How To Get Sales From Your Ecommerce Website with SEO

You’ve invested in a website only for people not to see it…

What’s the point in investing in your website if you don’t focus on getting people there? It’s like driving a car with no wheels, you won’t get anywhere.

Being seen online is tough, but it’s not impossible. There are ways that you can increase your presence and … give your sales the much needed boost.

But how, you might ask? Well, we’ve got the secrets you need to boost your Ecommerce website through SEO.

What is SEO in Ecommerce?

Before you even start to think about growing, you need to go back to basics.

You’re probably experiencing one of two problems:

1. You have low numbers on your Google Analytics charts for traffic going to your website
2. You have lots of people coming to your website, but you’re not seeing any spikes in your sales graphs, not even an email!

So, let’s unpack this.

If you have low traffic (people) to your website, then you’ve most probably got little to no online presence and you are in need of SEO.

If you’re getting people to your website and they’re not converting, you’re likely ranking for the wrong search terms. This means the wrong people are visiting. Or, your website content (this could be your product pages/blog) might not be engaging for someone reading it.

These are both big problems.

But luckily, there are solutions to both.

The solution? You will need to review your SEO rankings and quality of content.

SEO and content will help you to get your website seen and by the right people.

On an Ecommerce website, there are two key strategies to focus on. 

The first is that product pages need to be optimised.

What we mean here is that you need to be crystal clear about what the product is.

Make sure you look at what the search intent for the product page should be. The person likely knows the product they need but doesn’t know your brand, so you will need to give them a good experience.

The second focus should be on the long tail keywords you’re targeting on your blog.

You need to pay attention to the difference in search intent here. The person likely has a problem and is looking for guidance and you can be the guidance that they need.

Success comes down to knowing what the user wants and creating content to match that. And alas! Your sales will increase.

Here’s the things you should think about doing.

Run an SEO audit

An audit is exactly what it says on the tin. It’s a deep dive into everything to do with your website and its SEO.

It’s the best place to start so you can see what is working, and what isn’t working.

You should look at which pages get the most traffic and which pages get the most sales. (You should also look at pages with the lowest traffic and conversions too).

Your website is pretty damn important in Ecommerce – after all, it’s your bread and butter. It’s your virtual shop floor. Any issues could have a huge impact on your sales and profits.

An SEO audit should analyse every part of your site, including all the product pages.

Some things to think about include:

• Do your pages have meta tags that are both relevant and optimised? (Meta tags are what describe the content of a web page to a search engine through your meta title and meta description)
• Are the pages and pieces of content fully optimised for your target keywords? (By this, we mean are you driving people to your site with the relevant search terms?)
• Do all the URLs work? And do they follow the search engine guidelines?
• Are all your images high quality and optimised with the correct ALT tags? (An alt tag is to describe an image to someone who can’t see it. It is also the text that appears if an image fails to load)
• Are you using links properly? Are you using internal links?

Once you’ve taken a look at where your gaps are, you can get to work.

Keyword research

Keyword research is the process of finding the search terms your potential customers are searching for.

When armed with the right keywords, you can create high quality, relevant content. This means you have a way better chance of showing up on the search results pages (SERPs).

Where to start

The best place to start is by looking at all the topics that are relevant to your Ecommerce business. Once you have the topics listed, look for long and short keywords that match the topic.

Hint: It’s always useful to look at the related terms on search engines. And, keep an eye on what your competitors are appearing for.

It’s worth checking out a keyword planner tool to pull all your keywords together. Start sorting by looking at those with the most search volume (these will be your easy wins!).

When you’ve got your relevant keywords that your customers are searching for

With your list of top keywords you will be targeting, you can start applying these to your pages.

Start by creating content topics off the back of the keywords. Then, see how you can work them into your product pages.

One thing we will say is, don’t forget long tail keywords. Most people actually search for phrases with over four words, so these could be the key to your success. The more niche the search term, the more likely you’ll rank. (Plus, your competitors probably aren’t there!)

For example, if you’re selling trainers, you could target the keyword ‘white trainers’. To target a search with more intent, think about the long tail keyword and target that. This could be, ‘white leather trainers with a rubber sole’.

Adding a few words makes the search much more specific. People searching for that are more likely to know what they want and therefore will convert.

The keywords you target will have a huge impact on your final sales.

Simplify the structure of your website

The way your website can be found is by being crawled. Bots (aka web crawlers) will index information on your website.

When someone searches, the search engine will reference the index and provide the most relevant result.

But if your site is complex, your pages won’t get indexed properly, and you won’t appear in top results.

The simpler the structure, the easier your site is to read. And the easier it is to read, the more likely you’ll rank for relevant search terms.

The best way to think of it is keeping your website neat and tidy.

SEO for Ecommerce product pages

Your product pages are arguably the most important pages on an Ecommerce website. After all, that’s where you are showcasing your products for people to buy.

Make sure they can be found. But more importantly, make sure they’re found for the right reasons.

You should be looking at each product page and optimising it for relevant keywords. This is both the high volume keywords and the long tail search terms.

Focus on the keywords that best describe your products. Then to get extra ‘juice’, have a search online for that and see what related terms come up. This is what people are searching for, so don’t ignore it.

