WHY IS SEO NECESSARY FOR E-COMMERCE SITE OWNERS?
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is important for several reasons, the first and foremost being improved and increased visibility of your website in the search engine result pages also known as SERPs. Implementing effective seo strategies can enhance this visibility. Along with your visibility improving on the search engine, there will likely be increased traffic on your website. This in turn increases the website traffic and chances of finding potential customers leading to higher conversion, and therefore higher sales and revenue.
Keeping up with the competition is very important in today’s world of advertising. As more and more website owners use SEO, every e-commerce business owner must optimize their website to have a competitive edge in the industry. In this article, we will delve into some of the effective seo strategies for e-commerce websites.
HOW TO IDENTIFY YOUR POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS?
Identification of your target audience is essential in developing an effective SEO as you can then tailor your strategy to meet the needs and preferences of your customers. Start by looking at your current customers’ demographics and behavioral patterns and try to understand your audience.
Market research tools like surveys, focus groups, and interviews can be very helpful in gathering data on your target audience such as their preferences, interests, and habits. Look at social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter that have tools to help you gather data on your audience’s demographics and choices. You can also perform competitor analysis by looking at competitor websites, social media handles, marketing campaigns, and blog posts to see whom they are targeting and how they are reaching them.
Once you have gathered sufficient data, create buyer personas which are fictional representations of your prospective buyers describing who they are, what they do, or what their interests and goals are.
CONDUCTING KEYWORD RESEARCH
Keyword Research is crucial which developing an effective SEO strategy. You can start by brainstorming a list of potential keywords that seem relevant to your product/service. It can be helpful to use research tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, or SEMrush to find related keywords and analyze their search volumes and competition. Consider targeting long-tail keywords in addition to general ones, as they are longer and specific phrases that might lower search volume but are more likely to get conversions.
Once you are done with basic research, group keywords by theme and organize them to create content using search terms from these groups. You should also monitor and update your keywords regularly to stay up to date with evolving trends and search patterns.
Some types of keywords you can target are:
Product Keywords
These are words related to the product or service offered, for example, the brand name, attributes, or features.
Informational Keywords
These are related to content that is informative like how-to blogs or guides that provide valuable knowledge or relevant information or value to your audience.
Location-based Keywords
As the name suggests, they are targeted toward the location of your physical store or geographical area of presence which helps you attract local customers in that vicinity.
Brand Keywords
These are specific to the brand name and can help you enhance your brand visibility and attract customers that are already familiar with your brand.
You can use a mix of these types of keywords and end up creating a solid, well-rounded SEO strategy that will retain existing customers and attract new ones to your website.
ON-PAGE OPTIMIZATION FOR SEARCH ENGINES
On-Page Optimization is the process of optimizing individual web pages on your eCommerce website to improve its visibility and ranking in SERPs. Using relevant keywords in title tags and meta descriptions that flow naturally throughout the content of each page is a great technique for on-page optimization. One thing to remember here is, to avoid stuffing keywords. You can also use header tags like H1, H2, or H3 to structure your content better so that it is easily understood by search engines.
Another technique can be optimizing images and videos by including alt tags that include your target keywords. This improves search ranking as well as accessibility for site visitors. You can also speed up page loading by compressing images, minifying code, and utilizing a content delivery network.
WEBSITE STRUCTURE AND NAVIGATION
Being two critical components of effective eCommerce SEO, website structure and navigation can help improve the business’s user experience, search engine visibility, and ranking, and also shrink bounce rate figures. When it comes to website structure, it is necessary to ensure that your website is organized intuitively and logically.
It implies creating a clear hierarchy of categories and subcategories on the site that reflect the products/services you offer. For example, an online clothing brand might have categories like Men’s, Women’s, and Kids and under those, it might have subcategories like tops, bottoms, footwear, etc. This helps users to understand your website and find relevant content easily.
Clear navigation is also an integral aspect of eCommerce SEO as it helps users to reach the product or content they are looking for, reducing frustration and bounce rates and improving chances of sales. You can achieve this by using descriptive and concise labels for categories and subcategories, providing clear links to important pages ad by using a menu structure that is easy to understand and navigate.
LINK BUILDING
When other reputable and credible sites link back to your site, search engines recognize it as a useful and trustable resource that helps you rank better and drive organic traffic to your website page.
For this, you need to create high-quality content which is informative and engaging. This can include blogs, articles, insights, infographics, or informational videos. If your website content is catchy and shareable, other sites will want to link to your website and thereby increase your search engine rankings.
Another effective strategy for link-building can be partnering with other businesses or social media influencers that belong to your industry. Sponsoring events, floating promotional videos, or making collaborative content can help you tap into the existing audience of these businesses and influencers and potentially earn links back to your site.
Link Building is also important internally, which means linking to other pages within your website in a way that is useful to the user and aids them in finding relevant content. Improving your internal linking can help increase user engagement on the site and help them navigate it easily.
SOCIAL MEDIA
With billions of people using platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn to interact with each other, social media has transformed the way companies reach their customers. Providing high-quality content on social media and reaching people through those platforms can ultimately bring more traffic to your website. Influencer Marketing is a trendy strategy followed by businesses in recent times where influencers are pitched to market the business’s product or service to their existing audience to tap them.
It is also important that your social media profiles are optimized for search engines. This means including relevant keywords in your profile descriptions and using hashtags that are related to your brand and product/service.
LOCAL SEO
Local SEO involves the optimization of your website and online presence to appear in local search results. You can achieve this by searching and adding local keywords or phrases, creating, and optimizing a Google My Business profile, and building local citations and backlinks.
Managing online store reviews and ratings is also an important aspect of local SEO. If the business has positive reviews, it is likely to attract more traffic and a better ranking. On the other hand, negative reviews can hurt a business’s image and drive customers away.
Most individuals use their mobile devices on the go to search for local business options. Local SEO also includes optimization for mobile devices, i.e., making the website mobile-friendly and optimizing for voice search queries. Businesses that mainly rely on local customers like restaurants, retail outlets, or service providers can use local SEO for improving their visibility.
CONCLUSION
SEO has become more important now than ever. With AI and machine learning coming up, businesses can enhance their user experience further and optimize their website. AI-powered tools help you analyze user behavior and intent. Businesses can make use of chatbots or personalization engines to provide clear navigation, offer personalized recommendations, 24/7 customer support, etc.
Machine learning algorithms can help you analyze large amounts of data and recognize patterns and trends in the market and accordingly improve your SEO strategies. They also analyze product images to give better results to customers. SEO is a vital aspect of digital marketing for E-commerce sites and a well-executed SEO strategy can help businesses grow their customer base, shoot up sales and achieve long-term success.
AI and machine learning advancements are likely to dominate and determine the future of SEO, with search engines becoming increasingly sophisticated at understanding user intent and delivering personalized search results. This will necessitate businesses focusing on producing high-quality, engaging content that is valuable to their target audience while also leveraging emerging technologies such as voice search and visual search to improve their search visibility.
As eCommerce grows, SEO will continue to be an important component of digital marketing strategies, with businesses needing to adapt and innovate to stay ahead of the curve and be competitive in the online marketplace.
We at Ruskin Felix Consulting provide consulting on effective seo strategies for businesses. We help clients transform, grow and operate while fostering trust through assurance with our services and solutions. Please feel free to contact us at contact@ruskinfelix.com
