SEO for E-commerce: Get More Customers From Search Engines
Jairene Cruz-Eusebio on Nov 28, 2021 9:27:01 AMAccording to Statista, worldwide e-commerce retail revenues for 2022 are projected to grow to 5.4 trillion US dollars. That’s a considerable jump from the 3.35 trillion US dollars sales in 2019, pre-pandemic.
But the new normal has driven people to rely on online shopping, even when brick and mortar businesses have opened up and are welcoming customers with open arms. With this rapid growth comes an opportunity for retailers to grow their customer base with SEO.
Table of Contents
Benefits of SEO for eCommerce Websites
How to Implement SEO to eCommerce
Enhancing SEO on Shopify Store
If you’re not yet familiar with SEO, it stands for search engine optimization, which refers to the process of improving rankings on SERPS (search engine result pages).
Of course, as a retailer, you want your products to rank higher so that more people will see them and buy them – but how do you do that? This article will teach you valuable tips about e-commerce SEO that can help your business succeed online.
What is SEO for eCommerce?
Unless you’ve been stuck on some deserted island for more than a decade, you’ve probably once heard of SEO. It stands for search engine optimization and is the process of influencing the visibility of a website (in this case, an eCommerce site) in search engines’ organic results — as opposed to being placed in paid listings (such as Google Ads).
Almost every company has a presence on the internet these days, but not all have optimized their websites to rank high in organic search results.
We search on the internet using a search engine; the first results you see are the organic listings — results that Google (or whatever search engine) has determined to be relevant for your search query.
That is why it’s crucial to have a healthy SEO strategy for your online store; so that you’ll improve your ranking and show up on the first page of results. It is a no-brainer that if your online store is ranked high, you will get more visitors.
A Brief History on the Evolution of SEO
Search engine optimization started with simple SEO techniques such as inserting key phrases into significant content elements on web pages. For example, you would include your primary keyword phrase on the page title, headings, and image alt tags.
Years back, you could get high rankings in search engines by using tricky wording and buying links. Keyword stuffing and link schemes were practices that worked, and search engines frowned upon them. These days, Google and other major search engines like Yahoo utilize AI and machine learning to prevent websites from tricking them.
Today, SEO is all about focusing on the big picture and following a series of best practices that Google recommends to achieve high rankings and drive more traffic to your website.
Benefits of SEO for eCommerce Websites
Good SEO is one of the most effective ways of getting free traffic from search engines like Google.
It’s straightforward: in the world of eCommerce and in a competition where anyone can start an online store and sell directly to your customers, it’s challenging to rank for competitive keywords — especially when you don’t have any brand equity. Websites that follow SEO best practices typically see more traffic than those that do not. It may take up to several months or longer, but you will get results if you optimize your website according to well-known principles and use your resources well (time and money).
The importance of SEO for eCommerce websites cannot be overstated. Let’s name a few benefits of SEO:
1. Improved Visibility
Being visible is crucial to your company’s online presence, especially if your company is relatively new or in a competitive niche.
The more visible your website is, the more traffic you can get to your eCommerce store. It’s the simple logic of the supply and demand equation: if many people want to buy something but cannot find it on Google or other search engines, they will be forced to visit alternatives like Amazon or eBay.
More traffic equals more customers. Search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo crawl the web from top to bottom. If you have a well-optimized website with low bounce rates and tons of backlinks, Google will notice that and increase your position on search results pages.
2. More Conversions
More visitors mean more chances for them to convert into customers. And usually, users that visit your website through search engines are interested in what you have to offer and have high buying intent.
As a result, some of these users may add the product to the cart and make a purchase; others will subscribe to your e-mails or share your content on social media — all these actions can create opportunities for you to get more sales and return visits from the same customer.
Remember: an increase in organic search referrals equals an increase in the overall conversion rate.
3. Increased Trust and Authority
Once you get on the first page of Google for competitive keywords, you will gain some reputation and authority in front of your targeted audience.
A study showed that63%of people trust news and other information from search engines. So when audiences see your site ranking high on the search engine result pages (SERP), they will start seeing you as an authority in your niche.
People searching for something you sell would likely click on the link with the highest-ranking because of this perceived trustworthiness. You want to be trusted by your customers, don’t you?
4. Cost-Effectiveness
SEO is one of the least expensive ways to market your eCommerce website online. The best part about free traffic is that it’s FREE! No matter how much money you spend on marketing or ads, you will never be able to beat the ROI (return on investment) of SEO.
Some people argue that there are other costs involved with SEO, like hiring professionals for SEO services, but if you can do it yourself, it will probably cost less than $50 per month and bring massive rewards if done correctly.
5. Long-term Benefit
As the saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day. If you’re looking to get immediate results, then SEO might not be for you. Building your website’s traffic and setting it up properly takes time – weeks, months, or even years if you are doing everything right.
But once you have achieved your goals, the return on investment is well worth it.
It has been proven that companies with higher rankings on Google’s search engine results pages make more money than those without. That means all the long-term efforts will pay off big time in the end.
