Did you know that 93% of all online experiences start from a search engine? Not to mention,
37.5% of the traffic to ecommerce websites comes from search, as revealed by SEMrush. That’s a sizeable chunk that cannot be ignored.
Let’s suppose a prospect is searching for a product that you provide. How do you think he or she will find your site? Via a search engine. The only catch is that your ecommerce site should be ranking high in the search results because 75% of people will never scroll past the first results page.
All this brings us to SEO, the key to ranking your website higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) and boosting your revenue. So, without further ado, let’s walk you through 8 practical ways to improve your SEO:
1. Hunt down the right keywords
The right keywords
aren’t always low-hanging fruit, easily available and ready to be used in your
content. If anything, these take some digging around. Aim to find long-tail
keywords that can assist you in ranking high for niche-specific topics. A
long-tail keyword is a term that consists of three or more words.
These keywords
attract a narrowed down target audience. For example, if you have a store that
sells pet accessories, don’t target ‘pet accessories’ as the keyword. Instead, use
a long-tail keyword like ‘pet accessories under $100.’
Think along the lines of user queries. Try to be specific and type in conversational queries for finding out the right keywords. If you find keyword research difficult, consider working with an
SEO Marketing Agency.
2. Create blog content
Blogging for your
ecommerce site is the recipe for SEO success. Research confirms that companies
that blog get 434% more indexed pages than those that don’t. Hence, you shouldn’t
just incorporate keywords in your web content and product descriptions only.
Instead, you should also write blog posts around the long-tail keywords that
you research.
While you’re at it, create engaging meta descriptions for each post that you write. Meta descriptions are small descriptions that show under a blog post’s title in the search engine. An attention-grabbing description will urge readers to click on your content and read it, driving leads your way.
3. Fix site errors
Site errors can
negatively impact your SEO. For
instance, a 404 error code tells Google and other search engines that the page
doesn’t exist. Therefore, it doesn’t index it.
Use tools such as
Screaming Frog to unearth website errors. This free tool scans your websites’ links, CSS, script, images, and more from an SEO lens. Following the examination, Screaming Fog delivers a summary of the errors, missing header tags, duplicate pages, etc. Once you get a hold of these errors, correct them quickly to boost site usability, which can help to improve your conversion rate.
4. Pay attention to site speed
In 2018, Google
confirmed
that speed was an important ranking influencer. Besides impacting your ranking,
site speed also affects user experience. Slow speed will discourage a visitor
from spending time on your website, culminating in an increased bounce rate and
poor SEO results.
Research estimates that a second’s delay in page load could lead to a
loss of $2.5 million in sales annually. Moreover,
53% of mobile users abandon a site when it takes longer than three seconds to load.
To this end, take steps to improve your site’s speed. Use tools like
Web Page Test to find out your ecommerce site’s page load speed. Then, take steps to improve load speed, for example, by optimizing your images to reduce their size.
5. Reduce the architectural depth of your site
Your site’s architecture
reveals its structure – the way it branches out. For instance, the home page
goes to the product category, which then leads to a sub-category. This may dive
further into other pages.
However, in-depth
choices can confuse the reader and minimize site usability. Such a setting also
buries a smaller category section. The best way to design your site
architecture for enhancing eCommerce SEO is to construct a horizontal
architecture, which limits the vertical depth of pages.
Try to develop a shallow site architecture where pages are located in one or two subcategories. In this way, Google is able to crawl and index your site quickly and easily.
6. Encourage social traffic to your ecommerce site
Interactions on
social media can help drive branded search your way while increasing your
visibility. As you grow an engaged presence on social, you will develop an
active community of fans, which can drive good traffic your way.
In fact, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are the three leading social platforms that contribute 90% of all social traffic to websites and blogs. With the increased traffic and engagement via social, you can boost your site’s authenticity, which takes your SEO game up by a notch.
7. Take care of on-page SEO
On-page SEO covers
optimizing your site’s pages for search engines optimization. One of the main
steps here is mentioned above: writing compelling meta-descriptions with the
keyword in them. Additionally, use click magnet words in your title tag as
Backlinko
suggests. For example, try ‘X% off’ or ‘lowest price’ for boosting
your click-through rates (CTR).
Similarly, add click-encouraging words in your product descriptions as well. Try words like ‘items on sales’, ‘free shipping,’ and other such words to maximize CTR. Lastly, for your blog content, create awesome content with 1000+ words and add your keyword 3-5 times throughout.
8. Pay attention to local SEO
86% of consumers
take to the internet to search for a local business. Consequently, you need to
pay attention to local SEO to show up in your prospect’s search. To this end,
set up a
Google
My Business account.
This account will
log your business’s details into Google’s database and shows your store in
local search results. Next, try to get some local links to your site, also
known as backlinks. You can get backlinks from review sites and listings such
as Yellow Pages.
Any coverage from
local news outlets, magazines, PR releases, and other local websites and media
can also give you backlinks. These links boost your search engine ranking by signaling
to Google that you are authentic and known in your area.
Final thoughts
Improving your
ecommerce SEO demands work. However, it’s worth all the effort and time you
invest in it, and it will help you with your long term strategy goals To
quickly recap, focus on local and on-page SEO, rectify any errors on your site,
and use keywords in your content.
