What Makes Up a Great E-Commerce SEO Strategy? 

If you’re an online retailer setting up an e-commerce shop, search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most important strategies in your arsenal to cut through the noise of the digital landscape. For those who aren’t familiar, SEO is the process of tailoring your online store to the algorithms utilized by search engines (Google, Bing, etc) to rank results. 

Think of it like this: Your website emits a signal that goes out to search engines. The stronger the signal, the higher the results. The challenge with SEO is that search engines constantly tweak their algorithms. Online retailers like yourself need to adapt to these changes and maintain best practices so attain those highly sought after rankings for relevant keywords. 

The Basics for Improving Your E-Commerce SEO 

You already know that you want your website to rank well. That’s why you’re here! To help you out, we’ve gathered 6 key components that all e-commerce shops need to implement to reach the top of search engine results. 

  • Keywords: This one may seem obvious, but keyword research is the first step to putting together a great SEO strategy. They’re the foundation of SEO, and you need to understand what people are searching for when they discover your business. This search query is one of the keywords that will help to drive traffic to your e-commerce site. Start off by brainstorming potential keywords related to your products. When you take a look at Google Keywords Planner, you’ll have a better idea of how the competition looks. Some of the search terms might be too competitive, but you can use long-tail keywords to get around this a bit. Just keep it to less than 5 words.
  • Content: Content is KING when it comes to SEO. Search engines have stated time and time again that high-quality content on web pages is one of the best ways to rank for keywords and create a positive user experience. Both of these go a long way in helping with your ranking. Good content also educates your clients and customers and helps them recognize what you have to offer. In SEO terms, it boosts your authority. 
  • Backlinks: To continue the metaphor, backlinks are the queen of SEO. A backlink is when a site with authority posts a link to your website. It’s not above quantity here, but quality. You can build steady, trustworthy backlinks by releasing press releases on exciting news and contacting popular blogs and websites relevant to your industry. For e-commerce, offering good, quality products with a distinct brand coupled with an amazing user experience will have people linking to your site. 
  • Meta tags: Meta tags (or the meta description) will always play a vital role in SEO. They ensure that the descriptions of your products and pages are relevant to searches and boost that signal to the search engines.
  • Optimized Product Images: Images play an important role in SEO as well, regardless of what some may believe. Customers searching for products don’t just look at the page results. They’re looking through the images as well. Quality images on your site, optimized with the right keywords, will help your products show up here. This is a great way to drive traffic to your site. 
  • Social Media: Another branch of the content arm, social media is a necessity for e-commerce stores. A strong presence and following on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc can do wonders for your results. Like content and backlinks, this helps to establish a community and your authority as a brand. 

While you work to optimizes these aspects of your business, be sure to analyze your competitors. You don’t have to copy what they do, but maybe you notice something they do that you could improve upon. 

For more information on SEO and digital marketing, be sure to visit the Chaos Theory blog regularly.