Have you opened your own online store, but you don’t have enough traffic? The main objective towards which most businesses are oriented is to occupy the first positions in search engines.
If you haven’t optimized your website from an SEO point of view, achieving this organically can be almost impossible. Therefore, you will only depend on paid methods of promotion, such as Google Ads, Facebook Ads or other platforms.
Before starting the SEO optimization verification steps, you need to understand some concepts in the field of search engine optimization! Optimizations can be viewed from two perspectives: on-page and off-page.
On-page optimization refers to those aspects that depend only on you and that can only be controlled from the website. On the opposite pole, off-page optimization refers to external factors, which you cannot fully control.
SEO elements that require your attention
Website architecture
This aspect can be the main key when it comes to indexing your online store on Google. What does this architecture entail? It refers to the efficient organization of information (pages) in the website. I recommend simple structures, such as the following: homepage -> categories, categories-> products. Pay attention to the way the links are structured! You want intuitive and personalized links! Another aspect that requires your attention is what exactly the links contain. Include a keyword in each page address.
Time to integrate a blog!
You’re probably wondering what the reasons are for including a blog on your website. Besides being an easy way to bring in traffic, blogging will connect you with people interested in your specific business. From an SEO point of view, search engines love quality and useful content, so they will reward you with a higher position in the results ranking.
Create quality content!
As I said above, engines love quality content, formulated in an easy-to-understand form that provides useful information. As for linking to search engines, let me put it in the simplest possible way: SEO + quality content = love at first sight. Without this type of content, you won’t be able to gain a good position in the search engine rankings!
When crafting your articles, pay attention to the following: include keywords relevant to your business, provide an easy-to-read format, discuss topics relevant to your business, and include links to trusted and reputable sources in the field. In addition to the main part, don’t forget elements such as: meta title, meta description and URL optimization.
Use different media elements!
Keep in mind that Google loves video elements! According to a study conducted by a digital marketing company, 90% of users confirm that a video influenced their decision to buy. Through videos, you can present your products or services in an interactive way.
Check the broken links!
It is common for online stores to regularly remove old products or products that do not provide sales efficiency. But what can happen if you only remove products and related pages? You will create 404 pages and therefore confuse the search engines as they will try to index pages that no longer exist. To resolve such conflicts, redirect this type of pages to other products or categories on the website.
Focus on user experience!
User experience, a factor that has become more and more important for search engines! This term also includes other elements, such as: the time spent on the page, the number of pages visited, the rejection rate, the CTR. Obviously, Google ranks a website in the top for nothing, if that website does not offer users a pleasant experience, on the contrary.
How is the competition?
If you want to be one step ahead of the competition, you must know or intuit their strategy. Check elements such as the PA or DA of competing websites. If they are much higher than your page’s, it means that using the same keywords may be an obstacle for you. In this case, I recommend that you analyze other keywords for your business.
Internal links
This type of links helps the crawlers to intuit the architecture and hierarchy of the most important pages in your website. By using various links in your content, you can improve your search engine rankings for different terms. But be careful, don’t put too many links in the content, because Google might find these actions suspicious.
Social media integration
According to some recent studies, a strong presence on social networks can help the website to a higher position in the ranking of search engines. In addition to the fact that you will gain credibility for potential customers, you will also increase the number of visitors, as well as the number of links referring to your brand.
Optimization on mobile devices
Did you know that over 70% of total Internet traffic comes from mobile devices? At this point, you need to check if the website theme is adaptable for such devices. If your online store is not optimized for phones, it can lead to a bad user experience, so there is a high possibility that you will be penalized by Google.
Page loading speed
Did you know that more than half of users will leave a web page if it doesn’t load in the first three seconds? Surprising, right? If a page has a hard time loading, most users will leave it. You will be able to observe this aspect by raising the bounce rate percentage. To improve the loading time, I recommend you to minimize the codes, take care of the caching of the pages, as well as the optimization of the images.
Conclusion
As the search engine algorithm evolves, SEO ranking is increasingly based on the experience a user has while browsing. Optimizing your online store for organic traffic is an ongoing effort. You have to adapt to both market changes and those related to search engine algorithms. Make it a habit to constantly research keywords and optimize your digital marketing strategy.
