SEO for Ecommerce Businesses: Attracting Organic Traffic
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Estimates show that there are over 1.8 billion people who purchase products online around the world. Over the last decade, eCommerce has kept gaining momentum.
Going to physical stores is no longer fashionable. One of the most important aspects of eCommerce is SEO. Ecommerce SEO is what enables potential buyers to find your online shop and your products.
Ecommerce sites need a lot of traffic to achieve high conversion rates. If you are selling a niche product, you need to know how to target the right audience. All this is part of eCommerce SEO.
You’ve probably launched an eCommerce website, added a few product categories, and written some copy for each page. You’ve then shared your site with friends and family and a few orders are coming in.
Maybe you’ve even done a few paid advertising campaigns, and you are getting a decent number of orders. However, you are concerned that your SEO strategy has not clicked yet. You’d certainly want to receive a decent amount of traffic that you do not have to pay for.
How is eCommerce SEO different from SEO for ordinary websites? What must you do to drive organic traffic to an eCommerce site and get conversions? Let’s dig in and find out what is unique about eCommerce SEO.
Why Is SEO Important for Ecommerce Sites?
You’ve probably already heard all the reasons why SEO is important for websites. Does SEO have any special significance for eCommerce sites though? It does!
Ecommerce businesses are there to sell products and make a profit. That means their SEO strategies are not just about attracting traffic. They are about finding the right audience, anticipating search intent, understanding the audience’s pain points, and providing solutions. Above all, they are about getting visitors to your website to purchase your products.
eCommerce sites have to consistently gain new customers for them to thrive. If your site is not visible on search engines, you’ll struggle to organically attract new customers.
Paid advertising can be expensive. Your business might struggle if you are solely relying on paid advertising to get traffic and sales.
SEO, done right, can help you drive high-value traffic to your eCommerce site. That’s something any eCommerce should be interested in, given that 32% of online shoppers search for the products they need on Google.
Studies have also revealed that people are likely to easily trust eCommerce sites that are ranking organically. If you want to get a piece of the massive eCommerce market, getting your site to rank on SERPS should be at the top of your list of priorities.
If you cannot do SEO for yourself, you can seek eCommerce SEO services from SEO experts.Digital Marksmen offers the best ecommerce SEO services.
Important Aspects of an Ecommerce SEO Strategy
A robust eCommerce SEO strategy should feature the following;
- Keyword research
- Site architecture
- On-Page SEO
- Technical SEO
- Content Marketing
- Tracking Progress and Measuring Success
We are going to explore each one of these aspects. This is going to be a detailed guide. You might want to take it one bite at a time so that you don’t get confused.
1. E-commerce Keyword Research
Keyword research is a common term in SEO circles. Ecommerce Keyword research is a special game of wit, logic, and relevance. Keyword research is a very critical step in your eCommerce SEO strategy. If you get it wrong at this point, all your SEO efforts might turn out to be in vain.
In eCommerce SEO, you don’t just pick keywords and plaster them all over your site just because they have a high search volume. You’d be surprised to see your site attracting loads of traffic, but you are not making any sales.
The ideal keywords for an eCommerce site strike a balance between keyword difficulty, search volume, and conversion rate. That being said, you should know there is a lot of thought that has to go into keyword selection. It’s not just a matter of finding low difficulty keywords.
Brace yourself and let’s dive deep into the nitty-gritty of eCommerce keyword research.
Creating a Targeted Keyword List
The first step of eCommerce keyword research should be creating a targeted keyword list. What is a targeted keyword list? You might ask!
It is a list of keywords that target a niched down audience.
If you are selling a niche product, your aim is to reach people who are interested in or are part of that niche. For instance, if you are selling baby products, you’d want to reach expectant or new parents. More specifically, you’d want to reach pregnant women and new mothers since they are much more likely to need your products than anyone else.
Even if your site is selling many different products, there is a specific group of people you’d want to target for each product.
If you are a small eCommerce business, it is better if you niche down to a certain type of product/s. Unless you are Amazon or Walmart, dealing with different products in different niches is going to be quite difficult.
So, if your main aim is to attract potential buyers, what should inform your keyword choices?
Your keyword choices should be informed by commercial search intent.
What is commercial search intent? This part is very important. So, pay attention!
