8 Key SEO Strategies for E-Commerce Websites

Published on: 29 March 2018 Last Updated on: 03 September 2024

Online shopping has changed the way people shop. The popularity of the online shopping portals makes two things clear. First, people like the convenience that online shopping provides them. Being able to shop for anything and everything at their own convenient time and from the comfort of their homes or offices is a great plus point for shoppers across the world. Second, with the increase of online shoppers, the number of e-commerce websites is also increasing. This is leading to aggressive competition in the arena of online marketing. This is where search engine optimization (SEO) comes into the picture. SEO can help e-commerce business owners to beat the competition and keep attracting targeted visitors to their website. Here are 8 key SEO strategies that can help e-commerce websites to gain success:

1. Provide unique and impressive product descriptions :

An e-commerce site is all about products and their sales. As such, product descriptions are vital for such sites. Since e-commerce sites have to deal with a huge number of products, sometimes they may tend to use the descriptions provided by the manufacturers for the products. Or, they may want to repeat the same description for similar products. But that is a wrong strategy and must be avoided.

You need to come up with a unique product description for each item you are selling on your website. Though it’s a lot of work to write unique descriptions for each product, this strategy is sure to bring in the desired results.

2. Ensure easy navigation of your website :

Make sure that your e-commerce website is easily navigable. This strategy is important not just for improving your site’s search engine rankings, but also to offer a smooth shopping experience to your customers. Create categories to organize your products and make them easily searchable. Ensure that your sitemap is easy to follow.

Also, the design of your website must be clutter-free so that your customers can continue with their shopping without feeling irritated. Place your menus in a way so that your customers can access them easily, regardless of where they are on the site.

3. Optimize the loading time of your website :

Your e-commerce website is likely to have a large number of images for the products you are selling. These images can slow down your site. Ensure to optimize the load times of your website by reducing the image sizes.

High-quality images are essential for any e-commerce website. But if they slow down your website, it can impact your SEO in a bad way. So, it’s better to include images with small sizes and have a feature that allows your customers to zoom in on the images to see an enlarged version. This will enable you to provide your customers with quality images without affecting the load speed of your website.

4. Go for internal linking of your pages :

Internal linking is an essential aspect of SEO. Even Google prefers sites that opt for internal linking in an effective manner. Your objective must be to ensure that your customers can reach your various product pages within your site with as little clicking as possible.

One way to do this is to link every page to other relevant pages within your website. This will also help your site visitors to navigate to similar products in an easy manner and give you a chance to convert them into customers. If you want to know more about customer conversion, you can check out The Ultimate Guide to E-commerce Conversion Funnel Optimization.

5. Make sure that your site is optimized for mobile :

Today more and more people are using their mobile phones to do their shopping at various online stores. This makes it essential for you to optimize your e-commerce website for mobile. By doing so, you will be providing a smooth mobile shopping experience for your users. So, either go for a responsive design for your site or create an interactive mobile application to draw in the advantage of such customers. Ultimately, your objective is to attract more customers and ensure more sales for your website and this is a good strategy to achieve your aim.

6. Assure user security on your website :

User security is one point that needs extra attention in case of e-commerce websites. Having HTTPS encryption for user security on your website is a great way to go about this task. HTTPS encryption ensures that your customers will have an added layer of security when shopping on your website. This will diminish any doubts they may have regarding user security on your site. Also, HTTPS encryption will help Google to mark your site as secured and increase the chances of your site’s ranking on the search engine pages.

7. Include social media sharing buttons on your product pages :

The reach of social media is undeniable. It can take just a few minutes for an image or a piece of information to attract the attention of thousands of users on social media. Incorporate social media sharing buttons on your product pages so that your users may share information and images of the product on the social media platforms. On one hand, this will increase the reach of your products and attract the interest of relevant customers. On the other hand, it will be good practice for SEO as well. This is because Google may perceive the social signals as an indication of authority.

8. Check your website and pages for errors :

For an e-commerce site, it’s not unusual to grow at an incredible speed and have a large number of pages within a short time. But such growth also increases the prospect of having errors on your e-commerce website. It’s not feasible to hinder the growth of your site. So, the next best thing to do is to make sure that your website remains free of errors. Carry out regular checks to ensure that none of the permalinks on your site generates 404 errors. Also, check that the links to external sources or content are in a functional state.

