When it comes to having an eCommerce store, being found on search engines makes a big difference. Without search traffic, an eCommerce website will lose out on a lot of potential customers.
How do you make sure that you are being found on search engines like Google?
One solution is search engine marketing, specifically search engine optimization (SEO).
How can SEO help your online store?
Before we talk about how SEO can help your online business, we need to define it.
SEO is the process of building and reorganizing your website or page(s), so your site is found on specific keyword searches. For example, if you want people to find one of your products for “men’s shoes,” you would build and tailor a specific page for that one keyword.
Why is this important?
Many websites, even local businesses, but especially eCommerce websites, need SEO to be found on the top search results to get the most clicks (web visitors). With more clicks, you are more likely to get a sale.
If you look at “men’s shoes” as an example, about 368,000 users search for that keyword every month. So by being higher up in the search results for “men’s shoes,” your store has the potential to get the majority of those users to click on your site and potentially buy your shoes.
For your website to be on the top search results for certain keywords, you need to invest in SEO for your online store.
Steps to Implementing SEO
Now that you know a little bit more about SEO and how it can help your online business get more potential leads, here are the steps to implementing your first SEO campaign:
1. Keyword Research
The first step of implementing SEO is keyword research. This is the process of finding the best keywords to target that will meet your business objectives.
Here are two of the many things you consider when doing keyword research:
Search Volume
When finding the best keyword(s), search volume is a big factor. So you wouldn’t want to go for a keyword that has zero people searching for it.
In addition to being aware of keywords with zero search volume, it’s also important to consider all the options. For example, there are cases where you have two similar keywords, but one has a higher search volume.
For example, there is a big difference between “women’s footwear” and “women’s shoes.”
When determining which keyword(s) to target, you should target the keyword with the most search volume, so you increase the number of clicks you can potentially get.
Keyword Difficulty
Although more searches mean more potential clients, it doesn’t mean that you can rank easily for it. That’s where looking at the keyword difficulty matters.
If you look at the keyword “women’s shoes,” it is tough to rank in the top 10 search results. It would require a lot of work for most online stores.
As a result, sometimes it’s better to rank for a keyword with a lower volume and a lower keyword difficulty than a keyword with more volume but is more difficult. However, in the end, the keyword that best fits the business’s needs should be the main priority.
Note: When it comes to all the steps, keyword research is the most important step. It’s because it influences how you do the following steps.
If you want more information on how to do keyword research, read this article by Moz.
2. Optimize Your Pages
After finding the keywords you want to target, it is time to utilize them in your pages. Here are some places where you can put your targeted keywords:
Url structure
The first place you should put your targeted keywords is in your URL. This helps search engines know what your page will be about, increasing its relevance to certain searches.
For an eCommerce website, this can vary on the category (collections) page(s), product page(s), or if your online store has a blog.
Typically, it would be best to use a keyword that broadly encompasses all the products in the sections for a collections page. After, it would be best if you used a more specific keyword in your product pages.
If you look at this URL example, it has a broad keyword showing the type of ring. Then, it shows the specific type of ring. By organizing the URL with good keywords, you increase your chances of ranking higher than using random text in your URL.
Titles
The next place to put your keyword is in your title. You might be wondering what if you have a special and unique name for your products.
You have to go back to keyword research. Do people search for your unique titled product?
In many cases, the search volume is minimal. However, it doesn’t mean you can’t have to give up your unique title. Instead, you need to include the keyword you found with that unique name.
For example, DressUp could have created a unique name for its products, but they kept their targeted keywords in the title while keeping its uniqueness.
Description
After adding your keyword to your title, it’s also helpful to add a description with your main keyword and related keywords. Again, this helps support your SEO efforts for the pages you are trying to rank.
You can see the main keyword in the title in this example, but you can also see it in the descriptions and other related keywords. Combining the two increases the likelihood of ranking higher in search results for “boulder mug.”
3. Optimize Your Images
The next step is to optimize your image. As an eCommerce store, your website is mostly images. If you don’t optimize for them, you are missing out on potential improvement to your SEO.
Alt-tag
When it comes to having images on your website, you should include alt-tags. First, it helps blind and visually impaired users know what is popping up on their screens. However, the second reason is that it also helps with SEO.
With each image, you can include a specific keyword or even your target keyword in your images. This, in turn, boosts your SEO.
Compressing
The next thing to optimize for is page speed. Your online store will have a variety of images. However, if they are not compressed, they will slow down your site.
Although this doesn’t relate to SEO too much, it influences bounce rates and, in turn, reduces the number of conversions. If a site loads too slow, many users will get impatient and go somewhere else.
4. Keep optimizing
The last step is to keep optimizing. SEO is a continuous process. If you stop optimizing, your competition won’t and will eventually outrank your online store on search results.
Because of this, it’s important to keep finding areas where you can improve your SEO, so you get the most of the search traffic.
Wrapping It Up
Now that you know the four steps in starting your SEO campaign, you can start applying these steps to your eCommerce store. Although it seems like a long marketing investment, SEO will have long-lasting effects on any online business.
