If you've been in the ecommerce space for a while, you've probably heard a thing or two about the importance of SEO. There is also a big chance you avoided it altogether, seeing how technical it can get. Fret no more! Here we will demystify it and give you all the SEO basics for beginners.
SEO can be a gamechanger for any ecommerce business, including any site or platform you use to sell print-on-demand products from Fuel. But what does SEO mean? Why is it important, and how do we apply it? We are here to answer all of your questions 😎
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s all the processes you can do to make your site rank higher on search results, leading to increase organic traffic to your website.
Let's say you are looking for a "Father's day mug" to surprise your dad. If you type those words into any search engine, you'll get thousands of results in less than a second. The first results you see that are not ads are from the companies that have done a fantastic SEO job.
Keep reading, and you'll be ready to create a successful ecommerce SEO strategy in no time.
There are many terms thrown around that make SEO hard to understand. Here are the main ones you need to know:
- Informational - “What is COVID-19?”
- Navigational - "Amazon"
- Transactional - “Buy personalized t-shirts”
- Commercial investigation - “Best print-on-demand app”
Now that you are familiar with the vocabulary, it will be easier to understand how having an SEO strategy can impact your ecommerce business.
Search engines use bots or crawlers that analyze content from all the websites available online. Once they have the necessary data, they return and add it to their search index to provide the best results to whatever people search.
If you are looking for something on Google, you'll probably find what you are looking for within the first search results. People are more likely to click on the first results than on the 10th-page result, for sure! Users rarely venture into the second SERP.
With an SEO strategy, you can make your website rank higher within search results, making it easier for prospective customers to find you. Once you have increased your visibility with the appropriate keywords, more qualified traffic will enter your site and choose you over competitors. Increasing your chances of selling products and ultimately your profits!
Search engines work with many factors to determine how to rank your website. And there are three main types of SEO that can help you improve your chances of ranking high:
In this beginner's guide to SEO, we will focus mainly on giving you the best SEO tips for the type you can control on most ecommerce platforms, on-page SEO.
An effective ecommerce SEO strategy includes all the planning and steps to implement to improve your search engine rankings. And they all should start with a thorough keyword research.
Here we suggest you step into your potential customers' shoes for a minute and consider which keywords they could use to look for your products. You need to identify all the names and ways users can use to describe your product. Targeting the right keywords is crucial for the whole strategy to work. A good place to start is by using Google suggest to look for keywords you can use.
For an ecommerce business, you should consider product-focused & transactional keywords with a medium to high search volume.
💡 Fuel tip: Since your priority is to lead people to purchase, use transactional keywords for higher conversion rates. These use terms such as "buy" or "for sale" and words that describe the product in a more specific way, for example: "black t-shirt for stepfather size XL."
Free SEO tools
Luckily, many tools can help us get insights to make an effective keyword research. Certain tools let you know their search volume, and here we list our favorite ones that come for free.
Now that you know which keywords to use, it's time to implement them in your homepage, product categories, and details.
Make sure this content matches what searchers are looking for, is unique and encourages your potential customers to click on your website. Learn more about how to use the right keywords to increase your store traffic here.
Product titles and product details are where the most important content is for people with online stores. You can add more relevant keywords in this part. Just remember that you shouldn't oversaturate any page with keywords.
The text should be read as sentences and follow a logical structure. Otherwise, you could be penalized by Google.
While most systems automatically create a URL when a new page or post is created, you can edit the permalink portion of the text to optimize it for search engines and users. The link text for a menu item should be descriptive and match the title for the page that it links to.
When bots index your content, they cannot know what's in an image, but they can read the image names and alt tags, so use this space to add relevant keywords. Keep in mind that the alt-text tags should provide better image context/descriptions since their purpose is to describe images to those who cannot see them.
There are four main places that you can add keywords to improve SEO for your online store:
Learn more about how to improve SEO on your Shopify store here.
Since we know our most successful sellers use several platforms to promote their products, we also have great marketing and SEO tips for Amazon and eBay to take your business to the next level.
Whether you've read this guide only about SEO or are more well-versed in it, we hope you learned a bit more and gained some insightful tips you can apply in your SEO strategy.
Are you ready to become an SEO success story? Which other SEO tips do you use? Tell us by filling the form below.
