E-COMMERCE SEO
Electronic commerce or e-commerce ( sometimes written as eCommerce) is a business model that lets firms and individuals buy and sell things over the internet. E-commerce operates in all four of the following major market segments: Business to Business. Business to consumer. Consumer to consumer.
You’ve probably gone online and searched for a variety of products such as watches, shoes, wigs , clicked on the first five results and from one of them ordered and a couple of days later your parcel arrived. For a customer the entire process is simpler compared to going out and walking all over looking for the products alone. However, for you as a business in ecommerce being in those first few search results means the difference between success and failure.
Considering the fact that the first 5 results on Google get 67% of the clicks, it does not take much to see that you need to be among these top results for profitability.
The question is, how?
To answer this you need to understand the term Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
SEO refers to the process that you use to ensure that your content ranks high in the unpaid section of search results.
Although paid advertising, use of social media and other methods can be used to display your results first, they tend to be expensive and require constant attention to remain relevant.
SEO makes contents to be seen by all whose searches relate to your business and also requires relatively less updating to remain relevant. Considering it only requires little dedication to streamline your content for Google then you will reap the benefits for long means SEO is the best way to market your business.
So how is it carried out?
To answer this you need to understand how these search engines work which basically is, The easier it is for Google to associate your article with what someone searches the quicker Google will display your article to the searcher and the more Google will like to display your article whenever required.
To attain this favorable condition you need to incorporate these tactics:
- Use the right keywords.
Keywords are simply what you expect the searcher to type and expect results.
Google uses keywords to produce as accurate as possible results.
You can easily see this as Google offers auto filling of texts you write. Those suggestions are keywords.
When using keywords ensure that you do not over use them as this results in keyword stuffing making articles dull and can result in punishment by Google.
Once you’ve picked the keyword use Google Keyword Tool and determine:
- The number of searches done using it previously.
- The amount of competition associated with the word. If the competition is hefty it’s better to choose a different keyword or phrase with less competition.
After settling on the best keyword use it in sections like:
- Titles and headlines.
- Metadata, this is the tiny description Google displays in the result screen.
- Strategically within the content
- Graphics descriptions. This is because Google cannot understand images hence it uses the description given to evaluate the image therefore giving you another way to increase your search-result ability.
- Site architecture.
As you create your site keep in mind that site architecture plays an important role in SEO.
The site should be hierarchical to allow for quick navigation.
This enables Google to access information quickly. Your customers also will view your content easily.
When creating your site you should:
- Make it simple and scalable.
- Use keywords to create URLs.
- Pages should be 3 clicks away.
This is attained using internal linking which connects pages in your site and increases time spent by customers in your site as it encourages further exploration.
- Use of responsive Design–This is likely to increase the site’s SEO since Google’s mobile- first index is designed to use mobile friendliness in ranking.
It will also make the site appealing to customers.
- On –page SEO.
In this section you’ll learn how to tell Google what your page is about.
This is done using:
- Product name– Your chosen name should have the keywords in it to increase SEO.
- Image optimization-You already know that using keywords in descriptions of pictures increases its SEO which in turn increases the site’s SEO. Moreover customers are inclined to visit sites clearly displaying their products images as opposed to those not bothering or displaying substandard ones.
It’s simply putting yourself in the customer’s shoes.
- Videos– videos are as effective if not more as images. Just use the techniques used in images to attain your desired results.
- Customer reviews– Reviews are one of the best ways to increase SEO because they show consumers what others think of the product. Moreover, Google is primarily a research tool and tends to go where it’s likely to obtain data required by people searching through it. This tends to be articles containing around 2000 words and above so including reviews in your products is likely to enable you to attain this number without being wordy.
- Increasing load speed – the faster your page loads the higher Google ranks it and the more people use it. After all do you like slow loading pages?
- Create backlinks.
These are links directing users from other sites to your site.
The higher the number and quality of sites containing your backlinks, the higher your site’s authority therefore, Google will prefer displaying your results first.
Backlinks are obtained through:
- Resource page link building. This involves pasting your link in pages full of resources pertaining to your industry called Resource pages.
- Partnering with influencers. Influencers are people who have large followings but are not your competitors. You can get them to direct people to your links and you’ll get good traffic.
- Broken link building– This involves searching for links that don’t work in people’s sites then contacting the owners of the site to replace them with your links.
Measuring success.
Success of your efforts is likely to take a while to see.
However, improvement in the position of your product’s search results of from say 60 to 15 over time is an indication of progress and can be tracked using:
- An SEO tool like Ahrefs
- Creating an SEO dashboard in your analytics account
With continual effort you will have the coveted first spots
References
https://neilpatel-com, As at 19-september-2020 at 3:10pm.
https://www.bigcommerc.com, As at 19-september-2020 at 3:10pm.
https://crazyegg.com, As at 19-september-2020 at 3:10pm.