If you’re like most internet users, your quest for a new product starts with a search. You may be typing in generic inquiries such as “faux-leather jacket,” but every pursuit ends on a results page. Whoever has the best on-site experience, products, and information for the customer wins the higher visibility. This higher search engine visibility is known as SEO or Search Engine Optimization.
For eCommerce brands, SEO can make or break your business. When done right, these optimization steps will help you rank higher than your competitors resulting in more sales and better brand recognition.
However, achieving this optimized website isn’t as easy as it sounds. The core of any SEO strategy for eCommerce is first understanding your audience and their search behavior. Once you know this, improving your SEO will be much easier.
Understand Your Keywords and Keyword Intent
Faux-leather jacket, the inquiry we used as an example above, is also an example of a long-tailed keyword.
Keywords are the phrase or phrases that searchers use intending to find a specific site or page. Some are more popular, such as “Nike,” while others can be niche and specific, such as “Nike Waffle One coconut milk.” While the first keyword makes perfect sense, the second may leave you scratching your head.
However, Google and other search engines have a unique ability to scan and understand a website. Even though a search inquiry may be specific and uncommon, there will always be a result.
Knowing the keywords your audience is using can help you appear on their Search Engine Results Pages (also known as “SERPs” or “SERPs”). The best way to do this for free is by using a tool called Answer The Public. Here you can type in the product or business you are in and see what your users are searching for.
1. Improve Your Customer Experience
Once you have the keywords and phrases you know your audience is using, it’s time to optimize your website and put those keywords into your site pages.
Optimize may seem like a scary word, but all it means is the process of improving your website's performance. This can include using better imagery, decreasing loading times, improving navigation, or adding keywords to your pages.
Here are the top 5 pages we suggested pages to optimize:
Products
Homepage
About Us
F.A.Q.
Blog articles
How you optimize your pages will vary based on what your website needs. One of the best ways to understand how and what needs to be optimized on your website can be done simply by asking your audience. A good customer experience means your customers will spend more. In fact, 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience. If you're interested in conducting audience experience surveys, click this link here.
2. Map Out Your Site Architecture
One significant difference between eCommerce and other types of businesses is the vast amounts of pages that eCommerce websites often have. Because your eCommerce website may have hundreds and hundreds of pages, it's best to map these pages out and ensure the customer can easily understand how to get from one place to the next.
Creating a website is more than creating a pretty site. You also need a plan and a way to navigate your pages. Site mapping, or site architecture, is how you create elaborate websites that are easy to navigate and enjoyable to use.
Defining your website architecture will also help you understand what type of copy and images to place on each page, depending on where they lead next.
While you can build a website without first having some website architecture, it’s not a good idea to do so since site mapping can significantly impact your user experience. For example, you can go on a road trip without a map or a plan, but what will you miss along the way?
3. Invest in On-Site SEO
Simply put, on-site SEO focuses on changes you can make to your website to improve your search rankings. This includes your page titles, metadata, alt text, and almost anywhere text is utilized on your site.
On the other hand, off-site SEO focuses on external factors that impact your site’s search rankings. This can include such things as social media accounts, in-person events, interviews, and more.
When it comes to eCommerce SEO, people typically start their product investigation with a search (usually on Google). To make an informed buying decision, they usually:
Compare prices and features
Read reviews
Search for tips and advice
Going back to our earlier section on keywords, on-site SEO is where those keywords are going to come in handy. With these keywords, you'll want to place the most important ones in page titles, headers, subheaders, paragraph copy, product descriptions, image file names and alt text, meta title and description, and URLs. Feel free to use different variations of each keyword, as long as they don't stray too far from the original.
We recommend putting all the details (shipping costs, user reviews, return policy, etc.) on each product page. If the customer has to leave the page to look for extra information, they are more likely to leave the website altogether.
4. Optimize For Mobile Users
This probably isn’t the first time you’ve heard or seen a company tell you that your website needs to be mobile-friendly, but precisely what is a mobile-friendly website?
A mobile-friendly website works well regardless of if it’s opened on a desktop or a mobile device. This considers how easy the site navigation is, if it loads quickly, and much more.
In April of 2015, Google announced that it would be using the mobile-friendliness of a website as a ranking factor. This change forced 85% of the websites at the time to really take a good look at exactly how friendly their websites were.
And starting in July of 2019, Google started to index websites first by mobile, then by desktop.
So while Google might not rank your website higher just because it’s mobile-friendly, it’s one of the most important factors when considering rank order on the Results Pages.
Regardless of if you have an existing website or are in the middle of creating a new one, mobile responsiveness and friendliness will always be key. To learn how to improve your website's mobile friendliness, click the link here.
5. Build Your Links
If you're asking why link building is so crucial for eCommerce, the answer is simple:
Because building the right backlinks to your eCommerce store can make you outrank Amazon and Etsy.
According to Google, organic search traffic is the highest quality of traffic for e-commerce. Building your links can help increase not only your brand awareness but your search engine rankings as well.
Link building is the practice of acquiring links to your website from other websites. In SEO, these links are called backlinks. Getting backlinks from high-quality sites can improve your site's authority and improve your website traffic.
On-Site (Internal) Link Building:
Optimize your sites with the best keywords
Link internally to other pages when necessary. EX: blogs that showcase items or gift guides that link to the individual item
Add relevant content such as blogs, testimonials, etc. that can internally link to your product pages
Off-Site Link Building:
Vendor links
Unlinked brand mentions (such as social media or a newspaper)
Backlinks (Niche-based links)
Articles
Key Takeaways
Optimized eCommerce website design boosts conversions and helps contribute to your overall online success. By focusing on your audience, the type of experience they're looking for, and the keywords they choose, you'll be able to improve your eCommerce rankings in just a few weeks!
But even if you're not the most creative brand and don't have an in-house web designer or a lot of time to spend on your design, you can still achieve a web store design optimized for conversions. In fact, you can get your website up in as little as just a few days.
If you already have a great website and need some SEO help with the tips mentioned above, Zoek can do that too! Click the link below to find the service perfect for your business, and we'd be happy to chat.
Comments