This webinar covers the following:

Intro

What Is SEO (Skip to 4:50)
How Search Engines Work: Crawling & Indexing (Skip to 8:00)
Ranking (Skip to 14:32)
Keyword Research (Skip to 17:00)
Ranking Factors (Skip to 24:20)
Creating High Quality Content (Skip to 28:00)

Your Content on Wolf & Badger (Skip to 37:20)
Off-Site SEO & Authority (Skip to 42:00)
Questions! (49:00)

FAQs

Is image alt text essential? Or can I slowly get around to doing it?

Image Alt Text is no longer important for SEO, but bear in mind accessibility. From an SEO perspective it is not. It used to be how Google read images, which is no longer how they do so. If you want to talk to a visual impaired clientele and be inclusive or if you market to a geography where this is required by law, then it's recommended to use it to briefly describe the image.

Is it worth adding copy to images?

The context of the image and the image itself is more important these days. However do consider visual impaired customers.

Is it important to have a blog/journal on your site and link to outside websites?

ery interesting question that shows good understanding of authority! But it needs a little unpacking to answer.

The first part can be answered pretty quickly: No, don’t worry. It’s not crucial for you to have a blog. Google’s requirement of regularly publishing high quality content was very quickly taken by opportunistic agencies and translated into “everyone needs a Blog”. For many businesses, it’s much more suitable to invest the time in writing a really good brand history, build a few pages about your company, its approach, workshop, designs - anything you would proudly tell someone you meet at a party. Add pictures or video where it feels right to really build a good impression of your brand and then you’re good.

In case you’re worried about the “regular” publication of content. That is a relative term. If you ran a news site, you’d need to publish at least daily in order to show to Google that you’re fulfilling your mission. As a small e-commerce company, you’re fine to update your homepage with seasonal images, update your category pages with information new launches or sales and occasionally make the odd announcement about new products.

For example, check out https://theartisancheesemonger.co.uk/. They rank in position 1 for artisan cheese in my location in the UK, have great content, but no blog or journal.

If you want to keep in touch with your customers on a more regular basis, but endless words don’t seem appropriate, you could do a gallery of your favourite Social posts and just add that to your site!

In terms of linking out for authority, that’s a really good shout and something I didn’t cover in the webinar. If you publish information that would be more trustworthy if it was supported with evidence or more detail from elsewhere, then a link to that source is absolutely crucial for giving your content extra authority. The Guardian newspaper do this really well, for example in this article on waste reduction in France where they link out to give people access to further information.

So, if, for example, you are a mission-led business, i.e. someone who works with female artisans in a country where women don’t normally have independent incomes, and you want to keep your fans and customers updated on your mission, then a journal or blog is ideal. And if, within this blog, you talk about things that you learned elsewhere or that readers would like to know more about, i.e. a change in legislation or a successful community project completed with money earned by your suppliers, then a link to the source is great. And if you are an even smaller company, where your personality if key, have a blog where you just detail your work and life on a weekly or monthly basis, then no links are required.

Our brand has been featured in many publications, one of those being Vogue Magazine. Can you explain further how can we take advantage of this?

You can take advantage in two ways. Ensure that when you're featured your brand is mentioned so it's not just grouped in an edit like '5 best maxi dresses to buy this season' with the product name. Make sure your brand name is mentioned as that will give you some of the kudos that Vogue has, even if they don't link through to you. Ideally you can ask them to link to your website. If it's an editorial feature they may include affiliate links. As them if under your brand name they can put a link to your homepage. That won't lose them any revenue but will explain your brand to their users. The other way is that if you've been featured somewhere, it's much easier to be featured somewhere else. If you're doing influencer outreach, link these articles/features so that people trust your brand more because it's a sign of confidence and authority.

What gives something “authority” in terms of ranking factors? How does my blog on “layering jewellery” offer authority (for example!)

Authority comes from elsewhere, that's the number one thing. It comes from other people talking about you in relation to a certain topic. So, if you have a post on layering jewellery, the most important thing is you have other people referencing you in relation to jewellery. And then within that post, two things you can do is 1) have a named author (not AI), so that person's authority becomes your authority, 2) to have the markers of completeness. Showing you've engaged with the topic and answer the question.

How do you submit “keywords” in the meta title tags on Wolf & Badger? (And is it the same as the normal “tags” section on Shopify?)

You don't. The meta keyword tag was deprecated by Google a decade ago, it no longer does anything apart from tell your competition what you're trying to target. The title tag for W&B is the product name, as the most important key word of your listing. Most likely people will look for that. Ensure your product names are descriptive. If they aren't describe the product ie 'Emma Blue Cotton Shirt'. The keyword tags are usually legacy features that sites haven't scrubbed yet.

GOOGLE RESOURCES

Google Search Console

Google Business Profile Log-in

Google Quality Raters Guidelines

Google’s “How Search Works”

Google Search Central

Search Essential for Developers (part of Search Central)

Google’s official Blog

EXPERT SEO RESOURCES

MOZ Beginners’ Guide to SEO

Search Engine Land Guide: What is SEO?

Search Engine Land Article: What is Quality Content?