Read More :

Importance of proofreading your website content

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How to use IT to Save Your Business Money

In a world that’s focused on making your business fly, ‘return on investment’ (ROI) is a term that’s usually talked about when you’re planning SEO, PPC or social marketing strategies. In fact, IT can offer a huge ROI for your business – simply by streamlining processes that could otherwise see your team or contractors spending unnecessary time struggling with sub-par systems and devices. We’ll walk you through 6 of the best ways to save money, with nothing but IT as your tool… How to use IT to Save Your Business Money: Explore open-source software : It’s easy to forget that Microsoft, Google, Adobe and the other huge software and service providers aren’t the only companies out there who create worthwhile resources. If you’re used to working for a company, you might take it for granted that the typical applications you’ll use (think; word processing, spreadsheets, customer relationship management, accounting – and much more) are just there for you within a few clicks – but actually, those pieces of software cost a significant amount of money. The truth is, the household names are the ones we know about because they’ve got the budget to market their products far and wide – but in fact, there’s a host of great open-source applications out there that are completely free to use – you’ve just got to know where to look. Open-source is more than just a money-saving tip though, in fact, there’s a world of developers who believe open-source is the only way you can truly reflect user’s needs in the long term – and many of those developers commit themselves to maintain and adjusting the free software to suit businesses just like yours. This TechRadar list offers some great open-source applications that’ll definitely help your business save money when compared to full price alternatives. Let employees work on their own devices : ‘Bring your own device’ (BYOD) such a simple idea – yet so many businesses resist it. When you let your employees use their own devices to do company business, you’re saving huge amounts of money – and actually increasing productivity at the same time. Countless studies have shown that employees are more comfortable and more productive when they use their own devices for work tasks – and the maths really adds up: If using a device you’re familiar with only saves 10 minutes each day – that adds up to an incredible 45 hours over the course of a full working year – essentially offering you a free week’s worth of work if you’re happy for employees to use their own machines. Of course, there are security considerations to be made – and BYOD is likely to be impractical if you’re handling a lot of sensitive client information, but if you’d like to take away a huge chunk of capital expenditure from your budget, these could be problems you’d be happy to work around. Outsource support : When it comes to money-saving, good tech systems can give and take in similar measures – but one of the largest costs to consider when you’re installing IT relates to the people who are going to support it. If you’re a small company, even if you only have a very small number of employees, you’re probably going to need someone to support your IT systems – and if you don’t have that person in place, you run the very real risk of not being able to trade if your IT network goes down. So, what does the maths look like? Well, you’ve got a $40,000 basic wage for someone who comes with the skills set needed to keep a network up and running by themselves – then you’ve got to factor holiday cover, sickness, maternity/paternity leave, training and what happens if that person decides they’d like to work somewhere else. All in all, carrying IT staff can be problematic – and extremely expensive – which is why managed network providers (MSPs) are becoming more and more popular with small to medium-sized businesses. With an MSP, you’ve got the potential of 24/7 access, 365 days a year – plus no need to worry about keeping an individual up to speed with the latest accreditations and training programs. You simply pick up the phone and access the support – which, most of the time, can be applied to your systems remotely. If you’d like your tech to save you thousands – you could do a lot worse than finding a good MSP and treating them like they’re one of your valued team. Buy resources ‘as a service’ : If you’re bringing your IT support onboard as an outsourced service – why not do the same with your applications, platforms, and infrastructure? In the last 10 years, larger tech companies have realized that there’s an increasing number of small businesses becoming established year on year – and those companies simply do not have the money that’s needed to buy expensive software licenses, development platforms and costly networking infrastructure straight out of the gate. The solution? Offering all of the above on a subscription basis – pay for only what you use, whenever you need it? A result is an increasing number of people opting to move to solutions like Microsoft Office 365 and Google’s G-Suite – both examples of ‘Software as a Service’ (Saas). That said, it’s not just cloud-accessed software that’s available in this manner, Microsoft now provides email exchange servers on a similar subscription basis too – with the robust security you’d expect from one of the biggest tech companies on Earth. All these things are made possible by the cloud – the concept of storage and services that are hosted centrally, with your internet connection bridging the gap between your business and the resource. Of course, you’re going to need a connection that is stable and fast enough to allow uninterrupted access – but that’s more than realistic for most internet service providers. Interestingly – the monetary benefits of SaaS are actually likely to be two-fold, as there’s an increasing body of evidence that suggests people actually work more effectively together when they’re collaborating online, even when compared to sitting next to one another in an office space. If you want to increase productivity and reduce costs with the help of IT tech, you could do a lot worse than to explore which of your required resources could be procured ‘as a Service’. Read Also : How Does Modern Technology Propel The Success Of Your Business? 5 Affordable E-Commerce Shopping Carts For Small Business What Are The Benefits Associated With Crowdfunding For Businesses?

