7 important SEO tips for E-commerce websites

If you want to sell products or services online, the position of your website in Google is of big importance. After all, your goal is to beat the competitors and to be easily found by potential clients. Regardless if your website has an innovative design or that you sell products for the best possible price, it will not matter if your business is hardly findable online.

Research conducted by online advertising network Chitika shows that websites which have the first position in Google have a Click-Through Rate (CTR) of 33 percent. Second position websites have a CTR of 18 percent and after that position the visitors’ interest decreases quickly. To make sure that you do not lose valuable website traffic, I collected seven extremely important tips that will help get your website a better position in Google through SEO.

TIP #1 Research the most effective keywords

As with all the projects, it is important to start with the preparations. That is why you should first research which keywords will help to increase traffic to your website. The most effective way to do this, is with the free Google Keyword Planner.

To achieve the maximum conversion rate it is recommended to use ‘long-tail’ keywords that are not too generic. This will make it easier for you to enter the competition. Also pay extra attention to words with a high search rate that are related to your website. The rule of thumb is that it is important to take the relevance, search volume and the level of difficulty for high ranking into account when looking for a keyword. Thus, make sure that a keyword is not too broad and too competitive at the same time.

TIP #2 Add keywords strategically

Adding keywords to your website will provide a huge boost to your findability in Google. When using hyperlinks, make sure that you use this keyword combination instead of ‘click here’ or ‘read more’.

In addition, it is essential that you do not use the same keyword combination on each page. If you do so this can lead to cannibalisation of your keyword because it has been used on multiple pages. In that case Google will get disorientated and it will treat your pages as duplicates. Consequence of that is that your website gets a weaker position in the Google results. To avoid this, you could create a spreadsheet in Excel to list all keywords used. This way you ensure that you will not use duplicate words.

TIP #3 Write a catchy product description

If you are planning to simply use the product description provided by a manufacturer, then be aware that you will not get a good result and you will most likely be banned by all search engines. Google is becoming more and more advanced in finding duplicate texts and their original source. That is why you should try to avoid spam-like content and should create high quality E-commerce SEO texts. Remember that it is essential to create unique and catchy product descriptions.

TIP #4 Make good use of images

People are visually oriented by nature. That is the reason why they want to see the product they will be spending money on. E-commerce websites will benefit enormously when using high quality images that persuade customers to making a purchase. In addition, it is important that all your images are optimized to improve your Google position.
The spiders of search machines do not have the same brains as we have. In order to make the images recognizable for these search engines you should use an alt attribute. Make sure that any tag concerning an image is unique and that it correlates with the alt attribute of the image. Another important element is the size of a picture. Try to keep the size as small as possible without losing the quality so your page loads fast.

TIP #5 Keep good URL structure

Never underestimate the importance of a good URL structure for E-commerce websites with a large amount of products and descriptions. When your website is well structured, Google will find it easier to index it. Take into account that all your URLs should be unique. Furthermore good URLs should include the name of a product and it should indicate the keyword.

Another advantage of a good URL structure is the overview of the users’ satisfaction. When your customer has had an enjoyable and pleasant experience when using your website, the conversion is higher and at the same time you sell more. Which in turn will boost your website’s ranking.

TIP #6 Observe website visits

It is not a secret that everybody wants to get as many visitors to their websites as possible. Make sure that you always know the actual figures. To keep an overview and to evaluate your SEO marketing, use for instance a tool like Google Analytics.
You should not only analyze the search traffic but also identify how many visitors convert into a paying customer. If you know what is the source of your revenue, you will be able to tell what is yet to improve on your website. find their way to your website by organic search results. If you can find out where your revenue comes from, you can better tell what is not yet optimal on your website. This gives you an opportunity to customize your E-commerce SEO strategy and to generate more paying customers.

TIP #7 Ask for honest reviews

Around 80 percent of the online shoppers first reads online reviews before making a purchase. To boost the conversion rate of your website it is crucial to show customer reviews. To generate unique customer reviews you should encourage customers to write reviews. You can stimulate them to do so, by offering them a discount on their next purchase.
Honest customer reviews also have a positive impact on search engines. New customer reviews create new content for your website and ensures that your website remains active. This makes it easier to reach the top of the Google search results.

Apply my tips and experience a great difference. Using these tips will make your E-commerce SEO undergo an immense improvement.