- Are you an eCommerce store owner or founder looking to rank your website on Google’s SERPs?
- Do you know how you can use SEO to your advantage in boosting awareness, visibility, and sales?
- Have you looked at some SEO strategies like Inbound Marketing or Listing Site presence to help you get success?
In the last few years, the eCommerce industry has grown beyond anyone’s reasonable imagination. Unfortunately, while the industry was experiencing double-digit growths, the Coronavirus pandemic has further accelerated the same.
This means that many enterprising individuals want to start their own eCommerce platforms. However, while there is definitely profitability to be achieved, there is no doubt that the industry is suffering from rising levels of competition.
This means that to grow your eCommerce business online, you need to develop some credible strategies. Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a digital marketing strategy that can help you achieve your eCommerce KPIs.
SEO for eCommerce Businesses: What do you need to know?
First things first. SEO for an eCommerce website is not the same as doing one for a brand website or a blog. This is something that eCommerce owners should know about right at the very start.
Most agencies and SEO professionals are not capable of executing the specifics when it comes to eCommerce sites. This is why you need to work with professionals familiar with and who can handle the diverse and varied nature of requirements for eCommerce SEO.
According to leading digital marketing professionals offering SEO services in Dubai, the right eCommerce SEO can-
- Help grow website traffic by ranking higher for brand and product keywords.
- Create awareness, visibility, and interest in the eCommerce brand and platform.
- Improve in growing branding, trust, and credibility for the eCommerce brand.
- Generate regular sales and revenues from eCommerce sales and commissions.
- Attract the attention of brands and opens up avenues for better collaboration.
In short, the right eCommerce SEO can help a business achieve most of the KPIs it has set out for itself. In the following section, we will look at some of the major eCommerce SEO mistakes that should be avoided.
List of 5 Major SEO Mistakes eCommerce Start-Ups should avoid making.
1. Lack of Original Content on the eCommerce Website
Many eCommerce companies feel that investing in quality content creation is a mistake. They would much rather use that resource and spend it on app development or something.
What they do not realize is that quality content is what will help them rank on the SERPs. You need to create original product descriptions.
Making the mistake of blatantly copying content from the manufacturer’s pages or some other eCommerce platform that stocks the same products will invite manual action and penalties from search engines because of plagiarism.
2. Poor Optimization of Pages based on Search
eCommerce businesses make the mistake of going after generic keywords with massive competition. They only see the volume count and ignore the keyword difficulty.
If you are not going to rank, why target the keyword in the first place? A better idea is to be as specific as possible based on the keywords and create title tags and URL structures accordingly.
Even if the volume is low, specific keywords can reflect better buying intent and help in driving targeted traffic to the product page. This will help in improving sales volumes and revenues.
3. Not Investing in a Blog Section for Inbound Marketing
Given the sheer number of eCommerce platforms ‘selling’ products online, customers are spoiled for choice. If you are a new start-up in the area, you are already struggling against more established names.
One of the major goals of new eCommerce platforms should be on disseminating the right education and information.
Here, your blog will play a major role in attracting related traffic and helping you build credibility and trust for the brand. Work with your SEO and Content Writer to create high-quality blogs that will convince and convert audiences.
4. Creating Duplicate Content on Multiple Pages
Ecommerce websites need to follow all the guidelines and best practices of content. This includes staying away from any form of duplicate content on your website pages.
No two contact forms should have the same content at any point in time. Additionally, products should have distinct and original content, even with the same niche, type, and material.
By having duplicate content, you are simply reducing the credibility of your eCommerce website in the eyes of search engines. Instead, create content that is unique to the different pages.
5. Complicated UI and UX on the eCommerce website
A lot of eCommerce business owners want to create a ‘wow’ experience for their visitors. In doing so, they lose sight of the basics of UI and UX.
Many SEOs do not even know that UI and UX play a major role in improving or decreasing SEO performance.
Having a simple, uncomplicated layout with good transitions between pages can improve time spent on the website, reduce bounce rates and allow users to find products they are looking for. This also includes optimizing all the eCommerce website pages like checkout, payments, and more.
The Bottom Line
The golden rule of performing in the world of eCommerce is improving visibility. SEO as a strategy helps in improving visibility and awareness. The rules and best practices of eCommerce SEO are vastly different from branded websites or blogs. By paying attention to the above-mentioned points, you can ensure that your eCommerce business does not end up making critical mistakes.
If you want us to describe any of the points in greater detail, or have questions that you need answers to, let us know in the comments section below. We will try to address as many of them as possible.
