[intro]Part of owning an online shop is regularly checking on and improving the visibility of your shop, so it is easy for potential customers to find within search engine results. This is a continuous process that will need monitoring regularly in order to be successful.

[/intro]

[summary]

[/summary]

In this Guide, we’re going to look at different ways issues you may face when trying to gauge how popular your EKM online shop is within search engine results and how these can be resolved.

FAQs

I’ve just opened my EKM online shop account and pointed a domain name at it. I’ve typed my domain name into the search field on Google. Why can’t I see my shop in search engine results?

This is because the search engines have not crawled the contents of your EKM online shop yet. It can take search engine bots between six and eight weeks to locate new internet content, so your online shop will not be immediately visible within the search engine results.

I’ve typed in one of my product keywords into a search engine and my product is not in the results. Why?

This could be for several different reasons. If you have not submitted your Products to search engines and Google Shopping, then your Products will not be visible. If the product keyword is particularly common, then this could be because your competitors have invested in online advertising which means that they will appear a lot higher within search results than your own shop when those keywords are searched for. Learn how to submit your Products to Google and Bing. 

Does EKM not automatically improve the visibility of my shop for me?

We do, but only to a certain point. As your EKM online shop is a hosted platform, this means that our Development Team has created a platform for you to use. When it was built, the platform had lots of characteristics included within it to make it especially friendly to search engines. However, as the shop owner, you are responsible for the content of your shop and in turn, ensuring that you have submitted your content to search engines. 

Why is my About Us page showing in the search engine results, rather than my Products?

This is because a search engine has already crawled a small part of the shop. Often, if you’re still building your EKM online shop and you’ve shared a link to it on social media with your friends and family, this is enough for the search engines to come to crawl a small part of the shop. This is not enough for your Products to be listed though - you’ll still need to submit these to search engines so your items are listed in search engine results. Learn how to submit your Products to Google and Bing. 

Why can I not see my products next to other products in Google Shopping results?

If you’ve not submitted your Products to Google Shopping first, you won’t see them listed. Follow the instructions in this Guide to add the Products from your EKM online shop to Google Shopping. 

[tips]

Ensure your shop is correctly branded

If the name of your company only appears in the domain name and nowhere else on your EKM online shop, then you need to rectify this as an incorrectly branded shop does not instil customers or search engines with confidence. Make sure that you mention the name of your company within the text on your About Us Webpage and other areas, such as with Homepage text and other Webpage text.

Ensure your content has been added properly

Obviously, the more information you provide to the search engines, the easier it is for them to decide where your EKM online shop should display within search results. With that in mind, you need to ensure that you have provided at least the minimum recommended length of Product and Category Descriptions for every Product, Category and Subcategory. [/tips]

The correct way to test your shop

Measuring your traffic

We recommend that you open a free Google Analytics account and configure this to monitor the traffic on your EKM online shop, so you can regularly observe the data garnered and use this to plan your shop’s navigation, future promotions and the launch of new product lines. This Guide will show you how to begin. 

Google’s search operators

Using the search terms within this Guide, you can perform a range of searches to see how much and which of your content has been crawled and listed by Google.

Submitting your EKM online shop to search engines

Rather than waiting for search engine bots to find your EKM online shop and list it, you can hurry the whole process along and submit the contents of your shop to individual search engines. This is recommended as you will submit all of your shop information at once, whereas a search engine bot might only pick the information up from two or three pages in one go. Follow the steps within this Guide to submit your EKM online shop to Google, whilst you will need this Guide to submit your EKM online shop to Bing. 

Search Engine Optimisation - SEO

When you have populated your EKM online shop with content in the form of Products, Categories, Design Images, Descriptions and Webpages, your next step is to ensure that all of that information is optimised to make it easier for search engines to recognise. This Guide will take you through the different steps required to ensure that your EKM online shop receives as much exposure as possible.  

[more]

[/more]

[contact] If you need our help with your EKM online shop, contact your Ecommerce Expert or the Customer Support Team, who will be able to point you in the right direction. We're open from 8am-6pm weekdays and 9am-5.30pm weekends. If you'd like to suggest a feature or an upgrade on any of the EKM platforms, please let us know on the EKM Suggestions Board. If you have a non-account-specific question to ask the EKM Team, join us in the EKM Community. [/contact]