Commercial search intent means that someone has the intention to buy something. That means you need to target audiences that have high commercial intent. To be able to do that, you have to understand the process people go through while buying products online. A typical process would involve the following stages.
- Awareness (Becoming aware that a particular product exists)
- Consideration (Deciding whether they need that product)
- Comparison (Comparing the product with other similar products)
- Sourcing and Pricing (Looking for where to buy and how much it costs)
- Buying
Potential buyers can enter search queries on search engines while at any stage of the process. Commercial intent increases as the potential buyer moves deeper into the process.
So, what search terms are people likely to use while at any of the stages outlined above?
For instance, someone can search for “Benefits of having a smartphone”. You can’t tell whether that person has any intention of buying a smartphone or not. Even if they do, they are still at the consideration stage.
Someone else might search “Samsung Galaxy vs iPhone 8”. That should tell you that person has already decided to buy a phone. What you don’t know is which phone they will settle on.
What if the next person else searches “Where to buy Samsung Galaxy A21s”. Such a search query leaves little to no doubt about the intention of that person to buy the Samsung Galaxy A21s. Such a keyword has the highest level of commercial intent.
In simple terms, you pick keywords with high commercial intent and use them to lead potential buyers to your product pages. Keep in mind that you still have to consider other factors such as keyword difficulty and search volume. These will be your most important keywords.
That does not mean you should completely disregard all the low commercial intent keywords. You will still need them since you need to keep attracting new customers to your business.
Now, how is the actual keyword research done?
Performing Ecommerce Keyword Research
You will need some keyword research tools to be able to perform in-depth keyword research. You could use tools such as;
- Google Keyword Explorer
- Semrush
- Ahrefs, etc.
Since you are looking for the best keywords for an eCommerce website, there isn’t a better place to get insights from than the biggest eCommerce site in the world. Amazon!
Keyword Research on Amazon
Hundreds of millions of people all around the world visit Amazon to buy products. Most of them won’t find the product they want on Amazon’s home page. That means they have to enter a search query in Amazon’s search bar.
That means that Amazon has a huge database of high-intent keywords.
…And the best part is, Amazon allows anyone to access those keywords free of charge. That database is literally a gold mine for any serious eCommerce entrepreneur.
To access Amazon’s keywords, just type a seed keyword into the search bar and Amazon will offer autofill suggestions. These autofill suggestions are the keywords you are looking for.
For instance, if you are selling pants, just enter word pants and you’ll get a number of autofill suggestions.
It would be difficult to collect all these keywords one by one from the autofill feature, especially if you are dealing with many different products.
Amazon offers a handy tool known as the Amazon Keyword Tool. The tool allows you to scrape and export all the autofill suggestions for any seed keyword you enter.
You get three free searches in a day. That would be enough for most small eCommerce sites. You’ll have to pay a fee if you need more than that.
You can download a CSV file of the keywords you have collected.
You now have a list of high commercial intent keywords. However, it is not yet time to get excited.
Remember you still have to consider keyword difficulty and search volume. That is where the keyword research tools we’ve listed above come in.
You can also get high commercial intent keywords from competitor research.
Getting Keywords from Competitor Research
Competitor research can be done in a few minutes using the tools mentioned above. You need to first understand the logic behind getting keywords from your competitors.
First, go to Google and type in your seed keyword. From the results, find other eCommerce sites that are ranking for that keyword and are selling products similar or related to your products. Compile a list of competitors.
Head over to any of the SEO tools we’ve mentioned above. SEMrush is one of the most popular SEO tools. It allows you to easily compare your competitors. Go to the competitor research section, enter the URLs of your competition, then hit compare.
From the results, there’s a lot you can compare between your site and your competitors’ sites. The results will include useful insight on the following;
- Keywords
- Number of backlinks
- Domain authority
- Site health, etc.
All these are important aspects of SEO, and you should find ways of being better than your competition.
While doing competitor research, your main focus should be on finding what is working for the competitors.
SEMrush is going to present a list of keywords that each of your competitors is ranking for. You can get up to thousands of keywords depending on how much content your competitors have on their site.
