SEO for e-commerce companies is crucial to driving organic traffic, enhancing visibility, and boosting online sales. This is particularly important for e-commerce businesses relying on holiday online sales during peak seasons! By leveraging SEO, e-commerce businesses can attract qualified buyers, improve user experience, and build a loyal customer base.
If you aren’t sure how to get started with SEO for your e-commerce business, you’re in the right place! We’ll go over the fundamentals of SEO, the benefits of an effective SEO strategy, SEO e-commerce strategies you can start implementing today, and how to measure your success.
Understanding SEO for E-Commerce
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategies help Google decide when to show one of your pages in search results. The more accurate you can be with your SEO e-commerce strategies, the more Google understands your content.
The basics of how search engines work come down to three steps.
- Crawling: The process of how search engines find new content.
- Indexing: Storing and organizing the content found during crawling.
- Ranking: Ordering search results to present the most relevant information first.
Your job with SEO is to help search engines find your content faster and understand it more clearly. You can do this by optimizing each page on your website and keeping it up-to-date.
Benefits of SEO for E-Commerce
SEO can help your e-commerce business achieve better visibility, increased traffic, and higher conversion rates. Since your website’s goal is to sell, you want qualified traffic coming to your website – not cart abandoners!
1. Increased Traffic
We know you care most about online sales as an e-commerce business. Investing in SEO e-commerce strategies will improve your rankings on search engines, which attracts users who are actively searching for products you sell, leading to higher quality traffic. The higher you are in search engine rankings, the more traffic will be directed towards your website. Most users don’t go beyond page one or two of search results. You want to be as high as you can in those rankings.
2. Better User Experience
Search engines care about user experience. A poor user experience can be suspected if you see a high bounce rate in your Google metrics. A quick bounce out of your site signals to search engines that the user didn’t find what they were looking for on your website. And that’s bad for your future rankings. Part of an effective SEO strategy is to optimize your website structure and navigation to make it easy for people to find what they need, so they stay on your site for more than a few seconds.
Search engines also favor websites that load in under two seconds. Page speed enhances user satisfaction. If your page loads slowly, again, users will bounce right off your page because it’s taking too long to load.
3. Building Credibility
High rankings on search engines are associated with credibility and trustworthiness. You worked hard to get to that spot, and users are more likely to trust top search results. They assume the top results have the most accurate answers to their search queries.
4. Competitive Advantage
You could earn an advantage over competitors. Investing in SEO for e-commerce can help you outrank competitors and effectively ‘steal’ their website traffic. If you also have a physical location, local SEO strategies can help you attract customers from your area.
You can see all these benefits from investing in an SEO for e-commerce strategy!
4 SEO E-Commerce Strategies
Now that you know the importance of SEO for e-commerce companies, these are some strategies to help you see those advantages.
1. Keyword Research and Optimization
Keyword research is the process of finding a word or phrase that accurately describes the content on a page. Tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest, and SEMrush can help identify high-traffic keywords.
Once you find a keyword you want to try to rank for, include it in your SEO title, meta description, product descriptions, headers, and alt text. Only optimize a page for ONE keyword. Of course, that page might rank for other terms, but the keyword you pick is the one that the page should be optimized for.
2. Content Marketing
High-quality content like blog posts and product guides attract organic traffic and position your brand as an authority. Consistently publish new content to build trust among users and with Google.
3. Technical SEO
Technical SEO isn’t as scary as it sounds! The main goal is to enhance user experience, as we already discussed. Now, we’ll just get into the nitty-gritty of how to do that.
- Optimize load times: Compress images and leverage browser caching to improve site speed.
- Mobile optimization: Ensure your site is mobile-friendly with responsive design (Google prioritizes mobile-first indexing!)
- Clean URL Structure: Use simple, descriptive URLs that include keywords.
- HTTPS: Ensure your site is secure by using HTTPS. Search engines and users prefer secure sites.
4. Link Building
Link building is the strategy of getting other websites to link back to yours. In Google’s eyes, a link is like giving your website a gold star by another reputable site. Search engines will see you as more reputable and valuable the more backlinks you can acquire. These are some ways you can do that:
- Guest blogging: Write an article for another website and include a link or two to your website.
- Podcast guest: Be a guest on a podcast and ask the host to include your website in the show notes.
- Collaborations: Partner with an influencer or someone in your industry to create content that links back to your website.
You can also implement an internal linking structure. Link related products and content within your site to improve navigation. It’s like taking a user on a journey. What might they want to explore next after landing on a page? This process helps search engines understand the importance and relevance of different pages.
Measuring SEO Success
You’ve got an SEO for your e-commerce site in place. Now, let’s measure the results to make sure it’s working for you. Monitor your site’s performance using tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Track metrics such as organic traffic, bounce rate (remember, this is a bad one, so you want it as low as possible!), and conversion rates.
Additionally, regularly check your keyword rankings to understand which keywords are driving traffic and conversions. If a keyword isn’t working for you after 6+ months, change it and try something new.
Continuously refine your SEO e-commerce strategies based on data and insights. SEO is an ongoing process that requires regular adjustments to stay effective. That’s why it’s best to partner with a digital marketing agency that understands the intricacies of SEO and how to navigate it for e-commerce companies. Our organic SEO marketing package gets your website optimized and ready for Google to crawl, index, and rank. Book a discovery call, and let’s chat about your SEO for e-commerce needs!
