SEO or traffic direction help
This will include a shameless plug as I need someone to help analyse what I can do to improve it, pretty please. I am out of ideas.
So, Https://thunderlizard.co.uk is my wife's website. It is a personalised clothing and gifts store based in the UK. It's hosted on 20i, and uses their CDN and caching, which isn't that great but it works okay.
It's Wordpress and Woocommerce and is store only, no blog at this time. Even with Rankmath installed, using SEO heavy product descriptions (and short descriptions), tags, categories, etc, and using both Index Now and Google Products plugin, it's not scoring well or showing up much in product or general searches.
I've read plenty of guides and put into practice as much as I can. The next thing to try is backlinks from quality sources, which Google are supposed to be phasing out. The issue is, what am I backlinking to if it's not simply the products? Can anyone advise me on what I can do to help?
A lot of her sales come via her Etsy store, but they absolutely destroy your profit margin with taxes and service costs. When she's making only a couple of quid here and there, profit margins matter. We're trying hard to push people towards the website, hence needing advice to allow people to find it. Is it simply that it's a hugely flooded market and it's like swimming in the Pacific and trying to stand out?
Not directly SEO advice, but there are a few things that immediately stand out to me:
And yeah, this also does play a part. But to drive through my other points, you are currently several miles underwater as well, trying to be spotted from the surface. At the very least, make sure you are on the surface ;)
Thank you @creesch.
I originally had a landing/home page around the shop interface but I could never make it look good enough. In the end I just ripped that away leaving the shop page. I can definitely see what you mean by not showing exactly what she does. With that review alone, I need a HOME page that shows off what you are getting in to.
Do you think she should drop the "we" and go all in on the "I"? She is a one-person band, everything she does is handcrafted apart from the actual garments. I put that information in the other pages, but you are right, you cannot get to those unless you scroll until items run out. The reason for saying "we" is to sound bigger, but maybe that doesn't sound better at all, and concentrating on being a creative single might actually come across more endearing?
She is doing the social bit, but again, a very flooded market. Spending time on marketing means less time on making or designing, it's a lot of work for her and I have a full time job (plus kids, you get the idea). There isn't enough profit to hire an extra set of hands for the marketing part.
In regards to the blog, I was under the impression that Google treated new items the way it treats new blog posts - as fresh content. Maybe I'm wrong about that.
Right - time to get to creating a new, well laid out home page rather than just trying to look like an Etsy shop.
Thank you for the feedback and advice, as always.
Yes, a landing page with a short introduction. But also a separate "about" page, currently you have that info hidden on a contact page under a mail form. Nobody is going to find it.
Absolutely! Again, write out the entire story on the about page. Write about how she got started, what she is looking for in creating her products, what sort of details she is paying extra attention to, etc. But make sure it is personal. The bit you have on the contact page is a good start as it at least is talking about "I" but it is still written too much as marketing rather than an actual personal story. I took the second found on the contact page and rewrote a few bits and pieces to show what I mean.
Of course it does. I am much more likely to buy something from a single person who I know puts in the time and effort, compared to some shop where it feels like it might just be another shop reselling items.
Link to the socials from the website. That's what the about section is about. Make sure that all platforms where she is active link to back to the website but also make sure the website links to each one of them (except maybe etsy)
Good luck! It is difficult to do properly, but having a cohesive website rather than just a shop really should help.
At first glance the site just looks like collection of drop-shipping items. Is this actually not the case? Is she making at least some of the products by hand? If so, this should definitely be communicated more clearly. I would even advice you to not put drop-shipping on the same site with handmade items because it drags the entire selection down wrt the perceived value.
Everything is hand made. By that, the base t shirt or mug is bought, but the images and artwork are all her own designs, which are then either HTV or sublimated on.
Nothing is drop shipped, everything is made with care and serious attention to detail.
Okay, thanks for clarifying. My advice is not about SEO so not what you asked, so feel free to ignore.
