Just because your store is number one for mens shirt doesn’t mean it will be a profitable term. A generic term like this will get an insane amount of traffic but the traffic is fickle and not ready to buy. We have no idea what they are really looking for either.

Do they want a button down shirt, a t shirt, french collar, plaid, or maybe they want a short sleeve shirt? The term mens shirt while is not a buying keyword. People typing that in are still in the early stages of the buying cycle. They are doing their initial research to find what they might like or want to buy at some point.

Before you start an aggressive SEO campaign do some critical review of your keywords. There are THREE main areas to consider when choosing your keywords.

1. The Search Volume. If no one is looking for your keywords then you will have no visitors. You must find estimations on the amount of searches for your market, products, brands, and additional relevant phrases. Using the exact search feature in the Google External Keyword Tool will help you find a reliable estimation of traffic for a given keyword or phrase.

2. The Competition. It is ok if the competition is high as long as you are willing to wait and can be persistent. Realize a more competitive keyword will take longer to rank for and thus will take longer to be profitable. Choose a variety of terms to target that will be able to bring in some traffic now and even more traffic later.

3. The Meaning. What does the keyword searched for imply about the searcher? Someone searching for a :stove” is pretty early in the buying cycle. While someone searching for “Discount Coleman X5 Stove” is ready to make a purchase. Target plenty of long tail buying keywords early in your SEO for ecommerce plan. These words will bring in sales quickly as the competition will be less and the quality per visitor will be very high. Don’t ignore the general terms for they are traffic gold mines. Lots of traffic will bring sales as well as increase brand recognition.

-Steven Webber SEO Specialist

SEO for ECommerce is a post from: Internet Home Business Times