The world of eCommerce is in the most rapid growth stage. With this, the need for effective eCommerce SEO services has never been more critical.
However, many businesses have lost enormous finances due to the global pandemic. The marketing budget can typically be one of the first areas business owners look to cut back while conducting self-preservation.
It is a clear sign of the times when people now fully understand the effectiveness and profitability of being able to sell their products without relying on bricks and mortar overheads. However, finding the most effective pricing to accomplish that is paramount.
In his article, we look to establish more the processes of what a company should be doing to ensure the success of an eCommerce strategy. So just listing cheap options is not our theme, as cheap in digital marketing in 2022 usually equates to outsourcing and failure.
So let’s look at what an eCommerce SEO strategy needs to entail to succeed. Then you can narrow down the companies that will provide these services from your market research and work out who is the most cost-effective for you to move your business forward.
Initial Research and Strategy
When building an eCommerce strategy, having a clear vision of what you want is as important as what an SEO agency will put in place for you.
Knowing how much website traffic increases and conversions you need to break even or to make enough profit to expand is your foundation.
So your first step is to crunch some numbers and set some goals to give a solid blueprint of what eCommerce SEO services need.
Let’s take a look at Statista.com and their latest eCommerce statistics for Australia as of the end of Q2 2022:
Statistics and analytics play a much more significant role in online marketing today than ever, so preparing yourself beforehand is good advice.
An eCommerce SEO Audit
Once you have established a framework of targets and timeframes, it’s time to look at where your store is currently.
You conduct a website audit with typical organic SEO optimisation to determine what needs updating to adhere to Google’s Best Practices. Once accomplished, you will see an increase in ranking and traffic; the same applies to an eCommerce site.
Here are key areas that should form the basis of a proposed campaign:
- Page Speed – Now a key ranking factor with Google. The analogy of ‘You Snooze You Lose’ is perfect for SERP ranking in 2022; this HAS to be addressed; if your web pages are slow, you stand to lose a lot of traffic.
- Technical Issues – A thorough audit will undoubtedly bring up aspects that can be optimised. Missing metadata in different areas and broken links can be perpetrators of underperformance but are not easily identifiable without experts.
- Overall On-Site Optimisation – Title tags, content curation, and H1 tags are all vital components that will be looked at in detail.
- Keyword Research – Online search dynamics have shifted considerably during and post the pandemic. So what may have worked before does not necessarily work now. A refresh and analysis of search trends must be conducted before you set sail with a new campaign.
The Essentials of eCommerce SEO
So far, you have a system structure that, if followed, will lead to you being on the right path.
After an audit, we come to the optimisation stage. We will now cover the areas you need to be looking for in a marketing partnership to know they are pointing you in the right direction.
Page Titles Plus Meta Descriptions
If this is the first time you’ve heard of page titles plus meta descriptions making a considerable impact on your visibility and traffic, here it is.
Website optimisation is precisely how it sounds. It moves along with the tweaks that the major search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo! are constantly making to their algorithms.
You require them to be SEO friendly. How?
Keywords, as we mentioned above, still play a fundamental role. These elements act as a stage for you to add keywords to describe what your web page offers for the SERPs to index and people to accurately find you for what they want.
Meta is active in assisting your click-through rates (CTRs). So any SEO professional that understands the right amount of words to use is someone that understands the importance of these overlooked ranking factors. So far, this is a good start.
Product Descriptions
This is where eCommerce differs from other websites that are just supporting a brick-and-mortar business. DESCRIPTIONS are so important.
Not only do you need to be transparent with your audience, but it also provides a key component with your targeted keywords; plus, placement is key.
Having relevant terms in your description will assist in the SERPs instantly matching what you provide with online searches, therefore, more traffic.
TIP – Always have both a short and long description of your products. The short version is punchy, and to the point that grabs the attention then the potential customer can read your selling points for the product in detail. Another good aspect that should be included in any eCommerce marketing proposal.
Images and Videos
This factor is critical if a significant amount of your business comes from Millenials and Generation Z clients.
Content is still king with Google and the other SERPs. Still, as we mentioned above, with ‘Page Speed’, people’s attention spans are lower than ever before, hence the popularity of YouTube for business and promotions.
These also give you further options to use your targeted keywords in captions and headers. The follow-on effect is more enquiries, clicks, shares and potential paying customers.
TIP – When considering this, ensure the potential marketing partner discusses the importance of videos and images being the correct size so your load-up speed is not affected. REMEMBER, attention to detail is EVERYTHING in today’s eCommerce.
Backlinks
As many aspects of digital marketing evolve and change, keywords and backlinks still form the foundation for a successful organic and eCommerce SEO.
Clean, high-grade backlinks from other sites relevant to your industry will improve your online ranking; it’s a FACT.
This is an essential part of any package you enter, and asking, ‘How will you build me a credible backlink profile?’ is a good question.
TIP – Quality over quantity is how to be successful today with Google and other search engines. Look for a company that will outreach and create articles rather than buy links on your behalf.
Category Pages
Unbeknown to many, category pages can be gold dust for SEO as these are destination pages, a kind of the first port of call before a user moves on.
An SEO company should use keyword-rich titles and meta descriptions to gain relevance.
Internal Linking
Linking your internal pages can reap great rewards.
Linking pages helps clarify to the search engine crawlers looking to accurately index your pages EXACTLY what the relationship is and be part of your ‘Sales funnel’. Indexing correctly is essential in getting an SEO campaign off to a good start or drastically stumbling at the first hurdle.
TIP – Finding the right marketing partner will be one that understands upselling and cross-selling. Linking is vital in recommending new products, given previous buying or behavioural patterns and, in many cases, what the user is currently viewing. Optimisation of these is another key component and something else to ask during your deliberation of who’s the best fit for you.
Blogs
Blogs are an extension of your online presence but can be misunderstood for getting the best result. Blogging at the right time about the right services and/or products, insights, or new news within your industry can increase your audience exponentially, but only if done right.
Look to ask about blog strategies.
- How much content should I write?
- How often do I blog?
- When do I blog?
These are basic but essential questions to be asked as a popular blog is a string to your bow to add quality backlinks and start to gain online authority and higher rankings and overall exposure.
SUMMARY
As an eCommerce business, your marketing strategy differs from your bricks-and-mortar approach to getting walk-in traffic to your store. The most important part of this process is understanding what you need and finding the right marketing partner with eCommerce marketing experience. We hope this article has given you the right pointers to determine who can work with you to achieve this. All that’s left is to look at their proposals and the cost of what is within. Good luck.