There is a popular moral exemplified in the hare and tortoise fable:
Slow and steady wins the race. SEO digital marketing for an e-commerce business isn’t exceptional in most cases.
Customers aren’t always easy to engage. According to experts, the average rate at which carts are abandoned is currently 69.2 percent.
So, it takes commitment, implementation of a variety of effective marketing strategies, and patience to reach your audience, increase traffic to your e-commerce store, and increase sales.
Slamming your audience with aggressive advertorial messages can overwhelm your target buyers, or even worse, irritate and be a huge turn off for them.
Instead, effective SEO digital marketing boils down to reaching your prospects repeatedly over time, create a lasting relationship, and eventually getting them to trust your brand.
Organic search is one of the most valuable sources of traffic for an e-commerce business. However, it’s frequently neglected. Andy Hughes at Caffeinated says “From substandard content to website architecture that lessens search visibility, most online stores make rookie mistakes that end up compromising their search engine ranking for competitive keywords, increased traffic, and attracting new customers.”
Do you want to propel your e-commerce site using proven SEO digital marketing strategies?
In this article, I focus on highly effective SEO strategies that can help you achieve your objectives.
1. Use high-traffic keywords (generic) for product categories
Different product keywords fall into several categories. These are keywords such as type, color or product model, and generic phrases that describe the product. For instance, ‘Men’s football shoes’ is a generic keyword whereas ‘Nike Air Foamposite’ is a specific keyword associated with a specific product.
Consider using the product keywords for the product pages on your website. Then, you can target the generic keywords using the product categories. Thus, before you begin building your e-commerce store, it’s important to create a website architecture that allows you to use generic search phrases as product categories.
Note that the generic keywords are likely to receive a high search volume. Thus, it’s wise to use such phrases as a product keyword as it will funnel the e-commerce store visitors towards the products they need.
For instance, you can optimize a page for keywords like ‘hedge trimmers’ like Reviewlatest does. Then, link this page to products that have been optimized for their specific model name and number.
A major benefit of using your category pages as the funnel is that they will direct all internal searchers towards the products they need. Besides, these pages attract external searchers and help them discover relevant products they might be looking for.
2. Identify and deal with duplicate content issues
Most e-commerce stores have numerous pages. One common problem facing these stores is duplicate content. Product descriptions appear on category pages, product pages, PDFs, archive pages, and more. That makes it difficult for the search engines to detect the original source of the information on your e-commerce store.
Unless Google can identify the page that ‘owns’ each piece of content, the search engine will always struggle to work out where and how to rank your e-commerce store on the search results.
Fortunately, you can easily fix this mistake. First, establish the right source of all pieces of content used across a variety of pages on your site. Then, ensure each page contains original content. Most e-commerce stores tend to copying product descriptions and promotional copies from the product manufacturers and distributors. This results in duplicate content appearing on numerous e-commerce stores.
Keep in mind that original content is important for better search engine ranking. Therefore, take the time to create original, top-quality content for your site. Once you start outranking some e-commerce giants, you will thank yourself for the efforts.
3. Use Long-tail keyword
Research has proved that the top 10,000 key phrases in Google’s index get less than 20 percent off all search traffic. That implies that the long-tail keywords (less searched keywords) receive more than 80 percent of the traffic from search.
Therefore, it’s wise to optimize your e-commerce store pages for long-tail keywords.
4. Use high-traffic, under-utilized keywords
As said earlier, giant online retailers like Amazon often use generic keywords as product categories. If your competitors are still using the exact keywords you’re using, then, outranking them becomes a challenge. Luckily, most e-commerce stores ignore high-traffic generic key phrases, offering you a distinct advantage.
These keywords are often subcategories or product variations that can generate great traffic each month but are too small for giant e-commerce stores to prioritize. That means optimizing your pages for such keywords offers your site the ability to outpace your competitors and probably the giant stores.
5. Make sure that your pages load fast
Page load speed is one of the factors that search engines consider when ranking websites. If your website pages load faster than your competitors, then, you will be rewarded a high rank in the search engines.
Note that optimizing a page load speed is associated with short-term costs. For instance, you will need a professional developer. However, the long-term benefits in terms of SEO and conversion out weight the cost of hiring a professional developer.
6. Double check the e-commerce store’s on-page optimization
Most e-commerce stores aren’t configured for on-page optimization. Thus, configuring your e-commerce platform for on-page SEO will drive your site a notch higher in the search engine rankings. Make sure that your content, title tags, images, and other aspects of on-page SEO are handled excellently.
7. Use social media
Effective social media marketing is all about consistently sharing the right content that is relevant to your audience and engage your customers and prospects always. Avoid spreading yourself thin by using every existing social media platforms. It’s wise to focus on channels that your target audience is using.
8. Don’t ignore email promotions
Design your e-commerce store in such a way that your customers can subscribe for regular updates. This will allow you to send them highly customized regular promotional emails. Remember, your customers are interested in how your product is likely to benefit them. Thus, they will be more interested in email promotions that offer great discounts and other details about products that meet their interests.
Slow and steady will win the race: E-commerce industry is associated with a steep competition but using the right SEO digital marketing strategies in the right way will help you outpace your competitors in the long-run. Using diverse, proven SEO strategies will improve your chances of success.
Catherine Park is a professional Content Writer and a blogger with full of energy and positivism. She is expert in writing exclusive contents on business and technologies that are helpful for large enterprises, SMEs and business startups.
