Does anyone know how difficult it is to get onto the first page of google? I’m on the third page at the moment when I search for rag dolls, but I know when I’m searching for something, I rarely look further than the second page. I just wondered the best way of improving my position in a google search so that people can find me at Christmas. Would appreciate any advice.
Paid advertising is the quickest way to the top of search rankings.
Look at your key words, Check out anyone similar to you who is above you, see what words and word strings they use.
You also need to get links to your shop and items into as many different places as possible. Get your links seen by as many people as possible.
Whilst this fourm does a good job of getting people likes and favs on their stores, views need to be organic for Google to rank them. Google may not register views members make when logged in, which is where the majority of your views are going to come from.
I would concentrate on promoting the heck out of your shop. get on facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, anywhere you can spread the word.
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Thanks. I am on Facebook, Twitter etc but I’ll have a look at the other things you suggest.
don’t forget google+ as well
Yeah- as others have said the more you’re scattered around the Internet essentially the easier it is for Google to pick you up. A blog is a good way to do this, then you’ll have links from there and to there which will help- as well as being on plenty of different social networks. Then your Folksy page can have lots of other linked websites.
It’s interesting that if I put in rag dolls, I’m on the third page, but if I google rag doll in the singular, I’m nowhere to be seen. Unfortunately, there’s a breed of cat called Rag Dolls, which doesn’t help either. I do post on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, StumbleUpon and Pinterest and belong to several internet craft groups.
Why not try to promote your trading name ‘Maisy Muffin’ as that should be unique to you.
Social media is a vast void to achieve any recognition within. Do you not have your own website presence? If so, you would be in full control of getting much higher search rankings.
Just try a search on our shop name which is also our URL for our website!
(I am not trying to promote our site - only using it as a demonstration of my suggestion here). We do not use any social media sites!
J.
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If I google Maisy Muffin it’s always right at the top of the first page and customers who already know me come back again and again. It’s the ones who are just looking for a rag doll and didn’t know me that I wanted to attract.
For what it may be worth…
…‘Rag Dolls’ is obviously just a generic term, so it would need to be incorporated within your title (or URL) not just in your Folksy shop name.
I see you are halfway down page 2 in a ‘DuckDuckGo’ search but neither Google or Bing are showing you in a similar search. I also see there are others using the name Maisy Muffin, too!
Your Facebook search name is also variant from your Facebook page name.
So, ‘Maisy Muffin Rag Dolls’ should be your consistent name throughout, then you may find a difference in search results.
Oh you are so kind to do all of that. Thank you so much for the advice. I’ll have a look at the things you’ve said.
To be honest if I was looking on google I would probably put ‘Handmade Rag Doll’ but I notice you don’t have the word handmade in your titles, it might be worth changing your titles to ‘Handmade Rag Doll’ followed by the name of the doll.
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I just did a little experiment to see where my items appear in a google search. I chose to search for ‘A4 Handmade Scrapbook’. I mainly Promote through Craftjuice, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and when I remember Google +, Instagram and Stumble. I currently only have 5 x A4 size books in my shop as I haven’t had time to make any more lately. These are my results (I only looked at the first 2 pages)
Google Search 'all’
Page 1 - 1 link to Scrapbook Section on Folksy - all my scrapbooks were there
Page 2 - 1 link to Craftjuice, again all my books promoted were there
Google 'Shopping’
Page 1 - 1 link to Folksy
Page 2 - nowt
Google Images
Page 1 - 7 pictures shown (sources were - 1 on Pic Click, 2 on Pinterest, 2 on Folksy, 2 on Craftjuice)
Page 2 nowt
So across all 3 Google Options, I did have something coming up in searches on page 1 from Folksy, but the only ‘promotion sites’ that helped in search results were craftjuice and pinterest. Sales of scrapbooks are not bad, 1-2 a week, but could do better though I suspect that’s more to do with the amount I have listed more than anything else. Not sure if that helps anyone, but it makes me feel better that at least what I do have is coming up in searches through the sites. I was really pleased to see Folksy Links on page 1 in all 3 catergories, though overall maybe I just don’t have enough stock :). Over the past few months I have worked harder to make sure ‘key words’ are included in my titles, tags and descriptions, not sure if it has helped or not as I didn’t do this research before I made the changes, but I can say that sales have been more regular over the past few months.
I’ve now changed all my titles to ‘handmade rag doll’ - thanks Diane
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I’ve no idea what’s happened now, but overnight I’ve gone from being on page 3 of google, where I’ve been for about 2 years, to being on page 9. What’s that all about? How does that happen. Now I have no chance of being found by new customers on there.
Oh dear. I’ve just searched for Stained Glass suncatchers. That always has me 2nd and 3rd if not at the very top (my own Joysofglass website and my Folksy shop)
4 above me now - Amazon Etsy Fernglass and Ebay and Fernglass @folksycontent - any idea what is happening ?
Hmmm… I’m going to get @HilaryP on the case to see if we can worked out what’s happened Joy. We’re also in the middle of making some improvements to our category and sub-category pages so when those changes are in place those pages should rank higher.
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I’ve just looked and I’m back on page 3 again this morning. The only reason I can think of is that I had put the word ‘handcrafted’ in front of ‘rag doll’ in my titles recently and yesterday I removed the ‘handcrafted’ to see if it made any difference. Now I’ve moved back from page 9 to page 3 - just shows how important wording is, if that was the reason.
Can that be the reason though because if I google ‘rag dolls’, I’m now on page 3 but if I google ‘rag doll’, which is the wording in all of my titles, I’m nowhere to be found - so it must be picking the ‘rag dolls’ up from somewhere else, not my titles. It’s all a complete mystery to me but it must affect sales from new buyers.
Thanks Camilla. 