4 essential eCommerce SEO tips by Sam Davtyan. Available from <http://www.businesszone.co.uk/community/blogs/sam-davtyan/4-essential-ecommerce-seo-tips> [March 09, 2017]
Making an eCommerce-based website shine on Google is no easy task. With hundreds of popular brands showing up in the top 10 results, many mom-and-pop shops are finding it next to impossible to rank. No wonder many small business owners choose Etsy as a platform to sell their products.
While it may be harder to rank today, it doesn’t mean you should ignore SEO as a marketing strategy. If you want to rank among the best, here are four SEO tips you will want to keep in mind:
1. Create an Engaging Experience
Today, website users don’t want to wait forever for a website to load. A slower website may mean fewer conversions and an unhappy user experience. To make every user happy, consider doing the following:
. Create a simple design that is easy to navigate. This means removing clutter, fancy graphics and blocks of content that are hard to read.
. Try to make the user the center of attention by offering a points system or even a forum where they can sound off.
. Minimize your page load so users stick around the second they land on your website. If you’re unsure how fast your website loads, consider using a free speed tool like Google PageSpeed Insights.
2. Think About Google
The Panda and Penguin Google updates really hit the eCommerce sector hard, and one of the main reasons why was because many were filled with thin or duplicate content. If you’re serious about SEO and ranking, it’s essential that every single page has compelling content that is unique and interesting to your user. Make sure that you follow the best SEO practices for eCommerce websites to ensure it has the best chance of ranking organically. When trying to rank, you’re going to want to avoid the following:
. Don’t use standardized templates.
. Every product page on your website needs a description that is unique and best describes what the product is all about. The more content you have, the better it is for long-tail keyword searches. If you can’t create a lot of content for a particular page, consider adding the “noindex” tag so Google won’t spider it.
. To keep customers coming back, consider starting up a blog and updating it at least a few times a month. This should be a part of your marketing strategy of any small business.
. Lastly, don’t worry about the keyword density. Today, Google is better than ever when distinguishing what your webpage is about. There’s no longer no need to place your keywords all over the place.
3. Go Mobile
If you haven’t done so already, it’s important to start thinking about your mobile user. Even if you don’t know how to create a mobile version of your website, there are many free options that can help you, like DudaMobile and various WordPress plugins.
According to a recent survey, more than 20 percent of shoppers make their purchase through their phone, and in three to five years, more than 50 percent will be done through a mobile device.
4. Build Links the Right Way
Links will never go away in the SEO world, and as long as you’re building them right, you shouldn’t have a problem ranking. When building links, you’re going to want to keep the following in mind:
. Try to build links that are going to draw in traffic through clicks.
. Always try to vary your anchor text.
. Avoid websites that are solely there to hand out links to other websites. Usually, the harder it is to get a link, the better it’s going to be for you.
. Developing great content can draw in great natural links. If your content is great enough, you won’t even need to worry about building links.
. Since Google can penalize you for bad links pointing to your website, it’s important that you’re monitoring your link profile. If you notice bad links popping up, it’s important that you either “disavow” or ask the webmaster to remove it.
. Remember that the link quality matters today, not the quantity. It’s a lot better to get a link from one reputable newspaper than 200 low-quality blogs with duplicate content.
. Don’t forget about using social media to develop your brand and build links.
While it may seem that Google is frowning upon commercial websites, it doesn’t mean you can’t rank. Businesses that focus on great content, a great link profile and a great user experience shouldn’t have to worry about getting smacked around by Google’s search results.
4 essential eCommerce SEO tips by Sam Davtyan. Available from <http://www.businesszone.co.uk/community/blogs/sam-davtyan/4-essential-ecommerce-seo-tips> [March 09, 2017]