The keyword list contains the following metrics for each keyword;
- Search volume
- Keyword difficulty
- Estimated CPC
- Competition index
You also get a link to the competitor’s content that is ranking for each of the keywords. That means you can pick up any keywords you want and explore what your competitor has done to rank for those keywords.
Now, here is where most people make mistakes. You cannot pick a keyword such as “soccer shoes” and hope to outrank Nike and Adidas. Do not just look at the search volume. Consider other parameters such as keyword difficulty and competition index.
Try to strike a balance between search volume and keyword difficulty. When you are just getting started with SEO, you should go for keywords with little competition and low keyword difficulty. It is nearly impossible to rank for keywords with high keyword difficulty when your site’s domain authority is still low.
How do you find high commercial intent from a long list of keywords? Ask yourself, what search terms are people with an intent to purchase something likely to use?
Filter your keywords using terms such as:
- Buy
- Purchase
- Price
- Cost
- Find
These terms imply, to a certain degree, that that person intends to buy the product they are inquiring about. These are the keywords that you should use in your product descriptions and landing pages.
Keep in mind that you shouldn’t completely disregard the other keywords. Digital marketers have come to realize the power of blogs.
You can attract people who are considering and comparing products to a blog post. You would then use the blog post to convince them to purchase, and then lead them to your sales page. Consideration and comparison keywords come in handy under such circumstances.
2. Site Architecture
After creating your keywords master list, the next step is to put the keywords in action. Before you start adding any content to your eCommerce site, you need to make sure that it is well structured. That’s what site architecture is all about.
Site architecture refers to how your website’s navigation, categories, and product pages are set up. Your site architecture should make your eCommerce website as easily navigable as possible. Great site architecture is supposed to make it easy for users to find the content they want in the shortest time possible.
A lot of marketers tend to ignore site architecture, without realizing that it has a lot of impact on their search engine rankings.
Search engines algorithms are designed to behave like humans when looking for relevant content. They can gauge how easy or difficult it is to find relevant content on a site. Search engines will always favor sites that are easy to navigate and whose content is within easy reach.
So, how do you make your eCommerce website easy to navigate? Your goal should be to reduce the number of times a user has to click before they find what they are looking for.
There are three main unspoken rules to achieving an impressive site structure:
- Each page should be at most three clicks away from the homepage.
- Your website should be as simple and scalable as possible.
- Use your target keywords in the URLs to make it easy for search engines to find the content.
Below is a step by step process of how you can come up with easily navigable site architecture.
A. Come up with Your Main Categories
Your main categories should feature on the navigation bar. Think of the main thing a user would be looking for when they land on your homepage.
For instance, if you are selling a few products that can fit on one web page, you could have a navigation bar that includes the following:
- Products
- Blog
- Customer support
- About us, etc.
Make sure your navigation menu includes a homepage button. That makes it easy for users to easily get back to the homepage whenever they need to.
B. Decide Whether You Need Drop-Down Menus
Drop-down menus become necessary when your eCommerce website has a lot of pages. For instance, if you are selling many different products, it is inevitable to have many different pages. Drop-down menus will make it easy to categorize these pages in a way that puts them within easy reach.
For instance, you could have “clothing” in your navigation bar. Under clothing, you can have the following categories;
- Pants
- Shirts
- Jackets, etc.
If someone clicks on clothing, the drop-down menu appears and they choose what they are looking for. That kind of flow is what makes it easy for users to find what they are looking for.
C. Use Short-Tail Keywords to Label Your Categories
Keywords are the most significant aspect of any SEO strategy. To make your categories more visible to search engines, you should find a way to label your categories using keywords.
For instance, if you are selling shoes, you should have categories such as;
- Running shoes
- Work Boots
- Boat shoes, etc.
Use terms that people are likely to use when looking for certain products.
D. Add Breadcrumbs to your pages
What are breadcrumbs in SEO?
Breadcrumbs are links that allow the user to track their path. They allow the users to easily go back to a previous page or to the homepage. Breadcrumbs usually appear at the top of the webpage.
Breadcrumbs can complement your URL in search results. Google will show your breadcrumbs instead of the URL if the breadcrumbs show a clearer path than the URL.
Breadcrumbs are a great way of making your site navigable. They ensure users can easily go back and forth on the site, which is a big plus to user experience.
