E-Commerce SEO Guide: 6 Sure Shot Hit Strategies To Boost Your Businesses in 2021

While Bill Bradley says, “Becoming number one is easier than remaining number one,” did you know that a stellar SEO Guide for E-commerce businesses can conveniently book them the top ranks for long?

Let us look at it this way:

Although business is not a sport, it becomes one when you put passion in it. 

The unrest that came with a global pandemic in 2021 has started to seep in your nerves.

Wait! There is light at the end of every tunnel. No? Yes, there is!

Since the marketplace is off for brick and mortar stores (well, almost!), it is your turn to turn the tables. 

Your key to the treasure of success at this point is a stellar E-commerce SEO guide. 

But what makes us make such a big claim?

People are stuck at home, clicking more than ever before. All you’d ever need to do now is make a smart move here.

Organize your e-store for a better click-through rate, and you are good to go.

But, what is that one thing which is holding you back?

Budget constraints, Right?

Trust us! We have been there!

It is impossible for someone struggling financially to hire a content strategist or an SEO specialist. But then, here we are to help ease the misery. 

So, we created this guide to take a deep dive into the sea of SEO strategies. This blog is a systematic guide to boost your Google ranking by using the correct SEO for your E-commerce business.

Let’s take a look at what is up our sleeve:

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the mix of different content strategies that make your website/content more visible to someone using a search engine (for the beginners here, read Google). 

In simple words, the content which has a terrific optimization for humans and spiders, pandas, & penguins, etc. shows on top of the Google search results. 

The first website you see on the top of a Search Engine Result Page (SERP), is the most updated according to the SEO standards.

Check out this image, showing the top result from the first page of Google search for the query *E-Commerce SEO*. 

There are certain factors for which this webpage tops the list. Brain Dean has implemented a smart set of SEO practices to top the list. 

The critical question here is, what can those practices be? 

Well, there’s always a mix and match of options available to make it to the top. 

In this E-commerce SEO guide, however, we’ll cover the basics that are crucial for getting the required visibility and resultant progress.

E-commerce SEO Guide – 6 Rules to Rank 

1.  Present yourself as a credible E-store with a stellar Backlink Profile:

According to Brian Dean, the backlink specialist, ‘Backlinks are the votes for your website, from other websites.’ It is the credit you get when others link out to your content. A backlink from a high authority domain website increases your site’s credibility.  

Neil Patel, the NP digital founder, says that ‘A quality backlink is a link from a high domain authority website that is well-trusted by search engines and searchers alike.’ 

Now, imagine this scenario:

You have got a product to sell. There are people out there who are eagerly looking up to grab what you’re selling. Remember, all of us are stuck at home?

To be sold out completely (or even partially in the current situation), you need a good reputation.

What does that call for?

A strong backlink profile!

So, how do you do that? What are the things you can do to build a stellar backlink profile?

I- Focus on Infographics:

Our brain interprets text and visuals in different manners. Textual information, though very important, gets evaporated quickly out of our minds. On the other hand, what we have seen in visual forms, stay with us for longer.

Check out this fantastic infographic and ask yourself after 3 days if you remember this information?

source

It is no secret that visuals aid the retention process. This higher visual appeal applies to your potential customers as well. 

As they skim through the visuals on your website, there’s a high possibility that your pictures get shared by more web pages than your text. Some of these shares could be or could result in high-quality backlinks.

Bottom line?

Work on developing catchy visuals to get a strong backlink profile.

Bonus: Creating videos to showcase your products also has an equally strong impact, if not better. 

II- Contact Bloggers for guest posting:

Guest posting is a way to get backlinks. Keep searching for bloggers who are related to your product niche. Invite them to guest post. 

But how does that help you build backlinks?

Once their content is live on your blog, they’ll share it with their audience linking back to your website. 

The results?

#1: A backlink.

#2: Increased visibility on the search engines.

#3: The ultimate result – high SEO ranks.

2.  Leverage the power of a great meta-description to get your prospects hooked:

Meta descriptions are the 160 character descriptions that show beneath the web address in a Google search result. These are the snippets that give a summary of the content of a web page.

Why are meta descriptions relevant in SEO for an e-commerce business? Because they provide an idea of what the user will see on the web page, he clicks.

