Businesses, regardless of any niche, all follow the same path: the one that leads to their customers. Luckily, you can easily figure out where the consumers are, these days. They are all in one big web called the internet. It comes with no surprise, then, that companies are boosting their online presence to strengthen their e-commerce advantage.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the surefire ways to ensure that your target consumers notice your products as they surf online. Gaining a rank in the search engine results pages (SERPS), however, takes more than just one good SEO link-building campaign. This is because SEO works best when there are other optimization techniques to support it.
If you are looking for additional methods to employ, here are some more SEO strategies that you must implement to ensure that your e-commerce site succeeds this 2018:
1. Tap on User Intent.
Search engines help people find their way to the best source possible, for any online query. By way of keywords typed in the search bars, users convey to the search engines what exactly it is that they are looking for. This helps the search engine to figure out which among their network of pages and sites to offer to their users.
Your job then is to find out keywords that best match a buyer’s intent. In e-commerce SEO terms, these are called commercial keywords. Distinguished from information keywords, commercial keywords are product-focused. As the name implies, these keywords are often made up of descriptions or categories of items that can be purchased online. Google’s autocomplete and search suggestions, your competitor’s keyword usage, as well as keyword research tools, can all point you to the direction of what words express the most commercial intent.
2. Pass the Mobile-Friendliness Test.
Because a lot of browsing now takes place on mobile phones, search engines added mobile-first indexing to their ranking factors. Now, aside from passing the algorithm standards set by search engines, your e-commerce site also needs to get a stamp of approval from smartphone users. To do this, you have to make sure that your site’s product pages are compatible and can be browsed smoothly on the mobile version. Take time to optimize the loading speed of each page, especially the ones with product images. Finally, make sure the entire site itself is responsive on mobile, as this is one way that search engines gauge user experience (UX).
3. Get Social.
Never underestimate the power of one like or share. When it comes to SEO, each click on social media translates to a ranking signal that tells them you have what the users want. So, go ahead and create accounts on various social media platforms. Fill them with content such as professionally-taken photos of your products. Create engaging posts that will garner thousands of organic followers. And regularly update your social media accounts to keep your business relevant. All these social media activities will ultimately attract search engine bots and tell them that your e-commerce business deserves a spot among the upper ranks.