Even after spending months, there are several instances, if not years, you end up with no traffic for your e-commerce website. A few decades, e-commerce was the monopoly of only tech giants, fast forwards, accessible to every aspiring individual.
Even though only a few can succeed in nailing the game of selling online. And the underlying reason is having a clear understanding of SEO. Research conducted by HubSpot concludes that SEO is one of the biggest challenges in inbound marketing.
It is imperative to understand that SEO is more than just improving your SERP ranking. After all, the agenda is to bring forth more sales to your website.
So, what are you waiting for? Buckle up, and let’s jump right into various ways you can increase your sales exponentially.
SEO - An Integral Part of E-Commerce Website
Do you know that 44% of all online shopping is redirected from search engines? The US Department of Commerce predicted an overall sale of $341.7 billion in 2015 for an e-commerce store.
There was an increase of 14.6% as compared to the year 2014. This data alone is compelling enough to consider SEO as an integral part of your e-commerce website.
Be it fixing your meta description, offering off-site support, or focusing on technical SEO, there are several ways in which SEO has completely eradicated conventional marketing strategies.
Keyword Research is Everything
Do you know that an average consumer processes almost 100,500 digital words every day? With such great prospects, it can also get tougher to reach out to the right audience.
This is where targeted keywords come to save the day. Whether you are selling products on your website or hunting down new clients, it has become a must-have to work around keywords.
Find the Right Keyword
To succeed with content creation, you need to understand the right ways to find keywords. Keywords can help you to narrow down and target the audience who are interested in your product.
Some of our favorite keyword research tool includes:
- Google Autosuggest: Google in itself is a hidden gem when it comes to finding keywords. Just type in your keyword and wait for Google’s recommendation.
- Google Related Search: Scroll down at the bottom of the page to find related searches based on your keyword.
- Ubersuggest: Simply type in the product name to find all the relevant keywords around the same.
- Keywordtool.io: Best suited for long-tail keywords, you can pair your product names with added information.
Use Long-Tail/ Semantic Keywords
Long gone are the days of keyword stuffing in the hope that Google would notice you. Instead of which, your focus should be to work with long-tail keywords that better define your content.
The same goes for semantic keywords as well. These are supporting keywords that can help you to create better relevance to your content. You can also help big players like Amazon and Flipkart find the right keyword for your product.
Stop Keyword Cannibalization
Keyword cannibalization, by far one of the most common mistakes, leads to the downfall of any website whatsoever. When you are using the same keyword for multiple pages, it confuses Google. IT solution companies frequently use interesting approaches to execute any keyword strategy because they have a high market rivalry and must always enhance their keywords, so be sure to check them out for some ideas.
Not only do you lose credibility for all the pages, but they end up competing with one another. So, our recommendation would be to use keywords curated for a single page.
Carefully Optimize your Product Page
If you aim to rank higher in Google search results, you must optimize each page accordingly. The same goes for e-commerce websites, where you need to optimize each product separately.
Right before working on the site-structure or the navigation, ask yourself these questions:
- Search queries used by the consumers to land on your page.
- Search queries used by the consumers once they land on your page.
- Pages getting the most traffics.
- Top exit pages on your website.
This, in turn, can help you to create a mind map on how you want to optimize your product page exactly.
Start with Images
Adding “alt” tags to your images is a way to showcase the keyword being represented by the photo. If you want to improve your search result, always start with the images.
Keywords and Product Titles Go Hand-in-Hand
Adding a relevant keyword to your product title makes sure that Google clearly understands what the product is all about. For added versatility, you can also add phrases that better define the product.
Use Long Content for Product Description
There is something about long content that Google can’t get enough of. Jokes apart, this also gives you more room to work around the content. For starters, your target should be to use a minimum of 500 words for the product description.
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Don’t Forget Technical SEO
Ah! Technical SEO is an evergreen topic, which is not leaving any time soon. For all the e-commerce websites, technical SEO has transcended beyond meta tags and sitemaps.
After all, SEO can drive almost 1000% more traffic as compared to any organic media. So, here are some of the technical SEO ideas you can work on.
Clean Up Your URLs
A cleaner URL is not only easy to understand but easier to navigate as well. From your customer’s perspective, it can be a huge pain point. Some of the most effective ways to create your URL structure are:
- Replace all the dynamic URLs with a cleaner one
- Say NO to ugly parameters (e.g. ?productId=50763526&cp)
- Go with dashes instead of spaces and underscore
- Always add targeted keywords to the URL
- A short URL is always appreciated
Ditch HTTP for HTTPS
When it comes to e-commerce websites, there’s a ton of private information that gets stored on the website. This includes the card number, passwords as well as addresses.
That is why, as an e-commerce website, you must pay close attention. Google always appreciates an SSL certification.