As mentioned earlier, site architecture is all about ease of navigation. Anything that makes your website easy to navigate is a big plus. A website that is difficult to navigate will struggle to convert visitors. You might be getting a lot of traffic but very little sales just because users are finding it hard to move around on your website.
3. On-Page SEO
On-Page SEO, as the name suggests, refers to everything you can do to a web page to enhance its SEO score. On-Page SEO is focused on making sure search engines can easily tell what your page is about.
On an eCommerce website, on-page SEO would feature three main approaches:
- On-page SEO for category pages
- On-page SEO for product pages
- One-page SEO for blog content
Here is where your list of keywords starts being useful.
On-page SEO for category pages
Most digital marketers will put all their focus on product pages and neglect their category pages. What they don’t realize is that a visitor has access to all their products when they land on the category page.
To fully optimize a category page, ensure you add your target keyword in the following sections:
1. The URL
Adding your target keyword to your URL will make it a potential result for any search query that contains that keyword. The URL has to be simple and readable. A simple improvement of your URL structure can improve your ranking position.
You can use keywords in URLs to eliminate category add-ons. A URL with a lot of category add-ons is likely to be very long. Search engines prefer shorter and simple URLs.
Study the two examples of URLs below:
Google would prefer the second URL. It is shorter and precise.
2. The Title Tag (H1)
Make sure your target keyword appears in your H1 titles. Search engines check your H1 to determine how relevant your page is to a search query. Your category page has better chances of ranking high if your target keyword appears in your H1 titles.
3. In Page Copy
Your category pages should feature some sales copy. You’ll be doing your website a disservice if you leave pages with white spaces. Search engines favor pages that they think have relevant information or answers to the search query.
This is where you need to get a little bit creative. You need some short but interesting copy that features the target keyword. Keep in mind that this is not a blog.
People who will land there are those with high commercial intent. They are looking for a product they need, not stories.
A perfect approach would be to write a 300-words introduction before listing the products. Ensure you include the target keyword at least two times in the introduction. Avoid stuffing the keyword in there. Make it flow with the rest of the text and look natural.
4. Image ALT Text
Images are a powerful resource for any eCommerce website. They are a significant part of eCommerce SEO. Your website can rank on search engines because of the relevance of your images. The trick is in making the images visible by search engines.
You can improve your images’ visibility by adding your target keyword in the alt text. The alt text is the short description you add under an image when posting it on your website. The alt text is a brief but precise description of what the image is or is about.
Search engines cannot view images to determine what they are about. They are not that intelligent; at least not yet! They rely on alt text to determine what an image is about.
5. In the Metadata
Metadata is the grey text that appears in your search results listings. The metadata text is added through your CMS. It is another description of what your page is about.
People will read that text when it appears on SERPs and decide whether your page is relevant to them. Google puts this text in bold so that it can capture people’s attention.
Adding keywords to the metadata can increase CTR (Click-through rate). High CTR improves your ranking and builds your domain authority.
Follow this process for all your category pages.
On-page SEO for product pages
A product page is where you display your product, the price, and tell potential buyers everything they need to know about the product. Everything you add on your product page should be about getting your visitors to hit that buy button.
Start by repeating the process we’ve outlined above for the category pages. The only difference will be in the copy. On a product page, you need to include all the information about your product that you think is important.
Write over 1000 words about your product if possible. Remember to use your target keyword in the descriptions.
Google’s algorithm is set to favor long-form content. Google’s algorithm thinks that pages with a lot of content have better chances of containing the information or answers for the search query entered. Most of Google’s top pages have at least 2000 words of content.
Writing 2000-words product descriptions might sound far-fetched. Sometimes, there is nothing much to write about a product.
One way you can get your product page to have a high word count is by including buyer reviews on the page. The best thing about buyer reviews is that you don’t have to write the content. Also, buyer reviews are likely to contain some of the keywords that people might use when searching for that product.
Positive buyer reviews will also significantly increase your conversion rate. If someone lands on your product pages and reads reviews from previous buyers who’ve loved the product, they are much more likely to buy the product.
Using Related Keywords on Product Pages
Related keywords are a great way of increasing the visibility of your product pages. You shouldn’t use your keyword excessively in your product page copy. Google will interpret that as keyword stuffing, no matter how naturally it flows every time it appears.
