New to ecommerce? You need all the help you can get to make your website stand out from the crowd. Despite ecommerce representing only 11.9% of all retail sales worldwide in 2017, it is a rapidly growing space, given that its share of retail sales stood at a mere 3.5% only a decade ago. In fact, according to estimates released by Shopify, global retail ecommerce sales are expected to reach a whopping $4.5 trillion in 2021, from $2.3 trillion in 2017. That would be some large pie to try and get a chunk out of. And, in this case, size will matter, right?
So, how do you drive the increasingly number of people looking for products and services online to your new ecommerce site? The best answer to this question is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This is the most crucial way in which you can enhance your site’s visibility. And SEO is a task best left in the hands of skilled and experienced professionals. At the same time, it is important that you know the best practices that can drive more traffic to your site.
Target One Audience
Of course, you want everyone to come shop at your site. But when you try to reach out to every type of consumer, you can’t help but stick to generic messaging. This is neither the most appealing nor the most engaging and effective way to reach out to people. So, focus on one demographic, whether it is young couples, singles, families with young children, etc. Now, you will not only be able to personalize your message for maximum impact, you will be able to target the specific keywords that this audience uses to search to products that you might be selling.
Apart from the messaging, you will now be able to use these specific keywords in your products descriptions, images and all types of other content on your website. In addition, you can use Google Ads for demographic targeting of your advertisements. In fact, Google Ads does much more than just showing your ads to the right audience, it can help you find the best keywords, target demographics and even monitor your efforts with Google Analytics.
Optimize, Optimize, Optimize
Now that you have the most effective keywords, you need to optimize different aspects of your site. Start with the product descriptions. It might be easier to just continue with the manufacturer’s description, but what you need is compelling descriptions with catchy headlines that will benefit the conversion rate. And, don’t forget to include the keywords here.
The next thing to optimize are the product images. You know that your site relies on compelling, high quality images. But that is not enough. The search bots need to understand what an image is about. So, add optimized ALT attributes in your image tags. An optimized ALT can also help your images rank better in image searches.
Did you know that your URL is a crucial part of your SEO strategy? When the URL is optimized, it helps the search bots easily find and crawl your website and index it correctly. In addition, your URL can tell the visitor what a web page is all about, leading to a better user experience. And, a satisfying user experience is what keeps people coming back a website.
Use Rich Snippets
These are basically HTML codes that inform search engines what a searcher should know about your webpage in one glance. You might have noticed that some Google search results are accompanied by ratings and reviews. These rich snippets not only have a great impact on whether your link gets clicked but also on how your site is ranked on the SERPs.
Of course, there is much more to a complete SEO strategy, not the least of which is to build links from varied sites and ensuring an active presence on social media. And, once you have done all of that, don’t forget to regularly check Google Search Console to keep track of whether all recently added content has been indexed and is getting clicked by searchers.