If you have an e-commerce store, you’ll need to make sure you drive enough targeted traffic to it – and that means ensuring you have a solid SEO strategy in place.
So how should e-commerce businesses boost their SEO in 2018? Follow these tips to make sure your store is visible in search.
Make Product Descriptions Unique
Whatever type of products you sell, make sure you create unique product descriptions. This should be one of the first things you do to get your SEO in shape for your store.
The problem with product descriptions is that many sellers reuse the manufacturer descriptions of the products. This means if you sell the same products as other stores, you will all be using the same content.
This is not a problem in itself if the copy is good and it sells. But it is a problem for your SEO because of duplicate content.
To ensure it only shows the most relevant results, Google filters out duplicate content. There is no point in displaying hundreds of pages all with the same content.
So what can you do?
Rewrite your descriptions so each one is unique. This might be easier to do if you only have a few dozen or a few hundred products.
Take this opportunity to improve them as well as just making them unique. Make them more compelling and use emotion to sell the products and persuade buyers to act.
But what if you have tens of thousands of products? It’s still better to have unique descriptions. Each time you add a batch, create a new unique description for each one.
You could also add a section to each page for product reviews. This will ensure you get unique content on the pages when customers buy the products, and you won’t have to write the content yourself.
Or you could focus more on your category pages. Group products into categories and create new unique content for these pages rather than rewriting every product if it is not feasible.
Create Optimised Page Titles and Meta Descriptions
For each product page, create a unique page title. Include one keyword and the product name in this as well as in the URL. This way, if your customers search for the product name or the main keyword, you are covered. Make it about 60 characters long so it all shows up in the search results.
Also create unique meta descriptions. These are unlikely to help make your product pages rank higher in search, but they could well help to increase your conversions.
The descriptions are one of the first things that people see when they are searching. A convincing, persuasive description can increase clicks – and, therefore, sales. And if more people click on your links in the search engines, this could help to improve your SEO at the same time.
Get More Reviews
Product reviews are a necessary factor when selling online. People will look for reviews before they buy a product, so make sure you have some. They provide social proof and help to convince potential customers to buy.
But as well as this, product reviews can help with your SEO. Whenever a customer leaves a review on your website, they are creating new content – and the search engines love fresh content.
Even better, customer reviews are likely to use the sort of language other customers use when searching for the same products.
They might incorporate long tail keywords that you did not think of using. Over time, these low-traffic long tail keywords can have a big impact on your visibility in the search engines. And you don’t have to create any content yourself. Let your customers do it for you!
Encourage your customers to leave reviews. Follow up via email and suggest leaving one. Don’t bribe them for positive reviews. Instead, ask them to share their thoughts about the product.
At the same time, create a profile for your company on other sites like Yelp and ConsumerSearch. This can help to build your reputation and boost trust, and it is also an easy way to build some links to your website to help with your SEO.
Publish Regular Blog Posts
Publishing a high-quality, regular blog is one of the best ways to boost your visibility in the search engines. While publishing content on its own is just the start, it helps to generate links and build authority.
It also shows the search engines that your site is a regular source of fresh and valuable content.
A lot of e-commerce companies get stuck when it comes to blogging. Even those companies that know it will help their SEO end up putting it off. But there are actually many topics you could create content on:
- Product reviews
- Tips on how to use products
- New products that have arrived in your store
- Industry news
- Customer stories
If you sell in a certain niche, create content that will appeal to your target customers. E.g. fishing news and related stories for your fishing store.
Once you have created the content, share it on social media. Be active and advertise on social. Get your content out there and generate interest.
Create Video Content
Don’t stick with written content alone. While a lot of your content will be text-based, you should mix it up. Video content is a great option for e-commerce stores.
People love watching videos. You could incorporate this into your marketing by creating video blog posts, reviews of your latest products, videos of people using the product, product demonstrations, humorous videos related to your products and more.
There is also a good chance videos will get shared. This creates buzz and visibility as well as links – and links are essential for SEO.
Create a YouTube channel with all of your videos. YouTube is a search engine in itself, so you could drive a lot of traffic from this source alone.
Optimise Images
You’re likely to use a lot of images on your e-commerce website because customers will need to see what they are buying. But don’t miss out on optimising them to boost your SEO.
It’s good SEO practice to create ALT tags for each image. That way, the search engines can read what the image is about. Try to get in your main keywords. While it won’t get you a huge traffic boost on its own, it’s all part of a successful on-site SEO strategy.
Also make sure you compress your images so they load faster. Fast-loading websites are essential for good SEO, so don’t let your images hold you back.
Structure Your Site Properly
Good website structure is essential for good SEO. Your site should have a keyword-rich and compelling home page, about page, FAQ page and contact page at the very least. These are all good places to include keywords.
Create strong category pages as well. Group related products into these categories, and turn these into mini home pages. Link to relevant pages from the home page and category pages, and encourage visitors to explore further.
Make sure your website has an HTTPS address. If it’s only HTTP, it will show as insecure in Chrome, and that is going to hurt your conversion rates.
And while it goes without saying, make sure it is fully mobile optimised if you want people to be able to buy on your site using their mobile devices.
Build Links
Finally, always focus on building links. We’ve touched on this already with creating blogs and video content, but take it further.
Create blog posts for authority blogs in your niche and get traffic and links via guest posting. Encourage important bloggers to review your products and link back to your site. Even set up your own affiliate program and let your affiliates build links by promoting your products.
Drive Targeted Traffic to Your Store
Focus on these tips to improve your SEO and boost your chances of driving more targeted traffic to your website. More targeted traffic means more sales.
Don’t struggle to run your store while failing to increase its visibility in the search engines. Take a few simple steps to get more traffic over time as more of your pages start to show up in search for your target keywords.
If you feel you require the support of an experienced SEO consultant to maximise your website’s organic presence, then why not get in touch with a member of our team today.