Organic SEO has a longer shelf life and, if done correctly, can improve your online reputation and credibility. Once you build up authority and trust over time with the help of SEO, customers will start visiting your website even if you stop (or don’t have any) paid advertisements. Sooner or later, the free organic traffic will bring your business more sales and profits than you can imagine.
How to Implement SEO to eCommerce
By now, you’re probably itching to get started, and that’s great! There are a ton of elements that factor into getting your business the visibility you want. Let’s discuss each of them in detail:
1. Improve Your Website Content
Many eCommerce sites tend to be more concerned with the design and appearance of their store rather than the content on their site. But it turns out that SEO means much more than just having a good-looking website — it’s about creating quality content for your users. Your website should also help them navigate through your site and ultimately get what they came for — whether it’s products or services, knowledge, or entertainment.
You can usecontent writing tipsfrom Moz as a reference point when writing content for your website because it will help you understand how to write for people instead of search engine bots.
Write high-quality articles by yourself or hire a professional article writer depending on your budget and time constraints.
You must keep in mind when building up your website’s traffic with SEO is quality over quantity. It may be tempting to hire 100 different content writers and pay them $2 per article, so they write 100 articles per day for a month straight, but this strategy will not get you any long-term benefit from Google’s point of view.
If the content is “unreadable,” Google will consider all those articles as spam and will treat your website as such. Focus on writing unique articles that help users find the information they need.
The following are the types of content you can add to your website:
- Product Description
When writing product descriptions for SEO, you have to keep in mind your keywords. For best results, put the primary keywords first for better ranking performance because all keywords should be included in product descriptions of new and existing products. For example, if your keyword is “Fidget Cube,” you should use that as the first line of product descriptions of new and existing products.
To make sure your keywords are all over the place, another way to do it is by using synonyms. For instance:
Fidget Cube – Stress Relief
This Fidget Cube is made for relieving stress by allowing you to fidget with it anytime, anywhere. If you roll it, flip it, click it or play with its gears, this toy will keep your fingers busy and happy.
Another critical element of product descriptions is the “About This Item” section. These sections are also very SEO-friendly. Use them to describe your products more extensively, including size, color, material, and origin.
- Product Titles
Product titles should include keywords as well. You can add your brand name and a short descriptor as the product title. Following our initial example, it will be Antsy Labs Fidget Cube.
- Blog posts
Almost all available eCommerce platforms have blogging features; even Shopify has it. Whatever Shopify theme you choose, blogs are available by default. Just click on the Online Store tab in your Shopify dashboard, and other options will open up, including Blog Posts.
The great thing about Shopify blogs is that post titles, URLs, excerpts, meta descriptions, and image file names are already SEO-optimized for you. You do not need to edit or create any of these elements manually. Simply write the content and hit publish!
- Customer Reviews
Customer reviews are also another great feature of Shopify. The platform allows you to easily collect good and bad feedback from your customers on the product page itself. That is done through a rating system that includes star ratings depending on how many reviews each product has.
You can get customer reviews simply by asking your happy (or not so happy) customers to write reviews of their experiences with your business. That will help you find out what works and what doesn’t work for you. It can even be used as a great marketing tool!
There are numerous ways to ask your customer for a review, one of which is via SMS messaging.
Requesting customer reviews is also an effective SEO tactic because product ratings usually show up in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
- FAQs
The FAQ section is also another helpful element. Frequently asked questions are good for SEO because they are fantastic to have descriptions on your website of specific products that often come up in searches.
These FAQs usually show up as meta description snippets, so the more descriptive you are about what your customers want to know, the better your chances of being found by new and existing customers in SERPs.
- Meta descriptions
Meta descriptions are created for each product, blog post, and page of your website that show up when people search in Google. These can be customized with keywords to help you rank higher in the SERPs.
The most crucial element in meta descriptions is the first of two lines that show up when your website is opened.
Meta descriptions are important for e-commerce SEO because you can make use of them to help your site rank higher in SERPs, even if the description itself is not very descriptive at all. It might not describe the product itself, but it’s still an added element that helps increase the chances of being found.
When writing the meta description for SEO, you should never forget to keep it under 156 characters. You can achieve this by not wasting words and only including the most important information about your product, without any fluff.
Shopify has made it easy to apply SEO meta descriptions and blogs to your products, and they’ve also included some handy free SEO tools on the dashboard. A lot of other platforms offer these elements, too, like Shopify’s competitors like WooCommerce or BigCommerce.
2. Add and Submit a Sitemap
Content matters, but the structure is important too, especially for web design, navigation, and placement. Think of the sitemap as a table of contents for your website that Google can use to do a quick scan and get the gist of what’s going on.
When it comes to the sitemap on e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, they provide a good one by default that you can fill in yourself or just have it automatically generated based on your existing products.
Sitemaps are also helpful for web design, especially if you have a lot of categories and subcategories with infinite loops. It is important to note that these sitemaps should only contain relevant information, so do not include categories that have nothing on them or products out of stock.
Adding a sitemap on your website is a good practice for SEO as it helps Google crawl and index your website more efficiently. It can also help keep things organized on your end, making it easier to find specific products when needed.
Watch this video on how to submit a Shopify store’s sitemap to Google: