With the explosive growth of online businesses, we all have realized that it has naturally raised the bar for competition across multiple channels. These days you simply cannot sit back and relax while you watch online visitors and traffic coming on to your website.
In fact, you have to invest your time, effort, and a substantial amount of capital to market your e-commerce business in order to stay relevant and on top of your customers’ mindscape.
According to a recent study by Statista.com, e-commerce has become an indispensable part of the global retail framework, with over 2 billion making purchases online back in 2020. Furthermore, global e-retail sales surpassed $4.2 trillion in 2020, with Amazon undisputedly leading the global ranking of online retail websites.
In just 2020, Amazon registered over 5.2 billion unique visitors. However, in terms of GMV (Gross Merchandise Value), the global leaders are Taobao and Tmall, both operated by the Alibaba Group.
In light of this information, let’s take a quick look at some of the best SEO practices that can help your e-commerce website rank amongst the top contestants.
Best Tools
It is a known fact that your SEO nowadays has a lot to do with expedient tools that cut your work short and help you acclaim terrific results. Here are some of the best tools that you can use to push your e-commerce website to the front lines:
- Authority Labs: SEO Rank Tracking Software and API – a suite that is flexible, scalable, and intuitive that can help you save time and help you monitor your business growth.
- Open Site Explorer – an optimization tool for search engine links developed by Moz that helps you track the links leading to your website. An essential tool for SEO.
- Screaming Frog SEO Spider Website Crawler – a fast and advanced SEO site audit tool that you can use to crawl both small and very large websites to improve onsite SEO and resolve issues.
- SEO Keyword Research Tool by Moz – an exquisite tool and keyword explorer, this tool can help you research over 500 million traffic-driving keywords for your website and niche market.
Keyword Research & Implementation
For your e-commerce website, you need to target the right keywords to amplify SEO. This involves branded keywords, product keywords, and long-tail keywords, to name a few. Branded keywords involve your brand, while product keywords specifically revolve around products in your inventory.
As for long-tail keyword, they are extremely useful as they are customer-centric and offer you search intent. Once you have completed your keyword research, it is time to implement them on your website. The best places to include, put, and use keywords are:
- Meta tags – meta titles and meta description of your pages.
- Headings on your pages including the likes of H1, H2, H3, and so on and so forth.
- In product descriptions, the main body text of your content visible on the pages.
- Alt-text for images, image captions, image file names, etc.
- Use them in links and URLs as well.
- Don’t forget to target keywords used by your competitors that show good results.
- Avoid keyword stuffing as it directly lies in the Black Hat category.
Content Creation & Distribution
When you look at content marketing, you have to consider several things but mainly focus on content creation, publishing content, and its distribution (social sharing). For an e-commerce business, the best approach would be to focus on your own proprietor blog and opt for guest posting on other websites for backlink creation.
Likewise, you should also focus on the creation of infographics and guestographics (infographics that you create for other websites). Don’t forget to have your content published and share them on various platforms, including social media and via emails to your clients. For your internal blog, I recommend the flowing approach:
- Create Topic Clusters – your blogs and content focus on a particular topic. This topic can be related to a particular product or service that you offer and provide user-centered resolutions.
- Develop Subject Pillars – subject pillars are more comprehensive and take into account a variety of topic clusters that can be interconnected, such as interlinked articles and website pages.
Local SEO
This might seem like an overhaul for a company that is solely based online and is miles apart from Brick and Mortar Businesses, however Local SEO works, and that is what is important here. Suppose your e-commerce store covers a particular area well and offers rush deliveries such as one-day delivery or 24-hour, same-day delivery. In that case, you should consider applying local SEO for those locations.
One way to go about it is to get your website and business registered on Google My Business which is great for SEO and local search. Additionally, you should also target local SEO keywords, local SEO content creation & marketing, as well as delve into local ranking factors.
Mobile Friendliness
One of the greatest supporters and convenience factors that can boost your e-commerce business is mobile friendliness. A mobile-friendly e-commerce website offers an online store that shoppers can visit through their smartphone. Here are some tips to make your e-commerce website mobile-friendly:
- Opt for a responsive design and hosting solutions that provide secure processing of payments.
- Make sure that your website design, checkout process, and navigation works well on smartphones.
- Apply image optimization, aka image SEO (high quality and high-resolution images that have small file size).
- Prioritize website loading speed to avoid sluggish performance and provide immediate response times.
- Arrangement of content is the key to increase results from marketing efforts.
On-Page SEO
The practice of optimizing web page content for search engines and users is known as On-page SEO. This includes the usage of keywords throughout the website, which I have already mentioned above. Secondly, you need to create internal links to build link juice, which augments your website’s SEO. Other important factors that you need to work on in order to improve on-page SEO include:
- User experience – navigation, user interface, user experience, user privacy, and secure payment process.
- Improve Dwell Time – improve the time spent on the page with the help of relevant content that delivers an excellent & engaging customer/user experience.
- Reduce Bounce Rate – optimize page load time, use structured data for the entirety of content, think methodically and systematically, keyword placement optimization, & master the CTA.
Reviews by Customers
Those who had taken custom essay writing services would know for sure that customer reviews are a popular pastime for Millennials and Generation Z. Even boomers are getting their lop slide in life getting licked. So it’s a mania that requires your attention for sure!
Social Media Integration
The image above offers you a link to a service that can or may not be able to answer all your queries because only speaking, why would you trust a hoax when it is even spelled in the right manner. Do you know what you would do? You would do your own research and find out firsthand how things work instead of asking nincompoops who haven’t even learned to clean their bums.
Structured Data
Are you kidding me? Why that is even a question! Just Do It! And believe me, you would never turn back around. It’s a victory from all there and how you pretty much manage it.
Technical SEO
Buy a private island and get settled. Instead of choosing others over you, become an expert yourself. Rock a bye, baby, and you know what comes on the rocks! Sweet dreams, BOSS!
Conclusion
In all honesty, you should consider implementing SEO practices by dividing them into two major undertakings: On-Site SEO and Off-Site SEO. Stay clear of Black Hat practices as they can quickly get you in the wrong books of search engines, and you want to be flagged.
Other than that, I hope this post was able to offer you some tremendous and meaningful insights to master SEO for your e-commerce website. Remember that organic SEO takes time but also offers you many long-lasting benefits. So stay committed in order to reap the benefits. That’s it for now. Cheers, and all the best for your future endeavors!
Author Bio
Elaine Vanessa currently works as the Sr. Research Analyst and blog writer at Crowd Writer. This is where higher education students can acquire the best essay writing service UK from experts specializing in their field of study. During her leisure time, she likes to surf the internet for the latest developments in the world of tech.