Either way, natural writing and flow of thoughts will rarely allow you to use a keyword too many times. So, if it’s appearing excessively, you are most likely stuffing it in there.
You can overcome this by using LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords. In simple terms, LSI keywords are keywords that are related to your primary keywords. They may be related in terms of the terms used or the topic they are addressing.
For instance, “soccer shoes” and “football shoes” can be related keywords because they can be used to refer to the same thing. “Best soccer shoes” and “best football shirt” are also related keywords. Even though they are referring to different things, they are addressing the same topic.
Instead of using your main keyword too many times, you can throw some LSI keywords in there. This will make sure your copy sounds natural but is still optimized for your target keyword.
The current Google algorithm is intelligent enough to relate keywords to each other. It can tell when searchers are searching for the same thing using different words.
Where do you find related keywords?
Just go to Google and type in your main keyword. You’ll see some autofill suggestions before you hit enter. You can collect some LSI keywords from those suggestions. You can also do the same thing on Amazon.
If you want a bigger list of related keywords, try using SEO tools such as SEMrush and Ahrefs.
One strategy that has proven effective in attracting traffic is answering question-keywords. Collect some question-keywords from your list of LSI keywords. Find ways to add those questions in your copy and provide a brief and precise answer.
Since you are trying to sell a product, focus on how your product is outstanding. Make sure you do not sound like you are trying too hard to push the product. Explain the outstanding features of the product and show your potential buyers how the product can cater to their pain points.
On-page SEO for Blog Content
We mentioned earlier that eCommerce websites are beginning to appreciate the power of blogs. If you haven’t added a blog to your eCommerce site, you should consider adding one.
To optimize a blog page, follow the same steps we described for the product category page. The big difference is in the content. On the blog page, concentrate on offering educational and entertaining content. It is called “infotainment”.
A blog is a long-term strategy for building a community of loyal followers. If you have some loyal followers around your blog, you already have a customer base. They will keep buying from you from time to time.
Now, this is where your low commercial intent keywords become useful. You should build your blog content around awareness, consideration, and comparison keywords. You can still throw some high commercial intent keywords in there, but avoid being too “salesy” on the blog.
The main purpose of a blog should be to bring traffic to your website. Forget about conversions for a moment when building a blog. You can start finding ways to convert your traffic once you have a lot of people visiting your blog.
Also, if you manage to get a lot of people to visit your blog frequently, a good number of them will certainly buy something from your site every now and then.
4. Technical SEO
SEO is more than just content and keywords. Technical SEO involves ensuring your website has met all the technical requirements of modern search engines. The technical side of your eCommerce website can impact search rankings.
Technical SEO revolves around issues such as;
- Site speed
- Mobile-friendliness
- Site security, etc.
Search engines will give priority to the website that can provide the best user experience. That is what technical SEO is all about.
To find the ways in which you can improve the technical SEO of your eCommerce website, you need to perform a technical SEO audit.
A technical SEO audit can be performed using any of the SEO tools we’ve mentioned above. A technical SEO audit should show you the technical weaknesses that your website might have.
Take for instance SEMrush. SEMrush will provide an overview of your site’s health. It will show you whether your site is mobile-friendly or not. It will highlight the pages with slow loading speeds.
SEMrush can also identify whether your site has security vulnerabilities.
Most SEO tools will crawl your website and provide a comprehensive report. A deep crawl can take a while if you have a large website. Let your SEO tool take its time so that it can pick everything that requires your attention. After crawling your site, look for the following issues and find solutions.
- Broken links
- Missing metadata and alt text
- Thin and duplicate content
- HTTPS status codes
- XML sitemap status
- Keyword cannibalization
- Slow loading speeds
- Unresponsive designs
- Security vulnerabilities
After you’ve done all the improvements needed, keep an eye on your search traffic. You should also monitor the behavior of visitors on your site. Use Google Analytics and Google Search console to get important insight on how visitors are interacting with your website.
An increase in traffic is an indicator that your improvements made a difference. The behavior of visitors on the site will show you the sections you need to work on.
User behavior is one of the most powerful tools you can use to improve and optimize your website.