Even though the products are not drop shipping, many of them are in direct competition with drop shipping items until she can develop an identity or some sort of distinguishing characteristic that is simultaneously hard to copy (by drop shippers..) and feels valuable to the customer. Depending on who the customer is, this could be done in a few different ways:
Given that she says her expertise lies in printing, I'd love to see items where the value proposition relies much more heavily on the print itself. That's her main "product" that she's selling and what sets her apart from others.
Could she take those printing techniques to the extremes of her capability and come up with items that aren't available anywhere else? I would go for a lot fewer different product types and more simple products so that the prints will steal the buyer's attention. A rule of thumb: use products that took less human work hours to produce than it takes you to print on it (if not feasible, at least go in that direction as far as possible without sacrificing quality). The simpler the item, the easier it is to fall in love with the unique, high quality print and the message (either visual or conceptual) that it delivers. It would be better to have just a few special items like this than hundreds of things that overwhelm the buyer and that don't immediately reveal what sets them apart. I would also take photos that showcase the quality and uniqueness of the prints, meaning closeups of the texture and whatever else is nice about it that isn't present in your average drop shipping stuff. Finally, increase prices to communicate this isn't an alternative to drop shipping.
So that's obviously a lot of work considering you just wanted SEO help. That's just the thing: if you're doing drop shipping or something equivalent, then SEO is all that matters really because the products are mostly the same basic quality anyway, and it's all about getting the product on as many screens as possible as a part of those will turn into impulse buys. In that case you have to be really into optimising that particular process to do well. If you're clearly intending to not do that, then whatever you're doing should be setting you apart from that landscape. And of course still do SEO on top of that.
I hope this wasn't too ruthless; I'm in an adjacent field myself and we're pretty harsh to each other when commenting on product lines - all with the intention to be actually helpful. Wishing you guys good luck!
...yet an ever-increasing number of Etsy shops are those same drop-shippers. It's the same thing that wrecked eBay, and Amazon, and basically everywhere.
Don't get me started on that.
I watch the Etsy groups and everyone is up in arms about it. Etsy used to be hand-crafted only, but, enshittification ahoy! They need to please the shareholders and that means making profit.
Yeah that is why I included "sort of" which is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence :D
I think this is all excellent advice. It aligns well with the strategies I see local artisans employing to good effect.
I would also say, try to build a local presence. If there are farmer's markets, makers markets, etc. Any event where you can set up a table and display some wares and hand out business cards. There are also good things to put on that blog section and instagram.
It looks like RankMath is set up correctly and doing the right thing. The homepage however has a couple problems.
First, your title is the name of the store, but doesn't include anything extra at all. It's common to include a brief description or hook, even in the title. This is what is (usually) shown in the search results. Would you click on a result that only said "Thunder Lizard", without knowing what it was?
Consider something short yet descriptive. eg.
Your homepage meta description is also weird. It seems to be describing one of the t-shirts, not your store.
So I'd give that a fix. The homepage is an import entry point to your site.
RankMath is also creating a sitemap. It's exposing a few pages you may not want seen, such as the old homepage. You can simply unpublish or mark that as private.
However, I think that page is closer to what you should be aiming for in a homepage, with a small bio and some featured items. It's obviously rough in a few places (misaligned placeholder text, no shared header with rest of site), but I agree with @creesch that linking to a giant shop overview just doesn't guide the shopper very well.
As for individual pages, this isn't strictly SEO but I'd work on adding some "social proof". Basically, people feel more comfortable buying from an unknown shop when they see others have had positive experiences. It's great if you can get reviews on your individual products, but it takes stores a long time to get to that point. In the meantime you can include reviews and testimonials from previous purchasers of the store in general, especially if they mention overall quality, company niceness, etc. It's not "We love this t-shirt", but "We love this store/the owner".
You can also share the aggregate review scores on Google Business or Yelp. If you've got the stars, show them off.
