SEO TIPS FOR E-COMM STORE OWNERS

Many online store owners heavily rely on PPC (Pay Per Click) programs for advertising their online store while completely ignoring the SEO part. However, they should have paid careful attention to optimising their online stores for organic search rankings as well.

There are many ways you can optimise your online store for better visibility in search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. The extent of your e-commerce store's SEO also depends on the kind of features your e-commerce service provider offers if you are working with platforms like Wordpress, Shopify, Volusion, Big Commerce, Spiffy Stores or Goodsie among others.

Given below are eight important tips that every online e-commerce store owner should abide by to achieve higher organic search rankings.

On-Page Optimisation

Have an On-Site Blog

Google loves to see fresh content on your site. Attaching a blog to your online store is a surefire way of adding that fresh content. It's best if you could install a WordPress blog on your online store (Google adores WordPress). Otherwise, you can also use the self-hosted blog of your e-commerce website builder. Once you have set up the blog, you should consistently publish articles on the same. In any case, you need to make sure you cover relevant topics and that your blog posts are keyword-optimised.

Say 'No' to Duplicate Product Descriptions

Copy-pasting product description from the manufacturer's site to your site is the worst thing you can ever do, as far as the SEO of your online store is concerned. No matter what type of products you are selling on your online store, make sure you write fresh descriptions to avoid search engine penalty.

Don't Use Same Meta Tags for All Pages

Every web page of your store should have unique metadata. Many website builders provide you with the option of adding your own custom meta info to the homepage as well as each of your product pages. If every single page of your online store carries the same metadata, you are making a huge mistake as far as search engine optimization of your site is concerned.

Optimise Product Images

Since it's an online store, you'll definitely need to place images of the products that you want to sell. Having short but descriptive alt tags for the product images you use can quickly give you an extra edge in terms of SEO. Don't forget that a good number of people who want to buy a specific product or item use the image search feature.

Set Up a Clean URL Structure

When you want to improve the SEO of your online e-commerce store, you should also pay careful attention to the URL structure. While working with a third-party e-commerce website builder, you should make sure it offers you full control over the structure of your web page URLs. Short, keyword-rich URLs will enhance your site's SEO.

Pay Careful Attention to Internal Linking

Internal linking is an important part of the SEO process as it allows visitors to find relevant content on your site. On an individual product page, you should never forget to include links to other related products that your store features. While linking internally, it's a good idea to add keywords, but don't overdo it.

Off-Page Optimisation

Build Quality Backlinks

Apart from featuring great and keyword-optimised content on your online store, you also need to gather lots of high-quality backlinks. Google scans a site's backlink profile to gauge its overall authority on the web. Therefore, you should never forget to have a white-hat link building strategy in place.

To build backlinks, you should do the following:

Most importantly, you'll need to feature top quality content on your site on a regular basis. Otherwise, nobody would want to link to it. In any case, you should never engage in any type of link schemes. Many online store owners are so desperate that they want to build hundreds of backlinks overnight. Beware! It can lead your site to serious search engine penalties.

Go Social

SEO of an online store also includes participating in social media platforms. Make sure your business has a presence on popular social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube, among others. By actively participating at these social platforms, you'll be able to create social influence, thereby benefiting your SEO.

Conclusion

SEO is vital to your online store's success because it increases the visibility of your business in search engines. As you obtain higher search rankings, you start to drive more traffic and potential customers to your store. This guide will help you to increase the likelihood of appearing at the top of search engines.

If you need help with the SEO of your online store, please contact Your Digital Agency, and we can work with any type of platfoms, such as Shopify, Wordpress, Duda, Wix, Squarespace and even Weebly.