The first in our new series of quick guides on the ins and outs of digital marketing in eCommerce, and what it means for your business.

Shopping online starts on a search bar 

It’s almost second nature to type anything you want to buy into a search engine, but when you’re sharing the results page with millions of other websites, shoppers may not even see you, never mind click through. This is where having a robust SEO strategy can hugely increase your chances of shoppers discovering your site. Creating content and websites that are developed around SEO principles, which are always shifting, will rank you higher in the search results page, drive much more traffic, and ultimately increase sales. This guide will give you everything you need to know to move your site closer to being an SEO masterpiece, but before we get started, let’s learn some essential terms for SEO…

SEO - Stands for search engine optimisation and is a catch-all for content, SEO strategy, PR and technical SEO. It’s about making sure your website fares better in search results pages, making it more discoverable for shoppers. 

Search Engine Results Page or SERP - This one is fairly obvious (when it’s not an acronym), it’s the page that displays all the results from a user’s search engine query. 

Web Crawler (such as ‘Googlebot’) - These are robots that search engines send out to find new pages and record their information. These ‘bots’  crawl web pages, extracting relevant information for indexing. 

Index - Once search bots have discovered, crawled, and fully rendered a page page, the content and signals of the page are then evaluated for relevancy and eligibility for indexing.

Ranking - Once indexed, pages may be returned within search engine results pages. For any given search query, search engines will assess the query against pages within its index, aiming to return the highest quality and most relevant pages in relation to a user’s search query.

On-page optimisation - This is the process of optimising a web page to improve its search engine ranking through headers, titles or product descriptions. 

Off-page optimisation - These are certain strategies you can take off your site to improve its reputation, including; link building, content marketing and social media. 

Technical SEO - Technical SEO focuses on ensuring that a website has a competent technical foundation in place, helping search engines to discover its pages, and understand & index its content. Technical SEO also lends itself to user experience, optimising elements such as site speed and mobile usability.

Meta description - An element of HTML which gives a brief, but informative, description of a page, appearing below a title in a SERP. 

Keyword -  A word or phrase that helps search engines work out what a page is about. 

Backlink - A link from another website that takes them to your site, or a link you feature on your site that takes people elsewhere, but builds authority online. 

Site speed - Relates to performance of an overall website, while page speed refers to a single page. It's how quickly your page loads, improving user experience, conversion rate and rankings. 

How SEO works for eCommerce businesses: a step-by-step breakdown

Here’s a step-by-step guide to the best techniques for enhancing your SEO. The results can take months, even years, to get to full fruition, but there’s nothing stopping you from implementing some of these actions straight away.  

1. Kick off with keyword research

The best SEO-optimised sites are thoroughly researched when it comes to keywords. These are potential terms that shoppers are typing into search engines to search for products. You need to identify, target, and contextualise the most relevant keywords for your business and for your customers. 

Your first steps for keyword research:

• Use tools: keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, or SEMrush make it easier to determine relevant keywords with high search volume and low competition.

• Focus on long-tail keywords: Long-tail keywords like “best bike for cycling in a city” are far less competitive and more likely to convert because they target specific searches. 

• See your competitors as inspiration: look at the keywords your competitors are ranking for and look for the opportunities where your business can take the lead.

2. Optimise your On-Page advantage

Now, it’s time to think about what you can do to your website pages to get them up to scratch with SEO. A skilled SEO copywriter or digital marketing specialist can help you enhance your web pages to raise up the rankings, with less paid media spend. Get to know our SEO services here. 

The essential elements of On-Page SEO:

• Title tags: ensure to include primary keywords in the title of each page, keeping it concise and engaging. The title should be no longer than 60 characters to avoid being cut off in search results.

• Meta descriptions: write an engaging description that summarises the page’s content in 160 characters or less, complete with a call to action. This will sit on the results page, so keep it below the character count and it won’t get cut off. 

• Headers (H1, H2, H3): Use headers to structure your content, delivering those all-important keywords naturally into the copy. The H1 tag should include the primary keyword, while subheadings (H2, H3) should feature your secondary keywords.

• Product descriptions: Write detailed product descriptions that highlight the product's features, benefits, and keywords within your brand’s tone. Any duplicated content will reduce your rankings so keep it unique.

• Image alt text: Add descriptive alt text to images using relevant keywords. This helps search engines understand the image in addition to improving your site’s accessibility, another factor search engine’s take into consideration when determining your place in the rankings. 

• URL structure: Keep URLs short and descriptive. Include keywords and avoid unnecessary numbers or symbols for the benefit of both bots and humans. 

3. Transform your odds with technical SEO

A solid technical foundation is the cornerstone of organic search success. To maximise the reach of your website, search engines must be able to efficiently  discover, crawl & index your website’s pages. The greatest content in the world cannot fulfil its full potential if the content cannot be found, or properly parsed by search engines.

We have our own team of dedicated experts in technical SEO, but before you dive into a full website audit, here’s a bit more about what they do on your site. 

Core areas of technical SEO:

Page experience / core web vitals - A positive page experience is crucial to keeping your website’s users happy, and in turn, Google’s core algorithm seeks to reward pages which offer a good experience. Each aspect of page experience is investigated by our team, including:

• Page security

• Core web vitals

• Mobile-usability

• Intrusive interstitials

• Website crawl - A deep crawl of a website allows us to uncover technical deficiencies and opportunities for optimisation. A website crawl will lead to analysis of a whole swathe of on-page signals and technical insights; including broken links, duplicate content, image optimisation, and so much more.

