Posted on No Comments on From 0 to 0.1: the Journey of Bootstrapping a Small E-commerce Plugin to a Scalable Business (Part 3)

From 0 to 0.1: the Journey of Bootstrapping a Small E-commerce Plugin to a Scalable Business (Part 3)

Fierce Competition & Commodization

Well, it’s been 3 and a half years after I published part 2 of the series. Since I was busy working on different projects, I didn’t have the time to update the series for a while. Time flies. My app has changed a lot and the Shopify ecosystem is very different from the early days.

For my Shopify app, SEO Product Optimizer (SPO) is slowly growing with more than 1,000 merchants joining on board. The first version of SPO was published in Dec 2016. After 4 years of bootstrapping, I don’t make a big-money but I feel very proud of myself to keep everything going.

Read more From 0 to 0.1: the Journey of Bootstrapping a Small E-commerce Plugin to a Scalable Business (Part 3)
Posted on No Comments on What is AMP and why is it useful for my Shopify store?

What is AMP and why is it useful for my Shopify store?

What is AMP?

AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is an open-source framework developed by Google in collaboration with Twitter.

AMP creates better, faster experiences on the mobile web. At its core, the framework allows you to build lightweight experiences for mobile by simplifying the HTML and following streamlined CSS rules.

Read more What is AMP and why is it useful for my Shopify store?
Posted on No Comments on SPO v2.0 update – support structured data with JSON LD

SPO v2.0 update – support structured data with JSON LD

Hi SPO users, ?

After the last update, I’ve been working on stability and performance improvement. In the meantime, JSON LD (structured data / rich snippets) has been added to generated rich results on Google. We mainly support organization and product schema now.

New

  1. JSON LD has been supported by our latest liquid file. For existing paid users, please enter the product listing page once and SPO will automatically update the liquid file to the latest version
  2. JSON LD will support social media profile links. Your rich search result on Google will include these links
  3. Bulk edit supports editing products under a collection
  4. Added Google PageSpeed testing in Setting

Fixed

  1. Stability and loading speed has been improved in the listing page
  2.  In Setting tab, you can click “Submit Now” button next to Sitemap Submission to notify Google to re-scrape your sitemap. Google will update its index after that.

If you want to give us feedback, please email us via support[at]seo-product-optimizer.com. We’d love to hear from you! ?

Reference:
JSON LD format for Product: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/product

Posted on No Comments on 10 Google shopping ads Strategies to up Your Game in 2020 (Guest Post)

10 Google shopping ads Strategies to up Your Game in 2020 (Guest Post)

Google Shopping Ads Campaigns has been taking the eCommerce world by storm. Ads on mobile and desktop devices have been garnering more clicks and seeing a rising trend when it comes to PPC management. For any brand that is into eCommerce marketing, Google Shopping Ads Campaigns cannot be missed.

The date says they are worth it and the amount you make, you get back more via Return on Ad Spends (ROAS). If you’ve ever wanted to learn what Google Shopping ads are, how to create and optimize them for better performance, then this post will give you a nice walkthrough.

Read more 10 Google shopping ads Strategies to up Your Game in 2020 (Guest Post)
Posted on No Comments on Show your products for free on the Google Shopping tab (US only)

Show your products for free on the Google Shopping tab (US only)

On 21st April 2020, Google announced its plan to make it free to sell on Google. Search results on the Google Shopping tab will consist primarily of free listings.

For Shopify Stores, it means that your products can be shown to more consumers even you don’t pay for Google ads. You can get free exposure. Initially, the plan will be opened to the US before the end of April. And it will gradually expand to more countries before the end of 2020.

If you are an existing user of Merchant Center and Shopping ads, you’ve already opted into the program. There is no further step for you. For new users, please continue the reading.

According to the requirement, merchants must submit a feed through Google Merchant Center and meet the additional eligibility requirements for enhanced listings to appear in these results. 

Luckily, Shopify has made the process simple. With Shopify’s Google Shopify App, it will help you to sync, submit, and optimize your products to the free listings.

