SEO for e-commerce is not that much different than SEO for anything else, but it does have some unique aspects you'll want to bear in mind.

With quite a few new players in the e-commerce game lately, the importance of getting your site noticed and ranked above the others is crucial.

The fundamentals of SEO, such as great content, quality inbound links and a good social media campaign, undoubtedly apply for e-commerce sites, too. But there are other important strategies that need to be applied in regards to SEO for e-commerce sites.

Related: 5 Hosted E-commerce Software Solutions

5 Best Practices in SEO for E-commerce

Unique content – Don't make the mistake that most newcomers to e-commerce make when building their product pages, that is simply copying and pasting an Amazon or other product description they find somewhere onto their pages. This doesn't sit well with Google, and you won't rank well. Make unique content for your pages!

Reviews and social proof – Very often the factor that tips the sale in your favor is the inclusion of product reviews and other social proof in the form of testimonials. These are gold: use them!

Use redirects on dead product pages – Too often when a product is no longer being sold, the page lives on, though usually in the form of a 404 error page. This is a bad on-site SEO signal to Google, and will hurt you. Instead, us a simple 301 redirect to send that traffic to new or current pages.

Related: 5 Mistakes That Can Kill Your Sales Conversions

Use unique imagery – Use unique images on your pages too. Like duplicate content in the form of text, using the same images found on Amazon won't help you. If you can tackle some image editing, it's simple enough to alter the images enough to make them unique, and perhaps adding a message of your own.

Use diverse content – Make an effort to use as many different types of content as possible. Infographics, customer video testimonials, and product demos can all lead to a richer customer experience in Google's eyes.

Using these small changes together with traditional on-page SEO can lead to your pages leapfrogging over the competition. All it will require is a little more work!

A lot of people have bought into the mistaken belief that SEO and content marketing are two separate animals. Perhaps that might have been somewhat true back in the day, these days the two are so intertwined as to be thought of concurrently.

What is necessary now is a marriage of sorts between the two. SEO can't exist without content, and content needs SEO to rank as well as it can.

It's time to understand the sibling relationship SEO and content marketing share, and start exploiting it for your site's success. Here are some ideas to get you started.

7 Tips on SEO for Content Marketing

#1 – Integrate keywords naturally (but with SEO in the back of your mind!)

Long gone are the days of keyword stuffing your way to top rankings, but they still play a vital role. Be sure you use your primary keyword in titles, in the front of your content, and other strategic places.

#2 – Still do on-page SEO

It's still very important, perhaps more than ever, to make sure things like SEO title tags, Meta data, image tags and H1 tags are crafted properly. If you're using WordPress, you can use WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin.

#3 – Write for your readers!

These days Google is all about satisfying searcher intent. This means you need to write for your audience, and keep technical SEO out of the equation for the most part. Since it's no longer necessary to hit X amount of keyword density on your page, it should free you up to write what you need to!

#4 – Get mobile ready

More than half of all traffic now is served to a mobile device of some flavor, making it imperative to make sure your pages are mobile friendly.

#5 – Use social media

Whether social signals count for much in the search algorithm is a widely debated topic, but one thing is sure: that's where the people are. Employ social sharing buttons on all your content and you might find some of them!

#6 – Employ visual content

People love to watch video and look at your images. It also serves a dual purpose of keeping them on your site longer, a Google ranking signal. You can search for images via Flickr or from our #1 source of free stock photos, Pexels.

#7 – Use expert wording

The more expertly you speak on a subject, the more favor you'll find in Google's rankings. They are delivering the best, most authoritative content they can come up with, and obviously you want that to be yours!

Knowing how to write effective SEO title tags and headlines can be confusing these days. See you're not alone! Many struggle over making it SEO optimized while at the same time enticing enough to draw in the clicks, which is the main job of a headline, right?

Related: 7 On-Page SEO Tips that Will Help your Rankings

While at first blush the symbiotic relationship between title tags and headlines can seem at odds, but you need to be able to find a happy medium. Recognize first that one without the other leads to failure is a good first step.

Let's look at both needs and see where they intersect.

Writing Effective Title Tags and Headlines

What goes into a good SEO title tag?

The properly SEO'd title tag will be around 64 characters, and also have the page's primary keyword near the beginning if possible. That's not much space to work with, so we've got a challenge right from the start.

What's also important to Google these days is the intent of the search query. What's the searcher actually searching for? Google is getting better and better at reading this, and you need to write with this in mind.

If there is room, you can include additional keywords or LSI phrase, or modify the phrase in hope of ranking for corollary terms, for instance “best blue widget for sale today”. There are around 5 possible keyword phrases in there, in addition to the main term. You get the idea. But your intent should be to make it make sense.

Related: How to Optimize Your Blog Posts for SEO

What constitutes a good page headline?

Conversely, your page headline needs to entice the reader to read on, to want more information. A lot of great headlines will invoke curiosity, promise solutions, and inject emotions.

Satisfying the needs of the reader is your primary aim here, and if you can do that in a short, pithy way so much the better.

“How to write a novel in 30 days and stay married.” This is a title you might click through to read. It makes a promise, delivers urgency and hints at humor.

