How can SEO drive your e-commerce business?

Search Engine Optimization: Why are these three words so important to your e-commerce business?

Not optimizing your site content and product descriptions for search engines such as Google, is a bit like not bothering with a sign or a window display for a physical store. There’s no point in selling your products online if no one can find them. Let’s look at three components of SEO that can help drive potential buyers to your e-commerce store:

Keywords are essential in matching your product with a buyer. The more specific the keyword, the higher the chance your product will appear early in search results. Consider using long-tail keywords.

Long-tail keywords are more specific and less common than their one or two word counterparts. They focus on the uniqueness of your product. For example, if you sell dog food, simply using dog food as your keywords is not enough to make you stand out in a crowd. You’ll be one of about 213,000,000 sites using the words dog food. Think about what makes your dog food different.

You may come up with natural, organic, grain free dog food. Using this longer string of text in more places means that if someone is searching for natural, organic, grain free dog food, your store is more likely to be included in the results.

Another benefit of long-tail keywords is that, even if those specific words are used less in a normal search, people searching for natural, organic, grain free dog food and finding your site, are more likely to buy. The longer and more specific the search terms are, the higher the chances of conversion from browser to buyer.

Content is crucial. The content on your e-commerce site needs to be fresh and, above all, unique. Search engines are wary of duplicate content. For example, you could simply copy and paste the manufacturers’ description for your product. But, apart from the fact those descriptions tend to be overly technical or boring, it’s duplicate content and won’t help your search rankings.

Rewrite the product description to make it more appealing to the potential buyer. This is where defining your buyer persona can help. If you know who’s likely to buy from your e-commerce store, you can write a product description almost tailor made to appeal to them.

Finally, make sure your site is mobile-friendly. While research has shown that not everyone is comfortable making a purchase on their smart phone or tablet, a large percentage of shoppers will at least search for goods and services while on the move. And, beginning in April 2015, Google started to penalize sites that are not mobile friendly, allowing all those mobile window shoppers to possibly land on a competitor’s site.

There are other important components to SEO, but getting started with these three will see your e-commerce business off and running at a good speed.