How SEO Can Help Skyrocket Your Ecommerce Business
If you don’t have a working ecommerce SEO strategy and your website is not ranking on search engines, the truth is that it might as well not exist at all, as far as your potential customers are concerned.
While this may seem like an exaggeration, the stats paint a similar picture.
According to a study by Nchannel, 44% of customers start their online shopping experience using a search engine. That means that if your website is not among the top search engine results, you are basically leaving almost half of your potential customers for your competition.
Importance of SEO for Ecommerce
Unlike many other online businesses, ecommerce websites live or die by their ability to appear in front of potential buyers online. There is little word-of-mouth traffic available, as most traffic comes from people searching for or discovering ecommerce websites online.
And, even online, you are competing with dozens of other ecommerce shops, including some of the industry giants such as Amazon, which can allocate millions for their marketing campaigns each year.
This means that your only chance to carve out a share of the market is to develop an effective and targeted ecommerce SEO strategy, uniquely catered to your business.
How SEO Can Become Your Biggest Advantage
While most marketing approaches will be dominated by the large corporations, SEO is one of the few areas where even smaller companies can have great success. In fact, when done properly, SEO can level the playing field even with the biggest players in the market.
And with search engine traffic being responsible for over 30% of all ecommerce website traffic (Kissmetrics), one thing becomes clear – companies that dominate Google rankings results for relevant keywords will always have a steady flow of customers.
What Makes a Good E-Commerce SEO Strategy
A comprehensive ecommerce search engine optimisation campaign consists of many intricate details, but it really comes down to a few essential factors.
1. Ranking for Multiple Keywords
Since a typical ecommerce website usually sells a wide-range of products, it will need to rank for hundreds of different keywords in order to reach the target audience.
This means that the first part of any good campaign is research – finding the right keywords to get in front of the relevant search engine searches. This requires both a good understanding of who is the target consumer, as well as which keywords are the most valuable and easy enough to rank for.
Usually extensive research of the competition will be required as well – finding out what the direct competition is ranking for can go a long way in understanding what’s working and what isn’t. It’s also the best way to discover niches that aren’t yet competitive, which allows to quickly gain access to an untapped part of the market.
2. Consider the Possible Locations
Another important aspect is location – most ecommerce shops operate primarily in a certain region, but ecommerce businesses in Australia could target the main cities, such as Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, as well as different states, greatly expanding the reach.
Most Google searches for products come with location keywords, since people are usually looking for cheap shipping options to their location. Therefore, it’s important to rank for different location keywords, especially to those locations that you know you can ship quickly and for a good price.
3. Website Optimisation
Finally, since ecommerce websites rely so much on organic traffic for their business, and have so many pages and products, they have to be optimised just right for Google to understand what keywords are relevant to each page.
This can be a painstaking process that usually takes some time, but it is nonetheless essential for any serious ecommerce business, wanting to establish a long term presence online.
While this might seem very complicated, the truth is that the website optimisation process can usually be done rather quickly by an experienced SEO company. And while there are plenty of SEO services available online, not all of them have experience working with ecommerce sites, and that is an essential requirement.
SEO Offers Endless Possibilities
When used correctly, SEO for ecommerce websites can become the catalyst your business has been missing – it can help you become visible to your audience online, and that is where the bulk of your sales can come from.
The important thing to remember is that ecommerce SEO is not a one-and-done task. It will require consistent tweaking and tuning, but at the same time that means that there will always be room for your business to grow.
So if you’re ready to take your ecommerce online marketing strategy to the next level and start enjoying a steady stream of hyper-targeted visitors to your website, call 1300 899 123 NOW or fill out a form here and let us set you up with the complete ecommerce SEO package.