Long-term e-commerce SEO Strategy isn’t as straight forward as it used to be. There’s more at stake, there’s a lot more competition, and you just have to put in more now than ever. Ashley is back with a comprehensive post on tips for your long-term eCommerce SEO Strategy.
SEO used to be very straight forward and less complicated until 4-5 years ago. The landscape was not very competitive, and getting some basic practices right meant quick gains could be made.
Now, with Search Engines constantly rolling out updates to their algorithms and ranking systems, and SEO getting more competitive with every passing day, every brand needs a solid long term SEO strategy to not just get to the top but also to sustain their gains.
Here, you will read 11 reasons why your E-commerce business needs long term SEO today:
SEO is a long term process
You can’t take the short route when it comes to e-commerce SEO. Organically ranking your webpage higher takes several months and require patience. Search Engines are getting smarter at identifying unfair practices and penalizing those who use them.
Your Blog Content Strategy, Content Strategy, and SEO — all go together.
As an e-commerce business, you are in it for the long haul, which means you should aim to achieve higher rankings for a sustained period. You can do this with an in-house team or with the help of a credible SEO agency.
Assuming you are serious about SEO, chances are that you’ll miss out one of the most fundamental aspects of SEO success (surprised that no one even talks about this): Publishing Velocity.
That’s the #1 SEO Strategy you not following. While you are at it, ensure that you do some routine SEO housekeeping as well.
Here’s a video (a previous live stream) to explain:
You need to constantly learn and adapt
Search engines are constantly changing their algorithms to improve the quality of search results. This means that if businesses want to stay in the game, they need to match the pace.
E-commerce businesses need to stay on top of these changes and quickly evolve their strategy as new changes are rolled out. This is only made possible by placing long term emphasis on SEO strategy and keeping it at the forefront of all online decision making.
Faster page speeds
One of the most important factors for SEO is page loading time. It is crucial for e-commerce businesses to focus more on improving the user experience.
Around 40% of users leave the website if the page takes longer than 3 seconds to load. By designing pages that load faster, e-commerce businesses are not just helping their rankings but also holding potential for longer, increasing their likelihood of conversion.
This makes having fast loading pages a perpetual business goal for any e-commerce business.
Read: 10 Ways To Increase WordPress Website Speed (12+ proven Platforms)
Mobile Optimization
Mobile friendliness of webpages is one of the major factors affecting SEO. No e-commerce website can expect a good ranking if all their pages are not optimized for mobile users.
By 2021, nearly 54% of all e-commerce shopping will be done on mobile phones. No serious e-commerce business can afford to ignore their mobile user base.
Businesses that constantly optimize their websites for mobile, and make it a long term goal, ensure they tap into the growing m-commerce segment and maintain a good search ranking.
Get Traffic to eCommerce sites
Every e-commerce business wants to attract new visitors to their website. One of the best ways to achieve this online is by ranking higher for search queries, relevant to the products they sell.
When it comes to users’ searching online, nearly all of the traffic goes to the results showing on the first page of the search engines. Even, on the first page, the top 5 get nearly all of the traffic.
Inevitably, e-commerce businesses that intend to stay in the business clan shouldn’t consider SEO as an afterthought.
Read: 5 Super-fast Ways to Get Traffic to Your Website
Build User-friendly websites
One of the basic requirements of SEO is making your website easier to navigate and more user-friendly. Visitors are more likely to stay on and shop from websites that are easy to navigate and.
Ensuring user-friendliness of the website over the long run is something e-commerce businesses cannot ignore.
Avoid Overwhelm. Get Straight to Building e-commerce Stores that are mobile-friendly, fast, and compliant
Generate Higher perceived credibility and trustworthiness
People normally correlate trustworthiness with ranking and popularity. A business that shows up consistently for users’ relevant search queries will automatically make its place in the people’s mind.
It is the psyche of human beings, what gets more visible is what stays in their minds.
If a business appears in the search results, time and again, people are most likely to trust it. Moreover, they consider that very business as an established one.
Get insights about your website
Owners of physical stores can see how many customers visit their stores, at what time they visit, and how they behave in the store.
For e-commerce stores, websites are their storefronts, and it is critical for them to know how people are engaging with their website.
E-commerce stores that follow good SEO practices also closely monitor user traffic and user engagement pattern on their websites.
By using simple and free tools such as the SEMrush SEO Toolkit, for instance, you can achieve keyword Analysis, Backlink audits, competitive analysis, site audits, and so much more.
This gives them useful insights related to different sections of their websites, conversion rates, and see what is working and what isn’t.
Over time, this information is used to improve the website according to visitor preferences and increase conversion rates for desired actions. This can only be achieved by continuous observation and having a long term view of web analytics.
Establish Thought Leadership & Trust
Consistently maintained good SEO practices can position new entrants next to already established players in the market within a few months of starting operations.
Generally, the older businesses show up more often on search results. As a result, they also get higher visitors translating into higher sales.
Any e-commerce business that is interested in increasing its sales and market share must implement sound SEO practices over the long term to ensure it stays among the top players in its relevant product ranges.
Get Better ROI than conventional marketing
Conventional marketing practices like print, radio, and television aren’t cheap. Double-trouble comes when you fail to attract your target audience. Surely, when you go for conventional marketing, your message gets heard by masses, but you never know whether they are interested in your product or services or not.
On the contrary, when you choose ecommerce SEO over conventional means of marketing, you save your financial boat from sinking. With the help of SEO, a business can show itself to the exact people who are searching for their products.
This ability to target the right customer at the right time means the returns on investment are much higher for e-commerce businesses that effectively leverage SEO for their websites.
Take advantage of product snippets
Search engines like Google are continually rolling out new features that impact websites’ traffic and ranking. The Products Snippet by Google shows the most relevant products from e-commerce stores that the user’s search query shows interest in.
These snippets are shown prominently above all results and get more hits than any other organic results on the search results page.
With a targeted, long term strategy, e-commerce stores can optimize their pages for product snippet results and get the bulk of all traffic every time a user searches for their products.