With eCommerce growing 23% year-over-year (source: BigCommerce), you are of course not the only one out there trying to grab a fairly big share of the pie. And with eCommerce expected to make up for 17.5% of the total global retail sales in a few years from now, the stakes will be higher. Are you up for it? Because if you don’t know how to stand out from the crowd, you surely aren’t. Not to worry, we’ll let you in on a little secret.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – the key to making your presence felt
Setting up an eCommerce store is one thing, but making it visible to the prospective customers is another. And guess what, unless your store is visible, you’d be missing out on leads and the conversions that follow, big time. Luckily for you, search engine optimization or SEO can indeed bring it right to the fore, helping you stay ahead of the competition. Easier said than done. How would go about it in the first place? Well, herein lies the answer:
Start off with analysis
Analyze your eCommerce store, and it goes without saying, do scratch beneath the surface. On that note, if it’s your maiden attempt, or you are not so sure if you are doing it right, might we suggest that you get hold of an experienced eCommerce SEO services company, and ask them to save the day? More so because it’s imperative to comb through all of the following elements, one by one, something that you may not be able to do, all by yourself:
- Meta tags, HTML codes and broken links
- Site structure
- Website content
- URLs
- Page ranking
- Keyword density
While they are at it, do get them to conduct a geographical analysis as well, for a clearer picture.
Come up with a plan, like ASAP
After the store has been analyzed, it’s time for action. But that calls for a plan, or a POA, if you will. Here’s how you can devise one:
- Will you be focusing on getting better search engine rankings for your eCommerce store or would you rather drive more traffic your way, or preferably, both? The answer to this million-dollar question would lay the groundwork.
- Once you know what it is that you want, it’s advisable to bifurcate your strategy (read: your plan in the making), and act accordingly:
- The one you’ll implement for on-page optimization, and act upon, while making changes to your website.
- The other one that’ll help you take care of the off-page part, and would largely be directed towards brand awareness and of course visibility.
On-page optimization – charity begins at home
Your eCommerce store could use some optimization – right from the keywords you use to the architecture you have in place – pretty much everything that can help you strike a chord with the search engines as well as the prospective customers. And if you think your competitors already know the drill, well then, take your cue. Find out the keywords that they have been using, and when you are in the know, follow suit. Better still, work on all your pages, one at a time, and make sure they have the appropriate keyword density. That said, there’s a lot more that you’ll need to touch upon, including:
- Tags – all of them – title, anchor and meta
- Sitemaps
- Robot.txt files
- Meta keywords
- Images
- Internal linking structure
And not to mention, content. Do keep in mind though that you’ll need to think beyond sales, and ensure that your content rather paves the way for a considerable increase in the LTV. A short-sighted approach would defeat the very purpose!
Off-page optimization – cover all the bases
Crosscheck all your links, to begin with – right from the backlinks to the inbound ones, and even the competitors’ backlinks for that matter. Thereafter, try and put a white-hat link building program into effect, and work your way up the search engine ranking ladder. And when we say “white-hat”, we mean business; anything even remotely unethical would draw, flak and is likely to attract severe penalties. Play it safe! Next, you could take to social media marketing, or outsource it to a company that offers eCommerce SEO Services in India. The idea is to make sure that your content goes viral and more importantly, helps you establish your presence across the major platforms, especially the best ones.
But there’s more to off-page SEO than meets the eye.
- Take the pay-per-click (or PPC) marketing campaigns, for example. If monitored well, and made changes to, when the need be, any such campaign can increase the number of visits to your eCommerce store, thereby getting you a favorable ROI.
- And then there is content marketing. With articles, press releases, blogs, and videos, you can again hope to bring in more visitors. If you are not sure what kind of content would go down well with your audience, it’s highly recommended that you rope in an eCommerce SEO Services Company.
- Do, however, make sure that they follow a comprehensive approach and are even willing you help you out with directory submission, which is next on the list. In fact, if you get to submit your links or content to the best of directories, and that too at regular intervals, there’s nothing like it.
- Lastly, posting on business forums and message boards, and commenting on blogs could also get you some extra brownie points.
Optimization or the lack thereof could make all the difference – your eCommerce store could be just one of the many, or it can rank among the top ones and be “visible,” getting you more visits and eventually more sales – the ball is in your court.
eCommerce or otherwise, search engine optimization is a tough nut to crack. We, here, at QuikTek Info, can ease it out. Our experts know SEO inside out and can help your store garner the visibility it deserves. Simply write to us at mail@quiktekinfo.com and let’s take it from there.