Always Redirect Your 404 Pages
Broken links can be a real pain at times. In case you are wondering, Google always pays attention to how you are offering the user experience. Our recommendation would be to do some cleaning and change your 404 errors to 301 redirects.
Watch Closely to Link Building
Building links for your homepage, products as well as a category can get tedious at times. On the flip side, the tricker for you, the same goes for your competitor as well. The earlier you can ace the game, the better for you.
Note: Different processes mentioned above are completely white-hat. But, certain creative grey/black hat folks offer impressive results in no time. Our recommendation would be to stay ethical with your entire link-building process, as suggested by Shrushti.
Find Websites Linking to Your Competitor
One of the easiest ways to find links to browse through your competitor’s website. Ahref’s Site Explorer is a great tool to find links from your competitors.
Our suggestion would be to add at least two competitors’ websites for versatility. Since these websites are linking to multiple competitors, it can get easier for you to link.
Make Use of Manufacturer’s “Where to Buy” Pages
This particular section is dedicated to e-commerce websites working closely with multiple vendors. With enough site authority, you can ask the manufacturer to link your online store to their website.
A quick Google search can help you pinpoint all the vendors you are working with, along with their “where to buy” pages. It is a fairly easy way to backlink. You can reach out to them with a request.
Work with ‘International Alternatives’
You can target competitors from different markets for backlinking. In other words, if you are serving the United States, you can reach out to your UK competitor.
This is a fair trade to make with you recommending their websites as well. In other words, it is a complete win-win situation for both parties.
Deliver the Best User Experience
While the most effective SEO strategies keep changing, few things will always remain constant. Google will always make sure that it connects with the best content for its customer.
To improve your domain authority, you need to make sure to provide quality content consistently. You need to sell quality products along with highly engaging content for the user.
A better SEO ranking directly correlates to a better user experience you serve to the customer. Some of the most effective ways include:
A Modern UI/UX Design
The way your website looks and feels makes all the difference. Long gone are the days of complicated UI with hard-to-navigate menus. For starters, you can take a minimalist approach while designing the website.
Make sure to get in touch with custom website designers who can provide you with tailor-made designs for your site.
Work what a design that is easy to understand. The longer a user stays on your website, improves its credibility while increasing your chances with a better SERP ranking.
Make Your Website Responsive
You would be surprised to know that 67% of all the shoppers prefer to make their purchase from a mobile-friendly website. That means if your website is not optimized for mobile devices, you are potentially missing out on huge revenues.
The only way around is to create a completely responsive website that supports various screen resolutions. It is one of the advanced SEO techniques you can implement.
Increase Your Website’s Speed
In our fast-paced world, it is very important to keep up with speed. Your site’s loading time heavily determines its success. Google is very selective about such factors.
You can always make the best use of Google PageSpeed to significantly improve the overall user experience while cutting down that extra time.
Add a Touch of Interactive Content
Lastly, interactive contents are the sector that is going to draw your customer-like bees towards your website. Interacting with your customer not only creates a sense of oneness but also help you understand them better.
Some of the most efficient ways to create interaction in your website include:
Add Customer Review Functionality
Customer reviews are by far one of the easiest ways to add engagement to your product pages. Adding customer reviews can bring forth drastic changes to your SEO score. This can take customer review to another level. Instead of just putting forward reviews, you can also comment. This ensures that your page is continuously being updated.
Product Videos
According to Animoto, 73% of all your customers are likely to buy products online if they watch an explainer video. In other words, it gives your customer confidence before making any purchase.
Not only it increases your conversion rate, but it can also improve your search ranking. Videos are also a great way to differentiate yourself from the rest of your competitors. Just bear in mind, it requires a significant investment of time and money to make such compelling videos.
Social Media Shares
This goes without saying the influence of social media on your e-commerce website. Even now, if you are not investing in social media, you miss out on some great opportunities.
Adding a social media share button beside even the product compels your customer to interact while bossing your SEO ranking. After all, Google uses them as social proof to consider your credibility.
Chat Bots
Last but not least, chatbots are the best ways to guide your customers through the entire purchase process. A chatbot is also a clear indication that you worry about your customers on a deeper level.
So, to rank higher on Google, consider adding chatbots to your website.
The Bottom Line
If you want to ramp up your sales on your e-commerce store, make sure you increase your visibility on search engines. You can always follow the best SEO practices above-mentioned and put forward the effort required to get a better SERP ranking.
Reputed companies, including Shrushti, can always provide you the right assistance towards getting more sales. So, start implementing the techniques that are most effective towards getting search engine traffic.
About the Author
My name’s Semil Shah, and I pride myself on being the last digital marketer that you’ll ever need. Having worked internationally across agile and disruptive teams from San Fransico to London, I can help you take what you are doing in digital to a whole next level.