Adding a focus keyword to your pages will make them relevant and findable.

Relevant + findable pages = more sessions and conversions (sales).

Make your website mobile friendly

Looking around, it’s no surprise to hear that most people now are searching on a mobile. Making your website a mobile-first website is key. If someone has a good experience, they are more likely to buy from you.

If your page won’t load properly on mobile, or it won’t scroll, it will be a bad user experience. A bad user experience means you’re less likely to sell anything, or get a repeat visit. Plus, Google (or other search engines) are less likely to prioritise your website on search results.

It needs to be able to be loaded quickly.

Use Google’s mobile friendly test to dive into the nitty gritty of this.

Use internal linking

Internal linking means linking from one page on your website to another. It’s as simple as that!

It makes your website easier to navigate for a user, but also for a search engine too.

It helps to shape your site’s architecture, spread link equity and move users to your site’s most important pages.

For example, let’s go back to the trainer website. You could create a blog post about fashion trends for the spring. The trends could be referencing different shoes you sell on your site. Each time you reference a pair of shoes, you should link to that product page. A user can then click on that link and buy.

This is known as sharing out ‘link juice’.

Good internal linking also shows search engine bots which parts of your website are important.

Optimise your images

When we say optimise, we mean two things here:

1. Make sure the images are high quality and really showing off the product
2. Make sure the images are optimised for SEO through ALT tags

What is an ALT tag you may be thinking? ALT text describes the appearance of an image on a page. This is your chance to use all the relevant keywords to describe what the image is of.

It’s also key to create clear ALT tagging to help people with visual impairments.

Good ALT tagging means people can find your product images via image searches, which is another way to drive people to your website.

Improve your site speed

Your site speed affects your Google SERP rankings.

If your site is slow, it will penalise you and you won’t appear in the search results. This means even if you’re targeting all the right keywords and optimising everything else, it’s not going to work.

Google measures sites using Core Web Vitals. They are Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) and First Input Delay (FID).

You’re probably thinking, what the hell do they mean?!

Fear not. We’ve got you covered:

• Largest contentful paint is the amount of time it takes to load the largest bit of content on a page. This is measured from when someone hits the site. Unsurprisingly, it tends to be an image or a video. This is why it’s so important to make sure you resize your media.
• First input delay is the time taken for someone to interact (e.g. clicking a button) to the time the browser responds.
• Cumulative layout shift measures how many times the layout shifts on the page. We all know there’s nothing more frustrating than when you’re scrolling and everything is moving about.

You need to make sure that you’re scoring well on these Core Web Vitals to provide a good user experience.

Use link building to increase authority

You’ve probably heard of backlinks. And you’ve probably heard people saying the more you have, the better.

Well, we’re here to tell you that they’re wrong.

A backlink is a link from an external site to yours. They are only good if it is a high quality link that is relevant.

If we go back to the trainer website. A good backlink would be a link from a highly-regarded fashion publication. This is relevant to the industry and will likely push through potential customers. A ‘bad’ backlink would be a random link from an irrelevant  spammy blog.

You should always aim to get backlinks from reputable sites. You can actively try to get backlinks, but if your SEO is good, you’re likely to get them without trying. This is known as passive link building.

The more high quality backlinks your site has, the higher you’re likely to rank. This is because you’re seen as a trusted source.

Showcase positive customer reviews

Everyone loves reviews! If you see someone has had a positive experience, then you’re more likely to buy. It’s basic human psychology.

On an Ecommerce website where your goal is to sell, it is vital to show your customer reviews. This could prove key in someone’s purchase decision.

Google (and Bing) also like to see good customer reviews. It lets them know that you’re reliable.

If you have an internal reviews system it’s a good idea to put these on each product page.

If you use an external review site (such as TrustPilot or Feefo), you can also showcase these across your site.

The more positive reviews you have, then the more likely you are to get some more. Win win!

Talking of positive customer reviews… here’s how we helped an ecommerce website boost their sales by 1,0050%!

It’s a ridiculous number, but we took them from a handful of rankings online to hundreds.

Cross-Stitch Interior increase their sales by 1,0050%.

How you might ask?

It was all through the power of having a content strategy for the website.

We undertook solid keyword research, wrote copy for product pages and blogs.

By focusing on these aspects of their website, we 

• Increased their rankings from a handful of keywords to 187 keywords worldwide on Google
• Managed to make Cross Stitch compete for the most competitive keywords in their industry, the monthly search volume of their keywords were between 350 – 1,200… that translates to 350 – 1,200 people searching for those keywords

Feeling inspired? Find out more.

SEO checklist for your Ecommerce website

• Be clear on what your goals are
• Run an SEO audit
• Put together a content plan – website content, product page copy and blog content
• Do keyword research
• Simplify the structure of your website
• Make your product pages relevant
• Create a mobile-friendly experience
• Use internal linking
• Optimise your images
• Improve your site speed
• Use link building to increase authority
• Showcase your customer reviews
• Write content that’s interesting to your customers!

So, does SEO work for an ecommerce website?

Ab-so-lutely.

If you’re looking at that checkilst above and you’re like, “there’s no way I’m getting all of that done any time soon!” then let us help you.

Scroll down and drop us a message!