5. Content Marketing
In the on-page SEO section, we explored the significance of a blog to an eCommerce website. That is exactly what content marketing is about. Content marketing has become the go-to strategy for most digital marketers.
Blogging is part of content marketing. It is one of the most popular types of content marketing. In fact, 45% of digital marketers choose to blog as their number on content marketing strategy.
We’ve already explored how blogging can bring more visitors to your eCommerce website. Remember that blogs have to be properly optimized for them to have any meaningful impact.
Recall we mentioned that blog content should not focus too much on promotion. Why? You might ask!
Check this out;
- Over 70% of people online would prefer to learn about a product or business through a blog or article rather than an advert. People will easily connect with your business and products if you focus on educating them, rather than just pushing the products to them.
- Over 68% of customers develop confidence in a business after they’ve consumed content from it.
Content marketing is the easiest way for your eCommerce website to rank for many keywords. You can’t target a lot of keywords if you are only focusing on your product pages.
Your articles and blogs will also help attract backlinks. Your domain authority and ease of ranking for your targeted keywords increases as your backlink profile grows.
So, what kind of content should you create for an eCommerce website?
The first step is to come up with content or topic ideas. You should go for topics that are related to your business or products. Try to find out the pain points that your target audience might have and your products could solve.
Types of content you could write include;
- How-to guides and tutorials
- Product reviews and comparisons
- FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
You could also create video content such as product demos.
SEO tools such as SEMrush and Ahrefs can help you come up with content ideas. You could also do competitor research and find out what kind of content your competitors are creating.
Apart from your blog, you can also post your content on social media. As mentioned earlier, the goal is to reach and engage as many people as possible. When these people start identifying with your brand and business, they’ll become loyal followers. They are likely to buy from you if they ever need any of your products.
6. Link Building
Apart from content, the other thing that Google cares about the most is backlinks. Google thinks that if a lot of sites are linking back to your site, then your content must be valuable. You should, therefore, find ways to get backlinks from other websites.
Backlinks from websites that have high domain authority will significantly improve your rankings. It is one of the surest ways of acing the SEO game. However, link building takes work and strategy. Building a diverse and high authority backlink profile takes time.
Link building is part of what is known as off-page SEO. Off-page SEO refers to all aspects of SEO over which you don’t have control. However, there is a lot you can do to enhance your backlinks profile.
You might never build a strong backlink profile if you sit back and wait for the links to come organically. In fact, it is only after you start ranking on the first page that you start getting organic backlinks.
So, how can you build a backlink portfolio?
If your eCommerce site is still young, you need to reach out to other website owners and bloggers to get those backlinks. Keep in mind that most of them would want to link back to your blog content and not product pages. That means you should have some valuable content on your blog before you start looking for those backlinks.
You can use the following strategies to build a backlinks portfolio;
- Outreach to resource pages
- Collaborating with influencers
- Broken link building
- Outreach to competitor link sources
You can use the following strategies to build a backlinks portfolio;
Outreach to Resource Pages
Resource pages are websites that host tons of information and resources related to your industry. They are the go-to sources of information for people within your industry. Resource pages have high authority because they get a lot of traffic.
Backlinks from these pages might not give you a lot of page authority because they have backlinks to a lot of pages. However, they are easy to get backlinks from and they can help get your domain authority off the ground.
To find resource pages in your industry, go to Google and search “inurl:resources + (industry)”
For instance, if you are in the fashion industry, you should search “inurl:resources + fashion”
Go through the results and find the resource pages whose content is related to the products you are selling. Collect a list of resource page URLs and their contact. You are going to need a lot of them, so make sure you collect as many as possible.
Once you have a long list of resource pages, compile an outreach email template. Make sure you can find ways to customize each email depending on which resource page you are reaching out to.
Sending out these outreach emails can be a lot of work, but each backlink you get to your eCommerce makes a significant difference. Keep doing it and you’ll see your domain authority start crawling up as you get more backlinks.
Collaborating with Influencers
Online influencers can also help you build your backlink portfolio and domain authority. Influencers are people with a huge audience on their platforms. They are the opinion shapers in your industry.
You should reach out to influencers whose websites have high domain authority. Choose influencers who are not competing with you.
