Generally, many online vendors who run ecommerce sites try to get customers using paid adverts and other expensive marketing strategies. Even though these strategies are effective, there are cheaper options to generate potential leads and increase conversions.

The least expensive way to generate potential leads is by acquiring organic traffic. And for ecommerce websites, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the key to gaining organic traffic.

But how can you achieve this? This is exactly what we’ll be sharing in this guide. But first, let’s look at what ecommerce SEO is.

What Exactly is Ecommerce SEO?

Ecommerce SEO is a strategy for driving organic traffic to your online store by optimizing your website pages to rank highly in search engines.

This strategy aims to make your online store more visible on SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). Achieving this would ensure shoppers find your website when searching for products or services you sell.

Ecommerce SEO Strategies To Help Drive Organic Traffic

In this guide, we will go over a 6-step SEO strategy that can help drive organic traffic to your online store.

#1. Keyword Research

Before you start creating content or optimizing your website for search, you need a strategy. Keyword research is the key to that strategy.

Keyword research entails finding the search phrases or terms your target audience uses to find products similar to the ones you sell. Using this tool, it’s important to identify the two different types of keywords, and this would help guide your content creation and ranking efforts.

  • Keywords that’ll attract links from websites with a high authority: Attracting links from high-authority websites like Forbes or New York Times can help raise your website’s domain ranking. How?

Google views such sites as reliable sources of information. As such, when one of those authority websites links to your articles or pages, Google would also see your site as a reliable source. And authority is a key component search engines consider when ranking sites.

To identify these keywords, search for the terms your most authoritative rivals rank highly on. You can also check out high-authority websites in your industry to see what articles they link to.

  • Keywords with high purchase intent: These are the search terms customers use to find a website where they can purchase your product.

#2. Creating Content Through Long-form Articles to Attract Links

Long-form content tends to appear in the top 10 results for any keyword in search engines. According to a study by SerpIQ, pages that appear on page 1 of search engine results pages (SERPs) have an average word count of over 2,000.

This means you should be writing articles that exceed this word count.

#3. Optimize Product Pages

The next step is to optimize your ecommerce site for keywords with high purchase intent. With the help of optimization, your product pages will rank higher in search results, making it easier for buyers to find you in organic searches.

Start by reviewing your product description. Write at least 400 words long, simple, and detailed product descriptions. Next, add your keywords in the following to optimize the page for search:

  • Meta description
  • Title Tags
  • H2, H3, and H4 tags
  • Alt text of your product images
  • Product Description

#4. Using Proper Site Architecture

The structure you use to arrange your website is known as site architecture. The structure refers to the hierarchy of your website’s pages, categories, and sections and how visitors and search crawlers navigate between them.

One of the best strategies to convince Google that your website is worthy of indexing is to establish an internal linking structure that:

  • Shows Google’s search bot where all your pages are; and
  • Explains what your topics and subtopics are.

#5. Publishing High-purchase-intent Articles

High-purchase-intent articles are those that assist potential customers in making wise purchasing decisions. Intending buyers typically search for this type of article when they want further assurance that they’re selecting the best option for their needs.

These articles should also be able to target some of the high-purchase-intent keywords you’ve already identified.

Note: It is advisable to include your competitors’ products in these articles, and doing this highlights other companies and adds to your credibility.

It’ll help your audience to trust you more. Also, not only will this help you sell more of your goods, but it can also help you rank higher in search engines.

#6. Link-building

It would help if you considered adding link-building to your strategy to ensure good SEO results. The following are the two ways you can incorporate link-building into your outreach strategy:

  • Find authoritative websites that already cover the topics associated with the products you sell
  • Get in touch with them and request for them to include a link back to a particular page on your website

As previously mentioned, when such high-authoritative websites link to your articles or pages, Google sees it as a vote of confidence. Automatically, this transfers authority to your site.

Bottom Line

SEO is a great alternative if you lack the funds to run advertisements or employ other costly marketing strategies. It can help you generate organic traffic to your ecommerce site.

And by following the steps in this guide, you’re well on your way to having a more successful ecommerce business.