The Commerce Club Podcast

S211: What is SEO, and how to do SEO for your ecommerce website? with Amy Cook

• Sophie Biggerstaff • Season 2 • Episode 11

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Today I’m joined by Amy Cook, founder of Mango and Wild, to discuss how to utilize SEO in an e-commerce business. Amy runs a digital marketing agency and helps optimize online businesses SEO and Google ads.

When used correctly SEO is a powerful powerful marketing strategy that can bring benefits to you for a long period of time. In this conversation we cover the basics of SEO, the difference between short-tail and long-tail keywords, and how to effectively find and analyze keywords. 

Amy also discusses the importance of content in ranking on Google and provides insights on optimizing product pages for better visibility and conversion rates. We also talk about the importance of monitoring your SEO performance using tools like Google Search Console, the role of AI in content creation, and the necessity of maintaining SEO rankings over time. 

Listen for tips on how to optimize your SEO in your online business.

Connect with Amy on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/amy_mangoandwildmarketing/

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Incase you just stumbled across this episode and we haven’t met before let’s get formally introduced here: www.itssophiebiggerstaff.com

If you’re an e-commerce business owner looking for support I host my online courses designed for you here: www.thecommerceclub.co

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Sophie (00:01)
Hello and welcome back to the Commerce Club podcast. Today I am joined by the lovely Amy, who is the founder of Mango and Wild. She is an SEO and digital marketing expert with a deep rooted passion for empowering small businesses and entrepreneurs to grow and thrive online. So she's the perfect person today to chat about SEO and how much of a powerful marketing strategy that is specifically for an e-commerce business. I know she's got lots of e-commerce business clients that she is currently working really hard on like.

online strategies for. So Amy, do want to tell us a little bit more about yourself, what you do and who you work with?

Amy (00:34)
Yeah, so like you say, help business owners really to get visible and make sales and leads in where they want to be. And very much it's kind of based on, guess, doing done-for-you work where they kind of just hand over the reins because they're too busy to do it and they want someone to just outsource.

or I also help in terms of teaching and educating business owners to do it themselves because, especially SEO, I think it is just learning a process. isn't rocket science as I learned over the years of finding out how difficult or how jumbled it was when I used to work in corporate.

So yeah, when I obviously took it on myself to learn and train it, kind of realized that it's possible for anyone to do. And I guess the power of it of how valuable it is for businesses, especially e-commerce brands. So yeah, that's why I kind of wanted the business to be both sides in terms of educating and teaching people so they can also tackle it themselves.

Sophie (01:32)
Nice, and have you always done that or were you doing something prior to getting into SEO?

Amy (01:38)
So my background, well, it's very much been childcare turned at coin physio turned marketer. And yeah, as I joined a corporate like background, I very much.

quickly fell into doing SEO and paid ads because it was the two areas of the businesses that I always worked in that always struggled. And, you know, we were always spending 6,000 plus outsourcing it to big agencies. We would have calls, jargon, never quite knew what they were even talking about. And I'm very much someone that likes to understand. And yeah, so I kind of took it on myself, I guess, to learn over time, took some lots of training courses and stuff, and then discovered over the years that actually

it's not that difficult. It is a time-consuming task but it's not actually a difficult task. It's just following a process like I say. So yeah, I then, you know, realised that they were the kind of things that I was most passionate about that I just went deeper and deeper into specialising in those areas. know, corporate turned into agency work and then obviously now five years later doing it in my own business, helping others to learn it as well.

Sophie (02:48)
I love that. think that's a really good example of like how you can career pivot as well into like something that you really haven't got any kind of experience in and then you can learn a new skill and be able to then build a business out of it. So I think that that's really impressive. I love it when people do that. And particularly with SEO because it is such a like versatile thing that you can kind of do from anywhere as well. So it's a really great set up to have like as your online business, I think.

And then, sorry. I was just gonna say SEO, like when we're talking about SEO, like that is what we're be speaking about in more detail today. My understanding is SEO to be search engine optimization. Do you wanna kind of give us a bit more of an overview on to actually what SEO is?

Amy (03:21)
Yeah, got you guys.

