website development

E-commerce SEO

Improving Your E-Commerce Through SEO

It is a wonderful feeling starting your e-commerce business and seeing your products sell.  However, just relying on paid ads to make sales will consume much of your profit. The good thing though is that you can get the same results with your website when you improve your e-commerce SEO.  In this article, we are sharing everything you need to know about e-commerce SEO and applying these during the website development phase. What Is E-Commerce SEO?  So let us start off with the question: What is e-commerce SEO? Basically, it is a collection of search engine optimisation (SEO) strategies to make your e-commerce website climb the ranks and make it easier to be found on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs). Compared to paid ads, e-commerce SEO is practically free. That said, in reality, you need to put in a lot of effort and do it consistently, in the beginning, to rank up before you see any results.  What Are The Benefits Of Good E-Commerce SEO? Aside from that, there are plenty of benefits that you will reap. In fact, you will continue to enjoy these even after you are finished with the website development of your e-commerce site. Here are a couple of them: Improve Your User Experience E-commerce SEO is not about targeting the relevant keywords and answering the most common questions that your target audience asks.  Providing a good user experience is something that both Google and your web visitors are quite partial about. It can actually increase your chances of converting your audience into paying customers. Expand Your Reach In general, websites that are performing well generate more organic traffic. This is helpful to spread the word about your e-commerce brand and reach more of your target customers.  Increase Brand Awareness E-commerce SEO can help increase brand awareness without having to shell out a big budget compared to paid ads. This is because the more people visit your website organically, the higher you climb the ranks and eventually you reach first-page results.  We know that the majority of web users just stick to the first-page results. When your e-commerce website achieves this it makes it easier for your brand to be found. Website Development Elements For E-Commerce SEO So, how do you get the great benefits we listed above? Here is an e-commerce SEO guide you can apply during website development:  On-Page SEO  This is all about making sure Google understands what each of your web pages is about. When done right, on-page SEO can help your e-commerce site appear on the first page and on other SERP features of Google as well. For this, keyword research is essential. It is the first step to improving your e-commerce SEO. Here is what you should do:  Keyword Research It is important to identify the keywords you choose based on difficulty, search volume, and intent.  This is because if you get this part wrong it is possible that: One,  you will have a hard time ranking on the target keywords you have chosen. Two, you will get to the first page but the keywords barely have any traffic at all. To avoid this, make sure to use SEO keyword tools like Google Keyword Planner and Ahrefs, to name a few. You should also consider creating a keyword matrix.  What exactly is a keyword matrix?  Basically, it is a list of keywords and corresponding data. First, you search all the relevant keywords and then organise it all, an excel sheet will do, from the most difficult to easy based on keyword difficulties, search volume, and intent.  There are a couple more ways to conduct keyword research:  Keyword research on e-commerce platforms. The best thing about online shopping platforms, like Amazon, is that the keywords you find there already have the intent of buying. Just type in a short-tail keyword and see the autofill suggestions. Check your competitors’ keywords. Basically, you are going to use the same keywords—but not all of them. You should carefully consider which ones to use since it is going to be hard if you go toe-to-toe with them.  From there, it will be a lot easier to determine which ones work best for your e-commerce SEO campaigns. Product Pages As an e-commerce brand, making your product pages a lot easier to find is possibly one of the important things to help improve your website. There are a couple of ways to do this:  URLs.  Add the primary keyword in the URL.  H Tags. Put the primary keyword at the beginning of the title tag or H1 tag as much as possible.  Body Copy. Write a three-hundred-word introductory copy mentioning the primary keyword at least three times before the product description. Image Alt Text. Add the primary keyword in the alt text. Metadata. Include the primary keyword in the metadata. This will help improve ranking and click-through rate. These are pretty straightforward and simple practices that will give you an edge in your niche. You can take it a step further and customise these accordingly to rank better for the category pages—a topic page that contains a group of products. Content “Content is king!”  This rings true even for e-commerce brands. In fact, the quality content that you publish makes it easier for your store to rank using long-tail and short-tail keywords as well as backlinks. Plus, it is a great way to highlight your products without going hard on the promotional aspect.  Technical SEO Now, we are on the technical side of e-commerce SEO. Here, you will need to be meticulous in your website development.  Website Architecture Whether you are still in the website development phase or looking to update your web store, make sure to follow the “golden rule” for a great website structure Keep it simple. Make it scalable. Stick to the three-click navigation. Meaning, it should only take up to three clicks to go from page to page. Apply keywords to make page URLs and subdirectories to be more relevant. Page

