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SEO Essentials

Learn how to make your item pages stand out from the crowd with our top tips on mastering the basics of SEO!

The more traffic you get to your item pages, the more sales you will make. Sounds simple, right? So, how do you get the traffic you need to get that sales boost you want?

The secret is SEO or Search Engine Optimization.

SEO is the art of:

  1. Allowing search engines to find and index your web pages, and
  2. Convincing search engines that your web page is the most suitable and relevant for users and their search goals.

Pages that are easy to read, well-organized, and directly address what customers are searching for are the ones that search engines like Google direct the most traffic to. The better your page is optimized for SEO purposes, the more you will be rewarded with organic traffic.

Since your content sits on a website run by Envato, we manage the indexing of your item pages. While we’re constantly looking for ways to improve this for our Authors, there is still plenty you can do to enhance your SEO scores. How you optimize your pages will impact how well they rank and how often they appear in searches.

Below we’ve rounded up 5 of our top SEO tips, straight from our resident SEO experts, to help you maximize your earnings.

Our top 5 tips to optimize your item page

1. Identify Relevant Keywords

First up, you’ll need to do some keyword research to discover the most relevant search terms used by customers. Once you find your keywords, choose the ones with the highest search volumes but with relatively low competition. Multiple ads on search results is an indication of a competitive keyword

Think about the search terms you’d use if you were looking for your item. If it’s a WordPress theme for photographers, is it specific to portfolios? Perhaps it’s for weddings, or fashion? Is it minimal? Is it responsive? 

To gather ideas, you can simply look at the suggestions Google shows you as you type in a search query. For example:

2. Make Your Item Name Count

The name of your item on Envato will become the item’s page title. The page title is what users will see in search engine results, so it’s important to make sure you include the terms you identified from your keyword research in your item names.

Search engines such as Google have specific requirements for page titles. These can change over time, but currently include a specific length of 512 pixels or 50-60 characters for page titles, depending on the characters and capitalization used.

Envato automatically appends your item name in the page title with “- Category Name | Market Name” for Market and “on Envato Elements” for Elements to give the item context. This takes up 18-26 characters, leaving you the rest to work with.

“Kate’s Responsive jQuery Plugin” is 31 characters long so the page title doesn’t get cut off. It informs users what the item is, in the terms they’re more likely to search for, like “responsive” and “jQuery”.

The key takeaway: Make sure the terms you put for your item are those that you’d search for if you were looking for your item on the web. The better you do this the more likely you will appear in search results.

Here’s a tool you can use to help you craft a more effective item name.

3. Make your opening description 156 characters or less

The first 156 characters of your item description will become your ‘meta description’ (the words used under your page title in search results).

These first 156 characters will also appear when you share your item on social media and in Envato search results. 

This is your opportunity to convince users that they should click on your result by reinforcing that you’re relevant and are going to give them exactly what they need. Here is an example:

Think of this section as your ‘elevator’ pitch. This is where you talk about what your item is and why it is the best item for your customers.

4. Reduce Your Page Loading Time

Pages that load slowly can be frustrating for customers. This is why Google has factored in page speed to determine a page’s SEO ‘score’ for a long time. A slow page doesn’t just impact the overall SEO performance of your page, but also the bounce rates, customer experience, and conversion rate.

Images are the biggest culprits of slow-loading pages. They look great, and are an excellent way to advertise your item, but to ensure you’re not slowing your page down too much, you need to make sure that they’re optimized for the web. The larger your image file sizes, the longer your page takes to load. To discover how long your page takes to load, simply enter your page URL into the Google PageSpeed tool for a look.

Other ways you can speed up your page is to use words, not images with words, in your item description. When you do use images, make sure you compress them as much as possible without losing visual quality before you upload them.

5. Add Well-Written and Optimized Content

A search engine’s goal is to provide the most useful and relevant information to its users. For your item page to have SEO value, it needs to include text that describes the item well. 

Google uses this text to determine the context of your item, as well as its relevance to keywords, search terms and overall topical theme. 

Don’t make the mistake of relying on images for your item description. You need to include text for your item to be seen. You should also make sure that you place your text content at the top of your item description, as this is given more weight by Google. Here are some key text content tips:

  • Aim for at least 100 words of unique, valuable, well-written and well-structured text
  • Include your chosen keywords and relevant keyword variations
  • Utilize subheadings and paragraphs to incorporate search term variations.
  • Include your key selling points and benefits
  • Don’t repeat the same keyword too much, this is considered keyword spamming and devalues the item page
  • Don’t claim things about your item that aren’t true. This leads to complaints and refunds, plus traffic gains achieved via this tactic tend to be short-lived.

Now that you know how to boost your SEO scores, what are you waiting for? Try these tips out on your items pages and enjoy the results! And when you’re finished stay tuned for even more useful insights in the next edition of our ‘Envato Reveals’ series.

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