Yeah, definitely. So as it is, like the best way I'd describe it is it's basically about answering search queries. You know, all of us as humans, when we were looking for an answer, whether it's, you know, how to, how to heal a headache, or I've got this spot on my myself, you know, or we're looking to purchase something, we all had to Google and we're different questions in different keywords. And basically it's about giving people the websites that are going to answer those queries the most.

because what Google's goal is is to answer the search query quickly and effectively so that people keep coming back to Google to obviously keep using it as a tool. So that's really what SEO is. It's about getting your website showing up for the keywords you want to target that your audience is searching for so then they can click on your website over someone else's and hopefully, you know, get the help or purchase your products over something else.

Sophie (04:34)
Yeah it makes sense and essentially you are meeting the customer where they're at because if we're if we're thinking about other ways to market your business right like social media ads like with SEO someone is actively searching for the thing that you do like if you're ranking for the right keywords so let's just say you have a skincare brand that specifically focuses on acne for example and someone is typing in acne skincare

Like if you're ranking for the right keywords, you are bound to be at the top, at some point at the top of the search engine search. So someone is actively looking for your products, in which case the rates of conversion are probably way higher than they would be if they weren't looking for your product and maybe just stumbled across it through a search on social media. But at that point, they don't know anything about you. They haven't actually been actively searching for that product. So maybe not, they're not at the right time to buy. Whereas if you...

are actively searching for something and you pop up, like people are way more likely to convert. So surely when a website, particularly an e-commerce website is optimized, the conversion rate is way higher, right?

Amy (05:39)
100 % yeah, exactly that Google and I guess SEO has a higher intent of purchase because like you say, that person has already been through that buyer's journey of knowing what they want, knowing what they need. So now they're just actively going to purchase it. Often I always think of like social media is very good for like brand awareness. It's the place that we, you know, get inspiration from, for example, when I built my house, it would be the place I get inspiration for furniture and, you know, bathroom ideas and things like that. But when I go to actually purchase that stuff, I don't

go to socials, I go to Google to actively purchase it. So the intent to purchase and actually generate those people into customers is much higher if you're working on SEO over something like social media.

Sophie (06:23)
Yeah, I can tell that. But I think it's also something that really drives folk. I think it's also something that founders really struggle with because there's so many aspects to marketing right now. There's so many things to do, like the to-do list for e-commerce business founder, there's particularly one that's working on their own is like endless. And I think the prospects of doing SEO on top of like the social media, on top of the ads, all of that stuff.

feels really daunting and scary and people don't necessarily always go down that route unless they've maybe got a local business in which case maybe that's one of their more primary strategies that they go towards. But like where would you rank SEO like because in my opinion even if you were to do ads on Google and you hadn't got the SEO strategy like you could put all your money into ads but if your SEO isn't ranking correctly would those ads still be effective and like

I feel like you kind of need to sometimes start with SEO to then be able to go down the roots of all of the other social media or other marketing platforms, because then you know exactly which keywords people are searching for, in which case, you're more likely to be seen and shown up and be creating the content in your other marketing channels that are directly targeted to the things that people actually want to see. where would you rank SEO on the list of all the different marketing channels that you could use?

Amy (07:46)
Yeah, 100%. I would always, you know, and I guess that's because it's, can see the results from it. I would always rank it at the top. and exactly, like you said, I'll go back to the ads point in a second, but you know, I always think your website is the hub to your marketing. It's the place you're sending people to, whether it's from social media, emails, whatever it may be, your website is the place that's going to get those people to convert. So if that is optimized properly for

you know, the keywords and the good customer journey and experience and things like that. You're increasing your chances to then convert people, not just on Google, but from other channels as well. Often as well, like when we work with Google ad clients, we tend to do SEO alongside it because again, it's all about relevancy. The more relevant your website is towards those keywords, the better results you're going to get. you know, someone who's spending, I don't know.

10 pounds on a day on Google might get, I don't know, two sales a day versus someone who's spending five pounds a day might get five sales a day because their website's better optimized. So again, for a long-term plan of, know, if you want to, you know, if you're running ads alongside it, it's a much more sustainable way or a way of maximizing money because you're going to get better results from ads as well.

And often as well, know, add some one of those things that once you turn them off, they're done. That's it. You're not there anymore. You're not visible. Yes, you'll have repeat customers because people have lifetime value that those people will hopefully come back. that, you know, they're not going to see you ever again, or you're not going to get new customers in. Whereas yet once you've done your SEO, it's there for, you know, for the long haul of keep getting people to come back. then if, you know, for some time, you have to cancel your ads.

because budgets are tight, least you can know that income is still coming in because your SEO is effective.

