Ecommerce has gained massive popularity in the past five years. With more and more retailers entering the digital landscape to sell their products online, the cost of acquiring new customers has also witnessed a noticeable rise.
In such a competitive scenario, businesses leveraging paid ads are also struggling to get traffic and sales.
Ecommerce SEO has always been a cost-effective and result-driven strategy to drive organic traffic. Also, you don't have to throw lots of money to build your ecommerce empire when you implement the best SEO practices.
The purpose of creating this comprehensive ecommerce SEO checklist is to help ecommerce sellers develop an effective SEO strategy that drives traffic and conversions.
What Is Ecommerce SEO?
Ecommerce SEO is a process of creating an effective SEO strategy that improves your online store's visibility in SERPs. Your goal as an online seller is to rank your store higher on search engines so that more and more people can find it.
Yes, you can get more traffic through paid advertisements, but that costs a lot more than organic traffic-building strategies like SEO.
Ecommerce SEO is a multi-step process that involves content optimization (headlines, meta titles, meta descriptions, product descriptions), link building, and improving UI for better accessibility and user experience.
Why SEO Matters For Your Ecommerce Business?
Most of us use search engines to look for the products we want to buy for our personal or professional use.
But it is also the fact that most of us keep our search confined to the first page of Google only. If your business is ranked on the second or third pages of a search engine, you'll lose a chance to get more traffic even if you have the best products in the world.
That's where SEO best practices come in.
With an effective SEO strategy, you can reach more people and get them to your website. Once you have enough traffic on your site, you can convert them with your attractive offers and compelling CTAs.
Some other benefits of SEO for your ecommerce business include:
Guarantees Better User Experience
Unlike in the past, when ecommerce selling was limited to a few things, today, it's all about offering a perfect user experience.
There are many ways you can improve the user experience for your visitors using the best SEO practices - having a mobile-responsive, fast website, high-quality content, and live chat support are to name a few.
All of this contributes to the lead generation process and better conversion rates. When Google sees you're following the best SEO practices for e-commerce to maximize user experience, it ranks your website higher on SERPs.
Generates Leads
When it comes to B2B and B2C businesses, inbound strategies are the most effective source of lead generation. These strategies include SEO, content marketing, SMM, and more.
Most businesses witness great results in terms of lead generation when they create and implement an SEO strategy. So, you may need to revise your strategy if you're not getting the desired results.
Better Close Rates
Did you know you can achieve an average of 14.6% close rate when you implement the best SEO strategies? When you get a visitor to your store from search engines, they tend to convert better as they already have a clear purpose in mind.
Higher Conversion Rates
People trust brands that are listed on the first page of Google. When your ecommerce store is ranked higher on search engines, you get quality traffic on your site with a massive potential to convert. Make sure you maintain your top position to enjoy high conversion rates over time.
Better Cost Management
According to research, inbound strategies can reduce your lead generation costs by a whopping 61%.
The concept is pretty simple. When your store is already ranking higher on search rankings, you don't really have to spend extravagantly on your paid marketing efforts.
Your store will dominate the search results as long as people are clicking on your site.
Builds Repo
As mentioned above, people trust brands that are listed on the first page of Google. Ranking on the initial pages of Google gives your visitors an assurance that your business is popular and has a huge followership.
Creates Brand Awareness
Creating brand awareness is as critical as driving conversions. According to Investopedia, “Creating brand awareness is one of the key steps in promoting a product.”
When users see your brand dominating search results, they get familiar with your brand and visit your website for further information.
Helps You Gain Market Share
Being on top of SERPs means you'll receive plenty of quality traffic to your site. Once users have found their required information, they'll contribute to the conversion process by either making a purchase or signing up for your email list or newsletter.
Acts As A Long-Term Marketing Tactic
Unless Google changes its algorithm, your SEO strategy can benefit you for many years. That lends a great opportunity for your business to maintain optimal rankings on search results and gain further market share.
Supports Your Social Media Strategies
Increased brand awareness also leads to more traffic on your social media profiles. You can also direct your followers to your landing pages through social media ads that eventually add to your profit margins and revenues.
Improves Website Speed
Your website speed matters. Research suggests that a 2-minute delay in your site load time can cost your business a 4.3% reduction in sales. What SEO does is improves your site speed and reduces your bounce rate.
Now that you know why your ecommerce SEO matters for your business, it's time to see how you can create an effective SEO strategy to drive traffic and sales.
