Focusing on search engine optimization, or SEO is one of the most important parts of running an eCommerce business today.
It refers to a variety of strategies that can help you to rank higher on relevant search engine results pages or SERPs.
If you can create a good SEO strategy, you can drive more traffic to your website and ultimately increase your sales!
In this article, we’re going to outline some SEO tips that can help you boost your sales. Let’s get started.
Keywords are the phrases your customers are typing into search engines to find products, services, or content like yours.
Using the right keywords in your copy should be a major component of any good SEO marketing strategy. It’s important that you target the right keywords in your website copy, as this will give your business the best chance of ranking for the right queries, helping you to reach the most suitable people.
This will then send higher-quality organic search traffic to your website, so the people you attract will be pleased to see that you offer the products or services they are looking for.
So, having a strong keyword research strategy will typically lead to more sales.
For example, if you're looking for keywords that will help attract customers to your law firm website, try targeting people who are seeking a personal injury attorney or an attorney for car accident cases.
However, if you're not sure which keywords your target audience uses to search for legal services—or don't have the time or resources to do the research yourself—hiring a law firm marketing agency is a good idea.
The agency will also provide recommendations on how to use keywords in your website content and offer tips on how to optimize your site for search engines.
To conduct keyword research, start by heading to a tool like Google Keyword Planner with a list of words and phrases related to your business.
Plug them into the Planner, and Google will provide you with a variety of related keywords based on their competitiveness, how hard they are to rank for, and their average monthly search volumes.
For the most part, you should choose keywords that are very relevant to the page you’re writing for, rather than your business as a whole.
Weave these keywords into your titles, headers, and body copy. This will help give Google more context as to what your website is about and rank you higher on relevant SERPs.
Begin with your meta title and meta description as this is the first point of contact with the user. Your meta title should match the title of the associated web page, and a strongly written meta description should be a summary of the content found within the web page itself.
Google will return search results with the content most closely associated with the search query.
Let’s take a look at a business that does a great job of targeting the right keywords with its website copy to give you some inspiration.
Bounce, a luggage storage company, targets keywords well throughout its website.
For instance, they’ve targeted a lot of relevant phrases on their London luggage storage page, and this now ranks on the first page of Google for keywords with a collective monthly search volume of 8,260.
Considering the service is relatively niche, this is a very impressive achievement!
As you can see, throughout the page, Bounce weaves keywords like “luggage storage London” and “London Luggage Storage Guide” into their copy to give Google more context as to what the website is about and help the search engine to rank them for relevant search terms. This can help them attract the best possible traffic to their website and get more sales.
On your website, target keywords in a similar way. Put your main keywords in the titles and headers of your product or service pages, and sprinkle other relevant phrases throughout the body copy. This will help you rank higher on the SERPs, drawing in more people to your website and bringing in more sales.
Having a strong content strategy is very important for your SEO. It involves creating and distributing content like blog posts and videos on your website in order to establish your expertise, build brand awareness, and ultimately make more sales.
To further refine your strategy, consider the use of topical authority for content plan, which can lead to a more targeted and effective approach in your SEO efforts.
Content marketing is also important for earning the trust of both search engines and your ideal customers. This is part of showcasing your E-A-T, or expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.
It’s a term that comes from Google’s Search Quality Rater guidelines, and it’s something the search engine seriously considers when ranking its content.
Essentially, Google only wants to send its users the most high-quality and helpful information possible. When you showcase your expertise, you can prove to Google that you are an authority in your field, incentivizing them to rank you higher on the SERPs.
Additionally, if you show off your expertise in your content, you’ll build trust with your website visitors, which will encourage them to make a purchase!
Let’s take a look at a few examples of businesses that publish expert content on their websites for inspiration.
The Tinker Law Firm PLLC, a medical malpractice law firm in Seattle, has a lot of expert content on its blog. For instance, their article on personal injury claims for internal injury does several things particularly well.
The article outlines what internal injuries are, how they are caused, and when someone would need a lawyer to get a settlement. This is a very helpful article that shows just how knowledgeable The Tinker Law Firm PLLC is about their field.
It’s thorough and answers a lot of questions, making it great for showing off its expertise. People who read this article will be reassured that The Tinker Law Firm PLLC knows what they’re talking about, making it more likely that they’ll spend money with them in the future.
On your blog, consider outlining some of the topics in your field that you’re knowledgeable about. This will give you a great opportunity to showcase your expertise in your field, build trust with customers, and help you boost your SEO, which will increase your sales!
Helix Hearing Care, a hearing aid retailer, has expert content on their hearing aid maintenance web page. As you can see in the image above, they have several videos that outline to the user how to change their batteries, replace filters, and clean their hearing aids.
Maintenance videos like this are great for showing off their expertise — viewers can look at these videos and see that Helix Hearing Care knows what they’re doing and can help their customers with problems.
This will help Helix Hearing Care boost its E-E-A-T, improving its SEO and helping them make more sales.
Consider creating content on your website that shows how to maintain your products. Doing this will showcase your expertise and increase your rankings on the SERPs, helping you make more sales!
RMIT Online, an online higher education institution in Australia, uses its blog to showcase its expertise, as well. For example, they have an article outlining the difference between business analytics and data science that does several things well.
They discuss different jobs that people who have studied in these fields can get, the similarities and differences between them, and how to choose which option is right for you.