Other forms of social proof are showing Instagram feeds or similar of people using the products. This can be effective too, but anything you load externally will have a negative effect on the site's page speed. There's always tradeoffs to be made there.
Speaking of speed, there is a pretty obvious page loading effect that makes things feel slower, at least to me. If you can shave off 2-3MB of scripts and drop the loader, I think the site would feel better to navigate. I'd start by going through your plugins to see if there's anything not strictly necessary. The exception is some kind of caching plugin, which is necessary. Just be sure the shopping cart and checkout pages are excluded from caching.
I briefly tested the checkout flow and got an error popup when adding an item to my cart. It didn't seem to matter if I disabled my adblocker or accepted cookies. Dev tools show a 403 to
admin-ajax.php. You may wish to perform some testing to ensure everything is working as expected.That's it for on-page considerations. Off-page is a different beast, and a lot more commercial. You can beg and plead for backlinks, but getting quality links is tough. Be wary of "link exchanges" and similar schemes. The big search engines are not easily fooled these days.
It's hard to rank for product links in general. Blogging is common advice to start creating some content that indexes more easily, but it's a lot of work and can take a long time to pay off. Similar for social networks, which can be huge for drawing in customers but takes a long time and much effort to build a following.
Since you've mentioned having a deficit of time, you might consider combining a few strategies together. For example, posting frequent updates across multiple channels:
Having multiple channels can reach more users, and makes things appear more lively for search engines. Of course it's better if you can create targeted messages for each of these platforms, but if time is an issue then having something is still better than having nothing.
You got some great advice in this thread, no notes. Just want to make sure this point is extra clear: Don't expect search engine ranking. Don't waste time on it, and definitely don't follow any SEO advice you see online outside of the most basic. You can easily do more harm than good.
These days ranking takes time, without a big budget it's essentially impossible to rush it. Content is of course a big factor in SEO, definitely do some blog posts or guides or similar if you or your wife are so inclined. Do them infrequently enough that you won't burn out, the key is to stick with it. But don't expect much in the short term.
The advice about social media others have given you is right on, for now the website is best as just a landing pad for your social media efforts. The real world activities of humans visiting your site and buying things (while being digitally surveilled) will do more for your rankings over time than any amount of SEO tips.
I also second the advice about spending a little money on promotion. You can start very small, the important thing is to have performance metrics (preferably in addition to what the platforms provide). Once you have a solid sense of your advertising ROI, advertising is no longer really an expense.
I'm getting a 403 error when I try to access the website, so I'll take a look at it again later to see if it's working. I've been working with a lot of smaller stores recently, including a personalized clothing store, although they were a bit bigger. I can share some advice in general, if not platform-specific since they're all hosted on Shopify. Branding is a big part of how they stand out from the generic crowd.
Are you doing any marketing currently? Social media, ads? Where is most of your traffic coming from right now? Does she get a lot of repeat customers on Etsy?
The 403 is probably because I was updating plugins, I've finished now.
Google Product links which seem to be working, are the most traffic.
I would be happy for any help with ideas. Marketing is simply Facebook and Instagram posts, a few images, and recently some videos. Nothing heavy. My wife has starting posting more about her design process, including failures and fun mistakes. Those generally get more likes than product posts. They are uploaded with links usually to Etsy, not the site. Until the site looks better, she won't put much effort into directing people there.
I was able to load the website now, so it might have been the plugins. I'm sharing a bunch of ideas that I have. Doing marketing full-time can be time-consuming, so you might want to focus on a few strategies and cycle them to see what works best for you.
Talking about who's behind the company can be a big factor in someone deciding to buy. I've worked with a few family stores and a mom-run store, and who they are forms a big part of the 'brand', including sharing updates on their social, or through their email. I can't share the specific examples publically here, but you might want to go colourful and playful, especially since your products lean into that. It doesn't have to be too much work, you already have a great, memorable name and a logo which is the hardest part. You can just pick out a few colours, come up with a few distinctions for what makes you different that can also be summed up in a few bullet points, and you're halfway there.
