In part 1 of the SEO for eCommerce series we addressed some of the common errors that tend to have an adverse impact on SEO efforts for your site. We looked at examples of how these errors are likely to render on a site and offered tips on how to set them right. Now let’s have a look at some more simple tips to improve your SEO.
- Improving your SEO
- Using long-tail keywords: While having common keywords certainly doesn’t harm your site, it doesn’t do much for it either. So pick keywords that are not used as frequently used as others, and are also more specific to your business context. These keywords, called long-tail keywords, work great because those using these are customers near the tail-end of their purchase process and know exactly what they’re looking for.Here’s an example:
- A common keyword: ink cartridges
- A long-tail keyword: pigment-based color ink cartridges
- Building links: Link building is interlinking your pages with those of other websites. It’s also important that your own pages be interlinked, but only those that are relevant to one another – linking garden shears to office printers makes no sense. Relevant interlinking increases the page rank and aids in the overall SEO strategy. Here’s how the interlinking should work – a customer is looking to buy cartridges for his printer but he’s not sure what kind he should go in for, having a link on all cartridge product pages that leads to a ‘How to Select the Best Cartridge for your Printer’ would be extremely useful to the customer. The search engine would pick up on this and rank your page higher because it found a useful link there.
- Using long-tail keywords: While having common keywords certainly doesn’t harm your site, it doesn’t do much for it either. So pick keywords that are not used as frequently used as others, and are also more specific to your business context. These keywords, called long-tail keywords, work great because those using these are customers near the tail-end of their purchase process and know exactly what they’re looking for.Here’s an example:
- Optimizing for mobile devices:Search engines serve customers on all devices, so should your site. Forcing your customer to use only one device makes you look out of touch with today’s anywhere, anytime and any device world. Since the number of people using smart devices is increasing, it makes more sense to have a website designed for smart devices that can also be viewed on desktops, rather than the other way around. An adaptable site is better ranked simply because it increases the customer’s convenience and hence views. Optimizing for the mobile has to be done when building the site so make sure that your eCommerce software vendor offers mobile optimization options.
- Putting your best foot forward
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- Get the expertise:You need to have someone who understands the processes that search engines employ and can keep your site’s SEO up to date. While you will be capable of executing the basic steps for SEO on your own, hiring an expert or having one of your staff trained to be an expert is vital. This will help you keep ahead in SEO.
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- Analyze continuously and consistently:SEO is not a one-time activity, it is a continuous process. With SEO you’re going to be trying to get search engines to find your site faster and make it appear earlier in the results. So make sure your SEO is being analyzed periodically and updated based on the latest changes.
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- Take mobile seriously:Mobile is now the default customer interaction device, and if it’s not, it will soon be. In fact in 2013, 30% of traffic to eCommerce sites was from mobile devices, and seeing as the sales of mobile devices is on the rise at 8%, you can be sure this will only increase. Many researchers are claiming that at any moment now the there will be more mobile devices than there are people on earth soon. This being the case, you can be sure that at least one interaction between each customer and your site is going to be through a mobile device. So make your site mobile-worthy.
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- Google-ize:Google is the most popular search engine, it also provides the best free tools to optimize you SEO. Here are some of the Google SEO tools that can help you out in various parts of your SEO efforts: Webmaster Tools, Analytics, AdWords Keyword Planner, Trends, Consumer Survey, PageSpeed Insights, Content Experiments and Places for Business.
- Use other SEO tools:While Google SEO tools will help you optimize your site, there is often a need for a variety of tools that are more dedicated to aiding in SEO efforts. A good place to start looking for tools that aid in SEO is this list of ‘The 100 Best Free SEO Tools & Resources for Every Challenge’. No, you needn’t use everyone of these tools; your SEO expert should be able to recognize which ones would be the best fit for your SEO strategy.
This series on SEO for eCommerce should help you get up and running with SEO on your site. Remember that search engines are like customers too – everything that customers are going to look for and prefer, the search engines will too, that’s why preparing for SEO is preparing for a better customer experience.