This is a very helpful article for prospective students, which makes up RMIT Online’s ideal audience. The article shows that RMIT Online cares about helping its readers make a decision, and gives them a chance to demonstrate their expertise.
In the process, they will boost their SEO and increase the number of applicants they have!
On your website, consider educating your readers on the differences between similar areas of your field. This is a great way to help people that are just starting to understand your niche.
It’s also a strategy that will help you show off your E-E-A-T, rise through the SERPs, and ultimately get more sales.
If your eCommerce website doesn’t offer a positive user experience (UX), internet users won’t stick around long enough to make a purchase.
This can increase your bounce rate, which is the percentage of website visitors who visit your website and then quickly leave.
When this number is high, it indicates to Google that your website isn’t very helpful. This can have a negative impact on your SEO.
Here are a few tips for ensuring that your website offers a good experience:
If you provide a great UX, you’ll encourage website visitors to stick around and look through your website. This will push them closer to making a purchase and can also be beneficial for your SEO!
Let’s take a look at an example of a website that offers a great UX for inspiration.
Kasala, a furniture company in Seattle, designs its website very effectively.
Take a look at the image above and note how their navigation is organized by the type of room a person is shopping for. This is a very simple, yet intuitive way to help their customers navigate through their website.
People who are shopping for furniture for a single room or a particular item can easily find what they’re looking for. This strategy can help Kasala’s customers find what they’re after quicker. This is part of providing a great UX, which will boost their SEO!
If you sell a lot of products, be sure to split them up into helpful categories, as Kasala has.
It will help your website visitors find what they’re looking for and indicate to Google that your website provides a positive UX, improving your SEO and helping you increase your sales.
Internal links, or links to other pages on your own website, are very important for SEO.
They help search engines get a better understanding of how your website is structured, what your pages contain, and which pages are the most important.
There are a lot of different ways you can incorporate internal links into your website. For instance, in a blog post, you could include relevant internal links to other pieces of related content or products you sell.
You can also include them naturally on your product pages or in your category copy to help a user find what they are looking for.
Similarly, you could add related categories to each product page so customers can easily browse through your product selection.
Let’s take a look at a few examples of businesses that use internal links in their content well for inspiration.
Target, an American retail corporation, uses internal links well on its website. Take a look at the image above and notice how their footer has links to all of the main pages of their website.
Because Target has a huge website, this is a great way to use internal links — it can help website visitors get to the page they need much more easily and give Google more context as to how their website is structured, helping the search engine to determine which pages to rank for which queries.
This will help increase their rankings on the SERPs, potentially growing their sales.
If you create a similar footer on your website, be sure to choose your links carefully. Since the footer will show up on every page, include links to major pages like those in your navigation bar or your main category pages.
This can help to give search engines more information about how your website is structured and will help them decide which pages are the most important and rank them appropriately — this will help you boost your SEO.
Forever 21, a clothing retailer, uses internal links well on its website, too. Take a look at the sidebar in the image above. This screenshot is from their "Bottoms" page and the sidebar breaks down this larger category into sections using internal links. They have pages for pants, jeans, skirts, shorts, and more.
This can help customers better navigate the website and find the products they’re looking for.
Additionally, it gives Google a better idea of how their category pages are connected, helping the search engine to decide which pages to rank for what queries. This will help Forever 21 boost its SEO.
If you have a lot of category subsections on your website, use internal linking to help your website visitors figure out where to go find the products they’re looking for.
This is also a great internal linking strategy that will help you boost your SEO and increase your sales!
Link building is the process of acquiring links from other high-quality and authoritative websites back to your own. When this happens, Google takes it as a vote of confidence in your authority and will give you an SEO boost. Better visibility on SERPs relevant to your niche can increase your sales!
When SEO specialists and link-building experts build backlinks, they always make sure to choose websites that are very relevant to your own. This will help ensure that you reach your ideal audience.
Additionally, check a website’s domain authority (DA) in advance of requesting a link.
DA is a score developed by Moz that can predict how likely a website is to rank well. The score considers factors like keyword targeting and the number of backlinks pointing to a domain.
The higher the score, the more likely a website’s link will help you rise on the SERPs. DA scores between 40 and 50 are considered average, scores between 50 and 60 are considered good, and those over 60 are considered excellent.
One great way to build links is to guest post for other websites in your field. Guest posts are articles published on websites other than your own to educate readers on certain topics.
These articles typically allow you to provide a link back to your website, helping you build backlinks.
To find websites or blogs to write for, head to Google with keywords related to your field and conduct searches like the following:
These searches can help you find websites that cover topics related to your business. This will give you a starting point!
From there, look at their submission guidelines and get to writing! If they don’t have guidelines, look for the email of a writer or editor and ask them how you can pitch a topic to them.
Focusing on SEO is a major part of running a successful ecommerce business. In this article, we outlined different SEO tips that can help you boost your sales, including building backlinks and creating expert content.
If you need more digital marketing help, check out the POWR blog. They have articles on email outreach, social media advertising, and more.
Alex Ratynski is a Content Strategist at Loganix, an SEO fulfillment partner that works with agencies and marketers. The company focuses on helping businesses to improve their online visibility, so they can grow and reach their goals. If you enjoyed this article, visit the Loganix blog for more expert advice.