Should You Consider Outsourcing Your Brand’s Marketing Campaign?

If you’re in higher management, you strive to make sure your marketing team is doing its best to market your brand and bring in leads to the sales team. Lest outsourcing becomes ponders publicity, keeping your organizational processes internally is crucial to you because you want to keep control over operations, and you want to keep costs at a decent minimum. Now you’ve realized that internalizing all of your online marketing efforts might not be working out as well as you’d imagined. Businesses that outsource marketing have specialized marketing services on their side, collaborating with them with every campaign and a new initiative to make sure it’s successful. Online marketing services are often more efficient than an in-house marketing team and, more often than not, more affordable. Systems are even created to make sure your brand still has control over activities and the reputation of the company. Outsourcing your marketing efforts can be a great option if you understand the importance of a powerful marketing campaign but don’t have the resources to do it by yourself. Who Can Benefit from Outsourcing of Brand Marketing Campaign? Many companies and brands decide to outsource their marketing activities to help them create brand awareness and generate leads. But certain businesses tend to use outsourced resources to implement their marketing agendas. Here are some of them. 1. Early-Stage Businesses Upscaling a new business is a challenging and stressful job. You have many decisions to make while developing new services and products. At the early stage of the business, business owners often concentrate their efforts on creating the product and do not have the financial power or the time to hire full-time marketing people. As the company prepares to launch their service, they need to develop a brand image. An outsourced marketing agency often handles the processes that design the style guides and website and creates the company logo. 2. Growing Companies When companies launch their service or product without problems, they often enter a high-growth phase to quickly bring supplementary marketing resources. Outsourced marketing services provide the necessary talent and resources to increase revenue growth without adding a lot of overhead. More often than not, businesses in growth stages cannot afford the time it takes to train and hire new staff members. Outsourced marketing firms or Virtual PA services provide expertise and flexibility during these growth stages. Often, venture capital firms invest in companies at this stage and use the influx of cash to accelerate growth through social media platforms, content marketing, SEO, and digital advertising activities. 3. Companies with Large Marketing Teams Global organizations hire hundreds, if not thousands, of marketing professionals to back their brand and sales initiatives. These enterprises will often use outsourced firms and professionals to provide crucial services. For instance, a company will hire outsourced professionals to promote an event, save money or launch a new project. Outsourced resources are often more affordable than in-house professionals. The company may want to skyrocket a specific product line and outsource for a short-term initiative. 4. Niche Companies Brands and companies that operate in specialty markets like engineering or biotechnology may find it challenging to hire in-house marketers with the experience and the know-how they need to create and launch content marketing campaigns. Outsourced marketing services often specialize in a specific niche market. They bring not only valuable resources but also experience in these unique markets. Virtual assistants, for example, combine technical expertise with marketing education or experience. These professionals work in leading organizations and have a greater understanding of the market than full-time professionals with little experience. When To Do Outsourcing? If you do not see the results you want from your in-house marketing team, then you should consider outsourcing. Your in-house team is working relentlessly with the goals set before them, but the results continue to be short of optimal. Staying on top of performance and campaign optimization isn’t easy. Often in-house teams have no time to optimize these campaigns for better performance, so they end short of hitting their goals. Evaluating the results of marketing efforts is critical to the success of a team not only in-house but for outsourced professionals as well. If it’s been a few months since your brand launched a great marketing campaign, it might be time to outsource marketing. a. Your Marketing Team Is Burned Out In marketing, there is graphic design, copywriting, SEO, website development, email marketing, lead generation, and so much more. How many professionals do you have in your team? Do you have someone assigned to each task involved in marketing, or do you have one marketing guru filling many hats? A copywriter can’t be a graphic designer and vice versa, but so many entrepreneurs expect so much from one marketing employee. One team member cannot meet the massive marketing demands in today’s market. b. You’re Always Running Out Of Time You’re planning a stellar email campaign this month, but your team ran out of time, so you reschedule it. You’re rushing to get the offer, the Facebook posts, and the blog posts out before Christmas. If you feel like you’re always running but never get anywhere, then it might mean you don’t have the necessary systems or strategies in place to run efficiently. c. You Lack Proper Strategy Getting things done might feel rewarding, but those things are time idlers instead of business generators when they are not part of an overall strategy. Posting on social or sharing a blog post is useless unless you have a purpose of reaching your goal. Sharing for the sake of staying active on social media platforms is not a real strategy. You feel the pressure of staying active online, so you ask your marketing team to ensure the social accounts are active always, but you don’t give them a genuine reason. As a business, you have income goals, but if you lack a proper strategy to meet those goals, then you might want to consider outsourcing digital marketing services. Summary That’s all about the logic behind considering outsourcing your brand’s marketing campaign. I hope the article was intriguing enough to make you understand why you should outsource the marketing campaign. The rationale is justified above along with specific situations to make your concept clear. Wanna clear any doubts? Drop your queries in the comment area below. Read Also: What You Need to Know When Outsourcing SEO How Legal Services Outsourcing Aids Law Firms and Legal Departments Balancing the Books with Outsourcing – Virtual Receptionists 9 Things Conservatives & Liberals Have in Common How To Reduce The Operating Cost of Your Business?