Creating An Effective SEO Strategy For Your Ecommerce Business In 2023
Here are three essentials you should keep in mind while creating an SEO strategy for your ecommerce business:
1. Conduct Competitor Analysis
You must create an SEO strategy that helps your business stand out in the crowd. For this, you have to conduct a competitor analysis to check in on your rival's SEO efforts. That goes without saying that your goal should be to outperform them in terms of search rankings and SEO.
2. Prioritize Your Website Pages
Start with the pages that receive maximum traffic on your site. If you want your audience to focus on any specific product, then you must optimize that page for SEO first.
3. Develop a Workflow
As discussed above, SEO is a multi-step process that requires you to focus simultaneously on multiple objectives. It is therefore critical to creating a workflow that helps you pay attention to individual tasks.
9 Things To Consider In Your Perfect Search Engine Optimization Strategy
1. Create A Comprehensive Keyword Research Strategy
Keyword research forms the foundation for an effective SEO strategy. You don't have to stuff your content with keywords, but they should be sprinkled all over your content for better visibility and optimization.
Make sure you include keywords in your main headlines/subheadlines, meta titles/descriptions, and alt attributes. It's also critical to do some research before you incorporate any specific keywords in your content. For instance, search for search volume and CPC to determine the user intent behind a keyword.
2. Conduct Competitor Analysis
If you have no idea where to start with your optimization strategy, you're not alone. Many beginners face this issue when they are starting out.
The best way to deal with such a situation is to perform a competitor analysis. Carefully examine what specific keywords your competitors are targeting for leads and conversions.
Many online tools can help you spy on your competitors. Do not limit your search to keywords only. Also, check out your competitor's home page and other landing pages to see how they have optimized those pages for better visibility and traffic.
3. Create A User-Friendly Website
Your website structure plays a critical role in search engine optimization. As you're adding more products to your category pages, you have to focus more on creating a distinct hierarchy that helps your customers easily find what they're looking for in your store.
Make sure you do not clutter everything on your homepage. Create separate product pages for each product category and optimize them well for the user intent.
4. Avoid Duplication
Search engines hate duplication. Most ecommerce stores have thousands of products. That is why it can be difficult for them to avoid content cannibalization. But duplication can ruin your search engine rankings.
To avoid this, you have to add a canonical tag that explains to search engines which specific URLs to rank.
5. Optimize Product Pages
Product pages are the heart and soul of your ecommerce store. Sadly, many ecommerce store owners overlook its importance and add a line or two in the name of description to fulfill the purpose.
Your goal as an online seller should be to perfectly optimize your product pages so that your customers can find all the relevant information in one place.
Here are a few things you can do to optimize your product pages:
Choose a Unique Product Name
The name of your product should be unique and optimized. Generally, your meta title and product page URLs also include that name. Choose a name that defines your exclusive product features and benefits.
Optimize Images
Images are an essential element of your product pages. Similar to text, you must also optimize images for SEO. Instead of choosing a generic file name like IMG2101.jpg, select a name that contains your product name or keyword.
Also, optimize the ALT text by including the main keyword so that Google can identify which specific category your image belongs to.
Add Videos
Showcase your product benefits by including a video on your product pages. Customers admire visual content more and search engines also rank those pages higher that feature visual content.
Add Reviews
Customer reviews act as social proofs that encourage buyers to invest in your products. So you must display customer reviews on your product pages to build trust.
6. Improve Website Speed
The faster your site load, the better search engines will rank it. Customers also hate waiting time. Many customers abandon a site because of slow load time.
7. Prioritize Mobile Experience
Using a responsive design will ensure both your web and mobile users get the same user experience. Google also ranks those websites better that are mobile, responsive, and offer a flawless user experience for both its mobile and web users.
8. Use HTTPS
When it comes to online selling, the security factor outwits everything else. As an online seller, you have to collect your customer's personal information, including names, locations, and even bank details.
To secure such valuable and confidential information, you have to ensure that all data is encrypted. Instead of using HTTP, try to use HTTPS for added security and protection.
9. Use Internal Links
Linking your website to other high DA websites will improve your search engine rankings and build your business repo and goodwill.
Make sure you use white-hat techniques to build links. You can also leverage guest posting to help your site rank higher on SERPs.
There you have it - 9 Things to Consider in Your Perfect Search Engine Optimization Strategy.
SEO can become a lot easier when you have Debutify as your working alley. Our support team is always there to clear your doubts.
Trisha Ballesteros