Sophie (09:44)
That's a really good point because yeah, like you say, if you run out of ad budget and you're reliant on ads, you need something to fall back on to get that traffic still coming from the platform that you know that's working, which is essentially Google, to drive that over to your website. But if you haven't got the money to put into ads, you want to make sure that your SEO is strong to make sure it's kind of doing a similar job for you. Because essentially, I don't know enough about Google Ads to too much about it. And we'll do another episode on that.

Amy (09:56)
Yeah.

Sophie (10:12)
essentially like that's just bumping you up the rankings right like you're kind of going to the top whereas you're if your SEO is right you should naturally be at the top anyway right so in some cases I don't know if this is true correct me if I'm wrong but you might not even need the ads would that work?

Amy (10:29)
Yeah, exactly. often it's, you know.

It's that thing of using your SEO for the keywords that are maybe lower in competition that still give you the traffic while using your ads for stuff that you know you're never going to rank for because, you know, there are big brands like Amazon and things like that that we can't compete against. So it's probably using, you know, it's having that strategy in place where your SEO is used being effective for one thing while your ads are supporting another thing. So then again, you're maximizing that growth rather than just concentrating on one thing.

Sophie (11:02)
Yeah, that makes sense. They kind of go in tandem, right? And you mentioned there a bit about like keywords and like, I know that there's difference, a difference between like long tail and short tail keywords. So can you tell us a little bit more about like, what does that mean? Like what is a keyword and like, how do we differentiate the keywords for our specific businesses? And like, how does then Google, how does that translate into Google, for example? Can you talk us through that?

Amy (11:26)
Yeah, definitely. when it comes to keywords, like you say, we have what we call short tail and long tail keywords, short tail keywords as they are, it's a keyword that's three keywords or less. So it might be like red shoes or glittery red shoes. I don't know why that's always the analogy I use. So yeah, that would be like a short tail keyword, whereas a long tail keyword would be something that's expanding on that. So it could be something like

Sophie (11:45)
Love you.

Amy (11:53)
women's five inch red glittery shoes or something like that. So it becomes more specific, which means that then it's easier to rank for because there's less competition, obviously. And again, I guess the intent of a longer tailed keyword is probably higher of someone purchasing because they've kind of been through that journey again of knowing what they want. If someone is just searching for red glittery shoes, they don't quite know what they want. So it's very broad. means it's high, you know, it's got more search for

it's got more competition which makes it more difficult to rank for but again that person's intent to purchase is probably not as high because they don't quite know yet what they want whereas obviously once they've been through that search stage and they realize what they want that's where you'd want to use more long-tailed keywords and things for like your

products and stuff because it allows it to be specific. then again, hopefully when they click on your website, you're guaranteeing that purchase again, because it's the specific thing they're looking for.

Sophie (12:54)
Yeah, and how do people find their keywords? So that's the bit that I always struggle with. Like, where am I looking for these keywords? I know that there's some like different websites like there's the Google Trends, Google Search and the, what's the one, answer the public, for example, like to find different phrases that are being searched for around your niche. But like, I never really understand like what I'm looking for when it comes to a keyword. Like, I know you're saying about like, like,

low ranking and high ranking keywords are like low competition for example like what am I actually looking for like when I'm when I'm trying to determine what are my keywords I want to be using like what am I looking for and where am I getting them from?

Amy (13:34)
Yeah, definitely. So like you say, there's so many free tools out there that you can use. don't have to purchase, you know, keyword tools to actually be able to do it. The top two that I always recommend is one, which is just a Chrome extension called Keywords Everywhere. What that is, is like, you just search your keyword on Google and then it shows you next to it, basically, like the search volume of that keyword. And then it also shows you like other keywords that you can kind of, you know, that are similar in things. Or the other one I use, which

which is Google's keyword planner. You have to have an ads account, you don't have to have ads running. You just have to have an account that's active, I guess. But I always go for that tool as well, because again, you're trying to rank on Google. Why not use that Google tool?

And the things you do then look at wherever, whatever tools you're kind of using, it's very much, like I say, looking at those search volumes and then also seeing who comes up. Because if for example, you're putting that keyword into Google and all you're seeing is like Amazon and big brands, it's probably going to be really hard for you to outrank them. If you're seeing, you know, people in position four to position four and three, maybe that are more similar brands to yours. Then again, it shows you the opportunity that you can actually rank and outrank those people.

for those keywords. And one way I always say to people with keywords as well is try and choose keywords that are similar to what data you have. So like, if you go into your analytics and you're getting like a thousand people a month to your website, start with keywords that are like a thousand and below because then hopefully it means that you've got the chance to rank for them.

