A Basic Guide To Using SEO For E-Commerce

Connectica • December 14, 2018 • SEO

SEO For E-Commerce

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Things to Consider With an E-Commerce Website
Doing E-Commerce,the Connectica Way

Read Time: 4 minutes

More and more business owners are turning toe-commerce as a means to sell their goods or services. Depending on the type of goods or services sold, having a platform that can reach millions of people allover the world is the greatest way to market your business. The problem is that you’re not the only one with the bright idea to sell your products online. Chances are your competitors are doing the same thing and without a proper digital marketing strategy, you’re not going to get the reach you need on various search engines. You may wonder what reach you need and, in all honesty, what you need to rank high on search engine results. This means that your e-commerce webpage appears within the first three pages of a search engines search results. Ideally, you’d want to appear on the first page, but getting there isn’t easy, and that’s where search engine optimization (SEO) for e-commerce comes in.

Things to Consider With an E-Commerce Website

Yes, you want nothing more than to sell your products and rank really well on Google and other search engines but there are a few things you need to keep in mind about your e-commerce website.

Website Structure
Customers want to know that they can trust the webpage that they’re using with sensitive information such as their bank details. Unlike with normal websites, all e-commerce sites should be an HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) site instead of a regular HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). This enables consumers to shop with peace of mind knowing that their details won’t be stolen.

Other things you need to take into consideration include how user friendly your website is and your sites ability to entice users to spend a little more time on the website. Some sites will have images below the products, linking to similar products on the page or things other consumers have bought in conjunction with that specific product. Little things like that will entice consumers to spend more time to see what else you have available on your site.

E-Commerce Site Keywords
There are thousands of search terms available, which is why keyword research forms a vital part of a successful e-commerce SEO strategy. You need to be able to identify the key terms that customers will search when they’re looking to purchase goods or services.

Before using a specific keyword, you need to consider how relevant it is, how often it’s searched as well as the ranking difficulty of the keyword in question. Look at the local exact match search volume as well and avoid keywords that are too broad or too competitive. If keywords are too board, they will have a high bounce rate and low conversion rate and if they’re too competitive they will take too long to rank your page as other sites are using the exact same keywords.

Make use of long-tail keyword variations in order to help drive targeted traffic to your site. Long-tail keywords are generally 3 or more words which make up a search phrase that the consumer could be searching and are useful for converting leads into sales. Try to ensure that the important pages of your site are fully optimized as your site will have a lot of different pages linking to different products.

Competitor Research
One of the first things you need to do is thoroughly research your competitor’s e-commerce website. Ask yourself the following questions:
- What are the main keywords that they are using on their e-commerce site?
- What is their domain and page authority?
- How does their site structure differ?
- What links are they using?
Create a list of the inbound links that they utilize and avoid using any sites that have a low domain authority ranking.

Take note of the things your competitors have done and try to not only differentiate your website from theirs, but also try to ensure that it is a better and more user-friendly layout for your consumers. Work on the navigational architecture of your e-commerce site and focus on using links from sites with high domain and page authority.

Content
You need to have authoritative, original and engaging content on your e-commerce site. Trying to spam various hashtags or copy/paste descriptions won’t get you very far. Consumers want to know your site is trustworthy and the more effort you expend on genuine engaging content, the more time they’ll spend on your site. This includes ensuring that your on-page SEO is on point.

You need to have proper meta descriptions and titles, preferably in-line with Google’s current requirements. For normal SEO sites this means that your title must be between 50-60 characters long and the meta description should be between 140 – 160 characters long (including spaces and punctuation).

However, e-commerce sites can have hundreds of pages if not more. While it is tempting to automatically start out with hundreds of products listed on your site, try to start out small and build your brand reputation first. With the products you do list, prioritize your efforts by including keywords in your meta descriptions and titles.

In terms of product descriptions, never copy/paste product descriptions directly from manufacturers and suppliers. Your website could be negatively affected by this and may drop in the SERPs. Keep your content unique and original.

Doing E-Commerce,the Connectica Way

When it comes to your E-commerce website, you should do everything you can in order to get your website in tip top shape. If you’re worried that your e-commerce site isn’t up to scratch, you’re welcome to make use of Connectica’s free SEO report service.This will help you get an understanding of how your site is performing in the SEO space. Or give us a call, and we will see how we can help you!

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