Check out this infographic by Neil Patel from Quick Sprout about how to create better headlines.

Making the Two become One

Many times it's a choice you have to make: is this piece designed to rank well for the ages, or is it something that you may be using socially, or driving paid traffic to. It's not that you can't have both, but sometimes the intersect between SEO and enticing titles is quite small. Knowing your purpose for the piece can help you decide which route to take.

Since SEO changes frequently it's incumbent upon us to make sure we are up to date on the current state of affairs in regards to on-page SEO for our sites.

There's more to this than merely dropping in a keyword every now and then: Google is constantly seeking ways to deliver better search results, and a byproduct of that is an environment where change is the only thing you can count on.

And so to ensure that you get off on the right footing as it regards your on-page SEO here are 7 tips you'll want to ensure get your full attention.

Related: Check Out These 10 Tips For Small Business SEO

7 On-Page SEO Tips that You Need to Integrate If You Haven't Already!

Title Tags and the page META Description – It's important to get this right: Google wants to see no more than 60 characters in the title tags, and less than 160 in the META description. Try to employ your main page keyword in both, and make sure your description is one that will attract a visitor.

Utilize your Keywords – the right way! Don't stuff your pages with them. In fact your primary keyword (the one in the title tag and description) should have a page density of between 1-3%.

Image tags – Be sure to tag your images ALT tags properly. This will also help your images to get indexed in Google images, and get you more traffic.

Related: Steps to Deal with Negative SEO

Employ internal linking – Be sure to link to relevant and useful content within your own pages, preferably using keyword anchor text to get there. This is a major signal for Google that you're trying to be of use to your visitors.

Optimize for mobile search – Beginning April 2015, Google is going to penalize pages that aren't optimized well for mobile. Since mobile traffic now accounts for more than 50% of all traffic, what do you think you should do?

Your business minutiae – Having an accurate privacy policy, contact us page and terms of service indicates to Google that you are a real business and is also a ranking signal.

Make your pages load fast! – Make sure your pages are loading as fast as possible because this is a signal that Google really looks at. Compress your imagery, and possibly even switch to better hosting if yours doesn't get your page loaded in less than 4 seconds.

Negative SEO is a very real problem for anyone who has been victimized by it. Watching your website rankings that you've fought so hard for tank nearly overnight is not only heartbreaking, but a real financial pain as well.

So, you might ask, what does a negative SEO attack look like? Some common ways an evil webmaster may try and take you down includes tactics like creating tons of links to your pages, using spam keywords or even all of your page's primary keywords. (Google sees this as link manipulation) This may also directly hack into your server, and even impersonate you online in social media. In order to help you be prepared for the fight against negative SEO, we've included 5 ways you can be aware of what's going on with your site.

Related: Check Out How You Can Avoid Making Expensive SEO Blunders

5 Strategies to prevent Negative SEO

Use alerts – One of the best features of Google Webmaster tools is it can send you email alerts whenever your site is under different kinds of attacks, such as if you have a malware problem, pages are not indexed and more.

Keep an eye on your backlinks – If all of the sudden you notice a huge spike in backlinks, especially if you haven't actively been seeking them, suspect something is in progress. Sites like Monitor Backlinks can be a huge help here.

Related: See 5 Proactive Ways to Minimize a Drop in Search Ranking

Keep an ear open for social media mentions – Track any mentions of you or your brand in social media, as you can be getting trashed and before long, are in full reputation management mode. Sites like Mention.net can send you alerts for these.

Check for duplicate content – An old school technique used by people set on harming your SEO is copying your content and posting it all over the Web. Having the same content everywhere you look on the Web is an easy way incur a Google site penalty.

Secure your site – Be sure you have a secure installation. This is partly your host's and partly your responsibility, but you really don't want someone getting access. If you are running WordPress, this is doubly true, as it is a hacker's playground.

Local SEO has evolved over the last few years from a fairly simple proposition to one that is a touch more involved. While that might appear “harder” on the surface, what it actually offers is a lot of opportunity for those who are willing to do what's necessary to get their sites to rank well locally.

Toward that goal, we've listed a number of best practices you'll want to be aware of when it comes to local SEO for 2015. Some might not be new to you, while others will. Remember, it's a stew, and all of it works together to make it tasty!

9 SEO best practices for Local

Increase your site speed – Google loves a speedy page load, and moreover, people simply won't wait for your slow pages to load.

Optimize for Mobile – With half the traffic on the Web these days originating from a mobile device, it's crazy to ignore this any longer. Make a responsive mobile version of your site today.

On-page SEO – Make sure your title tags, descriptions, internal links and website schema are all representing your business the way they should.

Reviews and Citations – Still important for 2015, with solid reviews becoming more so.

Acquire high-quality links – Make it your business to get the best links you can, from relevant high authority sites and high traffic sites. This is best if it emanates from your content.

Color your content local – In addition to giving Google clues to where your business needs to be found for, it is also very beneficial for your visitors.

Be sure to Geotag your images – Putting specific geographic information into your image tags is helpful for Google to rank you for local terms, as well as locate you in Maps.