And again, it's better starting with keywords that have, you know, a hundred searches over 10,000 searches and guarantee that you're going to get those people to your website versus never ranking for something because it's too, you know, too difficult. and what you've got to think with kind of SEO is

Every page basically ranks for a different keyword. So, you know, if you've got 10 pages, that's 10 opportunities to show up on Google. And if that's a hundred people, you know, that's a thousand people technically and as small businesses, can we really sustain 20,000 orders at once kind of thing? again, it's being realistic and scaling in time rather than looking at the keywords and going, I want that one because it's got 10,000 searches. It's thinking, well, actually let's start small.

get the authority with Google by ranking for lower keywords and then build up that opportunity to target more as the business grows.

Sophie (16:15)
Yeah, and how, like when you've got those established then, like how is Google ranking you? Like when, let's say you do use that red glittery shoe example, just as an example, like what, obviously there's probably like, I know you're saying like the lower competition, the better, but there's probably so many other things, other places using that same keyword, right? Like what, how does it rank you above the others that are also doing like the same kind of SEO?

How do you get to the top basically of Google? That's the killer question.

Amy (16:45)
Yeah, definitely. So like I say, it's about looking at the pages you have and thinking what keyword is most relevant or most relatable to this keyword, going and then doing your keyword research in terms of finding the keyword that's most suitable in terms of search volumes, competition and stuff like that.

And then again, looking at the people who are currently showing up and, you know, looking at kind of like how much content they have and stuff. Most of the time it is content that is the thing that helps people rank. so, you know, if you've got a collection page about red glittery shoes and you've got 20 words, but you're going onto the other person's and it's got a thousand words, then you can see that you need to also do a thousand words or, you know, write some content that's better than that.

to be able to become more relevant to that keyword. often is including more content. One I always say about, and most of the brands do it, but I only know this one because I literally just brought a sofa from them.

If you go on to Sophology as an example and go on to like their collection pages and you scroll to the very very bottom they have always at the bottom of their like collection pages a section about like fabrics like for example on their fabric sofa page they'll have lots of information about their fabric sofas and the benefits of buying their fabric sofas and all of that. That content we don't see because we're just looking at the products and we're not

you know, scrolling to the very end of the page. But that content is there for the purpose of Google. It's there to re-illiterate to Google that that page is all about fabric sofas. So it is just about including more content where you can.

Sophie (18:27)
Yeah, that's super interesting because I think sometimes we can get a bit lost about like what classifies as content, right? We think, blogs, social media posts, blah, blah, blah, podcasts. Like we're not necessarily thinking about our actual on page content, which is interesting you say that because that's actually something that we've really tried to do with like my new mentor, well-being marketplace, Tina, like on there, we've like really specifically got more copy on there.

than maybe just the product pages would on the brand's websites because we want to make sure that we're being found for like the different mental health conditions that those products might be supportive for. So we've really tried to like look at like different keywords for specific products as well. But now you said that I want to go back and check that that's something that we've done for all of them because that's really good point. So that's very interesting because I think I've definitely had clients in the past that kind of went

Amy (19:15)
Yeah.

Sophie (19:24)
like their product description, for example, was like their lowest priority, but surely that has to actually be like one of your highest priorities, because that is how your product is going to be found. Like you've got your title, obviously, like tell me in terms of like, if we're thinking about specifically e-commerce products on a web page, like what's the order of things that you should kind of be prioritizing? Because is everything content or like are there specific things that because my understanding would be that

There's also like H1, H2, H3 tags on a page. This is getting a bit more probably technical now, but I know that they have different meanings as well. Like what order should we be prioritizing the content on the page to be able to get all of the keywords in?