5 Ways Marketing Strategies Will Change Post COVID-19

To think life will go back to normal post-Pandemic is a pipe dream. The world underwent a paradigm shift to the new normal, and there is no returning now. The COVID-19 Pandemic has brought many changes we couldn’t have ever predicted. The unheralded health crises impacted nearly everything, from personal affairs to governmental decisions and even corporate matters. Business operations, in particular, faced quite a few alterations. Digital mediums took over the world by storm, and e-commerce businesses experienced a significant rise in demand. These reshaped business activities welcomed a considerable restructuring of marketing strategies. Marketers primarily shifted their focus to online tools, giving digital marketing an unanticipated hype. Given the technological innovations rate, marketers expect to see many more advancements in the marketing department post-COVID-19. Read below to find out how marketing strategies will change after the Pandemic. 1. The Importance of Online Presence: If businesses have to choose one takeaway from the crisis, it would be essential to have an online presence. With strict lockdowns and restrictions on going out, the entire world switched to conducting and participating in businesses online. Many also realized the convenience such platforms bring. Hence, owning a website has now become an essential business marketing strategy. Almost 56% of businesses with a website perform better as compared to the ones without a website. Besides, a website is one of the most powerful digital marketing tools. It marks your presence on the internet and helps you get more reach. A website also lets you upload a customizable flip book or eBook where you can share all necessary details about your products and services. It is an exceptional technique to spread awareness about your brand, attract traffic, and eventually boost sales. A website gives your customers ease of access and costs much less than traditional marketing, and dramatically impacts investment return. It is a proven worthwhile investment. An authentic-looking website enhances your business’s professionalism and adds value to it. Hence, having a website is vital for a business’s success. So, it is safe to say that website marketing will be a critical element post-COVID-19. 2. The Emergence of Social Media: Social media is undisputedly the king of marketing. The world is quickly becoming digitally advanced, with social media users increasing rapidly. Nearly 83.3% of people use social media worldwide, and the figure is likely to grow by 10% each year. Not only that, 71% of businesses have a social media account, out of which 90% experience improvements in sales and growth. 90% of users connect with brands through social media, and 54% of consumers make purchases from brands after scrolling through the brand’s social media account. The statistics above prove the criticality of a social media presence for businesses. The future is uncalled for, but one thing is for sure; social media’s regime will only grow. Social media helps connect brands with potential customers and allows marketers to make informed decisions based on the target audience. It also gives businesses an incredible opportunity to grow. The paid advertising options on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat are the easiest, quickest, and most affordable promotion plans for your business. So, you can popularize, promote, and increase your brand’s overall ROI without breaking the bank. Social media is here to stay and quite possibly grow into a platform unimaginable. Hence, social media was, is, and will remain, marketers, fundamental focus. 3. Video Marketing: Video marketing was every marketer’s favorite even before COVID-19 and is still growing phenomenally. Studies confirm that videos interest more users than any other graphics form and carry great potential for attracting customers. YouTube and other video streaming sites are experiencing an incredible increase in usage. These sites allow businesses to market their products and services or raise brand awareness in the form of high-quality videos. Video content also plays an essential role in emails. It exceptionally increases your email’s click-through rates and decreases the unsubscribe rates. Additionally, it boosts your SEO by attracting traffic and increasing your site’s searchability and visibility on different search engines. After seeing how effective video marketing leaves on the brand and consumers, it is likely to grow and remain a powerful marketing strategy in the future. 