Search engines play a vital role in eCommerce sites. If an eCommerce site ranks well on search engines for popular keywords, it can provide a tremendous amount of traffic. On the other hand, if you rank poorly, it can result in your site not getting enough traffic to survive. So, whether you’re looking to increase sales and grow your business, or improve your site before selling it to an eCommerce business broker, here are some ways you can boost SEO on your eCommerce website
Conduct Keyword Research
Keyword research is at the heart of any successful SEO strategy. You need to find out what keywords your target audience is using related to your niche. Your goal is to find keywords that not only receive a large number of searches, but that also have a reasonable amount of competition from other sites.
For example, if your eCommerce store sells kids toys, you may want to rank for the keyword “toys for kids”. However, this would likely have a large amount of competition from major brands. Instead, you may have better success with a keyword like “Unique toys for kids who like science”.
Spend some time learning the ins and outs of keyword research, then start conducting your own. It’s all about finding the right words for your eCommerce store, not necessarily the most popular ones. Try to generate about 10 – 20 unique keywords that you can then use in some of the other steps below.
Organize Your Website
A common mistake for eCommerce website owners is not organizing your site properly. An organized site is one where it’s easy for visitors to quickly find what they are looking for and navigate from page to page. You want a system that is easy to use, makes sense logically and is easy to scale up as your site grows.
The best way to do this is by generating top-level categories and splitting your products up between them. If you sell kids toys, your top-level categories could include “Science Toys”, “Baby Toys”, “Toys for Toddlers” and “Outdoor Activities”. You could then have sub-categories within each of these categories depending on how many products you are selling. Take a look at a major eCommerce site like Amazon to see how they organize their site in a simple, yet effective, way.
Use Your Keywords Strategically
When search engines scan your website, they are looking to see if the keyword searched appears in some form on the page. This is why it’s important to conduct keyword research and include them strategically throughout your site. There are a few places you’ll want to be sure you include your keywords.
First, there is the title tag for the page. This is where you should include the main keyword that you want to rank that page for. It’s also what will appear in the search results when people see your site, so make sure the keyword you choose is related to the content on that page.
Some other places you will want to include your keywords include within the URL for the page, in the headers of your content, and a few times naturally throughout the content. When including your keyword, it’s important that you don’t overdo it. Use the keyword a few times on the page, but then also include variations of it. If you include the same exact phrase too many times, search engines will notice and start penalizing you.
Speed Up Your Site
Site speed can impact your search engine rankings, so you’ll want to speed up your site as much as you can. If a site loads too slowly, this will not only increase your bounce rate (which search engines take into account), but it will also negatively impact your search rankings by themselves.
To speed up your site, you can do a few things. First, you should make sure you are using a fast and responsive web design. If your website uses a lot of images, you should try to reduce the file size, provided it doesn’t reduce the quality of the image. Finally, as an eCommerce site, you are likely working with a database. Make sure your database is designed well, as it could slow down the loading times of your product pages.
Start Content Marketing
SEO is an important marketing tool, but there are other marketing tools you can employ that will not only help to increase sales, but they can boost your existing SEO efforts. Content marketing is one of these strategies. With content marketing, you create useful content that will draw in visitors. You can then either post this content on your own website or have it published on others with links back to your own.
A content marketing strategy boosts your SEO efforts in two ways. First, it helps to generate more organic traffic to your website, which search engines like to see. The other way it helps is by providing links back to your website. Search engines like Google rank websites higher if they have more high-quality websites linking to it. A few links to your eCommerce site from other reputable sites could make a big difference in your search rankings.
Use the Right Tools
There are many tools out there designed to help eCommerce sites improve their search rankings. Using a few of these tools can greatly improve your SEO efforts and start driving more traffic to your site. You can start by finding a tool that will help you conduct keyword research and provide additional insights into your keyword choices. Another option is upgrading to better shopping cart software, as this will improve your site speed. Finally, there are SEO software options that provide multiple tools in one. Explore what options are available to you and pick out a few options to try.
Track and Analyze Progress
The last thing you need to do is to track and analyze your progress. With SEO you can’t set up a system and then forget about it. Search rankings and the factors behind them are changing frequently, so you need to keep on top of things. You should have a system in place that allows you to track how your site is doing in terms of traffic and where you rank in search engines for different keywords. You can then see how you’re doing over time and look for areas where you can improve.
Make SEO a Priority for Your eCommerce Site
If you put the effort in, search engines could be a major source of high-quality traffic for your eCommerce site. All it takes is a little research, some changes to your website, and some patience as you wait for the results to come in. Hopefully, this guide is able to get you started and it won’t be long before this happens.