SEO through influencers is different from the popular influencer marketing strategy. Most of them charge to link back to your products. That’s most likely not what you would be looking for. Your focus is on getting the influencers to add a backlink to your content on their platform.
Create some interesting content that you think might be ideal for their audience. Influencers would be a lot more willing to link back to such content for free. Since in most cases you’ll be reaching out to complete strangers, you need to first warm up to them. You can use the following strategies:
- Engage with them on their platforms. Comment on and share their content.
- Refer customers to them if they are selling any product. Make sure you let them know you sent them customers.
- Offer them free samples of your products or just give them gifts
The goal is to create a rapport with them and break the ice. They’ll be more open to adding a backlink or two to your content once you’ve warmed up to each other.
Finding influencers within your industry should not be difficult. They are usually quite vocal about issues that affect your industry. A quick google search will reveal some of the most influential people in your industry.
Broken Link Building
Broken link building is a strategy that takes advantage of the broken links on other websites. Here is how you go about it.
Visit some high authority blogs in your niche that you’d love to get some backlinks from. Install a browser extension that checks for broken links. There are plenty of such extensions on the internet. Use the extension to inspect the blogs for broken links.
The broken links are usually highlighted in red. Compile a list of all the websites that have broken links and their contacts. Try to find places where those links could fit in your content.
Contact the website owners or administrators letting them know that they have a broken link. Broken links are bad for SEO. They’ll be grateful for that. Use that opportunity to ask them to link to your content instead.
Since you are solving a problem for them, they are much more likely to agree to your proposal. This is where having a large volume of relevant content helps. You’ll find it difficult to get backlinks if your content is shallow, irrelevant, or too “salesy”.
You can target resource pages with this strategy as well.
This method, just like the other two above, involves a lot of outreach. Craft convincing and personalized messages to get the website owners to respond. Be aware that you might have to send hundreds of messages just to get a few backlinks.
Outreach to Competitor Sources
Just like in the case of keywords, your competitors can be your biggest resource when it comes to link building. Use SEMrush or Ahrefs to find out where your competitors’ backlinks are coming from. That tells you that these sources would be interested in your content.
Try to make your content better than that of your competitor, and then reach out to your competitors’ sources. Do not tell the sources that you are reaching out to them because they’ve linked to your competitors. Focus on letting them know how your content is relevant to their audience.
That wraps up our discussion on eCommerce SEO techniques. The question now is, after implementing all these eCommerce SEO methods, how do you know whether they are working?
It is important to have a way to find out whether your efforts are making any difference. As such, you need to know how to track progress and measure the success of your eCommerce SEO strategy.
Tracking Progress and Measuring the Success of Your Ecommerce SEO Strategy.
Ranking on Google’s first page does not happen overnight. A lot of people will implement all the techniques we’ve discussed above, and then think their website should be appearing on Google the next day.
SEO techniques can be implemented even in one day, but ranking position grows gradually. There’s no way your search results ranking will move from page 5 to page 1 in one day. As your site picks up more traffic and backlinks, it gets more authority. Your ranking position keeps rising as your website’s authority rises.
How then do you know whether your SEO efforts are working?
You need to use tools such as SEMrush and Ahrefs to track your website’s progress. The tools will help you measure the success of your strategy as well.
A tool like SEMrush will give you a periodic overview of the SEO performance of your website. It will provide various metrics that will help you measure your success, and identify where improvements are needed.
You should also use Google Analytics to track the performance of your eCommerce website. From Google analytics, you can monitor the following:
- Traffic
- Number of impressions
- Number of clicks
- Bounce off rates, etc.
All these are important metrics that can tell you how well your SEO strategy is working.
SEO for Ecommerce Businesses – Parting Shot
As mentioned above SEO is a long-term marketing strategy. SEO strategies should be implemented step by step. Do not rush the process because you are bound to make mistakes if you do.
It might take a while for your eCommerce business to start benefiting from SEO. However, you are going to enjoy every bit of it when your SEO efforts start bearing fruits.
Ecommerce SEO can be overwhelming for many people. It involves a lot of bits and parts, all of which are important. At Digital Marksmen, we are SEO experts and we can help you build your eCommerce business from scratch. We can also help you if you are trying to implement SEO on your already established eCommerce business. Our affordable ecommerce seo services can help revamp your business.