If you plan on selling products or services online, you need to make sure that people can actually find you, the question is how? This is basically what we are going to detail below.
You know there’s no point in having a well-designed website with the best products at awesome prices if people (Potential Customers) can’t find you when they search online. And the higher you rank, the better. If your page shows up first for a specific keyword, it is likely to get 10 times more clicks than if it’s tenth. And the average click-through rate for websites on the second page of Google is less than 1%.
This is where your SEO efforts come into play. Rank higher in search results and people are more likely to find you. And the more traffic you get, the more likely you are to make sales.
Here are some tips to help you maximize your SEO efforts:
1. Find effective keywords
Keywords are the phrases that people search online. They’re the terms you want to focus on so that you show up to potential customers looking for your products.
You can have as many keywords as you want, but it’s important to spread out the love. Your goal is to tell Google what each page on your site is about, so it can show up for relevant searches. Don’t focus on several keywords for each page — that just muddies the water! Instead, target one (or maybe two) terms for each product, page, or category.
2. Write thoughtful product descriptions
Each product page should have more than just a price, photo, and title. It should also feature a detailed description that “sells” the item — to both shoppers and search engines.
Start by thinking about the sort of information that potential customers will find useful. Depending on your products, this might include measurements, ingredients, age ranges, or instructions.
3. Be cautious of duplicate content
Duplicate content is text that appears online in multiple places, whether that’s on your own site or someone else’s. Search engines like Google hate duplicate content because, well, it’s confusing. They have no idea which version is the accurate, correct one and, therefore, aren’t sure which one should rank.
So how do you avoid duplicate content for your online store?
- Don’t just copy/paste manufacturer descriptions.
- Write unique descriptions for each product.
- Double-check your URL structure.
4. Use strategic keywords in anchor text
Internal links — links to other content on your own site — are incredibly valuable from an SEO perspective. They’re a great way to help Google understand the relationship between all of your pages.
But when you create these links, don’t just use phrases like “click here” or “check this out” as your anchor text. Instead, when applicable, include your keywords.
5. Make your URL structure easy for search engines to crawl
First and foremost, good URLs provide an equally good user experience by providing site visitors with a preview of what the page is about. But they also do the exact same thing for search engines.
6. Use alt text for your images
Search engines can’t actually “see” your images. So how do they know what’s in each picture? Alt text.
Alt text is essentially a caption that you include for every image on your site and should both contain your target keyword and be as descriptive as possible. That second part is the key: your goal should be to describe your image in a way that someone who can’t see it at all will understand. Why? Because alt text is also used by screen readers to “read” images to those with visual impairments.
7. Use Google Ads to test your targets
Remember the importance of user intent? If you’re going to invest countless hours and resources into ranking for a specific term, you’d hate to find that it attracts visitors, but not visitors that have any interest in buying what you have to offer.
A relatively inexpensive way to determine the value of ranking for a term is to temporarily pay for placement. Google Ads essentially allows you to do just that. The Google Listings & Ads extension makes it pretty easy to set up a campaign and measure your results.
8. Avoid broken links
Broken links aren’t just confusing for your site visitors, they’re also confusing for search engines. After all, links help Google understand the structure of your site and trust that you’re sharing valid information.
9. Speed up your site
A site that loads quickly is key to a great user experience, so it’s no surprise that search engines consider speed when ranking your pages. Here are a few tips for ensuring your store is fast:
The most important tip? Focus on user experience
You’ll probably find that the tips here all have one thing in common: they focus on real people.
Search engines want to provide the best possible results for their searchers. So, if you take the time to focus on your audience and provide them with a great experience, you’ll be well on your way to excellent search engine optimization.