Install Google Shopping App to your store: https://apps.shopify.com/google-shopping?itcat=blog&itterm=384225345570

Shopify’s official announcement: https://www.shopify.com/blog/google-shopping-listings

Posted on No Comments on Share your story to boost SEO for free!

Share your story to boost SEO for free!

Since Dec 2016, SPO has been helping niche sellers to improve organic traffics and social presence. Nowadays, the world is in a serious crisis that everyone has to change our daily lives and many of us even lose our life. The logistics are down. You can’t ship the product from your supplier. There are fewer buyers to shop online. I know that it’s a tough time for all of you. As an indie maker, I’ve been thinking about how I can assist more online stores to survive during lockdowns, border closures, etc. Though we are small companies here, it doesn’t that we cannot help other people who are suffering from the CoronaVirus now.

Read more Share your story to boost SEO for free!
Posted on No Comments on How is the Coronavirus affecting your Shopify business?

How is the Coronavirus affecting your Shopify business?

Since Jan till now, there are more than 100K confirmed cases of Coronavirus all over the world. How many of you have Coronavirus business contingency plans? Feel free to leave a comment below.

In my home town Hong Kong, everyone is wearing a mask as a precautious measure. The business is really hard here. Luckily, there are not many cases here, just 170 (with 7.5 million population) at the moment of writing. Obviously, the global economy is severely impacted by the virus. If you are in Europe / US, I am afraid you’re having a hard time now.

During the downturn, I hope all of you stay safe and keep your faith in the hard time. According to my SARS experience (17 years ago), Ecom will be boosted temporarily since everyone cannot go out. So just think of it as an opportunity. As a tech guy, I work all day in front of a computer. TBH it doesn’t affect me very much. For me, I will take a sabbatical to think about my next move. Probably just listen to podcasts, hack something cool and stay open-mind about new opportunities. As a maker, I hope I can build lifeboats for the people who lose their jobs. Though I don’t have any concrete idea now.

Just remember:

What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger!

Posted on No Comments on SPO v1.9 update – Introducing Bulk Edit Product Link Preview

SPO v1.9 update – Introducing Bulk Edit Product Link Preview

Hi SPO users,

Since some users are requesting bulk edit regularly, I’ve been secretly working on this feature for a month. With bulk edit, you can

  1. input your title and description with a template
  2. select the product image to be used as the link preview image

For more details, please refer to a new tab “Bulk Edit” in SPO.

At the moment, this feature is pretty simple. We are trying to roll out to stores with less than 300 products. If the experiment is successful, we may consider supporting stores with more products. As the feature keeps our server occupied for a long time, it will only be reserved for our paid users under the Basic plan. Otherwise, our server will collapse very soon. If you are interested in more options under bulk edit, feel free to submit a feature request. We’ll consider implementing the most popular options in our future releases.

Just leave your comments here or email me. We’d be happy to hear from you!

New

  1. Bulk edit product link preview

Fixed

  1. Cannot accept Chinese for title & description in the store tab
    .
  2. Link previews not updated with custom templates for pages including collection in the name
    .
  3. When there are less than or equal to 10 products, tab view in the dashboard will be broken

 

Posted on No Comments on SPO v1.8 update – Responsiveness Improved

SPO v1.8 update – Responsiveness Improved

Hi SPO users,

Happy to see you in the new year! Since my last blog post, I’ve been upgrading SPO to make it more stable and responsive. As usual, here is the summary of the changes:

New

  1. Support Page (in-app and via admin link)
  2. TinyMCE html editor has been upgraded. It can support <script> tag. Other shopify apps may put some codes into your product / page content. Our editor can be compatible now.

Improved 

  1. App responsiveness in the listing page. Faster paging.

Fixed 

  1. Keyword search volume may not be able to display occasionally
  2. Review pop up cannot be disabled
  3. Admin link to edit collections & pages. You can directly “jump” from your product, collection, page & blog post detail page to SPO 

New Planning

Currently, we are planning for new done-for-you service packages or features:

  1. Keyword research and product content optimization
  2. Customized blog posts writing to boost SEO and good for social sharing
  3. bulk edit feature for SPO, probably editing link previews (requested by some users)

Please feel free to leave your comments here or email me. We’d be happy to hear from you!