Don’t Miss These Top 5 E-Commerce Tips For Successful Websites

Is your e-commerce website meeting your sales targets?

If you aren’t getting what you expected from your website, you’re not alone.   And very often, it’s simply a case of it being out of sight, out of mind.  In other words, your website is languishing too far down the search engine pages to be noticed by online searchers and that’s why it’s not delivering the goods.

Visibility in the search engine pages should be the number one goal of any e-commerce website.  You have to be seen in order to be successful.    And that’s where your SEO strategy comes in.

Top 5 E-Commerce Tips For Successful Websites

SEO is essential if you want to get found online.  Luckily, there are plenty of things you can do to climb the rankings, ramp up your site traffic and boost your sales and if you’d like some of my insider tips, this article is for you.

Here are my top five e-commerce tips for successful websites:

Tip 1 – Do Your Keyword Research Properly

Keyword research is probably the number one priority for any SEO strategy.   If your keywords are off the mark, you’ll be wasting your time (and money) trying to climb the rankings.

Choose words and phrases that accurately represent your business offering.  If they are too broad or too competitive, you’ll end up with high bounce rates and low conversions and your website will struggle to make headway.   As a rule of thumb, I usually tell my clients to target keywords that have moderate to high popularity and low competition.

Solid keyword research will unearth phrases that your target audience and prospects actually use – not ones that you simply think are appropriate.  It takes time to do the research, but trust me, the more you put in, the greater the reward.  Keywords that represent your niche markets are ideal and you should always consider search intent.

You might also find our post “Using Google Search For Keyword Research” very useful!

Tip 2 – Content is King

Quality, useful, relevant content is a key aspect of any SEO strategy and particularly for e-commerce websites.  People want to transact with a website that they can trust and the quality of your content is a huge factor in establishing your authority and instilling a sense of trust.

The more closely your content matches with those keywords that people actually use to look for you or to look for products like yours, the more likely you are to climb the rankings and get found online.

Dwell time is another important ranking factor, so the more you keep your visitors engaged with awesome quality content, the longer they’ll stay on your site.  Blogs, articles, how-to guides, tutorials and videos all present good opportunities for using relevant keywords and are effective tools for boosting rankings.

Great content also generates backlinks, encourages higher-click-through (CTR) rates, enhances brand recognition and strengthens a business’s reputation – all of which are really important factors in building an e-commerce site’s trust and authority.

Tip 3 – Power Up Your Product Descriptions

Another good way to boost conversation rates is to write compelling and unique product descriptions.

Many retailers simply copy and paste the manufacturers’ words onto their own websites.  Now while this may seem like an easy time-saver, it will actually work against you.  Not only will you be duplicating content which is a big no-no in Google’s eyes (as Google don’t need to index the same content 20+ times), you could also be barking up the wrong tree because the descriptions don’t match your specific audience.

It may be a bit time-consuming, but making the effort to write unique, engaging and compelling descriptions for every single one of your products will pay off.  Big time.

Product descriptions should be:

• Unique
• Fresh
• Keyword-rich
• Engaging
• Descriptive
• Targeted at your specific audience

 Tip 4 – Optimise Your Images

Your images are one of the most powerful assets on your e-commerce site.  Your visuals are a major factor in attracting buyers, and they’re also a powerful SEO tool as they can appear in Google Image searches.   Optimised correctly, your images can drive traffic to your website and help boost your rankings, this is especially important for product based business where people are going to choose a product based on how it looks.

In my experience, these are the most effective ways of optimising your images:

• Add a keyword-rich description to the ALT tag
• Write descriptive captions
• Optimise the image size so you don’t slow the loading rate down
• Optimise the image file name for the product name

My recent article “Image Optimisation For SEO” is packed full of useful info that can help you speed up your website!

Tip 5 – Focus on Loading Speeds

No-one likes a page that takes ages to load.  Users hate them, Google hates them and they’re a killer for your e-commerce business.

Now more than ever, websites with slow loading speeds are being punished by Google.   Slow speeds impact Google’s ability to index pages, plus its new Page Experience ranking algorithm places huge emphasis on speed and responsiveness, so loading is an area that needs your special attention.

Need some extra help with your e-commerce website rankings?  Or help with any other aspect of SEO?

As an SEO specialist and digital marketing expert in Perth for nearly 20 years, I’ve optimised hundreds of websites and helped business owners improve their online visibility.  With The SEO School, my new self-managed online SEO course, you can learn how to do your own SEO and climb up the search engine rankings. Find out more or book your course at The SEO School.

Karen Dauncey

Karen Dauncey has been working in SEO since 2003. She specialises in helping businesses get found online through Google using Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) She is the founder and creator of The SEO School an online SEO Course to help teach business owners how to do their own SEO. She regularly delivers educational programs for both Local, State and Federal Government and is an advisor for the ASBAS Digital Solutions Program. Karen’s passion and commitment to help small business owners get found online is the driving force behind her online school, making SEO advice accessible to all with free resources and online courses.

Karen's wealth of SEO knowledge and practical digital marketing experience comes from running her own SEO and Google Ads agency, Blue Cherry Online Marketing since 2008. Karen has optimised over 1000 websites, managed millions of dollars' worth of spend on Google Ads and has a solid understanding of the constantly shifting industry of digital marketing and SEO. This gives her a unique advantage when it comes to being able to recommend the right online marketing strategies for your business. This gives her a unique advantage when it comes to being able to recommend the right online marketing strategies for your business. She was recently recognised as an SEO Expert for the popular course creation platform, Kajabi as well as appearing on ABC Radio
for her expert opinion on the ACCC's investigation into search engines.

Karen has attended search engine conferences in London, Stockholm, Adelaide and Sydney, and was also invited to attend a pilot Business Coaching Course at Google’s Head Office. She has a Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing in the UK.

She is also the co-owner of the Digital Experts Directory, an online directory for female serviced-based businesses to promote their business (with a great backlink for SEO).

To keep up to date with the latest in SEO, join her Facebook group The SEO School Community or follow her on Facebook or LinkedIn.