I didn't spot any emails, and I'm partial to this, but I would suggest trying out email marketing too. Having a pop-up for a small welcome discount absolutely works in getting that first-time purchase. Unlike other platforms, emails are the place where you can build a more direct relationship with who your customers are, and not dictated by algorithms in the case of social media, or a lot of budget investment like ads. You can set up a bunch of automated email flows too, so you don't have to come up with new emails all the time. Even these automated flows can account for up to 40-50% of email-attributed sales.
Regarding the website, there are a lot of optimizations you can make. You've already received some great suggestions, and for your home page, I would also suggest curating the products you show, having a small about section at the end. From the time someone looks at the first fold (which should be a visually appealing rotating banner with your bestsellers ideally) and scrolls down your home page, they should know everything they need to know about the store. Main categories, why they should buy from the store, who's behind it, testimonials, and socials at the end.
You already have product categories too, you can have those in a menu with separate pages for each category. Then, if you do decide to run ads, you can lead them to specific categories or products.
You should also absolutely have testimonials on your website, you can use the Etsy reviews here as you're building up the website. Your wife already has happy customers, share what they've said! Social proof matters to a first-time customer, so have your best reviews up on the home page and product pages. You can also use these for social media posts if you haven't already.
You're absolutely in the right direction with sharing the design process, you should reserve the product posts that are strictly product-related to ads. I know ads are a big investment, but they were a big source of getting new customers for the customized clothing store I worked for. If you already know similar stores, you can look up the ads they're running from Google's Ad Transparency Center and Facebook's Ad Library. Since it's the holidays coming up, this might be a good time to set aside a small budget and see if you can get ads to work. But, I only recommend doing this once you have email marketing set up so you can still get some potential customers and send them emails about any sales, even if they don't buy something right away.
Another alternative to social or search ads is advertising in relevant communities where your audience is, like Facebook groups or newsletters that accept sponsors. You can also connect with some creators who have a larger social following and ask them to do a sponsored post. I'm not as familiar with influencer marketing, but it does work surprisingly well. You can also partner up with other similar brands who might share your audience for a collaboration - can someone design a product for you and your wife could do the same for them? This might be for down the road.
For your socials, you can also talk about what your audience is interested in, that's more for engagement and connecting with the followers rather than just sharing what you're selling. Socials do take some time to grow though and effort to keep up. Do you share the socials with your orders? Having a small card that asks people to follow, share, or tag you on their posts can help in organically growing your following. You can add the website link too, along with a re-order offer that can be claimed there once you're ready to send more traffic that way.
I saw that you already have Facebook and Instagram, but Pinterest is another one that you might want to explore, especially since there's a big crafts and bespoke community there.
In addition to other advice, another piece of the puzzle is opengraph. Basically, this is metadata that sites like Facebook, linkedin, Twitter, Instagram, use to generate the automatic site previews when people share links on the platform.
There are various online tools that will visit a URL and check the OG metadata. Right now, yours has none..
I think along with that, I would consider adding social media share icons to each item page. That way, even if someone doesn't buy, they might share, which is free marketing for you.
I'm not an expert by any means, but the page I was working on is here if you want to see a (hopefully) working example. You can see how it shows up on open graph here.
In this case, they wanted something a like link tree. The top icons link to the org's social media, and the top share icon opens a pane that will share the Hi page itself on various platforms. Each link bar's share button opens a similar panel with share icons for that link.
You probably don't want the same design for yours. The usual way the share buttons are implemented is with a popup modal, but a major design goal for this was accessibility, and that sort of thing is pretty disorienting to someone using a screen reader. The panes remain in the linear flow of the page.
This was all done using Astro, so I don't think my code is applicable to your site. There should be a metric ton of social sharing plugins for wordpress.