10 Best Practices to optimize eCommerce Store for Search Engines

February 26, 2015 eCommerce SEO/Marketing
seo

In the eCommerce realm, there are more chances of driving traffic through search engines, even if the visitors have not heard of your business before. Thus, it’s critical that your website appears on the first page on all the major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. Search Engine Optimization (SEO), a key component of internet marketing, if implemented tactically can help online merchants boost brand awareness, increase product sales and generate higher revenue. But how?

Let’s walk you through the 10 best practices that you can follow to increase your eCommerce store’s organic traffic and online visibility:

Create SEO-Friendly URLs

URLs describe a web page or site to visitors as well as search engines. So, it is a must to create accurate, compelling and relevant URLs for users and search engines to rank well.

Optimize Meta Tags

A web page’s Title tag and Meta description are the key components that describe what an accessed page is about. Thus, it becomes crucial to add mostly-searched and unique 3-5 keywords in the Meta tags to help gain better rank in search engines.

Add Original, Keyword-Rich Content

With search engines giving priority to original and keyword-rich content, it is a must for eCommerce entrepreneurs to add relevant, accurate and well-optimized product descriptions that not only help in gaining better rank but also compelling visitors to click the ‘Buy’ button. Besides, content on home page and top category pages must also be descriptive, persuasive and contain keywords in the right density.

Keep Your Website’s Content Fresh

Search engines like Google like updated websites and new content. To provide fresh content to visitors as well as search engines, you can integrate a blog and update it at regular intervals with deals and highlights of your products and services.

Add Alt and Title Text to Images

While clear and visually-enticing images on an eCommerce store help in attracting the target market, adding Alt text to each image is one of the best ways to communicate with search engines and gain additional traffic through Google images.

Design a Relationship-Building Strategy

Once you are through with on-site optimization, the next step is to create brand awareness and trust amongst the internet pantheon. This means you want the right people to talk about you and share your blog content/products on social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc., industry resources, news portals, and others. It’s critical to have inbound links from relevant, high-quality sites.

Make your Site Mobile-Friendly

An increasing number of online shoppers are nowadays using smartphones, iPads and tablets to make purchases. Thus, it is crucial to have a responsive and mobile-friendly eCommerce store that the shoppers can easily access on their handheld devices and complete purchase.

Set up Account with Google Webmaster Tools

To know the key metrics of your competitors and audit your site’s technical performance regarding links, sitemap, etc., sign up for a Google Webmaster Tools account that will help you view the linking activity that your website has with other sites.

Speed Up Your Site’s Performance

High speed websites not just rank well in search engines but also drive more traffic and have higher conversion rates. You can use SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) instead of JPEG/PNG, minimize HTTP requests, use CDN (Content Delivery Network) for hosting video, audio and image files, enable compression, etc.

Monitor your Progress Through Google Analytics

Knowing the performance of your eCommerce store can help you improve and gain competitive edge. You can keep a track of your site’s progress through Google Analytics that provide information about organic traffic, overall traffic, new v/s returning users, user flow, top-performing products, goal conversion figures and a lot more.

Let QuikTek Take the Charge!

This seems a lot, we understand! So, QuikTek provides a complete spectrum of eCommerce SEO services to help you drive organic traffic, gain better rank in search engines and increase profits, while you concentrate on what you do best – Your core business. We also manage your multi-faceted product information as part of our product data entry services, ensuring your catalog is up-to-date. To know how our SEO specialists can help you, kindly get in touch with us at mail@quiktekinfo.com.

Share Post...
QuikTek Info Blog

The QuikTek Info Blog

Brought to you by the Marketing & Communications Team at QuikTek Info. In this space, we offer the latest market trends, industry updates, guides, tricks, and other carefully selected informational pieces on eCommerce Catalog Processing & Optimization. Join our mailing list to stay ahead of your comeptitors.