The meta description should be:

• Optimized for relevant keywords
• Optimized to provide simple but accurate information.

Meta descriptions are HTML codes that are embedded in the website’s coding. At times, creating meta-descriptions for E-commerce businesses becomes relatively easier. 

The reason? An e-store has certain product pages that can be definitively summarized.

Every webpage of an e-store has different product categories. So, it is easy to create a meta description for each page. You just have to create a description of your product by aptly using the keywords.

The key here is to keep these descriptions highly relevant yet engaging. 

The SERP visitor should be tempted to open your web page’s link. Craft it smartly without getting verbose (Google ensures you don’t, setting the limit to 160 characters).

Here’s an example of a great meta description:

This is the second website on our Google search for E-commerce SEO. 

Let’s do a fun drill.

What are the factors that make this meta description rank high? Let’s dig deeper.

There’s a:

•  Challenge for SEO non-optimized websites; see ‘If you don’t have a strong SEO strategy in place…”
• Potential threat of ‘losing out on brand impressions, clicks, and sales implying through the challenge.
• A truncated sentence; See ‘Do you know how to rank your e-commerce site…. This would raise the curiosity of the visitors who would want to see what the webpage is going to offer. 

It has an undefined psychological pressure created here in the meta description, which cleverly leverages its purpose. 

3. Use the quality and relevance of the right keywords to drive more conversions.

After all the technical talks of backlinks and meta-descriptions, here we talk about E-commerce SEO’s lifeblood. 

Yes, the keywords. 

No matter what niche your product belongs to, there always are relevant keywords.

Let us see together what these keywords are:

Whenever we run a Google search, we type one or a string of words. Those words are known as keywords. 

From the user’s perspective, they are the ‘need’ while they are the’ demand’ from the E-store’s perspective.

Picture this:

You are the salesperson at a brick and mortar store. A prospective buyer comes to your store and asks for ‘Chewing gum.’ You don’t have the slightest idea of where the chewing gum is placed. You make the buyer wait for which he gets upset and leaves the store. 

How does that sound? 

Embarrassing. ROI-busting. Conversion-killing! Right?

Now apply this same scenario to your e-store. You have got a product, but your visitors don’t get it because they haven’t figured where you placed it. The right keywords aren’t there to help them find the product.

Your keywords are the ‘virtual shelves’ in your e-store. You need to know the placement of each shelf because:

• You have to get your potential customer’s needs fulfilled.
• If you don’t work on your shelf placement, you may have prospects clicking the URL, but it’s almost impossible to get them converted to sales.

Now, that is bad news. 

Worst is yet to come:

Keyword research and strategizing keyword-centric content could get a bit tough for you. After all, that is not everyone’s game to play.

There are paid and unpaid keyword research tools available to get an idea of what the prospect is looking for. After going for the keyword research, you have to ensure optimizing your web content for it.

How do we optimize keywords for an E-Commerce Store?

It’s good to use the primary keyword naturally, here:

• URL/Slug
• The H1 tag as well as SEO title
• The introduction – preferably the first hundred words
• The meta tags
• The body.
• The conclusive text.

This might have given you the impression that you can use the primary keyword quite often. 

But that’s not the case.

There’s a difference of opinion in the number of times we can use a keyword. However, if a web page stuffs the keywords haphazardly without any relation to the text, it will negatively affect the page ranking.

You need to work for an optimum level of keyword usage in your content. An expert E-commerce SEO guide would definitely ask you to pay attention to the types of keywords. Play with a mix of practices. For instance, try 1% focus keyword with it’s synonyms or secondary keywords used once or twice each.

4.  Structure your website in a user-friendly way:

Imagine going to your favorite shoe store, only to find piles of show boxes everywhere. When you and the sales team can’t find what you are looking for, you prefer not to waste your precious time and get to the emergency exit.

Now, apply the same to the digital situation.

Imagine you click a web link to an e-store where everything is piled up as it is. The data is not organized; the product categories are hard to understand; the website is running slow. 

What would you do? You will switch to viewing another website.

The same consumer behavior will be observed when someone clicks on your website’s URL.

Your content is top-notch, you somehow managed backlinks, but your website is not well-organized. The user gets a headache while searching for a product. 

The result? No conversion to sales.

Such a loss!

