Every online retailer desires to gain as many customers as possible for their new business. Some spend on pay per click, while others struggle to find cheaper ways for generating traffic to their e-commerce website.
Well, the good news is that you can bring customers to your e-shop without spending on paid ventures. The simplest way is to work on SEO, i.e., Search Engine Optimization. What is it, and how you can do it, scroll through this article for the detailed guide.
What Is Search Engine Optimization: Why Is It Important For An E-Commerce Store
Did you know that 3/4th of the internet population never clicks on the second page of Google? This might be shocking, but the truth is if you’re not in the top 10, your existence is almost trivial. That’s where search engine optimization jumps in!
It is about using the right tricks or keywords to rank yourself higher on the search engines results page (SERP). Thus, it generates organic traffic for your e-commerce website and has the highest ROI potential for your business. It’s the best free way to get high-converting organic traffic for your e-shop.
If you have always wondered e-commerce stores automatically get the traffic, you are wrong! Every website needs optimization to make its way to the top of the list regardless of the greatest content or products available on the site.
Without further ado, let’s dive in deeper and discover the basics for optimizing your e-commerce website for maximum reach, enhanced visibility, and improved rankings on the SERPs.
How Can One Optimize An E-Commerce Website
There are numerous ways to bring your e-shop into Google’s limelight. From using keywords to choosing a URL, here are several tips and tricks to help you out.
The Right Keywords
The foundation for any website’s SEO is laid with the right keywords. Thus, your keyword game needs to be strong enough to win the search engine race. To begin with:
- Come up with keywords or phrases that a buyer might put into the search bar for your products. The longer the list, the better it is.
- Use keyword tools, like SE ranking or Verbolia, to short-list the ones that are relevant and effective. Keep the following factors in mind.
- Search Volume: The higher the search volume for a keyword, the better it is for your website.
- Competition: It’s advisable to choose a keyword that has less competition than others. That’s because it will increase your probability to rank up.
- Intent: Make sure to choose the keywords that match the buyers’ intent. If your keywords are informational rather than transactional, they won’t be suitable for your e-shop.
- Relevancy: Your keywords must match your web pages or products. If they both are relevant, you’re ideally on track.
- Using long-tail phrases is another trick. These usually comprise four or more words and have less competition than the shorter ones.
The Website Structure
Your site’s architecture or structure is another factor to consider for SEO. That’s because search engine judges a website based on its usability. It crawls through your pages to see if it’s valuable for the users. Therefore, if your site is easy to navigate and well-organized, you’ll be able to catch the search engine’s attention. Here are some tips for you.
- Organize all your products into categories and sub-categories to make it easier for the users to find their desired ones.
- Keep your menu simple. Provide drop-down options, and list categories and sub-categories there.
- Provide internal links to help your users reach from one page to another easily.
- Make sure that every page has an option to return to the homepage. Dead ends would frustrate your audience.
Your Product Images
Did you know that an average user has a mere attention span of 3 seconds?
That means, if your website does not load and convey your message in those 3 seconds, you’ll lose a potential customer. And since Google knows this fact, it has kept loading speed as one of its ranking factors. Well, running an e-commerce website means there might be hundreds of images on your web pages that can slow down the speed. Here’s what you can do to optimize images for SEO.
- Try compressing your images in the correct formats, e.g., PNG or WebP formats. Keep them below 1 to 2 MBs, preferably.
- It’s always better to use descriptive names for your images. For example, white-wool-sweater.png is more preferable to IMG24680.png.
- Provide alt text for every image. It helps the search engine understand what the image is about. If possible, also add keywords for better SEO performance.
Blog Posts On The Website
The best way for an e-commerce website to include keywords and increase its brand awareness is through blogs. Since blog posts are lengthy, they give a better opportunity to incorporate relevant keywords and internal linking.
Try to give valuable information to the readers. That’s because if they don’t find it helpful, they’ll leave the page within 30 seconds probably. This would increase your bounce rate and decrease your rank.
Divide your blog into portions through images and sub-headings. This makes it easier for the readers to skim and also for the search engine to crawl through.
As suggested by most professional SEO services, do not over-stuff the blog with keywords. Use them wisely.
Remember, blogs can build your authority in the market. They’ll make people trust you for authentic information. Moreover, you’ll even gain backlinks when others would use your information on their web pages. Thus, you’ll have better chances of coming in the top 10 on SERP.
The Speed Of Website’s Pages
Your website’s loading speed is an essential factor for SEO performance. If it doesn’t load within 2-3 seconds, your bounce rate will increase.
- Optimize your images by compressing them in the correct formats.
- Use fonts that are web-safe.
- Use Accelerate Mobile Pages (AMP) plugins to boost your website’s speed.
Mobile Adaptability
By 2025, Forbes estimates that 3/4th of the internet users will be mobile-based. Even currently, 2 billion people use mobile phones for accessing the internet. That is why Google has started paying more attention to a website’s mobile-friendliness. If your product images or website layout do not appear the same way as on desktop, or they take more time to load, you’ll never make it to the first page on SERP.
Therefore, it is better to design a mobile-first site and then adapt it to desktops. Otherwise, you can use responsive website technology to ensure that your e-shop appears the same on every digital device.
The Website’s URL
Most website owners ignore their URLs. However, it’s also an essential component that’s evaluated by search engines.
- Ensure to have your URL as short as possible.
- If possible, use some relevant keywords in the URL too.
- Instead of long ID numbers, use words in the URL for better recognition by search engines.
Store Registration On Search Engines
The quickest way to put your e-store on Google’s radar is to get your store registered with it. Make a profile on Google My Business so that more people can search for you on it. Plus, if they’ll directly call you from there or review your products, Google would see more people interacting with your business. Therefore, it would prefer to show people your e-commerce website.
The Takeaway
The best way to generate high-potential converting organic traffic for your e-commerce website is to improve its SEO performance.
Using relevant keywords, building an easy-to-navigate structure, optimizing images, and the site’s speed, you can increase your chances of appearing in the top ten search links. Moreover, adding blogs, making a mobile-first website, and registering your business on Google can also improve your probability of ranking higher.