Improving Your E-Commerce Through SEO Read More »

optimisation tips

7 Simple Optimisation Tips to Increase Website Speed

Often, developers and marketers forget the importance of speed on their websites. They often think that website speed does not equate to anything. However, website speed is what makes a good impression on your business. Website speed affects some aspects of your company, such as retention, satisfaction, and conversion. In fact, according to Web Tribunal, a single second delay in loading on your website can decrease customer satisfaction by 16%. This number can negatively affect your revenue. So, how can you improve your website speed? This article will help you understand the importance of website speed and give you some optimisation strategies that can help you enhance your website’s speed. Why is Website Speed Important? As mentioned in our previous article, speed is probably one of the most crucial aspects of a website. It determines your website’s success: customer experience, ranking, and conversion rates. A study by Akamai found that the average time it takes to load a page on the web has increased from 8 seconds to 14 seconds over the past year. Page load times of more than 3 seconds can lead to a 7% decrease in conversions and an 11% decrease in revenue per visitor. 7 Optimisation Tips to Enhance Website Speed Website speed is an essential factor for both user experience and SEO ranking. It’s important to have a fast-loading website that can keep up with modern web standards. Likewise, here are some website optimisation tips for you. 1.   Use a content delivery network (CDN) A content delivery network, or CDN, is a server system that delivers content on behalf of content creators to end-users. It reduces the response time for end-users by providing the content from the geographically closest server. Likewise, one of the top optimisation tips that can help your website speed is using CDN. CDNs work by caching a copy of your website’s data in multiple locations worldwide. In addition, it can help you optimize the delivery of content to a user in any area, which is better than a single server. Likewise, CDN providers also provide security and protection against DDoS attacks, so it’s worth considering them for your site if it falls victim to such attacks. 2.   Reduce the use of plugins One of the most effective optimisation tips that can help you increase website speed is reducing plugins. Plugins that only provide a single function, such as contact forms, should be used with caution as they can significantly increase the load time of your website. The use of plugins in web development can be a double-edged sword. They are great for adding features to a website but can also slow down the site’s loading time. 3.   Optimize image size While images are essential to a website, they can slow down a website if they are not optimized. Images that are too high in resolution or have large file sizes will be slower than images with smaller dimensions and file sizes. Likewise, image optimisation is essential for websites to load quickly and for users to enjoy a seamless browsing experience. There are many ways to optimize images, but the most important thing is to keep the image size as small as possible without compromising quality. 4.   Use website caching When users access your website, their device needs to retrieve files from your server. Frequently, this could cause slow loading of your website. Likewise, one of the top essential optimisation tips that can help you is website caching. Website caching stores a website’s pages on the user’s computer or network for faster loading. It is essential because it allows users to access content more quickly and reduces server data load. Caching stores webpages on a user’s computer to reduce the load accessing them. The cached version of the page is saved as HTML files and stored on the hard drive. When you visit a website, your browser will download the cache files and display them instead of downloading them again. 5.   Evaluate Your Current Hosting Provider The hosting provider’s website speed is key to the customer experience. The website needs to load within a second or two. Otherwise, it will affect the customer experience and make them leave the site. Hosting providers are responsible for ensuring that their customers get fast loading times on their websites. This can be done by using caching, reducing page size, or ensuring that there are no external factors that are slowing down the website. 6.   Switch to HTTP/2 The HTTP/2 protocol was designed to address the inefficiencies of the original HTTP/1.1 protocol, which is still widely used. The new protocol is more secure and efficient and can handle a more significant number of connections simultaneously. HTTP/2 is a significant revision of the original HTTP/1.1 protocol used since 1997. This was developed to address some of the inefficiencies that were found in the old protocol, such as: Multiplexing for requests on one TCP connection Header compression Prioritization or server push No support for TLS session resumption 7.   Track 404 Errors Error 404 is a standard HTTP error code, meaning the requested resource is not found. This code is typically sent when the web server can’t find the requested file or webpage. This error can be frustrating for users, especially if they cannot find what they are looking for on the website. A 404 error can slow down your website by up to 80% and make it difficult for search engine crawlers to find your content. Your website’s load time will also be affected, which may impact SEO rankings. There are many ways you can improve the speed of your website and reduce the risk of getting a 404 error, such as: Optimizing images Minimizing HTTP requests Reducing image size Avoiding redirects Conclusion In summary, website speed is something developers, and marketers should consider. It could be an arduous process to maintain. But with the proper knowledge, it is incredibly doable. I hope these seven optimisation tips can help you maintain your website’s speed. And if you

7 Simple Optimisation Tips to Increase Website Speed Read More »

Scroll to Top