Summary
Effective SEO strategies will help raise your ecommerce or retail site to the top of search engine results. These 5 strategies including conducting keyword research, optimizing website setup, creating high-quality content, implementing link building and reviewing SEO performance will help improve your SEO performance.
Optimizing SEO is pivotal for driving traffic and sales, and by implementing SEO strategies, you can help boost your online store to the top of search results. We’ve compiled 5 strategies to help you optimize SEO for your ecommerce site.
Key Takeaways:
- Effective keyword research is crucial.
- Website setup is key: focus on simplicity and user-friendliness.
- Create quality content that is product-led with keyword research implemented.
- Manage link building internally and externally.
- Conduct regular audits to maintain and improve search engine rankings.
1. Conduct Comprehensive Keyword Research
Keyword research is key to reaching your target audience. Begin by understanding your target audience. What is their intent?
- If they are looking for information, your content should answer their questions.
- If they want to buy something, your content should direct them to products.
Check your competitors. Google your products and check the top results to see what common keywords they use.
Choose your keywords based on the volume, competition, relevancy and buyer intent. SEO tools, such as Semrush or Ahrefs, help by offering keyword data around search volume and buyer intent.
Use autofill features to your advantage. With the results, add the words you found to your list of keywords.
- Search your products on Amazon and see what suggested words appear in the search.
- Additionally, use social media sites such as Reddit and Twitter to see what words people are searching for that are associated with your business.
Example of an Amazon search to find supplemental keywords.
2. Optimize Website Setup
If your website setup is effective, consumers are more likely to stay on your page. Additionally, Google is able to scan your website more easily and rank your site higher.
Ensure that your site is simple and easy to navigate:
- Customers should be able to easily move from page to page with every page being three or less clicks away from the homepage.
- Ensure your site is responsive to mobile users.
- Make sure you have a secure site with crafted HTTPs.
- Check your site-speed.
- Scan your site for errors. Avoid duplicate content and make sure redirects are connected.
- Be sure that all photo and video content is high-quality.
Example of a site with easy navigation.
Lastly, submit a sitemap to Google. It guides Google to find and crawl your site, which increases site recognition that will boost your SEO for your ecommerce site.
3. Create High-Quality Content
Creating high-quality content on your site is essential. Even if you use your keywords, Google might not support your site if the content isn’t well-crafted.
Blogging is a great way to help boost your site’s authority by creating unique content that includes internal links.
- Be sure that your content is product-led with links to your product pages.
- Make sure your CTA is clear.
Kendra Scott is a brand that practices these blog principles well with clear CTAs and links to additional content on their page.
Optimize title tags, meta descriptions, images, product pages, category pages and URLs.
- Product and category pages should be 1000+ words with your keyword used 3-5 times.
- URLs should be short and keyword-rich.
- Add product recommendations and feature customer reviews.
Keywords should be present in your category and product pages, URLs, title tags, body cody, alt text for images and meta descriptions. Additionally, add modifiers to your content to gain more long tail traffic that will boost ecommerce SEO.
- Add click magnet words (% off, lowest price) to increase click through rates.
- Include phrases like “great choice,” “free shipping” and “all items on sale.”
- Create a sense of urgency with phrases “3 days left to buy” or “2 left in stock.”
Example of a product page with keywords and modifiers.
4. Implement Effective Link Building Strategies
Link building is key to building your site’s authority and showing Google that your site is trustworthy.
Within your own website, include internal linking by consistently referencing other content on your site.
- Link from authoritative pages, such as your homepage, to high priority product and category pages.
- Create a resource page as a blog post or an individual static page that solely tells customers where to find and click on any useful content for them.
Work to create backlinks to your page from external sites.
- Form partnerships with bloggers or influencers, so they link to your page in their content.
- Check your competitors’ backlinks to see what organizations mention them and conduct outreach to secure mentions from similar organizations.
- Use tools like Semrush to find any unlinked mentions from external sites. Conduct email outreach to ensure that any mentions of your brand are linked to your site.
- Begin research to find any products or companies similar to yours that no longer exist. Find content that links to these sites and conduct additional email outreach to ask these sites to link to your business instead.
Use backlinks from external sites to increase your site’s authority and trustworthiness.
Sephora is an example of a brand that has utilized internal linking in their own site and also acquired backlinks from other sites.
On their homepage, the brand has included internal links to high-priority product pages.
Additionally, on product pages, Sephora included additional links to other recommended products.
Lastly, external sites link to Sephora’s site. For example, The New York Times linked to a sunscreen available to buy through Sephora. This backlink, in combination with many others, helps boost Sephora’s trustworthiness and authority.
5. Review and Audit Your SEO Performance
It is essential to review how your site is performing. By doing this, you can adjust or expand upon your strategies to further strengthen your SEO performance.
- Use SEO tools to analyze for errors, problems with titles or description tags, duplicate content, broken links, thin content and site speed.
- Review analytics using Google Analytics to see how your SEO efforts have affected your site by tracking change in organic traffic, keyword ranking, organic CTR/bounce rate and revenue.
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