Ranking high in search results is imperative for every eCommerce business. Although paid search can help your online store reach the number one spot, costs to remain there can be considerable.
That’s why you should combine it with search engine optimization.
When implemented right, some simple SEO rules can help you rank higher than your competitors and provide your potential visitors with the right information and get them to click on your page.
Optimizing your eCommerce website can generate ongoing, high-converting organic traffic, without having to rely on paid advertisements.
Let’s take a deeper look at how your eCommerce can benefit by leveraging an SEO strategy.
1. Effective SEO Strategy Starts With Keyword Research
This step is crucial to any SEO strategy because if you target the wrong keywords, it will result in low-quality traffic and few conversions.
Aim for the product-focused keywords that are strongly relevant to your brand or products. When it comes to the search volume, medium to high is the one you should go for.
Long-tail keywords are a true gold mine, as they make up the majority of online searches for information worldwide. They also have less competition, which means that you won’t have to compete with established, popular brands. While it’s true that this way you’ll attract less organic traffic, you’ll at least be sure that these searchers are purchase-ready.
That’s why you should utilize transactional keywords like “women’s running shoes size 39” because they indicate people ready to make a purchase.
2. Fix Your Site’s Technical Problems
Broken links, duplicate content, bad website architecture, or complicated navigation can have a negative impact on your rankings. Google’s bots will have a hard time crawling and indexing your website, while your visitors will be annoyed by poor user experience.
After you’ve corrected these errors, make sure to prioritize your site’s speed. Internet users are pretty harsh when it comes to website loading time, so it is very important for your website to load quickly.
According to research, if a site takes longer than 3 seconds to load, 40% of visitors will abandon it.
Another important thing to pay attention to is mobile responsiveness. As more than 50% of internet traffic comes from mobile devices, it’s essential to make sure that your website can be properly displayed on different size screens.
3. On-Page Optimization Matters
Start with optimizing the most important pages first. Once you’ve researched your keywords, focus on optimizing your product pages, and blog posts. Placing the keywords in strategic locations like page titles, headers, product descriptions, and image file names is also of paramount importance.
Your URLs need to be optimized too. This means your URLs should be short, relevant, and composed of real words (keywords when possible), so they are user and search-friendly.
The next step is to make sure your meta titles and descriptions are unique and sound like compelling ads since they are vital for organic click-through rates. They appear below a page title in the search engines, and it’s the only information users have on your site, so they are crucial to grabbing their attention.
4. Adding Schema Markup Brings More Traffic
By implementing schema markup, you will make it easier for search engines to read and represent your page in search results. This allows searchers to see star ratings, prices, and availability while browsing for products.
This is not only more eye-catching, but it also increases organic traffic by up to 30%, resulting in more sales for your online store.
Implementing structured markup on your site is very useful for your eCommerce store’s SEO, as it helps Google to understand your content better.
5. Simplifying Site Architecture Makes It More Search-Friendly and User-Friendly
Site architecture massively impacts its usability, rankings, and, ultimately, conversions. Designing a flat architecture is the best way to go as it requires minimum clicks to take a visitor from your home page to a product page.
When mapping out your site information architecture, bear in mind that it should provide a logical path to product pages. The goal is to make your products easily searchable both for users and the crawlers, which is important for rankings. Here is where website redesign SEO tricks will come in handy.
6. User-Generated Content Boosts Sales & SEO Efforts
Adding product reviews to your online store can dramatically increase your conversion rates. 90% of customers say this type of content is much more influential when it comes to making a purchase decision than promotional emails.
In other words, people read reviews before making an online purchase, and this social proof is often a make-it-or-break-it factor that decides whether someone will opt for clicking the “buy” button.
UGC is especially important for eCommerce businesses that have hundreds of product pages, as constantly creating new content can be challenging.
Since Google rewards sites with a constant flow of content, content-rich reviews are great both for your SEO efforts and your potential customers.
As this particular type of content is great for instilling trust and credibility, it can do wonders not only for online stores but also for all businesses offering different services. For example, accountancy firms can greatly benefit from SEO and UGC to generate new business opportunities.
These 6 SEO tips can help you boost your rankings, drive organic traffic, and attract your target audience to your eCommerce business.
Author Bio:
Michael has been working in marketing for almost a decade and has worked with a huge range of clients, which has made him knowledgeable on many different subjects. He has recently rediscovered a passion for writing and hopes to make it a daily habit. You can read more of Michael’s work at Qeedle.
