E-commerce SEO: A Simple Yet Effective Guide for 2019

SEO for e-commerce websites is slightly different than SEO for conventional websites. The high amount of competition in the e-commerce space makes it difficult for new websites to establish a good ranking in a small period. Every new e-commerce website needs to compete with Amazon, eBay, Flipkart and other popular e-commerce stores for rankings on the first pages. The endless financial resources of these major players do not create a fair playground for the new players.

More than 1 billion people across the globe have already bought products at least once on the internet by today. Therefore, e-commerce is an extremely lucrative opportunity for business owners. The unfair playground space does not mean that you can give up hope in the initial stages of the business. You can use certain tips and tricks to gain a competitive edge over these major e-commerce players. Here are a few key tips and tricks that you can use in 2019 to get that competitive edge in the market.

• Optimize Your Content

Content optimization is one of the factors that govern how your website will react to search engine bots. Optimized content will be recognized by the bots to produce better search rankings. Therefore, it is important that you optimize the existing content on your website as well as develop fresh content regularly.

Studies show that 81% of shoppers usually conduct research for a product before purchasing it online/offline. Having a dedicated blog space on your website will increase the visitor acquisition. It will also help you retain the existing customers for a longer period. Make sure that you provide true value with your blogs to keep customers and prospects in the sales cycle for a long period. The blogs will help you identify the purchase-intent as well as the upsell and cross-sell opportunities on your e-commerce platform.

• Increase the Navigability of the Content

A recent study showed that Amazon would easily lose 1.6 Billion Dollars every year if its website slowed down just by one second. This statistic is proof that even the biggest players in the market cannot slack off on their website loading speeds. While growing your online business from scratch you cannot afford any downtime or slow loading speeds.

Most people who are searching for a particular product/service will look at 5-6 different websites. They will compare the features of the products as well as the prices to get the best deal. Under such competitive scenarios, you cannot lose to the competition due to slow loading times. If the prospect finds a slow and buggy interface, he/she will not wait for the website to load. Instead, the prospect will just jump to the next option quickly.

• Optimize Back end of the Website

When we talk about the overall speed and user experience of the website, we need to perform optimization on both the front as well as the back end of the website. The front end optimization will take care of the aesthetic appeal as well as fast loading times. The back end optimization will make sure that the prospects can navigate from one page to the next without any glitches. It will also ensure that the payment and checkout cycle occurs in a seamless fashion to create the best experience for the users. After all, you do not want to lose customers at the last step of the sale, right?

Statistics from Statista show that the year-on-year growth for the e-commerce space in the U.S. was 17% as of 3rd quarter of 2017. The growth of m-commerce space was even higher at 40%. Therefore, it is important that you constantly monitor your website’s health to survive the tough competition.

• Ask for Reviews and Ratings

Reviews and ratings play a major role in creating a reliable impression for your business. The most successful e-commerce platforms are critically acclaimed. Take Amazon for example. With millions of sellers and billions of buyers across the globe, it has easily made Jeff Bezos, the richest person on the planet.

The biggest mistake that you can commit as a novice e-commerce seller is post fake reviews and ratings. In an attempt to get more attention from the users, you may feel like posting a lot of reviews in a short period. This can help you boost your sales for a small period. However, in the long run, this practice is extremely dangerous. Instead of posting a lot of fake reviews, you must rely on a few reliable reviews from your friends and loyal customers to create a reputable image on the internet.

• Create a New Blog Space and Give Discounts

The best way to lure customers on the internet is to offer them discounts. Everyone loves an affordable deal. So, try and host festive sales and discounts on the most in-demand products on your e-commerce platforms. In the initial stages, you must focus on creating a brand value and selling more instead of selling at a higher price. Derive your profits from high quantity sales in the novice stages by establishing a smaller margin of profit. Studies show that over 62% of the women in the U.S. are attracted by online discount and promotional news articles.

You can also create a blog to lure prospects into up-selling and cross-selling schemes. The blogs will help you leverage the top SEO benefits. They will ensure that the search engine bots have enough content to consume in a short period. Post regularly on this blog space to keep the audience engaged for a long period.

• Monopolize a Certain Segment/Feature

If you cannot offer multiple discounts, create a monopoly in the market space. It is not necessary that you create a monopoly to exclusively target the product needs. Instead, you can create a monopoly in the services offered too. Personalization is one key service factor that will help you retain your customers for an extremely long period. Customer retention plays an important role in the sales of products with a high net-worth. 77% of consumers prefer brands that can personalize the shopping experience or services for them. 

With monopolization of a feature, you can easily distinguish your business on the internet. Some of the common features that you cannot ignore before monopolization of a key feature include free shipping, festive sales and online discounts.

• Create a Mobile-Friendly Version of the Website

You cannot afford to lose out on the large market share that shops regularly through mobile devices and applications. More than 67% of people prefer shopping through their mobile devices. Instead of using a desktop interface, they prefer using applications or mobile browsers to shop online.

Creating a mobile-friendly version for your website may take only a few minutes. However, it can easily help you tap a large potential market. Some website hosting service providers like GoDaddy can help you create a mobile-friendly version of the website within a few minutes.

• Couple the SEM, SMM and SEO Efforts

Social media plays a major role in creating a brand identity for your online business. Studies show that 46% of online shoppers view the reviews and ratings from social media platforms to make purchase decisions. When you couple the SEM (Search Engine Marketing), SMM (Social Media Marketing) and SEO efforts, you can streamline the overall business identity to a great extent.

You must also focus on streamlining the NAP (Name, Address and Phone Number) credentials on all your social media profiles to increase the reliability of the business. When you do this for multiple websites and profiles, Google will create a v-card for your business. This v-card can be used by prospects to easily look for your contact details.

Key Takeaways

Now that we have discussed the key tips for effective e-commerce SEO, let’s summarize the learnings in the form of key takeaways.

• Both the e-commerce and m-commerce spaces on the internet are growing at an exponential phase.
• Content is the king. Without optimized content, your website will never gain the necessary popularity on the internet. You need to optimize the existing content as well as develop fresh and engaging content for your audience regularly.
• You need to increase the navigability of the website to ensure that the prospects can enjoy an excellent user experience. The fluidity of the navigation will help you retain the existing customers as well as acquire new customers quickly.
• Optimize the back-end of the website to make the overall interface as snappy as possible.
• Fill your website with genuine product reviews to increase its reliability statistics.
• Create a dedicated blog space and post content regularly.
• Offer discounts and festive sale offers to compete with the biggest names in the market.
• Monopolize on a great service or a product feature to gain the competitive edge.
• Create a mobile-friendly version of the website to tap a large market share with ease.
• Couple the SEM, SEO, as well as SMM efforts to streamline all your campaigns.

Follow these key tips and offer an excellent customer service to succeed in the competitive e-commerce landscape.

Author: SEO Services Consultants