What is SEO and Why Does It Matter for Your E-commerce Business?
SEO, or search engine optimization, is a critical part of any successful eCommerce business. It involves optimizing your website and content to appear higher in search engine results and drive more organic traffic to your site. SEO is an ongoing process that requires careful planning, research, and implementation. Investing in SEO can help you reach more potential customers, boost sales, and stay ahead of the competition.
Comparison of the Most SEO-Friendly E-commerce Platforms
With the growing importance of search engine optimization (SEO), choosing the right eCommerce platform for your business has become more important than ever. Fortunately, there are a variety of platforms available that offer SEO-friendly features designed to improve your website’s visibility and ranking in search engines. In this article, we’ll compare some of the top eCommerce platforms on the market and break down their individual SEO features so you can make an informed decision when selecting one for your business.
- Shopify
Shopify is one of the most popular eCommerce platforms on the market. Users can build their online stores without having to worry about infrastructure, hosting, or any other backend technical requirements. Shopify supports a wide variety of payment gateways, and they also offer an extensive API that allows developers to create apps for merchants using Shopify. The platform’s user-friendly interface and straightforward dashboard make it easy for businesses to start selling online quickly and easily. In terms of SEO features, Shopify offers intelligent product recommendations that help consumers find what they’re looking for in the right category. This makes it easy for shoppers to find the products they need in a single store and purchase them with the convenience of one checkout process. More than 2 million people use Shopify each and every month, making it one of the most popular eCommerce platforms today. Shopify is ideal for small businesses that don’t want to manage their own website or technology infrastructure but still want to start selling online quickly and easily.
- Bigcommerce
Bigcommerce is a cloud-based eCommerce platform that provides the tools necessary for business owners to sell their products online easily. The platform is compatible with over 100 payment gateways and also offers an extensive API that allows developers to create apps for merchants using BigCommerce. By providing a user-friendly interface, intuitive dashboard, and intelligent product recommendations, BigCommerce makes it easy for shoppers to find what they’re looking for in one store and purchase the products with the convenience of one checkout process. More than 1 million people use BigCommerce each month. Because this platform is not directly accessible from BigCommerce, it is important to ensure that the platform itself is secure and safe.
- WooCommerce
WooCommerce is an eCommerce platform that was built from the ground up in PHP and is available on WordPress. This platform offers a variety of features to help users sell products online, including product tagging, inventory management, and shipping options. With its wide range of integrations and support for custom workflows, WooCommerce has helped businesses with everything from simple one-page websites to complex eCommerce systems. More than 10 million people use WooCommerce each month. Although it’s important for the system itself to be secure and safe, it’s even more important that the third-party plugins (custom workflows) used by the platform are safe.
Using Advanced Tools & Techniques to Optimize Your E-Commerce Site for Search Engines
It is crucial for eCommerce website owners to optimize their sites for search engines in order to receive the most traffic possible. Optimized websites are more likely to rank higher on organic searches, which leads to better conversion rates and sales. When driving more traffic to your site, it is important to optimize for the most popular keywords from an SEO standpoint. These are typically phrases that are searched for on a very high volume and will lead to better conversions than using less popular search terms. Keyword research is a tool that can help you find what your potential customers are searching for. Make sure you’re using the correct keywords in your content, search titles, and meta tags, which can help improve the rankings of your website. This will also make it easier for users to find your site through organic search results when a keyword is searched for on Google. Furthermore, having skip-to links in your content and a sitemap helps with improving rankings by letting search engines know that you have more content coming soon.
5 Tips For Making Your Website More Visible in Search Engines
Search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing have a ranking system that helps users find what they are looking for. This system is based on factors such as keyword usage, content quality, link profile, and other factors. With the help of specific website optimization techniques, you can improve your search engine ranking and increase traffic to your website.
Here are 5 tips for making your eCommerce site more visible in search engines:
- Use Keywords
Your website content should include keywords related to your products and services. It is important that these words are used in the correct context. For example, if your salon provides hair care services, the terms “hair care” or “hair salon” would be appropriate keywords for inclusion in your site’s metadata. The use of keyword-rich pages can also help with search engine optimization.
- Make Sure Your Site Loads Quickly
Generally, Google favors sites that load quickly into their results page as this signifies a high-quality site that is user-friendly and relevant to what users are searching for at that particular time.
To ensure your site loads quickly, use the following guidelines:
Reduce the number of general web pages on your website
Use fewer files (e.g., CSS files, HTML pages) per page
Minimize the number of graphics (e.g., images, GIFs) on each page
- Optimize Images
If you have images that are important to your website visitors and are used in a prominent place on your site, make sure these images have proper alt text and descriptions so that they can be properly indexed by search engines.
- Use Breadcrumbs
Search engines such as Google understand and can use the navigation; it is a text-based list of links that tells them the site’s hierarchy. However, if your website uses a simple URL structure that doesn’t have any hierarchy or navigation, search engines may be less able to understand your site and rank it.
- Optimize Your Site for Mobile
Google favors responsive websites which automatically adjust their layout to the device they are being viewed on. To make sure you are optimizing your website for mobile users, visit https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools#mobile and follow the recommendations listed there.