You have built an attractive online store, fitted with all the bells and whistles. However, all this might be a wasted effort if no one visits your site. This is where eCommerce SEO comes in handy.
Search engine optimization allows your dropshipping store to rank high in search queries. And just as SEO is vital to the discovery of your brand, link building is essential in making this optimization a success. You need a sound link building strategy to make search engines view your site favorably.
After all, links to your site are among the top three criteria that Google uses to rank your website. Since everyone competes for the same top spots on the query results page, link building is often time-consuming and challenging. Nevertheless, you can still successfully fulfill it and set your eCommerce on the path to industry-wide recognition.
In this piece, we outline and explore link-building strategies that you can put into action to achieve tangible results. Links to your site are useless if you can’t convert the resultant traffic. Click here to get Debutify, the highest converting free Shopify theme.
How To Get Backlinks To Your Ecommerce Store
Getting other websites to link to your online store requires a lot of effort. However, it’d be disappointing if Google bots finally found your site and then found several technical mistakes.
This shows them that you have a poor-quality site. Consequently, the search engines deem your site unworthy of providing value to search engine users. The result? Your online store tumbles down the result pages.
Therefore, before you begin actively searching for backlinks, you need to make sure that your site is structurally sound. Don’t give the search engine any excuse to penalize you. With everything in order, here are the various link-building strategies to implement on your eCommerce site.
Copy From Your Competitors’ Playbook
When you google your preferred keywords, you’ll likely find the top spots filled by your competitors. And if the search engine ranks them that high, they must be doing something right when it comes to eCommerce SEO for beginners.
As previously said, backlinking is one of the central pieces in search engine optimization efforts. Therefore, it doesn’t hurt to see what your rivals are doing. This is known as competitor backlink analysis. Backlink analysis involves examining your competitors’ link profiles.
Several online tools can help you compile a list of your rivals’ backlinks. Moz’s Link Explorer and Ahrefs Backlink Checker come to mind.
Examine the links and find those that have significant domain and page authority. They meet Google’s optimization standards and offer plenty of value for that focus keyword or phrase.
Try to get these same backlinks for your site by using the methods your competitor used. This can be guest blogging or posting valuable content on niche-related forums.
Start A Blog For Your Brand
It can be quite difficult for other sites to link to your product pages. Why? There really isn’t any value for them there unless they’re promoting a specific product. However, a blog provides plenty of information that other sites want to reference.
Explore the different aspects of your niche and craft valuable content from it.
This provides your audience with the information that they need. In other words, don’t focus on selling yourself when writing your blog. Instead, seek to engage with your audience by offering outward-facing information.
If other established brands in the same or related niche notice that your blog offers plenty of value to its audience, they’ll be compelled to link to it.
Craft Shareable Content
Related to the previous point, sprinkle plenty of shareable content in your blog posts. This kind of content is the type of subject matter that people feel compelled to share with others.
What content falls in this category? Think videos, infographics, listicles, and how-to guides. This type of content offers value, but it also does so in an engaging manner. For instance, videos and infographics are packed with information but present in an easy-to-understand format.
Your content has to be presented in a visually appealing way for it to be shareable. This is why you need a beautiful, highly-customizable theme like Debutify. Download Debutify today!
Engage In Guest Posting
As we’ve seen before, creating shareable content does a great job of securing backlinks to your site. You can further boost this by posting on other sites as a guest. How can you find guest posting opportunities? Into the search engine, type your keyword plus ‘guest blogger’, ‘write for us’, and other similar phrases.
The search will return sites that are open to guest posts in that particular niche. Before submitting a request to post, analyze the domain authority, as we explained earlier. This will enable you to only post on sites with rank juice. Reach out to the key persons at the site and request to submit a guest post.
If approved, forward an optimized article with the agreed-upon number of backlinks to your site.
Keep in touch with contacts at the site for any future collaborations you might be interested in. Additional guest posting also increases your eCommerce SEO effectiveness.
Get Your Brand Mentioned In The Media
The different kinds of media hold plenty of sway over your target market. This means that your audience is more than likely to believe most of what they print, publish, or broadcast. If you do anything of note – it can be a product launch or another related event – reach out to media outlets.
When they mention your brand or product on their website, they should link back to your site. This kind of mention not only makes your brand known but also helps increase a lot of traffic to your eCommerce store.
Sometimes, media outlets mention your brand without including a backlink to your site. Search for these mentions and reach out to the relevant key contacts, requesting them to link to your online store or blog.
Leverage The Power Of Social Media
Social media platforms host a large chunk of your target market. And what better way to use links to channel traffic to your store than by placing them on your social media platforms?
You can customize each of your social media accounts to include links to your eCommerce site. Platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook allow you to add your website link in your bio when you’re setting up your profile.
When conducting social media promotions for new products, you can include links to the pages where you list the items. Additionally, post engaging content relevant to your niche. A sustained stream of valuable content piques influencers’ and bloggers’ interest.
They will be more likely to work with you, increasing your brand mentions. Backlinked brand mentions funnel plenty of traffic to your site, increasing your chances of making sales.
Build Broken Backlinks
One of the best ecommerce link building strategies is building broken links. What does this entail? This process involves searching for broken links on the sites you want to connect with.
Using online tools like Ahrefs, you can analyze the outbound links and see if they are broken. Consequently, reach out to the site personnel and offer to build these links with your brand’s own content.
This is especially effective when you have quality content to link to. Broken links devalue an online store’s eCommerce SEO. Therefore, sites will be open to fixing these broken links. Your offer, provided your content is valuable, will be most welcome.
Hand Out Samples To Notable Influencers
When it comes to online shopping, buyers rely on recommendations from others. What better way to channel them to your eCommerce store than by using influencers?
Hand out samples of your products to notable influencers in your niche. When reviewing or talking about the product, the influencers can add links to your product pages. On YouTube, they can place the link in the description. On text-heavy platforms like Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, they can add the link directly to the post.
Your ecommerce influencer marketing strategy through the influencers’ clout vastly extends the reach of your brand. When these thousands of potential clients see the link from their influencer, they follow it to your site. You now stand a higher chance of converting this traffic into sales.
Additionally, you can capture leads that you will use in your subsequent marketing efforts.
Conclusion
The benefits of link-building strategies to your overall eCommerce SEO plan do a lot to make your site and brand visible throughout your niche. The overarching theme in ensuring that you get quality backlinks is crafting excellent content.
If your content is great, authority sites will be more than willing to give you a chance. Link building is a very powerful way to make your ecommerce website rank higher but you need a high-converting Shopify store to make your link-building efforts worth it. Click here to get Debutify, the highest-converting free Shopify theme.
Trisha Ballesteros