SEO offers the highest ROI for online stores. However, only a few stores have mastered the use of SEO to push their ranking. Most rely on expensive social media marketing and paid ads. Once you rank, you can place your account on autopilot and maintain the top position without recurring expenses.
Online stores can employ numerous SEO strategies to push ranking. However, the most productive of these strategies do not require payment. They revolve around the structure of your website and how you organize products in the store. Here are three steps that will give you the best ranking for your online store.
1. Optimize the website
Your online store is a website like all others competing for the attention of search spiders. It will only compete with other sites if it is optimized. Optimizing a website requires attention to its architecture. Here are simple onsite strategies that make a website internally optimized for search engines.
Light architecture
Choose a light website template. Avoid too many pages with heavy content so that your page loads fast on all devices and operating systems. Upon landing on your page, the graphics should be clear and comfortable to the eyes. Once people love the appearance of your landing pages, they will want to spend more time on site. Work on your graphics so that they are impressive to visitors.
Fast loading speed
How fast does your website load? The accepted threshold is two seconds. If the website takes longer than two seconds to load, the chances of abandonment increase.
The loading speed depends on the content on your website and the bandwidth offered by your host. Increase the bandwidth based on the expected traffic. Your host must also ensure that the server is always up. A decent loading speed allows visitors to click on more pages, scan through your catalog, and buy in the shortest time possible.
Light images and videos
The size and format of your content on the website will affect its loading speed. Choose light images and videos so that they take a short time to load regardless of the device the visitor is using. Light images and videos could come in poor quality. Engage a professional graphics designer to ensure that the content is light without compromising its quality.
Mobile optimization
E-commerce stats indicate that more than half of online buying is taking place on mobile. Search engines are, therefore, giving preference to mobile-enabled sites during ranking. Ensure that your website can load seamlessly on mobile. Content should be easy to read on mobile. The images and videos should restructure automatically to fit within the screen of a mobile phone.
Navigation map
Provide a navigation map on every page. The map is available on top or sidebars. It makes it easy to move from one page to the other instead of having to return to your home page.
Overall user experience
How comfortable does it feel to be on your site? It begins with the first impression upon landing on the page. The graphics on the page should be attractive to the eyes. They should give the visitor a reason to stay longer and explore what your store offers.
User experience also demands ease in navigation from one page to the other. In case a visitor has a question about your products or services, he should find the answers fast.
2. Optimize your product descriptions and content
SEO for online stores takes the same route as that of a blog or any other website. However, your strategies will be targeting individual products. Treat the product description and all other content on the website as a candidate for SEO in the following ways.
- Include keywords on individual product descriptions. Once an interested buyer enters the keyword, the product description will be captured.
- Include captions on every image and video on your online store. The captions should include keywords that potential buyers are using on search engines.
- Optimize the length of descriptions added to your products or any other section on the online store. Long-form content will fit certain industries and products at particular seasons. Study SEO trends from time to time and align your descriptions to fit within prevailing trends.
- Include captivating images and videos for your products. Video and image content is also taking a lot of prominence in online searches. Your products should appear on image and video results.
You may also consider adding a blog to the store to generate traffic. All these strategies make your content attractive to search engine spiders. They make the website more competitive whenever a potential buyer searches for related products.
3. Build links
Build links to raise the profile of your online store on search engines. You have the option of two types of links.
- Internal links– they introduce a reader to other pages within the store. Link to related products as well as helpful information on the blog about the product a customer could be interested in buying.
- External links– send visitors out of your website or use other websites to direct traffic to your website. Links act as referrals and recommendations that give a better impression of your store. They make your website more believable.
SEO for online stores requires constant evaluation. For instance, renew your product descriptions so that you can capture new keywords. Such SEO will push your website to the top and sustain its favorable ranking without much effort.
