This is a guest post from Harper Reid, who loves a good cup of flat white as much as she loves words and emojis! Writing is her hobby, passion, and career – all rolled into one. Drop her a line here!
Are you a brick-and-mortar business owner looking to ply your product or service online? You’re savvy to do so – online shopping is increasingly popular thanks to convenience and variety.
An eCommerce store can be a fantastic way to make your enterprise financially viable, particularly if your product is a little more niche, and not a big hit with locals near you. Plus, eCommerce is for everyone, from furniture to gift baskets, and even to groceries.
However, if you’re only just migrating to the online world, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be a tricky concept to wrap your head around. It’s all about optimizing for the right keywords, link building, and ultimately pushing your search rankings up.
We’ve put together some quick tips to help you make your eCommerce business stand out amidst the fray – so have a read, and start optimizing!
1) Select the right keywords
SEO begins with keyword research. This means choosing your keywords or phrases according to your ideal customers’ most common product searches.
But how can you figure out what your target customer is most likely to search for when they’re doing a spot of online shopping for the evening?
First, try boiling your product or service down. What problem(s) does it solve? Who has the greatest need for it?
Consider short phrases like “eco-friendly cleaning product Australia” or “personalized tote bag.” New Zealand-based business Sea Containers is a great example: It sits as the top result in Google SERPs for “NZ shipping containers” thanks to keyword optimization.
Another useful way to get into potential customers’ heads is to use Google or Amazon suggest. Type in your basic phrase, and look at the bevy of keywords which automatically appear after it, indicating their popularity with users.
If you sell a wide range of goods, you can do this with each product or product category, adopting the keywords you come across most for your site layout and descriptions.
Finally, you could do some research around your keyphrases and look at the “People also ask” tab.
Use the suggested questions to form additional supporting keyword clusters, and when you create content, answer those questions in different sections of an article.
2) Understand how conversions work
Click rates involve the number of customers that use a specific link to frequent your site. Bounce rates refer to the percentage of users that leave after viewing and not interacting with a page. Pageviews indicate how many times a page was viewed, either by the same person or a unique visitor.
Then there are conversion rates. Your conversion rate is calculated according to the number of customers who, once visiting your site, actually complete a desired action. In eCommerce, that action is usually making a purchase.
In an ideal world, your landing pages would convert at a rate of 10% or more. But how can you entice people to these pages, and encourage them to keep clicking on through?
Long-tail keywords that don’t have extremely competitive search volume tends to get higher conversion rates.
For example, “ornate bamboo deck chair” is a better keyphrase to optimize for than “chair,” if you’re after conversions. It’s likely that someone searching for a bamboo deck chair has much higher purchase intent than someone browsing for a simple chair.
If you sell on Walmart or Amazon, win customers with enticing photos, coupon codes, fast and free shipping, and competitive pricing.
Don’t forget; Your customers are your best advertisers, so allow room for some customer reviews beneath your product listings.
3) Find your ideal SEO toolkit
There are a bunch of useful algorithms and online marketing tools that will help you to boost your business’s SEO. In terms of keywords, a site like SEMrush or Ubersuggest can show you which keywords your competitors are associated with.
The Pingdom Website Speed Test can also help you determine your site speed, a key consideration for impatient digital consumers.
4) Manage and optimize your site architecture
These days, site architecture matters. The graphics and aesthetic of your eCommerce store, and even the actual arrangement of your web pages all have a proven influence on buyer decision-making.
You need any visitors to your site – especially brand-new ones – to be able to find what they’re looking for quickly.
Simplicity is the fundamental principle to follow when organizing your site architecture. As much as possible, create an intuitive hierarchy and arrange your categories. Your customer shouldn’t have to use more than three clicks of their mouse to get to any given product.
Start by perusing the sites of successful eCommerce sellers, and note their organizational schemas. This way, you can put yourself in the customer’s shoes. And if you’re still struggling, don’t panic – you can always call on the help of an SEO expert or website develop if your site’s architecture has become overly complex.