Amy (20:09)
Yeah, definitely. So like you say, everything on a page is content. So whether it's the video, an image, the text, everything included on that page is classed as content. So Google reads a page from top to bottom, like a human does, I guess. And your product title normally is triggered as a heading one tag. So a heading one tag is the thing that tells Google what that page is about. So normally where possible, that's where you definitely want to try and include your keyword because it's the thing that Google first reads.

can see a keyword within that, it's going to tell Google that that's what the page is about. And then again, when you're writing your product descriptions is then re-illiterating that keyword within that description. So again, it re-reminds Google that this page is about that. You can also then label images. So again, often, you know, we all get lovely branded photos and our photos are...

you know, the photographers named them their kind of company name, image 259 or whatever, and we upload them to our website like that. But actually we should be uploading those again, as the product keywords. you know, renaming our images before they're uploaded to try and include our keywords there where possible. Because again, Google read your images, which then realliterates to them that that's what the page is about.

as well as then obviously filling in like the back end of your website in terms of where possible when describing images in all text, again trying to put your keywords in there where possible and the other main factor that then Google reads is what they call your SEO title and meta description so that's the thing that people click on when they're actually searching on Google, that's the thing that gets people to actually come to your website and often especially with like a Shopify website

like most websites, auto generate themselves, but again, it will just pull through what your product title is. But again, that might not be very keyword relevant. So by filling in those SEO titles and meta descriptions in the backend with your keywords and make them really click worthy, again, is going to help re-illiterate to Google. And also your customers, when they're seeing it on Google, that that's the, you you're answering their query and that they should click yours for someone else's.

Sophie (22:25)
Yeah, that's super interesting. And yeah, I think if you can look at everything on your page as being content, I think that like shifts the shifts the mindset a little bit of it doesn't it like it makes it more relevant, like people will spend more time focusing on their product descriptions on their on their product titles on their URLs on all of the old images. Like, again, that's definitely something that we tried to do when we were uploading all the images onto Tina was make sure that all of the products because as you say, all of the brands have just labeled them like random.

Amy (22:35)
you

Sophie (22:54)
random names and actually our SEO is probably going to be better than some of the brands that we're actually selling because we've labelled their images correctly for what they actually are. So that's reassuring that you said that, that's like a thing to do. And then in terms of other content then, so like quite a lot of websites, like we said earlier, consider content to be a blog, for example. Like how important are blogs and like what other usage can we have like?

on a website like to create more content to be able to rank for these keywords.

Amy (23:28)
Yeah, definitely. So the reason we tend to say about blogging is because Google, think it's something like, and don't quote me on this because I'm not a hundred percent. it's not something I've looked into recently, but I think it's something like they look at your last 10 changes. So, you know, if you haven't updated your website for like six months because you've got no new products out or whatever, then again, you're not really like, I guess you're not being refreshed in Google system. And that's why they always say about doing blogging because obviously if you're doing a blog,

month. Again, you're kind of putting a refresh back to re-remind Google that you're still there, you're still active and you've got all this new content that they could rank you for. Blogging is good because obviously it helps you with longer form content in terms of those longer-tailed keywords and I guess it helps in terms of giving you the opportunity to show up for someone who's not yet ready to purchase, so it gives you an opportunity to show up for a different intent.

So then hopefully it helps build that brand awareness up so then when they're ready to purchase, they come back to you because obviously they've read all this information on your website. But the other place that again is often missed for

e-commerce is collection pages. You know, there's so many collection pages we can create. Just go and look at John Lewis's navigation. is overwhelming of how many tabs they have and how many collections they've got. But as a user, we don't look and go, my God, there's 60 choices on this one navigation tab. We just look at, want to purchase a office chair. So that's what I'm going to look at. But the reason they've got all those collections is for the purposes of targeting different keywords.

And you know, it's something we often forget like jewelry brands I always see have just a necklace connection when they could have a necklace collection or shop our silver necklaces, gold necklaces, rose gold necklaces. You can see how that can turn from one collection page to three collection pages, giving yourself four opportunities versus three or whatever that may be. And again, it's just about, you know,

trying to expand your website out to have more pages to give yourself more opportunity to show up. And then, you know, making sure on those pages, your titles are relevant to the keywords, your products on that page are relevant to the keywords. And then again, you know, including more content where you can, like at the bottom of your products, even just adding a simple FAQ section that talks about,

what's the delivery time of my silver necklace or how do I go about gifting a silver necklace or whatever those questions are, it's going to help you be able to create more content around it, giving you more opportunity. It's one of those things like what you've got to think is if you have a hundred words on a page, you can probably only target that keyword once because obviously you don't want to overuse it within a sentence. Whereas if you've got

500 words on a page is giving you five opportunities to place that keyword in your content, giving you five more opportunities to rank higher in Google because you've got more content, you've re-illiterated to Google that that content's about that keyword, giving you the opportunity to then show up for it.

