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E-Locations Count

During the days of brick and mortar stores, merchants spent a good deal of time contemplating the location of their stores. The proper location could mean the difference between a successful business and a struggling business. Merchants would seek out locations near main roads or close to anchor stores in shopping malls. In the realm of e-commerce, what constitutes a good location? People do not drive by websites and stumble upon the products they need. Consumers use search engines to locate the merchants and products they need.

It is imperative for merchants to understand search engines and how to properly optimize the “locations” of their virtual storefronts. SEO, or search engine optimization, uses the inherent nature of search engines to secure good “locations” for merchants. The first step in effective SEO work is to understand how search engines work.

Search engines are made up of three main components: the crawler, the index and the search interface. The crawler, sometimes called a spider, does exactly what the name implies. It crawls the web seeking out new information to add to the search engine’s index. Proper SEO techniques can spark the attention of the crawler. The index is the search engine’s database. When someone uses Google to search for watch repair in Houston, what they search is not the internet per se. They are searching Google’s index of the web. This is basically a snapshot of various websites. Through the use of SEO processes, a merchant can boost their relevancy to various searches. The search interface is the user interface. This is the user-friendly graphical interface that hides extremely complex information. All search engines use search algorithms to organize the mass amounts of data on the web. The algorithms are proprietary information and are closely guarded but proper SEO work can help a watchmaker in Houston understand what the search engines are seeking. Additionally, these algorithms establish the relevancy of the search results and list them for the end-user.

A list of 150,000 websites does no one any good if the results are not relevant. SEO techniques are analogous to virtual guides who help consumers find what they are seeking. For example, if someone in Houston needs their watch repaired and their first page of search results are for stores in Virginia, it does not assist the customer or the merchant. SEO advisors can help webmasters create the type of content recognized by crawlers so that Houston watchmakers will register higher on the list than Virginia watchmakers.

These techniques are especially important when dealing with regional search engines as those crawlers may be programmed to ignore anything beyond the geographical location of the target audience. There are also a few topical search engines that may ignore products and merchants that are not electronically tagged with “Houston” or “watchmaker”. Location is just as important to e-commerce as brick and mortar commerce.