4. Customer Retention and Loyalty: One major disadvantage many businesses had to face due to the Pandemic was to cut down costs in essential areas like marketing. As a result, markets had to shift their focus to different, long-run marketing tactics like building customer loyalty. Customer loyalty helps you stay one step ahead of your competitors. Loyal customers give you valuable feedback, increasing your business’s rating and eventually attracting new customers. Building customer loyalty considerably reduces your marketing spending, but retaining a customer also leads to a more profitable outcome. Remember, customer retention is what powers customer acquisition. The free word-of-mouth promotion your business gets from loyal customers is one of the most significant benefits of building customer loyalty. Loyal customers are also likely to make purchases repeatedly and trust your business enough to pay premium prices. 5. Less Is More: The Pandemic has stipulated marketers think about innovative marketing strategies without having to go all out. They have to find ways to develop creative marketing campaigns, which are both practical and inexpensive. Moreover, with a limited budget, marketers have restricted resources which they have to ensure to save for more than one campaign. In short, the coronavirus has compelled marketers to do more with less. Marketers need to make efficient use of technology to find solutions and make decisions quicker. The “less is more” trend will continue long after the Pandemic is over as marketers turn their attention to enhancing innovation and improving skills. Conclusion: Businesses will undoubtedly have to deal with the pandemic effects for a long time to come. However, organizations have to push ahead. The Pandemic led to several changes in consumer buying patterns which marketers cannot ignore at any cost. The changes in consumption techniques encouraged marketers to think ahead and think creatively. Even though companies cut down the cost of marketing immensely due to COVID-19, the role of marketing has thoroughly increased during the Pandemic. However, there is still quite a lot of room for growth and innovation. These alterations in marketing strategies are likely to continue and grow post-COVID. Read Also: Key Components for Your Marketing Stack How To Foolproof Your Digital Marketing Strategy? Why Email Marketing is the BEST Digital Marketing Outreach in Singapore

8 Key SEO Strategies for E-Commerce Websites

1. Provide unique and impressive product descriptions :

2. Ensure easy navigation of your website :

3. Optimize the loading time of your website :

4. Go for internal linking of your pages :

5. Make sure that your site is optimized for mobile :

6. Assure user security on your website :

7. Include social media sharing buttons on your product pages :

8. Check your website and pages for errors :

5 Importance of proofreading your website content

Why Every Business Needs Digital Marketing

Content Rally

Content Rally wrapped around an online publication where you can publish your own intellectuals. It is a publishing platform designed to make great stories by content creators. This is your era, your place to be online. So come forward share your views, thoughts and ideas via Content Rally.

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How to use IT to Save Your Business Money

Should You Consider Outsourcing Your Brand’s Marketing Campaign?

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8 Key SEO Strategies for E-Commerce Websites

1. Provide unique and impressive product descriptions :

2. Ensure easy navigation of your website :

3. Optimize the loading time of your website :

4. Go for internal linking of your pages :

5. Make sure that your site is optimized for mobile :

6. Assure user security on your website :

7. Include social media sharing buttons on your product pages :

8. Check your website and pages for errors :

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5 Importance of proofreading your website content

Why Every Business Needs Digital Marketing

Content Rally wrapped around an online publication where you can publish your own intellectuals. It is a publishing platform designed to make great stories by content creators. This is your era, your place to be online. So come forward share your views, thoughts and ideas via Content Rally.

Leave a Reply

Popular

Follow Us

Recent

Related