Sophie (26:42)
Yeah, it makes perfect sense. And I really like what you say there about like the menu options, the navigation where you're breaking it down specifically, because not only is that good for SEO, it's also really good for like taking someone on a customer journey. Like I don't want to go on to, I always use this example, but I get so overwhelmed on ASOS. So overwhelmed. I can't shop there. I find it too much. And like,

Amy (27:01)
Yeah.

Sophie (27:06)
they do do this, but more so like when you search or like on the filters rather than in the navigation where it's exactly what you said. Like if you've got necklaces, filter it by like short necklaces, pendants, chokers, silver necklaces, gold jewelry, like whatever the keywords are, like that's not only just good for SEO, it's also good from like a customer shopping perspective because as somebody that does get really overwhelmed by online shopping, there's too much choice.

Amy (27:19)
Yeah.

Sophie (27:32)
and I know that I'm just coming on for a gold necklace, I'm going to be more likely just to click through to that collection. So I feel like there's other purposes for doing that as well, not just for SEO. So I think that that's a really good, a really good point that you've made there.

Amy (27:43)
100 % and that's it and that's very much what SEO is about you know it is about

Keywords like the keywords and the content are about getting people to your website, but you've got to then have a good customer experience and a good, you know, design and things to be able to keep people on your website. So if people are coming on there and then they're getting overwhelmed and leaving, cause you know, they can't find the thing that they've searched for and you haven't quite answered it. Again, that's going to downrank your SEO rather than improve it. So it is about, you know, trying to think about how I can get someone on the website and then how I can make it as easy as

for those people to purchase to then give a good customer experience and allow myself to then keep ranking for those keywords.

Sophie (28:27)
Yeah and there's something else that I just want to like ask you. So I used to have a travel blog many years ago and one of the hot topics like when I had this travel blog, this was before social media right, like this was like social media was still like a relatively new thing, wasn't really like particularly popular so people went to blogs for all of their information.

One of the things that I used, I learned through that blogging process, I was part of many like Facebook groups that would teach you how to do like the SEO for those blogs. So I know a bit about SEO, but I'm no expert. Like one of the big things then was like back, back linking. So people like linking to your page, like how much impact does that have relevance to any commerce business now, like back linking?

Amy (29:11)
Yeah, definitely. It's still a big factor because it helps improve that authority. again, it's kind of, you know, speeds that process up because

you know, Google has to trust you. And obviously the more people link to your website, the more it shows that you're a trusted website. And that's where back linking comes in. Because again, you know, if someone is got an authority with Google of 40 and you've got an authority of 20, then that's where you might take a little bit longer to rank for those keywords because you haven't got as much trust with Google. So that's where, you know, you do want to do outreach, like, you know, PR and get some links from to other people on

other people's blogs and vice versa to help build that authority with your website. It doesn't mean that because you're a low authority, you won't rank for the keywords. You I work with clients at authorities that have got 10 and their new websites and they still, you know, are able to rank for difficult keywords.

But in time, it's something that you would want to build up to be able to then help, you know, give yourself that authority and that trust with Google to allow yourself to keep showing up for those keywords.

Sophie (30:21)
Yeah, and you're talking about authority there. And I know that that's like a score that Google ranks you for, right? So how can we check our scores? Like if we've got an eCommerce business online, it's trading, it's been up on Google for a while, we're ranking but not very highly. Like, how can we check our authority score and check if our SEO is actually good or not? Like, is there a way to do that? I know there's a couple of online tools that I've previously used, but what should be our steps be if we're thinking, we're not like,

I'm here at the starting point of my SEO journey. I haven't really been thinking about it, but after listening to this episode, I want to start thinking about it. How can I go about checking my authority score with Google and what I might need to change?

Amy (31:03)
Yeah, definitely. So my first go-to tool would be Google Search Console. This is a free tool from Google. it basically is like your Google Analytics. It's the place that can tell you what keywords your website's currently showing up for and the performance. So in there, you will be able to then see kind of, you know, what keywords are showing up for how many impressions you're getting in terms of how many people are seeing your website for those keywords versus then how many people are clicking to your website. And you can then also see like what pages are

showing up for those keywords and things. So then again, that can help you to go, actually, if I go and add more content to this page, that might help improve that keyword. Or if I go and change my SEO title, I might be able to get more people to click through because maybe my SEO title isn't very clickable and very relevant to that keyword. So if I change that, it's gonna help. And then in terms of the authority, I don't actually know of any free tools off the top of my head, but...

