Creating a new e-commerce website with the WYSIWYG website builders is a cakewalk these days. However, maintaining it and optimizing its user experience is a different story. Without a planned strategy, your dream of running an optimized e-commerce website can very soon turn into a nightmare.
The key to running an e-commerce website with a regular inflow of traffic and healthy conversion rates is the prioritization of SEO (search engine optimization). This is very different from UEO (user experience optimization).
Confused already? Let’s elaborate it for you.
Get a bit creative with product descriptions
You don’t need to be overly expressive in describing your products. In fact, just a few, but quality, lines can do the trick.
Make your product descriptions informative, fun to read and engaging. Cover all features within 150-300 words and write in a way that focuses on your target audience’s perspective.
For example, if you are selling shoes, think of what your target buyers would look for in your shoes. Find out what search keywords they could use and make sure to include them in your product description.
Do not forget to include your products or niche when writing subheadings. This will make it much easier for crawlers to index the products on your site.
See Also: The Average Joe’s Guide To Setting Up An Online Business
Do not shy away from including product reviews
Including good reviews with every product may seem like blowing your own trumpet, but this is an absolute necessity in the world of digital marketing. Each and every positive review can add credibility to your products and can also provide quite an effective way to improve your content.
When looking for reviews, you should consider Amazon. Some of their top products have thousands of reviews, making them the favorite of search engine spiders.
Moreover, online shoppers give a lot of importance to fellow shopper’s reviews before making a purchase. It is similar to the personal “touch” shoppers experience at a physical store.
If the products you are promoting don’t have any reviews yet, you can send follow up emails to your customers urging them to review your products and their shopping experience.
Do not stuff keywords into your content
Although the newest updates of Google may not penalize you, stuffing ill-fitting keywords into your content may not give you benefits, too. Instead of putting senseless keywords in your posts, it’s a good idea if you can take time to write about keywords that are truly relevant to your site and products. They should be contextual and have a healthy density.
Since we are recommending a 300-word description for each product, we will not advise a keyword density of more than 1%. So, instead of focusing on keywords, pay more attention on giving your customers a complete description of your product. This will improve user experience and boost your organic authority over time.
Include alternate text for images
Do not leave the original text for the product images. Access your back-end editor and change the name of each image to a relevant text. We suggest using names or terms you are aspiring to rank for but steer clear of stuffing keywords.
Image alt texts are hardly 3 to 4 words and we would rather advise you to include a descriptive name that is relevant. For example, “leather tan boots with 2 inch heels – XYZ (brand name)”.
Put on your thinking hat for titles and URLs
Titles are more important for SEO than you can ever imagine. They help in indexing and SERP ranking by enabling search engines to understand the purpose of every landing page in your website.
So, steer clear of duplication by skipping vendor titles and manufacturer titles since your competitors may use the same. We would suggest you go a little creative when it comes to creating titles for each of your landing page.
While making URLs, keep your customers in mind. Use simple names and special descriptions for your URLs that will help your visitors easily find their way to your products.
Create XML maps and share with search engines
Your website builder might have this as a built-in option. If not, use a simple plug-in that can generate an XML map of your website indexing all the pages, subpages etc. Update any existing map to give the search engines an easy route through your website and new products.
Most of the CMS platforms that are dedicated to catering to e-commerce websites have automated sitemap generation options. This is to levy the stress most site crawlers are subjected to when you continuously update your inventory and make changes to the content of your site. Keep your XML sitemaps updated to keep your site in the good books of all search engines.
Internal linking to quality content
The days of “blackhat” SEO are over. Now, if you stuff keywords repeatedly from other sources, you may not be penalized actively but your SRL ranking can decrease tremendously.
Today, it’s better if you can focus on meaningful content with wise use of contextual keywords. Since the introduction of Hummingbird, the keyword game has changed and the current algorithms focus more on the meaning of an entire sentence rather than isolated phrases or words.
Do not forget to use active and good quality backlinks while constructing your articles or product content. This builds reputation and credibility. Including backlinks from reputable websites builds consumer trust and helps in boosting customer conversion rate magnificently.
See Also: The Future of SEO – Predictions and Premonitions That Will Dominate 2017
Be ready to make new friends
Many website owners may not believe it just yet, but Schema is going to be your new best friend. Schema.org is designed to fabricate, maintain and advertise structured data online. These are most commonly used by the likes of Google and other search engines to make sure the consumers get more than they can chew on. You can consider including Schema into the following places:
• Brand
• Offers
• Rating and reviews
• Product
Content website definitely needs more focus in the coming year if you want to make your e-commerce website a raging success. You must remember that there are thousands of successful online shopping portals people search for every day and you must always one-up them in every aspect to make yourself visible. Serve your target audience exactly what they are looking for and use e-commerce SEO to boost incoming traffic and conversion rates.
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Author: Trudy Seeger
Trudy Seeger is an SEO expert who has been travelling the highways and allies of SEO marketing and digital marketing for many years. He is working with a US based SEO company that has been catering to the needs of a number of small local businesses and successful big names of e-commerce.
