What Is Important To Keep In Mind When It Comes To Promoting An E-commerce Site - Handy Tips By Semalt
However, you need to know the different parameters to take into account when promoting an e-commerce site even if you want to entrust it to an agency.
So, I invite you to discover in this article what to keep in mind when promoting an e-commerce site.
An important note in the promotion of e-commerce sites
Promoting e-commerce sites presents the promoter with quite a few unique challenges due to the complexity of these sites and the way from which they derive the information about the various products. Also, the last two years have been marked by tightening security, increased speed, mobile compatibility, and great importance to the overall reliability of the site in the eyes of Google.
Keeping this in mind, let's go together to discover the main parameters you need to take into account when promoting your e-commerce site.
What to concentrate on first: keyword research
Since most e-commerce sites have hundreds and even thousands of pages, keyword research may seem almost impossible. So one of the most important things is to prioritize categories and even individual products.
Although it is very tempting to be based on gut feeling and choose the keywords based on the products that seem most important to us, sometimes we should do the opposite and start with relatively general keywords like those of the different categories. If you are not also a sponsored promotion and Google's keyword planner does not provide you with all the data, it is best to use external tools such as SEMrush that can sometimes better assess your level of competitiveness.
Another way to find relevant keywords is to check the competitors' sites and see what keywords they are using on their main pages.
Meta tags and internal titles
Once we have a list of key keywords we want to advance in, it's time to work on the meta tags, at least the ones we want to manually enter at the home page level, the most important categories, and so on. Meta tags (Title / Title and Description) and internal titles on each page should no doubt include the keywords, but slightly different variations and even as synonyms or almost identical (school bags / schoolbags). Today Google has a much better ability than ever to make the right connection between common words.
In any case, the tags should not look like they were written by a robot because in the end they are what the surfer sees on the results page and our goal is to convince him to enter our site instead. This is especially true for the automated tags that the system creates. For example: the Title tag can contain the product name (plus the category if there is space) and the store name, while the Description tag can contain a call to any action (guarantee the cheapest price, free shipping, etc.).
Use content correctly
One of the biggest challenges on e-commerce sites is how to relate to content, and especially textual content so as not to break the visual design of the site, which usually relies quite a bit on images of products. Unfortunately, many publishers succumb to the designers' dictates and leave almost no room for text, which leads to difficulty in promoting the site later on.
So yes, compromises need to be made and at least some of the space devoted to textual content on both the category pages and the product pages. For example, on the category page, you can add some text above and below the various products, provided that you avoid duplicating content using appropriate tags.
On the products page, the screen can be divided into two parts: a picture and a description side by side, with the technical specifications (which are not necessarily critical for all surfers) appearing below. Amazon does it great and is worth spending a few minutes examining its pages.
Of course, most of this content should be original and not just based on the information provided by the manufacturers or suppliers. After all, there are dozens of sites that use the same descriptions... If you can't write original content for most of the pages, set yourself a priority just like you did with the keywords.
Additional content areas and internal links
If you feel that the site still lacks content, you can create additional content pages that are not necessarily related to specific categories or products. For example, a blog, a "what's new" page, general FAQs, user testimonials about the store, and so on. From these pages, you can create internal links to other pages on the site and strengthen them.
Dual content handling at the technical level
Dealing with duplicate content on a technical level is actually easier than you might think. For example, if you have a particular product in several colors or sizes, you can let surfers choose the version that suits them on the product page and not create several duplicate pages (again, Amazon is a great example).
In the category pages, make sure to divide the pages with the appropriate tags (this is usually the most convenient way for surfers as well).
Finally, Google has a special tag for duplicate content in which you indicate the original version of the page. This tag is called Canonical. If your content management system does not support it, you can instruct Google to ignore certain parameters in the page address through the Search Console management tool.
Image optimization
It is also important to use images carefully: First and foremost, do not upload the images you have as they are: cut them to the size you want in a way that is convenient for you and then further optimize them to reduce their size (whether it is a PNG file or a JPG). Various services do just cutting or optimization, and some plugins do both (e.g. Smush Image Compression).
It is also important to use the description tag for each image you upload unless you have a lot of similar images on the same page and you do not want to create keyword compression. In this case, diversify the descriptions or choose the most attractive pictures.
In terms of conversion rates and ease of use, make sure the images show the products from different angles and are all of the same quality. After all, you do not want your site to look like a collection of second-hand products...
Speed and mobile compatibility
Nowadays, none of them can be ignored - in most areas, most surfers will come to the site for the first time via mobile and the success of their visit will be affected, among other things, by the loading speed, which will usually be slower on a smartphone than a computer.
Some points for improving speed:
- Remove or turn off unnecessary plugins and models.
- Aim for images smaller than 100kb.
- Minimize external service scripts.
- If you have many static pages that do not change, use caching plugins or other techniques to reduce the number of pages the server needs to process and give instructions to the surfer's browser.
If the site is still particularly demanding and you do not have the option of further development time, consider storing it on a virtual server where you know exactly that you will get all the resources that were promised to you 99% of the time.
Regarding mobile compatibility: When you design the site for mobile or choose a template, note that the surfer should not scroll too much to reach the important parts. Also, do not be tempted to create a separate mobile site. This is less common today, and after the Google update that processes websites first and foremost according to mobile (Mobile-First Indexing), incompatibility between the sites may hurt you.
Securing
Make sure your site is completely secure, and not just at the time of purchase, Google has been emphasizing this in recent years. Today there are firewall solutions either for servers or at the software level (depending on your content management system). Make sure you have strong passwords for the management areas and note that the system encrypts the passwords of the surfers and does not store them as they are...
Also, regardless of SEO, your surfers must see that the site is secure, what security standards it supports, and what means of payment can be used.
Authority and reliability
Make sure your site is completely secure, and not just at the time of purchase - Google has been emphasizing this in recent years. Today there are firewall solutions either for servers or at the software level (depending on your content management system). Make sure you have strong passwords for the management areas and note that the system encrypts the passwords of the surfers and does not store them as they are...
Also, regardless of SEO, your surfers must see that the site is secure, what security standards it supports, and what means of payment can be used.
In conclusion
We have come to the end and it should be noted that in this part of the guide we have talked in detail about what to keep in mind when promoting an e-commerce site. So I hope you've taken note of everything that's been said throughout this article.
Before we part ways, let me give you one last piece of advice:
To have a good result whether it is in e-commerce or other parameters of online business do not get agitated to want to do everything. Leave the technical areas of your site to qualified professionals so that you can concentrate on the other parameters to get a good result.
If your knowledge in the field of promotion of a website is not enough to face your competitors do not try to tinker with things.
All you have to do is simply contact an SEO agency such as Semalt. With Semalt's Experts, you can face your competitors and get the best place among them thanks to the e-commerce SEO service. I invite you to take a look at this e-commerce SEO service to better understand how it can help to establish a good authority for your e-commerce site.