To solve this problem, you have to maintain a web structure to keep it easy to navigate. The web pages should be organized in relevant categories. The web page loading should be quick so that the visitor doesn’t get pissed off and leave the page.

A critical structural & functional problem 

We don’t mean to scare you here, but there’s one more thing to worry about. The SEO specialists call it Cart abandonment. It is a phenomenon experienced by E-store owners, where the potential customer quits right before the checkout due to certain reasons. Two of those reasons are low website loa- speed loading and a complicated checkout process.

Look at this chart for the stats on the rate of cart abandonment in the past few years.

The rates are alarmingly high. 

Good news: You can try and retarget those potentials to win them back. Back that is the plot for another – advertising – story. 

For better SEO results, we advise putting in cautious efforts to minimize this rate. Your customer retention rate can be improved if the factors affecting cart abandonment are taken seriously, such as simplifying the checkout process.

Bottom line?

It is important to maintain the page loading speed. Websites that take too long to load, lose prospective sales. The product catalogs should be easy to skim through. The Checkout process should be hassle-free.

Now that improvements in these areas are ensuring a smooth user experience – prepare to enjoy better ranks and more conversions.

5.  Maximize your content-reach with voice optimization strategies:

Voice optimization is a relatively new concept. It has emerged in the past few years with the increased usage of voice assistants in smartphones.

People prefer to use voice searches in situations where typing is either hectic or tough to manage. In Corporate settings or even in an educational environment, people can use voice search.

What is the difference between voice searches and text searches? 

Now, this is the next important question for your survival in our digital world.

People tend to speak more words than they would opt to write. 

The keywords for voice searches are usually long-tail keywords. They can be complete sentences and sometimes questions as well ( not s hard and fast, generalized rule though). 

What you need to do is to optimize your text for frequently asked questions. Use those questions in the headings you put in your text.

Another important factor while optimizing your content for voice searches is to update all the information from time to time on your website. Your website should be quick to load because someone who opts for a voice search is probably in a hurry. He might expect a quick answer to the question. 

6. Get organic traffic to your E-store by optimizing your content for featured snippets:

 A featured snippet is a descriptive textbox that appears on top of the SERP. It provides the hardcore details for a keyword the user wants to search. These are usually concise answers to the queries that users ask.

Not every search returns answers in the form of featured snippets. In fact, only 12.29% of queries are answered in the featured snippet (represented down here).

 

 

Now that the answer is right in front of you on SERP, how likely are you to click on one of the results to find answers on the web pages?

Definitely less likely, compared to when there’s no-snippet on SERPs. 

You cannot ignore optimizing your text for featured snippets because Google is using them as a visibility tool.

Here, look at this featured snippet, in response to the search query “Featured Snippet” on Google:

 How to optimize E-commerce Business for a featured snippet?

Featured snippets can appear in the form of a paragraph, a list, or a table. What you need to do for this optimization is to select one of these formats.

You also need to do:

•     An in-depth keyword research
•     Go Through ‘People also ask’ section of Google to learn about the type of questions they ask. Your answers should not exceed the range of 58 words per answer.

Summing up our E-commerce SEO Guide for Now!

In this fast-moving age, the cut-throat business competition and sky-rocketing failure rate have made maintaining a stable market position harder than ever. You constantly need to update according to the social and technological advancements. Even the SEO strategies keep updating now and then.

Search engine optimization is a hectic task but a very crucial one at the same time. It is definitely vital to maintain organic traffic. All of these efforts narrow down to one point: how successfully you satisfy the customer’s demand.

It may take hard work to straighten things on your online store, but it is definitely worth it.

The key to success is only one, and that is ‘Adaptability.’ 

Alter your strategies whenever and wherever required. Keep learning and keep growing. For now, are you buckled up to see your business grow through implementing these SEO strategies? On a scale of 1-10, how difficult do you think following an SEO guide could be for your E-commerce store?

If the difficulty level feels high for you, feel free to check with our SEO experts for their expert advice or brilliant SEO solutions.

On your way to decide your plan of action, you’d find the following reads highly valuable:

Length considerations for ranking well on Google

How relevant is SEO for any business in 2021

How to select the right SEO agency for your business?

Understanding e-Commerce Marketing

Happy optimizing your E-commerce sites 🙂