The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to SEO for eCommerce

What if someone told you that you could earn free, recurring, high-converting traffic for your eCommerce business? Better yet, this strategy only relies on initial effort for a continuous stream of results with no recurring expense. Most eCommerce businesses would absolutely jump on the opportunity, but few realize it is already here! SEO is the strategy we are referring to. In this post, you will learn exactly why. We will describe the ins and outs of SEO for eCommerce and how to capitalize on it.

What is SEO?

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a huge buzzword in the world of eCommerce. We always hear about the importance of increasing SEO, but the exact meaning of the term and method for achieving it are much harder to come by. The basic concept of SEO is to optimize your website to rank higher in search results on search engines. In essence, you want to create the best result for your target keywords. While there are best practices for SEO, it is a strategic art that involves user-experience and design, not just words.

The Importance of SEO for eCommerce

With so many other methods available for driving traffic, why does SEO matter? Well, SEO is still the #1 driver of traffic to content sites and is 300% more effective than social media. SEO is about organic search, and this beats paid efforts in every way. 44% of customers start their online shopping journey by searching on a search engine, and 95% do not go past the first page of results, so it is important that your website appears as a top result for your target keywords. The bottom line: SEO matters (a lot) for eCommerce.

How to Get Started with SEO for eCommerce

Believe it or not, most businesses are getting eCommerce SEO totally wrong, and others just are not sure where to start. SEO has incredibly ROI, if done right. You must take the care to implement it properly and strategically in order to see results. Here is the beginner’s guide to starting SEO for eCommerce:

• The first step is to prepare your website. SEO is more than just the words on your site. Design and ease-of-use matter. If your site is slow or defective, it will impact your SEO. You need to make sure your site can handle an influx of traffic and is designed in a way that will help conversions.
• The next thing you should do is some keyword research. You want to find keywords that are not too difficult to rank for, but that will still get you traffic. There is a very small sweet spot when it comes to keywords, and research is critical for uncovering it. The easiest ways to uncover keywords with the right search volume is through Amazon, competitor research, and SEO tools.
• Once you have your spreadsheet of keywords, consider creating a keyword matrix to determine the best keywords to use on each page.
• After you have decided on which keywords to use, it is time to implement them. To do this, your site will need a simple, scalable navigation structure. How do you know if you have this? It should take no more than three clicks to get to one page from any other page. Tap into your keyword research to create relevant page URLs and subdirectories.
• Next, you must have the right keywords in the right places. Reviews and images were the top factors for on-page SEO for eCommerce pages. Make sure you have your keyword in the URL, in the title tag, the body copy, the image alt text, and the metadata of your category pages.
• Audit your site. SEO is all about creating the best user experience. Use an eCommerce site audit to determine the overall quality of your site and create task lists of improvements. You should do this before and after implementing SEO to ensure you are getting the best results.
• Use content marketing to boost SEO. According to Ascend2, 57% of marketers said relevant content creation was the most effective SEO tactic. With content marketing, you can create content around keywords to help improve your exposure on search engines and drive more traffic to your site.

Wrap Up

Let’s review. SEO is all about getting your website to rank as a top result for relevant keywords. Why? This puts your page in front of customers who are looking for what you have to offer. SEO has a great ROI and delivers lasting results that will boost your website traffic. It is a complicated art, but the root of SEO is providing the best user experience possible. Taking the time to audit your site, research keywords, and implement them on each page will pay off.

One major challenge of SEO? Optimizing all of your product pages for multichannel eCommerce. Listing Mirror is the answer. Write product listings once, and use Listing MIrror to copy them to all of your channels, so you can reach more customers with SEO product pages. But that’s not all we do. We help you experience big business power with small business care through features like listing data management, order fulfillment, inventory syncing, and warehouse management. Sell more and work less today with Listing Mirror. Learn more or get started with your free demo by contacting us.