Most paid tools like hrefs, se-rank, smerush, they all kind of do like a free trial. So I would say that, you know, if it is something you want to look at, you can again, probably just get like a quick free trial with them. and then again, see more of the stuff like, you know, your, your authority in terms of what your domain ranking is that Google thinks it is. Plus maybe how many backlinks you've already got to your website.

alongside then your kind of keywords and what positions they are. most of these tools do do like a free trial that I would say is the go to.

Sophie (32:39)
Yeah, good to know because I think that there's like a lot of tools out there, but no one really knows what they're looking for, how to access them. so thanks for thanks for sharing those recommendations. And just quickly before we kind of like summarize, like AI, talk to me about AI and keywords and SEO and like how how is AI written content impacting this? Like, does Google like that? Is it not like it? Like, what's the deal with that?

Amy (32:45)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's still a very early thing, I think. it's not like, but I guess us in the SEO world aren't concerned about it. Like Google are not ranking websites if they have used AI versus people who have written it. So definitely you can use AI. think it's just making sure you're not copying and pasting because they can probably tell the difference over that.

you know, it still has to have some relation to your business or some of your brand values or your, you know, your key USPs and things within it to allow it to be unique because otherwise everyone's content is just going to be exactly the same. and like I said, back at the start, like,

It's about obviously like if someone's got content on their website, it's about making it better. So if they haven't picked loads of like benefits to their product, maybe it's about putting why your product's better than theirs, which again is only going to be something you know as a business rather than AI is going to know. So again, it's just making sure you're using AI with a human touch rather than just copying and pasting.

Sophie (34:10)
that's really important the word human there is that I actually have been hiring recently for a social media manager and as part of that we asked people just to write a little bio about themselves and about their like experience in social media wow they all sound the same they are all exactly the same there was a couple that were different but there's at least four or five applications that

Amy (34:13)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sophie (34:36)
give or take the names and the descriptions of kind of their specific qualities. It's like word for word, more or less the same. And it's like, I can see that you've used AI. So I'm not saying that you're like just discarded because of that. But like from a perspective of you sound like a robot, I think the key word when it comes to AI is, yeah, it's a useful tool.

Amy (34:46)
Thank you.

Yeah.

Sophie (35:04)
to be able to do some of your research, to be able to put together baseline structures for the things that you need, particularly with keywords and SEO and stuff, and that copy and integrating it in the right way, because maybe not everyone's great with words, they can't afford a copywriter or whatever. That is amazing. It's an amazing tool. But change it. Make it human. Make it not sound like the way that the robot has just kicked it out to you, because that is exactly, although it's been powered by humans, it is a robot.

and it is kicking out just the generic copy paste kind of message and we don't want that because actually surely that then does actually harm your SEO because one of the things that to my understanding is that for example let's just take Tina as an example we're selling other people's products to my understanding we should not be using the same product description on our website as theirs because we wouldn't be ranking

for the things that we want to be ranked for, is that correct? Like, because we don't want just like copy paste, copy paste, because then surely everyone's just like massively fighting against the rankings kind of thing.

Amy (36:11)
Yeah, that's another thing that you can get penalized for with, you know, it's called like, I think duplicate content. So the same again, that's why, you know, nine times out of 10, because every page on your website is targeting a different keyword, every page's content should be unique.

But you know across your website or against other people's websites It has to be different because otherwise, you know Google can see it's the same they can you know They're reading it all the time. Hence why they're ranking these people. So yeah, it has to be unique And I guess that's where having your own benefits and values and things in it allow it to be unique to then hopefully give you the opportunity to rank out right those people Because you've got better qualities than what they're saying

Sophie (36:55)
Yeah, good. I'm glad you've confirmed all of these things for me. All of these things. I'm glad like my knowledge of SEO is actually way better than I thought it was. So thank you for that. And I think it's super interesting and useful for like e-commerce businesses. think one of the things that is misunderstood as well about SEO is like the maintenance that's involved in it. Can you talk us through a little bit about like, okay, we've set it up like great. We've got our SEO in place.