Encourage social signals – The active employment of social media, both as a way of sharing your content and advertising it, can do wonders for your reach.

NAP data – As always, ensuring that your business information is consistent across ALL your platforms is critical. You should probably start right here!

Local SEO in 2015 may be a bit more involved than in years past, but the rewards for getting it right are also greater. Don't let it wait another day!

It can be difficult enough getting your pages ranked well in Google, so to unintentionally (or worse – intentionally) make it harder by committing SEO mistakes that either kick you out or keep you out is a total unforced error, and one you should avoid at all costs.

While often these are unintentional blunders, it's your job to be aware of these types of things, so as to help your business keep progressing upwards in the search rankings. Failure to do so leads only to bad things, like lost sales, leads, rankings and visitors.

Let's take a little time and look at 5 egregious SEO blunders that can cost you all of the above, hoping you will then be able to avoid them!

Related: See 5 Proactive Ways to Minimize a Drop in Search Ranking

5 SEO Mistakes you don't want to make!

Lousy on-page SEO work – If your on-page SEO is incorrect, Google will have a difficult time ranking you for anything. Make sure that each page is properly optimized, with title tags, descriptions and images all dealt with and also that your pages aren't loading like molasses, another rank killer.

Not diversifying your keywords – The days of stuffing your pages with the keyword you wished to rank for are gone. You still need keywords, but make an effort not to hit visitors over the head with them, and be sure to include relevant verbiage throughout the page as well.

Duplicate content – It can be very easy to unintentionally create duplicate content these days. Tag pages, http and https versions of the same page, and several other tripwires make it easy for Google to discount your pages if they see these.

Bad link profile – If you are in the practice of buying links for your sites, your days are numbered as far as rankings in Google are concerned. The algorithm is becoming better and better at ferreting out bad links and imposing penalties on the sites that are using them. A word to the wise…

Indexability issues – If Google can't find or read your pages, you may have a problem. (You WILL have a problem!) There are a number of ways this can happen, from broken links to faulty redirects, too much flash and even blocking the search engines entirely. Hopefully this is one you'll not fall victim to!

If you've not yet devised your 2015 marketing plan, don't despair, there's still time, but the earlier you get on this, the more effective it will be for your business this year.

Knowing the direction we're headed is obviously a good idea, and with something as many-headed as an online business, organization and a clear plan are a must.

But what should you include in your plan for marketing in 2015? What specific items or campaigns stand out as things that will propel your business to where you want it to go, and not merely stand pat. Let's have a look at 5 things you'll want to consider when crating your 2015 marketing plan.

5 Ideas to consider including in your 2015 marketing plan

Create a content marketing initiative – If one of your goals in 2015 is to create and post more content, and it really should be, know that doing so can help in many ways. Not only for the immediate benefits of new and fresh content for your web properties, but also affording you the power to repurpose some of that into various forms, multiplying your efforts.

Get into video if you haven't already – And if you have, get further involved! This is a visual Web, and people would rather watch than read, sad to say. You need to give them what they want, so make sure video and visual content plays a significant part in your 2015 plan.

Invest in your SEO – If your site or content has SEO issues, and you aren't ranking as highly as you would like in Google's organic search results, perhaps it's time to invest some time or money or both into improving your SEO. It will be resources well spent.

Look into alternative sources of traffic – Google isn't everything, and there are many other viable sources of traffic out there that can drive loads of visitors to your pages. This may also be the time to get into paid traffic, as there are more and cheaper ways to make it happen than ever before.

Adding any new products this year? – If you are planning to add another product, or several, this year, make sure to account for this in your plan, as it obviously will need some time and money too.

It's all too easy to screw up your own SEO, and if you've hired somebody else to do it for you, that doubles the pain when they also make these sorts of mistakes. (You just paid for it!)

Whether do it yourself or hire your SEO out, you need to be aware of what not only just doesn't work, but also what may indeed be counter-productive, and damage you even more.

Let's have a look at 5 SEO mistakes that are easy to make and often hard to undo.

5 SEO mistakes to avoid no matter what!

Misusing keywords and anchor text – Today the Google algorithm has wised up to the point where it can sniff out attempts to game the rankings with keyword manipulation from a mile away. The best practice today is to use keywords naturally on your pages, utilizing related keywords and synonyms, and diversifying your anchor text accordingly, using natural combinations, naked URLs, and some generic terms like “click here”.

Avoid using Tags – The primary reason you'll need to avoid the use of tags is that they automatically create a duplicate content issue for you. Use categories instead. And if you use a tag cloud you've only compounded the problem by using valuable front page real estate as well.

Don't use Flash – In the quest for some stunning visual effect, many designers are tempted (or forced) to use Flash. The harm done to your SEO and mobile can make it very unwise to do this.

Not optimizing for Mobile – Since more than half of all web users now get here via a mobile device, you must make sure you recognize and account for this. Google also now devalues unresponsive pages in search with the label that your page “May not work on your device”.

Poor internal linking – The spate of recent Google updates has made this one of the last bastions of effective on-site SEO that really works well. Strive to make your site user friendly in this respect, and this is one area to not be shy about using keywords. (With prudence and diversity, naturally!)