As eCommerce grows stronger, more business owners and entrepreneurs compete in the digital space.
Most often, eCommerce websites use platforms like Google Ads and Facebook to promote their products or categories. Although this can give a dramatic increase in the search volume of your website or social media profile, it's not enough to rely on them.
In fact, paid traffic will not remain consistent after the promotional period, resulting in missed opportunities from your potential customers.
So, what is the best way to drive more organic traffic, improve eCommerce site performance, and increase sales?
Search Engine Optimization, also known as SEO, became one of the most important and necessary ways to attract organic traffic and increase your business' conversion rates. It's a powerful tool that can make any eCommerce websites grow.
So, if you want to make your online store even more successful, here are seven tips to improve your business with eCommerce SEO.
What is eCommerce SEO, and Why Should Your Care?
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, as many people know it, is simply the process of improving your site’s visibility and ranking signals in major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
Likewise, eCommerce SEO allows you to improve your website ranking in the search engine results pages (SERPs). So, when people search for a specific product or category that you offer, your target audience can easily reach you.
Two Types of eCommerce SEO:
There are two types of eCommerce SEO, namely, the On-page and Off-page.
Onsite or SEO refers to the specific strategies you can implement on your website, while Off-page SEO includes general SEO techniques, such as link building or social media marketing.
These elements have their unique role and complement one another in increasing your online visibility and improving your website's user experience.
Is SEO worth it for eCommerce Sites?
As a business owner, you'd understand why prospects do their research before buying any products. However, when they do so, they often turn to search engines for help and heavily depend on the search results.
This is where eCommerce SEO comes into play. If your website is optimized well enough using the target keywords with a few keyword ideas, it has a chance of appearing at the top of the search results.
This will give you an edge over competitors who don't have any visibility on SERPs because their e-commerce websites aren't designed properly from an SEO perspective.
So the higher your search rankings are, the better chance you can garner attention, attract more prospects, and convert them into potential customers.
Indeed, implementing an eCommerce SEO strategy can benefit your business as a whole. So here are the seven simple tips that can help you improve your eCommerce site with SEO.
7 Effective eCommerce SEO Strategies for your eCommerce Site.
The internet has changed the way we shop. Now, more than ever, shoppers are turning to their laptops and mobile devices to research products and compare prices before they buy.
Your eCommerce site is your online storefront, which is why you want it to rank well in search engines for relevant keywords so that potential customers can find you with ease.
The list of eCommerce SEO strategies is vital for any business looking to reach its online audience. These strategies can also help you rank higher in search engines and will bring more visitors over time.
So how do you develop a successful SEO strategy? We've compiled the seven best tips on creating an eCommerce SEO strategy that will be sure to enhance your brand and increase sales.
Optimize your Product Pages
Product pages are the backbone of your e-commerce site. It's where visitors go to find more information about what they are buying and a place where you can convert those visitors into customers!
Most often, this is the first section your prospect gets to explore and the part where you can get more traffic from, so it's essential to make sure that they're optimized for conversion.
However, optimizing your product pages can be time-consuming. But is it worthy?
Suppose you're looking for a way to increase your sales conversion, gain more revenue, and avoid dead ends like abandoned shopping carts or duplicate products listed in different categories. In that case, this should be a part of your optimization list.
Most of the time, it is recommended to focuses on these four essential aspects of your product pages, namely,
- product and category pages along with product descriptions
- brand identity
- content marketing, copywriting, and media
- web design and user experience
For instance, you can create new engaging and informative copy for the home page, category listings, related products section, and even back-end search terms. The more information you give shoppers on how your product or category offers can help them, the more likely they will buy.
Without these elements for visual attention, visitors may not convert into shoppers who purchase from your eCommerce store.
If you haven't optimized each of your product pages yet, you're already missing many SEO strategies and optimizing opportunities. It can be tough to find the perfect balance between all these factors, but optimizing these aspects will help your product page evolve as you go.
Target Some Old-Good Specific, Long Tail Keywords
Google is a powerful search engine that can help you grow your eCommerce website. But you have to be selective on keyword ideas you should use to rank higher in search engines and get more organic traffic to your site.
So before using either seed keywords or long-tail keywords, take some time to do some thorough research. Observe how people often search (keyword search volume), how competitive the keywords are in the paid ad space (cost-per-click, or CPC), and the search intent can help you narrow down your list of the target keyword.
Broad keywords might not be the best choice for your business. They have high competition and can take months or more to rank for.
For instance, let's say you're selling eyewear for women. If you use "eyeglass" as your keyword, chances are, you might deluge in a sea of competitors in the search results.