• Accurate, frequently updated XML sitemaps - Key to helping search engines discover your website’s most important pages, and help to ensure your website’s content is indexed in an efficient manner. Our team will review your website's XML Sitemap files to ensure proper configuration, and to ensure all URLs referenced within are both accessible & indexable.

• Website structure - A review of the structure of the website, to identify issues pertaining to page duplication, page bloat, URL structure weaknesses. A logically-defined website structure and clear navigation will aid both users and search robots in finding their way around your website.
  
  
• Schema structured data - Structured data further helps search engines to parse your website’s key content, by classifying data into recognised structured data types (such as ‘recipe’, ‘product’ and ‘localbusiness’), ultimately encouraging the contents display within rich snippets within search engine results pages.

4. Content is your kingmaker 

Relevant, well-written content is a rewarding way to engage customers, and a welcomed side-effect is even more opportunities to rank for your keywords. Don’t cram them in though, you can’t cheat the system, but you can deliver content that answers questions your customers are searching for. Here are some of the types of content that do well on search engines that you can start writing today. 

Types of content to create:

• Blog posts: Write articles that address customer pain points, product comparisons, or how-to guides for every stage of your customer’s journey. 

• Buying guides: Create in-depth buying guides that help make a purchasing decision. This is an excellent chance to bring in your long-tail keywords in addition to building a relationship of trust with your potential customers. 

• Product reviews and testimonials: Try and encourage your customers to leave a review. It’s nice to hear nice things about your business, but even nicer is the fresh content added to your site each time, something those search engine bots are looking for when they’re indexing your site. 

• Videos: Product demos, explainer videos, or moving brand content can increase engagement and dwell time on your site, which is always good for your SEO. 

5. Build authority with link building

High-quality backlinks are the backbone to SEO success. They are links that take customers across the internet, page to page. An effective, relevant set of backlinks introduced into your site will only improve your authority online, and as a consequence you will also rank higher. 

How to do link building:

• Partner up: Reach out to industry influencers, editorial or online communities to review your products or feature them in their content. Through social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook it’s never been easier for brands to find their niche. 

• Guest posting: Write guest posts for reputable websites in your industry, such as a trade magazine or comparison site, but make sure to include a link back to your own site.

• Broken link building: seek out broken links on relevant websites and offer your own content as a replacement.

• PR and news features: Getting your store featured in industry news or PR releases can provide high-authority backlinks that will massively boost your SEO prospects.

6. Delight shoppers to deliver conversions

Once shoppers discover you, make their dwell time a delight for more conversions. User Experience (UX) and conversion rate optimisation specialists can effectively streamline how customers shop with you, reducing bounce rates, fixing bugs, and improving the checkout process. You can find out more about our CRO services here, who work hand-in-hand with our SEO team for the best results.  

UX elements that enhance SEO: 

• Easy navigation: Site visitors should easily be able to navigate through categories and find products. A simple menu, breadcrumb navigation, and search bar improve usability.

• Product pages: Include high-quality product images, detailed descriptions, and customer reviews. Make the "Add to Cart" and "Checkout" buttons stand out on the page. 

• Fast and secure checkout: Make buying the easiest part by offering multiple payment options and a smooth experience at the virtual till. 

• Internal linking: Use internal links to guide users to related products or related blog posts. This is good for navigation, but also distributes equity across your site which helps build and maintain your SEO authority. 

7. Embrace your locality

Who doesn’t love supporting local businesses? If you’ve got a bricks and mortar store one way to really help your SEO is to make sure you’re appearing in local searches. This can help drive people to your store in real life, but also makes you look legitimate to customers shopping online, especially those shopping in the same country. 

How to improve your local SEO:

• Google My Business (GMB): Create and optimise your Google My Business profile with accurate business information, photos, and reviews.

• Local keywords: Use local keywords in your content, such as “best eCommerce agency in the north east”

• NAP consistency: It’s absolutely vital to make sure your name, address, and phone number (NAP) are consistent across all online platforms (website, social media, directories).

8. Measure and track your search performance

The rules of SEO are always changing. This means you have to regularly monitor your SEO efforts to ensure they are delivering results. These are some tools you can use to track your website’s performance:

• Google Analytics: Track organic traffic, conversion rates, and user behaviour.

• Google Search Console: Monitor site performance in search results, fix indexing issues, and analyse keyword rankings.

• SEO Tools: Use Ahrefs, Moz, or SEMrush to track keyword rankings, backlinks, and your competitors.

Ready to get started? 

SEO is a long game, but when it’s done right, nurtured, and properly considered, the results can be astounding. A fully thought out SEO strategy that ripples through all your touchpoints can significantly increase your visibility, and that means more sales. However, it’s not an easy task when you’re focusing on growing your business, or providing the best quality products to your existing customers. That’s where Visualsoft can help, as mentioned above, we have ample expertise in every aspect of selling online SEO touches, and we will walk you through every step to getting you top of the search results page. 

Kickstart your website’s SEO transformation by speaking to the team today.