t want to compromise on that.

Let’s talk more about the loading speed.

 The need for speed

The loading speed of your web page not only affects traffic and search engine rankings, but it also has a massive impact on the conversion rate. And isn’t conversion rate the entire point of a product page?

According to a study, 47 percent of customers expect a web page to load in less than 2 seconds. The study also revealed the average conversion rate (1.9%) for a web page that took 2.4 seconds to load.

However, for web pages that took 4.2 seconds to load, the conversion rate dropped to less than 1%.

Make sure that your web page loads as fast as possible. Ideally, it should take less than one second to load and be fully ready.

To learn more speed optimization, read our free guide on website loading speed.

Include reviews and social proof

84 percent of people trust an online review as much as they trust a recommendation from a friend.

Therefore, it is important to include as many reviews, testimonials, and feedback as you can. By including social proof, you are removing psychological barriers that the customer needs to cross to make the transaction.

When it comes to reviews and social proof, both quality and quantity matter. 49 percent of online consumers evaluate the quantity of online reviews, so it isn’t just about the quality of reviews.

A call-to-action

The call-to-action — which is directly responsible for the conversion rate — is often the most important part of a product page.

Here are a few best practices to follow when creating the call-to-action for your product page:

• Make sure it is clearly visible on the page.
• It has to be in the right place. Use heatmap tools if you are not sure which area is getting the most attention.
• Use the right color scheme for the CTA button. It is important that the call-to-action stands out on the page without looking add.
• Use familiar terms, e.g., “add to cart”, “buy now”, “purchase”, “submit your order”, etc. Having said that, it is also crucial to test different CTAs to make sure you are getting the best results.

Learn more about CTA A/B testing.

Here is an excellent example of a call-to-action. It’s clear, familiar, and pops up perfectly.

Conclusion

Product pages can be tough to optimize. However, if you are driving a reasonable amount of traffic to it, you will be able to run A/B tests, make necessary tweaks, and optimize it for the best possible conversion rate.

Use the tips mentioned above to build the right foundation and maximize your sales.

The post Product Page Optimisation: For Better Rankings and Conversions appeared first on Improve My Search Ranking.