Exposure to search engine networks is the most crucial factor for an online business, and certainly, it is more relevant today than ever before — given the current health crisis posed by the ongoing pandemic around the world.

It is no secret around 70% of customers come to make purchase decisions through search engines before they proceed to carry out shopping over the internet. Thus, eCommerce SEO tips and tactics are worth considering for online stores to boost their web traffic.

The role of SEO in e-commerce is undeniable. It is a technique that comes with enduring perks and requires considerably low investment compared to running paid campaigns such Google Ads, PPC, CPC or resorting to sponsored campaigns on social media that drain so much money out of the business capital— typically if your eCommerce business is not a giant one.

In this article, we will explain web traffic, eCommerce SEO, and five best practices that help direct traffic to your online store and improve the conversion rate.

 

 

• Understanding the Web Traffic

The term web traffic refers to the amount of information or data sent and received by visitors to your website, blog, or eCommerce store. You can precisely assess how many visitors visit the website during a specific time with traffic analytics tools.

Primarily, there are two data analytics tools commonly used:

Page views: It refers to the number of times users come to visit a website. However, when a person visits more than one page of the website, they are measured as additional page views.

Unique Page views: when a person visits a page once or even frequently during a specific period, it falls into the unique page views section.

For further in-depth analysis of the web traffic, the Google Analytics tool is used that allows webmasters and SEO professionals to make a better understanding of how a website functions. The tool has various features that allow you to identify multiple things such as:

–     Impressions and Clicks

–     Sessions

–     Traffic Channels 

–     Bounce Rate

–     Demographics and Visitors Location

–     Acquisitions and Conversions

Google Analytics tools come with a full pack of features and are not limited to the above-listed ones alone. All these metrics allow eCommerce Web Development Company to figure out where a website is lacking in functionality and also help identify areas of opportunities and further enhancement.

Before we get into specifics, it is important to mention why SEO is a critical component for every eCommerce business.

 

• Significance of E-Commerce SEO

As per SEMrush reports, 37.5% of eCommerce traffic originates from searches. It can be interpreted that you could lose 37.5% of potential traffic to your online store. What is more overwhelming is the fact that more than 60% of visitors often click the top three websites on the search engine results page ( SERP).

 

• How to Rank Your Online Store Website?

Now that you came to learn the significance of placing your online store website in the top three SERP positions, you might wonder how to do it in the first place. That’s where a professional SEO in-house team or freelancer comes into play.

What makes an SEO-led marketing strategy unique is that it brings in organic traffic? Visitors usually have fatigue and shy away from websites that are pushed up with paid campaigns and naturally feel safe to go for websites that have no ads tag attached to them on the search result page.

Thus, having your online store ranked organically has a huge tendency that users may trust and come to your website.

 

• E-Commerce SEO Downside

There is no such downside apart from time consumption. However, the long-term benefits outweigh the time invested in optimizing your website for search engines.

SEO implementation is not an overnight or quick-fix remedy for your eCommerce store. It takes time for your online store website to fully rank against every service and product-related keyword and phrase that people come to key in as a query in the search engine bar and to reach out to your website.

Without further ado, let us get into the five best SEO practices that will drive in more traffic and improve the conversion rate for your eCommerce business.

 

1. Optimize Your E-Commerce Website for Mobile Phones

Today, more than ever, people come to do the search and surf, and ever carrying out shopping on the internet via smartphones and other gadgets such as Tablets and iPads. You might be losing a lot if unable to reach this particular segment. Optimization for Mobile phones implies that your online store website is fully functional on smartphones of every brand. A lot of time, websites that failed to load up properly tend to alienate visitors. The definitive goal for your website is to provide a great user experience and make visitors tick for a durable time.

 

2. Loading Speed and Media Optimization

Search engines crave websites that load fast enough. Speed is one of the major ranking factors that help push up your website to the top of search result pages. From the end user’s perspective, loading speed is very detrimental as well. Visitors often bounce to other websites when the loading speed is too slow and lateritic.

Multiple things come into play that hinders the speed of a website from loading fast enough. Website weight is a terminology used which implies that how heavy a website is and what makes a website heavy in the first place.

Typically, media files, such as pictures and videos that are embedded in websites can make and break a website’s speed. Thus, all media files must meet the required format, size and resolution. Moreover, the site has to clean up every dead and broken internal link as it does stop websites from load up within the required time.

 

3. Website Design and Responsiveness

Equally important as loading speed, website responsiveness also determines the success of a website. Your eCommerce website must be capable of auto-alignment when get accessed through any type of device, laptop, desktop, smartphone, tablet, or iPad so to say. All the devices have different display resolutions and your website must align itself across such devices screen itself.

A lot of time, design overlaps occur when a website is not fully responsive and result in an increased bounce rate.

 

4. Incorporate Engaging Content

Whether textual or visual, content is another devil in disguise when it comes to websites of eCommerce nature, or generally of any other genre. Keeping visitors engaged through content that grabs attention is the way to make them stick to your website.

As an online store, your website must include quality pictures that flawlessly load up and capable of zooming in and out. It allows customers to evaluate and make a judgment about your products and proceed with a purchase decision. Furthermore, concise and eloquent product descriptions and former customer’s reviews table help in an increased rate of conversions and lead.

 

5. Incorporate Social Media Presence

Millions of people today use social media, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and list goes on. Having your feet in any or multiple social media platforms can also come in very handy in terms of staying engaged with the audience.

Social media managers constantly reach out to people with consistent content and posting which results in driving in web traffic to the eCommerce websites. The content pitched to social media account is not supposedly for sale purposes every time, but rather keeping the community aware and engaged by introducing something of discussion.

 

Key Takeaways

The eCommerce industry is an ever-green industry, and every online store today wants to claim its piece of the pie as online consumerism increases day by day. To reach your desired market segment, an eCommerce store must incorporate the enormous role of SEO to increase its online presence on the search engine network.

A search engine-friendly website requires complying with various matrices, such as loading speed, responsiveness, and content optimization to rank up and a consistent social media presence can result in driving in more web traffic and boost sales.

 

Author Bio:

Muhammad Irshad is Digital Marketing, Content Writer, and SEO Specialist at FME Extensions Dubai— a leading eCommerce and Magento development company in Dubai.

Mr. Irshad enjoys reading and writing about Tech, eCommerce, SEO, Digital Marketing, Entrepreneurship, and Innovations. Be at ease reaching out and connecting to Muhammad Irshad on LinkedIn.