While it is becoming more and more difficult to get good search engine rankings for an ecommerce website, the potential rewards are also getting higher. More and more people are turning to the internet to find products that meet their needs and a site that has a decent search engine ranking can be highly profitable. Following are three essential tips for e-commerce webmasters who want to give their site a boost.
1. Make the Site Attractive to Users
If your site is not attractive to potential buyers, then all the money you spend on site optimization and online advertising will have been in vain. Make sure your site loads quickly by removing unnecessary animations and graphics. Keep the shopping process simple and ensure that the site uses SSL security so that buyers will feel confident providing you with their financial information.
Allow space for buyers to leave their comments and reviews. Even negative comments can be helpful in that they may point out ways in which you can improve your products and services. Offer bonuses for regular customers and/or those who leave reviews and comments on the site.
2. Start a Blog
Google’s latest search engine updates cater to sites that have a lot of content while reducing the ranking of sites that simply sell stuff (i.e. e-commerce sites). If you want your e-commerce site to get good search engine rankings, then you need to start a blog and regularly update it with helpful, useful content. This content should naturally contain the keywords that you are trying to get high rankings for, but do not stuff the keywords into your articles or Google will label your site a spam site and demote it. Instead, write something that you would personally find helpful and useful; such content will go far and generate both traffic and sales. You can also use your blog as a platform to provide discount coupons and special deals.
3. Optimize the site for Mobile Users
Forbes recently noted that about 20% of all online shopping is done via a mobile phone and this percentage has been rising exponentially over the years. If your site is not optimized for mobile phone users, then you are missing a large group of potential customers. Either make sure your e-commerce site is very mobile phone friendly or create a new site that specifically caters to mobile phone shoppers. If you decide to create a new mobile phone friendly site, make it as similar to your regular site as possible and be sure that it is compatible with the most common smart phone brand names and models.
Optimizing an e-commerce site is even more challenging than optimizing a blog or content site. However, it can be done and the rewards are well worth it. If you are selling a worthwhile product at a good price, then you should not hesitate to do all that you can to promote this product online. It may take time to generate lots of traffic and get a steady stream of sales, but if you follow the tips outlined above you are sure to be successful in your endeavors.