If you need to maintain a successful online business, you realize that SEO is everything. SEO(Search engine optimization) helps you increase the performance of your website so as to make it more user-friendly and discoverable in the search engines. As a result, you can expect more sales through the website which is SEO-friendly because it is more likely to be appeared in the search engine result pages.
Keyword Research
Every SEO strategy and planning starts with the keyword research. Keywords make a base for the website optimization, content creation and even for the paid search engine ads. This is the reason they are so significant part, and it is vital that you start with keyword research.
Keywords are basically words or phrases you need to position for. This means once that word or phrase is typed into the browser, you need your site to appear at the highest point of the search engine result page. Being positioned at the top ensures that the users discover your website and click on the link.
As per numerous studies, the top results receive the highest number of visits, as opposed to the results appeared as follows, while the results on the second, third and subsequent pages of the search result received scarcely any visits.
In a nutshell, the process of keyword research works like this:
- Thin down the list based on popularity and competitiveness
- Use a tools to get keyword phrase blends
- Make a last selection by choosing a certain number of keywords
- Write down all the words and phrases you think are associated with your business
- Include equivalent words and related phrases
- Explore the competitors and the keywords they are using
- Use an instrument to check the popularity and competitiveness of those keywords
Site structure
Site structure or site architecture is the way your website is built. In general, you should dependably have in mind SEO-friendliness as a factor when creating a website, when designing the menus, categories, etc. Everything should be well-organized and pursue a sensible structure, which is also something that the search engine crawlers will be able to follow.
Internal links
Internal links are the links that point to other pages of your website. In terms of SEO, internal links help website crawlers to discover new content on your site. It works like a giant spider web. A search engine crawler gets to one page of your website, and afterward starting there, it creeps to the other pages. Without the internal links, the crawlers would consider this one page independently and would neglect the other pages.
When you create a decent structure of your eCommerce, you complete a pretty decent work in organizing internal links. The route is created through the structure, so every product page connects to the other internal page which really has higher need. For example, the product page interfaces back to the category page, and the category page connects to the menu.
Structure
eCommerce websites usually have loads of pages. These are regularly product pages, and there can be a large number of them. If not organized properly, these pages can transform into a huge mess, wherein case it is impossible to index the pages accurately and determine the relationship between them. Therefore, thinking about site structure is significant.
Start with the domain and go from there. You will have a couple of pages spreading, such as, home, about us, contact, products, etc. Presently, each of these can branch into other submenus. You need to focus on products, or services if that is the thing that you are selling. If you have a great deal of products, endeavor to organize them in categories.
For example, if you sell tennis equipment, you can have categories clothes, equipment, shoes, etc. Then, inside each of these categories, you will further classify the products. Speaking of clothes, you maybe have T-shirts, shorts, socks, accessories, etc.
Friendly URLs
Another element of the website structure that has the influence on website ranking and indexing process is a friendly URL structure. A URL helps search engine crawlers to understand context and index those URLs properly. A decent SEO-friendly URL as a rule:
- Is short
- Is readable
- Matches the title
- Does not use the stop words
When creating URLs for an eCommerce website, you should not use numbers or other abbreviations for the product page name. Instead, use the product name and make this also a part of the URL.
Structured data markup helper
Website content is presented in a way search engine crawlers see it. Google, for example, needs to understand the content in a better way, so it can present this content in the search results more effectively. Apart from the search results, Google can really present content in a useful way in Gmail too. This is done through rich snippets. These snippets improve user experience with enriched information and presentation that is more engaging.
On-site SEO
On-site SEO is the process of advancing website pages to make the website more SEO-friendly, and thus increase the performance of its pages in the search engine results. This process requires a series of activities to enhance the performance. You need to follow the guidelines related to content optimization, image optimization, etc. This is what is normal for most websites, yet for an eCommerce website, on location SEO also needs to focus on product pages and their optimization.
Title tag
Title tag represents the title of the page. It is marked with a H1 tag, and it has the greatest importance for the search engine crawlers. Ordinarily, you should use keywords in the title tag. When it comes to an eCommerce website, your goal should be to go for a more specific keyword phrase.
These really contain words like purchase, online, cheap, best, etc. These words help you create long-tail keywords that perform better as they will pull in the correct traffic. For example, if you use keyword “purchase tennis equipment” in the title tag, the page should appear when someone uses this phrase in the search query.
Product pages
Product pages are an essential part of eCommerce, and yet, they are what makes eCommerce SEO different from the standard website optimization. Unlike content articles, which provide a great deal of content, which is optimized and subsequently accessible and indexable by the search engines, product pages may become a challenge. Right off the bat, they don’t have as much content. The main content on these pages is really product description.
Secondly, product pages usually focus on visual content, such as, images and videos. Visual content is more successful at getting a handle on the attention of the visitors. Also, the features and usefulness of the product are greatly improved illustrated through the visual content, which makes it more effective in terms of persuading customers to purchase.
User-generated content
User-generated content is an excellent way to add unique content to your website, and it is also encouraging for the future customers. Therefore, this content conveys freshness to your site, and it helps you with achieving conversions. There are two essential steps to help you with user-generated content:
- Get great reviews and testimonials by providing stunning products and excellent service
- Encourage the customers to provide their review
When it comes to how to get reviews, try these:
- Integrate social media – Plugins for social media integration permit providing feedback through social media accounts
- Install a plugin – You could install a plugin that will enable customers to leave their review. The review can feature customer’s name, a star review and a written review. The date when the review was posted could also be helpful for the future customers.
- Make review process easy – Make this process fast and easy for customers to encourage more reviews
Site Search
You should not underestimate the power of site search. This choice is very useful in ecommerce, and a great deal of website visitors will use it to search for the products. This means you have to optimize the internal site search results, so that even the users who type equivalent words, misspell the product name or use spacing errors are eventually taken to the appropriate product page.
This way you significantly reduce the chances of losing sales due to incorrect search results and because users were unable to locate the correct product using the internal search results.
Analysis of the search results can also help you find what the users are looking for on your website, which products are prevalent and how users interact with your website in general. This can help you understand the behavior of your customer in a better way, and it also shows you if you need to optimize or adjust certain pages to increase their performance even more.
Link building for eCommerce
Link building is an essential action of off-site optimization. The process includes a series of activities conducted to get more links to point to your website. The main benefit of these links is increased exposure. When a link to your site is placed on another site, you increase the chance of online users learning about your products.
In terms of search engines, links are seen as a vote of trust, and in this way they help with deserving better positioning in the search engine result pages. This is the reason increasing quality links can be very useful for your SEO.
In SEO, links are generally deserved with exceptional quality and relevance. These are purported editorial links, and they are the most valuable links a site can get. When it comes to eCommerce websites, things can be somewhat different, because an editorial link can be harder to get, especially all alone. Product pages are generally not seen as quality content, yet instead, they are often considered commercial content. Here are a couple of ways to get links for an eCommerce website:
Influencer outreach
This strategy includes reaching influencers in the business and requesting that they share the review or information about the product. This can help create a buzz about your products, and get exposure online. To sum up the process of reaching out:
- Create an outreach email with an offer for the influencer
- Direct a campaign together
- Track social shares, visits, etc.
- Discover the influencers
- Choose the influencer
Partnership
A partnership can be a very lucrative joint effort for business. The idea with this approach is to find another business that is somehow related to you, however it isn’t your competitor. For example, if your eCommerce website sells tennis equipment, your partner can be a local tennis club. This way, they could promote your brand, and in return, you could offer a rebate or special offers for their members.
