Great Question! We often get asked what we should include in a search-optimized website but it is just as important to know what NOT to do when trying to get your website found by Google. Some of the most common mistakes I see when working on an SEO website refresh for clients are: 1. Having more than one H1 Header One of the first rules you learn in SEO is to make sure that you have an H1 header on every page. And you definitely should make sure you do this, but the key is to also make sure that you only have one H1 header. Having more than one H1 header will confuse the Google bots. To check if you have more than one H1, right-click on your website and select view source code. Then search <H1. If more than 1 result pulls up, make a decision as to which title is the most important, and then update those that are not to H2s. 2. Product categories and product navigation do not match A big factor in not only SEO but also website conversion is adding keywords to your website that are relevant to what your customer is looking for. The wording you choose for your homepage navigation is very important to Google and should directly match what products you are selling. For example, if you sell baby toys, make sure your navigation says "baby toys" and not something like "play", "play for baby", etc. 3. Creating duplicate meta data by copying product pages Copying a product page can help save time so I always encourage it. But make sure that you are always updating the content that lives on the new page. Even if a product is similar, go in and update a few words in the meta description so that it is a slight variation. Google gets confused if two pages have the exact same description and will not know which page is better to serve to its customer. The easier it is for Google, the easier it will be for you.

Wordpress and Shopify are two of the most common web-building services for merchants and I have spent a lot of time in both. To quickly answer the questions, Wordpress is better for SEO because of its handy Yoast plugin that is super helpful for an SEO beginner. But, and this is a huge but, if you are an e-commerce seller then I would always suggest to use Shopify instead of Wordpress. Shopify is a great tool for merchants that Wordpress just can't duplicate.

There are two types of SEO strategies: White Label and Black Hat. Black Hat SEO is to be avoided as it uses search engine tactics that are a violation to search engine guidelines. Even if Black Hat SEO helps build your rankings, in the end, it will hurt your overall performance. White Label SEO is following the guidelines laid out by search engines like Google. You want to work with agencies that follow White Label SEO guidelines. If a company promises to rank you #1 in all keywords, or promises you a ton of new backlinks, they are probably following Black Hat SEO.

OTB stands for Open-To-Buy, and it is a method of keeping track of your balance to spend. A standard OTB lists every category of product that you purchase for your store , what your beginning of month inventory level is, how much you expect to sell through, and what your ending inventory will be. You should make sure you have a proper open-to-buy system in place before attending trade shows where you will purchase goods. I have an article in my blog that goes more into depth about what an OTB does and I provide OTB creation services as part of my merchandising services.

Calculating profit margin is essential when running a business. The formula for calculating product margin is: Product Margin = (Net Income / Net Sales ) *100 There are a ton of useful profit margin calculators on the web that can automatically calculate margin for you, including my profit margin calculator

COGS stands for Cost of Goods Sold. You can calculate COGS by multiplying your sales units by the items cost. Knowing COGS is essential to understanding your true profit margin. If you have any other questions regarding retail math formulas I am happy to help anytime. You can contact me here.