The key is to find the perfect target keyword that will help you rank and convert your prospects into customers. Most of the time, long-tail keywords drive highly targeted traffic with little effort on your end, while short-tail and keyword cannibalization is usually discouraged.
So instead of using a generic and competitive keyword, you can use specific keywords such as 'eyeglass for women' or add specific areas like 'eyeglass for women in California' for your leads to find what they are looking for quickly.
Use Third-Party to Promote Your Brand and Content
Let's say you got an influencer promoting your products to reach people digitally. How would you think it will go?
Influencer Marketing is a great tactic to increase your sales, social proof, and social signals as these so-called "influencers" have thousands or even millions of followers to cater to.
Meaning when they promote you on their social media profile, there's a big chance that they may raise awareness for your brand among the general public.
What's more remarkable is the network of people their followers can reach even if they post with just a single photo or video content online!
However, these influencers are only half a part of the formula. Remember, high-quality content is vital in the SEO world. So you can apply content marketing for eCommerce and reach out to third-party websites with high domain authority (DA) and start adding internal links and other link-building strategies to reach more people in your industry.
This way, you can drive more traffic to your website than low-quality websites with hundreds of irrelevant or duplicate content.
Ensure the Best Web User Experience
The internet has become the universal marketplace, with nearly every person worldwide shopping for thousands of products and services online.
A recent study shows that 85% of consumers across the globe have shopped for items on the internet. Given this exact reason, which is why it's vital to design an accessible website with a friendly mobile experience today!
A well-designed website will not only help consumers quickly access and buy products, but the navigation system also makes the experience more enjoyable for your shoppers! But optimizing mobile sites and their performance can also satisfy the user experience for buyers who prefer mobile searches.
There may be some expert designers that can help you with this task. Professional designers, UI/ UX specialists, and reliable software engineers can work together to make this happen for you!
These professionals know how best to utilize existing software so that customers find their way around with ease and feel a sense of familiarity when browsing your site.
This includes designing all kinds of responsive and interactive elements for a seamless shopping experience in any location, at any time, whether you are simply browsing through high street stores or waiting in line outside your favorite movie theater.
Adding SEO Title Tag and Meta Description
The webpage or HTML tags are special codes that help search engines understand the information on a web page.
The most common examples are meta titles and meta-descriptions that play a massive role in this process. They point visitors towards the best options available on any given search engine results page (SERP).
But to optimize these key components, you may want them to be more informative in providing title tag and meta descriptions while containing keywords that will lead people directly to your eCommerce site.
It's also necessary to keep in mind that an SEO-optimized title tag has the best length of 50 to 60 characters. On the other hand, an optimized meta description section must have 155 characters at most without being too wordy or repetitive while educating potential customers about the product or service they're expecting to see.
A responsive website will help you do business on the go and build a more interactive environment for visitors to enjoy.
Redirect Broken Links and Pages
Technical SEO is one of the most important aspects of eCommerce platforms.
Several things could go wrong with your website, such as poor URL structure, missing eCommerce products, or even duplicate content, to name a few.
But when doing technical SEO for eCommerce, be sure to create redirects of broken links and pages. For example, these pages might display "404" in title tags or load placeholder messages that say "page not found."
Although it's logical for most store owners to take down such pages, this will make it hard for search engines to crawl on your website and an effort to fix it before everything comes back on track. So why add more work when you're able to use redirecting as an easy solution?
The best thing you can do is redirect your site's 404 error messages to functional web pages on your store. Doing so can help your potential customers find items or pages they're searching for instead of seeing an unsatisfying "page not found" message after clicking around fruitlessly.
Make Your Site Run Faster than Usual
Google has made it clear that a website's load speed is one of the most significant ranking factors. Meaning, if your eCommerce site loads quickly, you'd be rewarded with higher SEO rankings.
If it takes too long to load or it has some speed issues, you'll see lower visibility from searches and a high percentage of bounce rate as you lose customers who are impatiently waiting for every page to load on their computer screen before they move onto another one!
It might seem like a small detail, but your page loading time could make the difference between reaching potential customers and being left in their dust.
Optimizing for speed is a great way to make your website more user-friendly and have better SEO. Hiring developers in the short term may be pricey, but it pays off when customers are returned with increased conversions over time.
Conclusion: Build a Successful E-commerce Website with SEO
With so many eCommerce websites to compete with, it’s important that you have a strong SEO game. And we are here to help! We know how difficult and time-consuming the process can be, but we also understand just how much of an impact it can make on your bottom line. Don’t let these 7 best SEO strategies for Ecommerce go unnoticed - take action today in order to increase sales conversions and grow your business at hyper speed. If you want more information about our Hyper Growth Strategy or would like us to create a custom plan for you, feel free contact us anytime.