Ecommerce SEO Tips Make Your E-Commerce Website SEO Friendly
By Nicholas Hurd
With so many e-commerce websites doing the rounds on Internet, it can be a real challenge to ensure high visibility for your e-commerce website on a search engine. That’s why it’s imperative that you provide ecommerce SEO for your site. The situation is doubly important, if you have set up an e-commerce website without quitting your 9-5 job. But the feat is not impossible.
Search engines, like Google and Bing, are popular tools for finding goods and services online among the countless available options. So it pays to make your e-commerce website more SEO friendly. Here are some tips to help you increase the visibility of your e-commerce website.
Content and Product Page Optimization
Content has an important role in creating a more user-friendly website. Some people have gone as far as to say that SEO is all about content marketing. Ever since Google released its Panda update in 2011, Google has been gradually shifting towards high quality websites. The company has actually released a guide on how to improve the quality of a website. Some noteworthy points for SEO optimization are: Ensure that you mention product prices clearly. Make judicious use of keywords (long tail keywords are better than shorter keywords). Consider informing the customer about related products on a product page.
Choosing Domain Names
When you are selecting a domain name, don’t go for a domain name that looks like a keyword. A branded domain name is much better. There was a time when keywords in domain names used to aid search engine rankings, but not anymore. Google’s EMD update (Exact Match Domain- September 2012) has ensured that keywords in the domain name even if they match a search term, won’t compensate for poor quality content. A domain name should be such that it makes it easy for the customer to find you on the internet. Ensure your domain hosting doesn’t expire soon. With e-commerce websites, it is better to go for long term hosting.
Design Your Ecommerce SEO for Regional Appeal
Website designs and navigation play an important role in customer satisfaction. Why do you think a company may have different websites for different markets? Look at McDonald’s website for the UK market and compare it to McDonald’s website for the US market. They are very different. Basically, a website should cater to local sensibilities and culture. Note that it is easier to include these designs at the onset (when you are just designing the website) than making changes to an already existing website.
Use SiteMap.xml
SiteMap.xml makes it easy for search engines to find your website. SiteMap.xml is a list of the pages on your website. There are actually two kinds of SiteMaps- SiteMap.xml and SiteMap.html. SiteMap.xml is used by search engines while SiteMap.html is used by visitors of your website. If you have SiteMap.xml, it becomes easy for search engines to crawl and index your website. It also helps you when you are adding new pages.
Improve Your Description Meta Tags and Heading Tags
When you perform a Google search the next time, notice the text under the search results. That is the description meta tag. E-commerce websites can use description meta tags to give valuable information. A description meta tag gives an indication of what a web page is about. Since search engines also index the description meta tag, they too become important for SEO. Heading tags are also important because they give structure to the content on a web page. It goes without saying that it is important to write creative and pleasant-to-read description meta tags and heading tags.
Optimizing Your Ecommerce SEO is Worth Your Time
You don’t need a lot of time to implement these tips, which means that they will go well with your regular 9-5 job. Note that SEO is just one thing you can do to improve the visibility of your website. Don’t forget to read up on Google’s latest algorithm changes for further optimization.
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