Everything You Need to Know About E-Commerce SEO
When looking to attract more customers to your business, there are countless marketing strategies you can opt for. However, one approach you cannot overlook is e-commerce search engine optimization. But, what is it exactly and how can it help your company? Keep on reading to learn more.
What is e-commerce SEO?
First of all, we should establish what e-commerce SEO is. It is a process that intends to make your online store more visible to customers by using a set of optimization techniques that help the website rank higher on search engine results pages. Relying on SEO can increase your leads, drive more traffic to your website, and grow your business.
Why is it important for an e-commerce business?
So, in addition to the previously listed benefits, how else can you profit from e-commerce SEO? For one, investing in this can help more people find your brand and products. When properly optimized, your website will appear in more searches and more people will be able to discover you. Your products will also be more visible due to brand recognition.
Moreover, by focusing on e-commerce SEO, you will optimize your website and, therefore, create a better user experience for all visitors. This can, in turn, increase your sales.
How to improve your e-commerce SEO?
With all the perks in mind, let’s go over some strategies that can help you improve your e-commerce SEO.
Research relevant keywords
First and foremost, for a successful SEO strategy, you need to research relevant keywords. These are the terms and phrases that customers use when looking for products on search engines. For instance, if someone is looking for a rug for the living room, they might type in “high-quality wool rugs.” While you might not sell rugs, you want to determine which keywords pertain to your products and implement them in your strategy. This can help you appear in search results for a particular term. You can do some research on your own to find the best keywords or turn to an agency that specializes in this field. No matter your approach, you should opt for long-tail keywords as they can drive more traffic to your website.
Produce quality, useful content
Once you have found the right keywords, you want to implement them in several aspects of your website. One of them is certainly the content you produce. You want to start a blog where you can post a wide array of articles that will be useful to your audience. This will not only give you more traffic but also give you more authority and make you more trustworthy.
Add intriguing title tags
You also want to work on your title tags, as they are what your audience sees first and a direct ranking factor for the SERPs. Spend some time coming up with interesting titles that will entice shoppers to click on your page. Furthermore, remember to place the primary keyword at the very beginning as people tend to read only the first few words they encounter. Don’t go over 55 characters to avoid having your title cut off.
Write interesting meta descriptions
Meta descriptions are also important. This is what appears underneath the title tag. Here, you can give a short description of your page and tell the shoppers what they can expect. Make it eye-catching and around 160 characters.
Opt for responsive design
Another thing to keep in mind is the fact that more than 70% of shoppers use their smartphones to browse products and make purchases. That means that you need to optimize your website for mobile. Better yet, make your website responsive from the get-go. As Google uses mobile-first indexing in order to rank websites, this will help you be among the first results customers see. In case your website is not currently responsive, consider giving it a makeover. For instance, if you’re located in Australia, you can find reliable experts for SEO in Sydney that will create a responsive website that meets all industry specifics.
Use clear URL structures
Something else you should be working on is your store’s accessibility. For example, an important aspect of that is having clear, user-friendly URL structures. Don’t use random strings of letters and numbers but use specific words that will help shoppers see exactly what they are looking at or assist them in finding a product much easier. A clear structure will also ensure you rank higher in SERPs.
Work on easy navigation
As you surely have hundreds of product pages on your website, you need to make them easy to navigate. You want to keep everything organized and create a structure that will make the website easy to navigate. Use categories and a search bar to help customers find what they need.
Improve the speed of your website
An important factor for the success of your store that you cannot overlook is the speed of your website. A fast website increases conversions and has a lower bounce rate. There are several ways to boost the speed, such as compressing Javascript, HTML, and CSS files, removing some unnecessary add-ons, reducing redirects, and taking a look at the configuration of your server. You can always find professionals that can help you with this as well.
Optimize the images you use
Every e-commerce business should know the importance of images in order to appeal to customers. However, if you have too many images, your website can be very slow. This is why optimizing images is essential for a fast-loading website. Adopt compression tools that will make the images smaller and easier to load. Moreover, you want to add alt text that will describe the photos that can’t be loaded.
Don’t forget about security
Finally, you should not disregard how essential security is for customers. As a store, you need to use SSL encryption in order to help your audience feel secure when providing you with their personal and financial information. Getting an SSL certificate means that the data on your website will be encrypted and people with bad intentions can’t access it. Your domain will also start with HTTPS instead of the unsecure HTTP.
If you have an e-commerce store or are thinking about opening one soon, there are different factors to keep in mind. One that you should not neglect is certainly SEO, as it will allow you to reach a wide audience by ranking higher on Google’s results pages.