Amy (36:59)
Thank

I am.

Sophie (37:24)
I've set up my website, it's going live on Google, it's ranking, but like the ranks can fall, right? Like how do I maintain that over a period of time? Do my keywords change? Does my content need to change? Like how do I keep that ranking going?

Amy (37:38)
Yeah, definitely. So again, it's using a tool like Google Search Console, which will hopefully then show those keywords that you've started to rank for. So you know, taking the analogy again of like the red glittery shoes, you'll hopefully start to see that in your Google Search Console account, where then you'll start to see like impressions and clicks on it. And then if you're seeing lots of impressions, but no one clicking it, that's where you need to make those changes like

changing your SEO titles and meta descriptions that hopefully allow people to then click through to it. If you're then still not seeing people do it again, it's then going back, you know, searching for that keyword yourself, have competitors started to increase their content. Maybe you need to add a bit more content to your page or add some more images or something to allow yourself to, you know, re re-illiterate to Google that you've got all this information around that keyword. And then it is just kind of ticking over in terms of consistently doing that.

And then obviously, hopefully as well, like, because we say every page targets a keyword, but your overall website would be targeting a topic as well. So obviously the more you kind of, more products you add, the more collections you create, the more you're targeting that topic as well. So the more you become aware to Google that, you know, you're a jewelers or you're a

a beauty brand or an aesthetic clinic or whatever it may be. So again, it is just about keeping, keep creating those products and those collection pages and then going back every now and then and, you know, rereading them, re refining them to again, re, you know, refresh them back into Google system as such.

Sophie (39:09)
Yeah, I think that's a general rule that we should be maintaining anywhere when it comes to e-commerce. see a lot of founders think that their website is like a one and done job and it's totally not when it comes to product merchandising, when it comes to changing these things that you've just mentioned. Like it is a consistent maintenance that you have to do. It's not just like, I've launched now, cool, bye.

Amy (39:30)
Exactly. And often we create product titles so quickly because, you know, we just need to get it out there or whatever that we don't then go look, we don't think to look back and it might be that you look back and go, actually I can tweak this to make this sound better. Or I can add in some new, you know, we've added some new colors to this product range now we can, but we haven't mentioned this in our product description. So again, I think we often

often again especially like with the blogging we often just go right we just need to keep creating new stuff actually by going back and just tweaking things as well it's going to help you know your SEO and also the business in terms of making sure it's always relevant to what you're selling.

Sophie (40:11)
Yeah, it makes sense. makes a lot of sense. Thank you. That was super interesting and very relevant, I think, to people that will be listening and wanting to start out on the SEO. So for people that have never really done anything with their SEO, they built website, they put their product out to the world, they didn't really think about the keywords. What would your best advice, what would your top three tips be to somebody that is just starting out and they want to make sure that the SEO on their business is ranking for the right keywords?

Amy (40:38)
Yeah, definitely. So my go-to would obviously, like I say, you probably want to go and look at those keyword tools to actually see if, you know, the page is relevant to that. you know, looking at what your product is and then going, okay, right. I'm going to go and search for this keyword in Google Keyword Planner or keywords everywhere and see, you know, if I can actually rank for that keyword. And then, you know, making sure that your website actually has a heading one tag. Often, sometimes they don't.

But that is one of the big key ranking factors. And then again, you know, going more, your headings have that filled in. And just the main thing I would say to e-commerce businesses is to go and fill in your SEO titles and meta descriptions, because it is the first place I look and it's the first thing that is never filled in on a product base, like an e-commerce business. and even just having that, you know,

SEO title and meta description filled in is going to massively help versus it not being filled in. So that would be like my biggest takeaway of the day, really.

Sophie (41:44)
Nice, good, really good advice there. So thank you so much for that. That was all super helpful. So if someone's looking for some support with their SEO on their site, where can people find you? How can you help?

Amy (41:55)
Yeah, definitely. Main place I usually hang out, I guess, is Instagram. That's probably where I'm most commonly known for is yeah, always can reach out there and the DMS and stuff or obviously head to my website, which is obviously [mangonwell.com](http://mangonwell.com/). And yeah, there's lots of ways of working. Like I say, I've got courses done for you support or I can just do you know, one off SEO stuff and things. So yeah.

Sophie (42:18)
Amazing. Well, thank you for joining me. That was a super peaceful conversation. If anyone's got any questions, please feel free to reach out.