Can Playing by SEO Rules help you Win the eCommerce Game? Yes!
Your online retail store may have become successful by
breaking all the rules, but when it comes to
SEO, following the rules is the only way to go. Google, the 800-lb gorilla
in the search engine marketplace, rewards websites that adhere to the search
engine rules they’ve set, and quickly penalizes any rule breaking. That’s a
gorilla you don’t want to mess with.
The funny thing is, sticking to SEO rules
makes your ecommerce content much more successful with customers, the real
success in the marketplace.
Customers Love Dynamic Content
Quality content based on thorough research
attracts customers who crave information about subjects they’re searching.
Whether it’s detailed product
descriptions to aid a buying decision, how-to articles that explain product
use, or buying
guides that help customers narrow down choices, useful information lends
authenticity and authority to your ecommerce site. What’s more, smart content
that engages customers is more likely to result in repeated sales and happy
consumers who contribute reviews and positive feedback, further enhancing your
site.
Good Navigation Leads to Sales
Smart site architecture with strong ease of
use in navigation and the buying process ensures customers can not only find
what they want but complete their purchase transactions with no delay.
Headlines and subheads that include relevant keywords and metadata
help customers hone in on their target products. Search engines can also easily
crawl sites built with structured data that enhances listings. Quality links
lead to trusted, well-respected web sites and point at pages that contain
appropriate keywords. Site taxonomy also
plays a part. Product categories and the organization of information helps
customers find precisely what they are looking for.
Build Trust with Unique Content
Even if your site doesn’t have a long
history on the web, you can build trust through transparency and unique content
like high resolution
images and product
videos. Search engines down rank duplicate content, but more importantly,
customers quickly recognize stale and common content that fails to inspire or
answer their questions. The cost of generating unique content is small compared
to the great gains that accrue to a website where custom content addresses
customer needs in words that speak directly to them. Often, this means taking
the thin product information supplied by manufacturers
or vendors and beefing it up with additional research and some top quality
copywriting. Syndicated copy that is duplicated on other vendor sites, or
content that comes from a data warehouse is not only limited in how it presents
your products but Google’s search engine algorithms penalize copy it finds
elsewhere.
An investment in quality content pays off
almost immediately in increased sales and returning customers. Customers come
back because they know they can trust what they read on your site.
Create Lasting Customer Relationships
The social aspects of your site should not
be overlooked, either. Once you’ve engaged customers, gained their trust, and established
your site as their best source for products they want, further that
relationship with sharing buttons, comment and review sections, and customer
testimonials. Sometimes a customer who is not quite convinced your product is
their best choice can be swayed by reading another customer’s positive
experience with your company and your products. The more your site is shared,
the stronger the SEO results, too. Link your site and sales campaigns through
social media tools to be listed as favourites or cited in social networks. The
greater your connections across the web, the more authority your site will
hold, resulting in higher search engine rankings. It makes the gorilla happy,
too.
For easy reference and a good reminder,
this Periodic Table of SEO Success
Factors will help you ensure you’re playing by all the SEO rules.
