What comes to your mind when I say the word “traffic”? Well, lots and lots of honking, bumper-to-bumper rides, congestion, heavy density, and whatnot! Heavy traffic in the real world is pretty chaotic and topsy-turvy and uncomfortable. However, when it comes to the digital world, the situation of heavy traffic seems to be way different and intimidating. In fact, every eCommerce store owner dreams about facing lots and lots of heavy traffic and leads to their respective websites.
The fierce competition seems to have already begun! More and more businesses are found adapting new and emerging marketing trends just to survive in the industry. I can easily recall that there was a time when people couldn’t even spell or spell in the most unanimous way possible and today, it seems to have become the most buzzing term worldwide. If you find yourself still new to the concept, then you can surely look around for relevant service providers or eCommerce development companies which have an upper hand in dealing with such ubiquitous technologies and tend to offer the best possible eCommerce-based solutions from their space. Now developing an eCommerce website is a pretty wide topic and I am sure you will find lots and lots of information regarding the same on the internet. The following post is about what needs to be done once you have launched your eCommerce store. Developing your eCommerce store, ranking it high, maintaining the position – all these phases have several nuances, which nobody talks about. Fret not, here I will be enlightening you on how to grow eCommerce organic traffic.
Introducing eCommerce SEO
Gone are the days when a website was created just for the sake of it. It was considered mere coding back then but today, it is showcasing your business and attracting more and more customers globally. Imagine you are spending most of your time, energy and money on developing an eCommerce store and for what?
Nothing! No traffic, no leads, conversions and return on investment?
Have you wondered what drives an eCommerce store? It has an immense amount of traffic. As soon as your website begins having more and more traffic, you have more opportunities to sell your products and offer better services. Now here comes the big question, how to drive more and more traffic to your eCommerce store in a short span of time? This is where eCommerce SEO comes to play!
eCommerce SEO is all about making your online store more and more visible via search engines. When you want your target audiences or visitors to view you and buy your products, you must grab the first three positions on the very first Google Search Engine Result Page (SERP). Of course, there is an option for paid search but since you have already invested so much in your eCommerce development project choosing search engine optimization (SEO) can be pretty cost-effective. Apart from costs, ad blocks can surely reduce the effectiveness of the paid search. So in that case, all we have is SEO.
Right from your headlines to product descriptions, meta data, internal link structure, and navigational structure, everything has to be well-optimized for better search results. Now what happens is while doing all this stuff businesses often tend to forget about the static pages such as the homepage or the about page, blog, FAQ, Contact page, etc. eCommerce SEO is all about optimizing your entire website as a whole and not just a few aspects. Moving on to our next segment, what is the significance of eCommerce SEO or how can this be beneficial in the long run?
How is eCommerce SEO beneficial?
#1 Enhancing User Experience
One of the obvious yet most required benefits offered by eCommerce SEO is that it somehow lends up enhancing user experience. And this only happens when your website is targeting the right keyword and gives appropriate answers/solutions that visitors have been looking for. A more positive experience will make your ranking go up but in case if there is more and more bounce rate, for example, your user is clicking your site and then switching right to your competitors, this will be considered a negative experience and will result adversely in the ranking.
#2 Brand Awareness
The next advantage of eCommerce SEO is you get to increase brand awareness without doing much. I mean isn’t having an appearance on the first page of Google’s search engine result page enough than advertising here and there? Also, the first-page appearance can surely offer a guaranteed result in comparison to other alternatives. And I am sure you are well aware of the fact that most buying decisions are made as soon as they recognize a brand.
Now imagine a potential visitor has simply stumbled upon the page but saw your website ranked above your competitor, he or she will definitely bother to take a look at you! And then you just have to show what you have got!
#3 Cost-Effective
In today’s world, when there are not even free lunches available, you get to rank your website on the first page of Google, and that too at such a reasonable price, what’s more, to ask for? All you have to do is keep following some of the best SEO practices available or start looking for reliable digital experts who are willing to work for you without the need for paying the upfront costs.
In addition, SEO is quite a long-term procedure and it offers results that stay for the long haul as well. So if you are looking for some kind of one-and-done endeavor, SEO is certainly not meant for you! However, if you are thinking otherwise then what are you waiting for? It’s time to boost your search engine rankings right away!
Of course, this is not it, there are many other potential advantages of eCommerce SEO such as gaining customer trust, boosting sales, expanding the reach, influencing buyer’s decisions, gaining more success and sustainability, etc.
Further below I would like to shed some light on some of the best practices or strategies to take into account if you want to up the game of your eCommerce store. Before we delve into these details, there are certain aspects which shouldn’t be ignored. For example, do you think the content of the website is relevant? How is the page loading speed? What about the publishing frequency, in how much time, the content is being updated? Is the website mobile friendly? Do not ignore the metrics – bounce rate, cart abandonment, etc.
E-commerce SEO: Best Practices To Keep in Mind!
#1 Auditing the Site
One of the obvious yet crucial things to do is to conduct a site audit. One of the most important aspects of businesses failing is that they just begin playing around with different keywords and make relevant changes without even knowing where to begin from. This is when the site audit comes to play! A site audit assists in understanding how the site is performing right now and by keeping all the data, and analytics in mind you must take relevant steps and improvements.
Fortunately, there is a wide range of eCommerce tools available right from SEMrush to Ahrefs and Screaming Frog. All these tools successfully scan your site and then offer detailed information regarding the site’s SEO. All these tools are pretty amazing when it comes to fixing relevant issues and errors in the nick of time. So what kind of issues are taken care of here, you may ask?
- Missing titles or meta descriptions
- Broken links
- Large image files
- Pages with missing internal links
- Anything that needs to be flagged
#2 Keyword Research
The very next step to take into consideration is taking proper keyword research. Now if you want to generate leads, and optimize conversion rates, conducting keyword research is extremely important. I mean if your website ends up targeting all the wrong keywords, there is no scope for leads, conversions and high return on investment. And I am sure after investing so much in your eCommerce development project, you don’t want to let this happen! So here comes the keyword research. Now keywords are mainly generated depending on the user’s intent. As soon as you are able to figure out what your end user craves, you will know exactly what keywords must be targeted just to make their search way easier and smoother.
A useful tip – don’t incorporate just short-tail or long-tail keywords. Try having a mix of both. You see, long-tail most of the time have more precise and high search intent in comparison to the short-tail ones. It’s all about using the keywords in the right place and doesn’t end up stuffing them randomly.
#3 What are your Competitors doing?
The next best eCommerce SEO practice to consider is to check out what exactly are your competitors doing. Taking a reality check is extremely important, I am not talking about being influenced or envious but knowing what methods are they pursuing. Who knows, it might assist you well in fine-tuning your eCommerce store.
There will be times when someone somewhere will surpass you and that’s when you need to start replicating or adapting their strategies to up your game again. However, I am not emphasizing on copying but you can at least find out where do they get their traffic from, what keywords have they targeted, and how relevant is their content.
Final Thoughts
No matter what, don’t let your rigidity jeopardize the first impression of your online presence. Having a strong online presence is extremely important and if you want to draw maximum traction, SEO turns out to be the only option worth considering. I hope you did find the following post meaningful. If so, feel free to share this among your peers and help us in spreading the word.
In case, if you have any doubts or queries, feel free to mention that in the comment section below.
