The main goal of a business or an entrepreneur is to make profit through an increase in sales and secondly, to scale up. When it comes to the digital marketing aspect of running a business, it can be a little hard to keep the momentum going. With the market being as saturated as it is, standing out in the e-commerce world can prove to be a little tricky. Merely having a functioning website, churning out content and commenting every now and then on social media is not enough. To boost traffic and bring in actual conversions, a lot more is needed, especially in the SEO department. This post will illustrate some quick SEO wins that can help you ease into the new year with a solid growth plan.
What is SEO?
If you’re not aware of what SEO is, you should definitely try and learn about it. Getting more business from your online marketing efforts requires you to know what needs to be done for your online store, and how to do it effectively. Before we get into the quick wins, you should know about SEO and how it can benefit your e-commerce site by improving user experience and bringing in extra conversions.
So, starting at the ground level, what exactly is SEO?
SEO (search engine optimization) is all about positioning your website as the most relevant source of relevant information, products, and services within a particular industry or niche. The best results will be achieved when you align your SEO efforts with your growth strategy, whether you are a jewelry designer or head of a marketing team. The purpose of SEO is to increase traffic, sales, and conversions by optimizing content, structure, and delivery of a website.
What makes SEO different for different sites?
Do you own a bakery and are finding it tough to get online traffic and reach? Are you a marketing professional responsible for ensuring that the organic traffic on your client’s e-commerce portal meets its goals? These are a few instances of when SEO is different for different people. Google and other search engines use different metrics for sites that sell or have financial transactions.
The reason for this is that the structure of these sites and the consumer experience being provided varies. E-commerce sites involve product categories, shipping, cart inventory, etc whereas other websites may only promote an informational query or service. Ultimately, this calls for a different approach to SEO when working in the digital retail or e-commerce sector.
SEO Quick Wins for Increasing Your Sales
Now that you have an idea about what SEO is and how it needs to be different for retail, here are some ways to score quick wins to make your e-commerce blues disappear. The following tips will help you close the gap between your audience and shopping cart, regardless of whether you are an experienced marketer or business owner.
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Sort by Popularity
A very simple tip, but you’d be surprised at how effective it is. If you’ve been observing that some of your products are more popular than the others, you should display those first. Basically refresh your listings every month or so and sort them according to popularity. Doing this will help increase sales as customers will spend less time searching for the ‘right’ product.
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Optimized for Mobile
One of the most important pointers from this list. More and more people are now shopping from mobile phones and this trend is only expected to grow in the future. So, you need to make sure you provide the best possible experience for your potential customers. E-commerce sales via mobile devices reached $47 billion in the US during the 2nd quarter. Furthermore, mobile users spend twice as much on average as desktop customers. If your website is mobile friendly and well-optimized, users are more likely to make a purchase. They would not want to spend much time on a website that is not appealing or easy to use.
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Easier Navigation
When running a physical business, the location is very important. The same holds true for your digital space. You need to make your website easy to navigate so the user does not get lost in an array of menus. Products should be easy to find with sharp descriptions and titles that do not beat around the bush. You need to look at the pages on your site and check how easy to navigate they are. Using a clickable or hover responsive menu can help minimize on screen clutter.
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Optimize URLs
The aesthetics of your URL structure influence how likely a user is to click on your site from a search result. You should avoid creating URLs that are hard to read, contain special characters, or look incomplete. This is an example of the kind of URL structure you should avoid making: https://mysite.com/index.php?=54353=gfs=?p=435
Any visitor who clicks on this link will have no idea what the page is about until they get there. Your URLs should be optimized in order to convey your keywords as clearly and concisely as possible. Say for instance you own a store selling video game consoles. Your ideal URL structure can be something like: https://mysite.com/video-game-consoles or https://mysite.com/gaming-consoles
By avoiding long and weird-looking URL structures, you will help your users, search engines, and other crawlers understand exactly what your website is about.
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Frictionless Checkout/Shopping
The checkout process is probably the biggest reason for cart abandonment. Most users don’t want to go through a page-by-page checkout process that’s the norm on most other sites. Increasingly, retailers and e-commerce marketplaces are allowing consumers to work with a frictionless checkout process by allowing them to view their cart on their current page, add to it, and checkout from it without having to navigate to another page to enter information. It creates a seamless and smooth transactional experience, increasing conversions.
Two Additional Tips:
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Meta Descriptions
There is a wide range of opinions on this subject among professionals. Making sure your meta descriptions are in place, using your targeted keywords, and adding an element of engagement are equally responsible for boosting your results. It’s crucial. The best meta descriptions include an engaging headline, targeted keywords, and crafty call-to-actions. Have you checked your meta descriptions recently?
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Product Descriptions
Your product descriptions, whether they are 20 words or an entire page, can greatly impact your online sales and traffic. There is no ideal length for product descriptions. Some users have the ability to convey their message with 1 to 2 sentences, while others go the extra mile to ensure users won’t have to look elsewhere for assistance. Having longer product descriptions can improve customer retention. Products with high conversion rates usually have detailed product descriptions of 500 words or more. With this, the buyer becomes less confused and makes a more informed buying decision.
Conclusion
By focusing your attention and resources in the right places, you can resolve most common issues in ecommerce quickly. When you understand the reasons behind your failings, you can use the insights to optimize your ecommerce website and integrated channels in a way that aligns with your customers’ needs and expectations. You should never underestimate the importance of an SEO trends, regardless of how small it appears, since every little bit helps when it comes to search engine optimization. Start scoring quick wins with your e-commerce site through these tips today!
