By Jill Nagy
“Google, look at me,” is the name of the game for ecommerce merchants, experts say.
More commonly known as search engine optimization, marketing techniques are utilized help a website come up at or near the top of a list of search results on search engines like Google.
One way to get there is to tag the products on the site with proper schema coding, advised Sara Mannix of Mannix Marketing in Glens Falls. The tags allow a search engine to identify a product, down to the actual make and model.
The engines recognize the tags for the same reason the U.S. Postal Service recognizes zip codes: they designed them.
A tag can also identify a more general class of product, such as men’s sweaters, as well as specific items, such as men’s blue sweaters, size medium, in a specific price range.
She also recommends setting out “bread crumbs” to lead to the product in question—for example, clothing to menswear to sweaters to blue, size medium.
Other experts recommend listing a business with directories, everything from the local chamber of commerce to yelp. There are 70 or so of those sites and Google checks them all, looking for companies that are widely listed. This is especially important for brick and mortar stores attempting to attract customers.
Andrew E. Clark, CFP, a senior financial planner at NBT Financial Services, a division of NBT Wealth Management, earned his master’s degree from the College for Financial Planning.