If you’re an online retailer, you already understand the importance of ranking high on Google. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not still daunting or scary to tackle. It’s difficult to navigate waters you simply don’t know how to swim in, and when it comes to SEO – that is very much the case for the majority of business owners.
Dilate Digital, a digital marketing agency based in Perth provides SEO services to hundreds of businesses all over Australia and have seen the good, the bad, and the darn right confusing (thanks Google Algorithm). We asked Dilate Digital a few questions to explain the importance of why exactly a business owner who owns an e-commerce business would need search engine optimisation to survive.
What does SEO mean for small e-commerce businesses?
Creating a solid SEO strategy means that you’re giving your business the greatest opportunity for increased visibility. It will allow you to be found more easily by your target audience.
Using SEO to rank high on Google is the digital equivalent of purchasing a brick and mortar cafe on premium real estate in a high foot traffic area. It maximises your presence among well established, and newly discovered audiences.
For any online business to experience true, sustaining success, your website MUST have these three main requirements:
- Epic User Experience: Easy, enjoyable and intuitive user navigation and experience is essential to keep users not only on your page but coming back regularly.
- Universal Accessibility: Ensuring your website and content is available for all visitors across all platforms and devices.
- Simple Discoverability: Ensuring your website and associated channels are easily discoverable and quick to find.
What’s included in SEO?
SEO considers the finer details, the words, the content, the web page design, the layout, the headers, the URL, the experience. It considers everything and determines your relevance against other competitors using similar search terms.
Essentially a good SEO strategy is all about ensuring that users enjoy a digital experience that results in customer satisfaction and sales.
So how do you optimise your E-comm website for SEO?
You let Google know why you’re better than competitors. But not in a naggy teacher’s pet way, more in a “role model” way. You show google that you are the superior more relevant website by role modeling a series of optimisation techniques on your website.
What are they?
- You post current, relevant and up-to-date content
- You remember the little things like index-friendly sitemaps, canonical links, redirects, mobile friendliness etc.
- You provide interactive social media options
- You have high security measures in place
- You take the time to include HTML code with keyword-rich page titles, meta descriptions and header tags.
- You offer engaging, interactive content that encourages return users.
So you’ve implemented all the nitty gritty parts of your SEO, can you sit back and relax now?
Hell no. That’s not even the half of it. What about the part of SEO that directly relates to your audience. Your target audience first needs to be aware of your brand, then they need to find you, then they need to know that you can provide what they’re looking for, then they need to have a memorable user experience in order to keep them coming back for more.
How can you do this as an E-comm Business?
You need to ask Google’s help for this, but you also need to help Google gain the confidence in you to know that if they send a searcher to your page, they will have a good time. Some simple but effective ways to do this are:
- Well-written descriptive copy
- Media-rich content (multiple images and videos)
- Image Alt tags
- Consistent updates and product additions
- Mobile friendly layout
- Secure Payment Methods
- Healthy number of keywords spread throughout the text and HTML code
- Links to relevant content and products
For ultimate discoverability on your e-comm site, ensure you use an e-commerce friendly platform and engage SEO service providers to boost your business.
Google cares about users, get in their good books by caring about the users now. Build a strong foundation with a seriously good user experience.
