How do you draw attention to your store and your products? SEO for online stores here is the solution for you
With search engine optimization, you improve the visibility of your online store in the search results of Google, Bing and other search engines, outperform your competition and therefore gain new customers. Discover in this article how you can improve SEO for online stores step by step.
Step 1: Keyword Research as a Base
SEO for online stores begins with extensive keyword research. With this, you can identify how your target group behaves on the Internet and what search terms they enter when searching on search engines such as Google, and Bing.
You should always keep in mind that:
- Keywords with very high search volume also experience very strong competition.
- Niche keywords and those with lower search volume are less in demand, but achieve strong positioning due to less competitive pressure.
- Local keywords contain a geographical reference and are more relevant to the webmaster of a retail store.
- Long-tail keywords combine multiple keywords and are typically search queries for a very specific product.
Choose a combination of keywords for your store that cover high demand and lay the foundation for achieving the best rankings. At the same time, you should use long-tail keywords to capture specific searches that satisfy your product offering.
Step 2: OnPage SEO for online stores
In the world of SEO, on-page optimization covers all measures that are carried out directly on your website. The advantage is obvious: not only does it improve the user experience and therefore the shopping experience, but it also signals to Google that you are running a high-quality, optimized store.
Structure, click depth and navigation
Whether it's a small e-shop or a comprehensive online retailer: no one wants to click through to a confusing and poorly structured store. Therefore, make sure that your customers can find their way around your online store intuitively, always have the option to go to the previous page and that you divide your product pages into meaningful categories.
With a reasonable structure and click depth, as well as clean navigation through categories, you not only promote your visitors' online experience, but also attract attention on search engines. They will then reward you with an improved ranking.
Content with added value
The content of your product pages must include the previously determined keywords without the quality or added value of your text suffering as a result. Offer your visitors interesting and important information about the product, about you, your online store and much more, because these texts are the 24/7 accessible advisors of your online store.
Internal links
Your SEO texts include internal links to your other websites. This way you ensure that visitors can easily access other relevant topics. For example, you can connect products from the same category or link instructions for a product.
This makes your website even more user-friendly and search engines will thank you with improved rankings. With internal links, be sure to set them to anchor text that matches the content of the linked subpage.
Optimize metadata
The meta title and meta description together make up your metadata. They are what users see in search engines as a preview of the website behind them.
Two reasons why metadata is important:
- Keywords incorporated into the metadata show the thematic relevance of your online store and increase the chances of a good ranking on Google.
- Metadata appears on Google and serves as a tool to attract potential customers.
Technical optimization
Make absolutely sure that your store is also technically flawless. A very short loading time of less than two seconds and a real source code are part of it. If your website loads for too long, the first visitors will jump before they have seen your products. Excellent loading times are also a positive ranking factor for Google.
Additionally, as a store webmaster, it is your job to ensure the safety of your customers. With valid HTTPS encryption in the source code, you cover your entire website.
Tip: An SSL certificate is also required for the security of your website.
Also make sure that Google crawlers can actually access your website; If this is not the case, you have no chance of these pages appearing in search engines. Crawlers are programs that crawl and evaluate your website.
Step 3: OffPage SEO for online stores
OffPage measurements take place outside of your website. However, they are of enormous importance, as they also have a positive influence on the rankings.
Backlinks play the main role in Off-Page SEO and are recommendations from other websites. If another website links to your store via a backlink, Google rates it extremely positive. The higher the position of the website linking to you, the better Google rates the recommendation for its ranking.
Additionally, backlinks guide people who already have a basic interest in your products to your website. This sets the stage for good conversion rates later.
Note: In addition to link building, Off-Page SEO involves other activities, including increasing reach and brand awareness, digital public relations, and social media account management.
Step 4: Mobile SEO for online stores
Google now displays search results based on the search engine's end device. If you search on desktop, you'll get different results than on a smartphone or tablet. More and more users are browsing the Internet through mobile devices these days, so mobile SEO is of great importance to you.
Therefore, work with mobile versions of your website or with responsive web design, for example, so that your store also displays excellently on the smaller screens of mobile devices and elements are clickable without no problem.
Due to the mobile Internet connection and possibly limited data volume of your customers, fast loading times are also an important point in mobile ecommerce optimization for the search engine.
Step #5: Monitoring and Analysis
Use website analytics tools to constantly check user behavior and purchasing performance, run A/B tests and see where many visitors abandon your website, why and where shopping carts are abandoned or where there are something else that doesn't work perfectly. This is how you identify weak points for later correction and discover more SEO potential.
Strong competition, price comparison websites and much more make SEO indispensable for online stores. Without SEO, you will find it difficult to establish yourself in crowded markets. Start your search engine optimization with keyword research to analyze and understand your target group, then you dedicate yourself to OnPage SEO and pay attention to optimization directly on your website. Then you take care of recommendations from other websites and mobile search engine optimization.
If you have successfully ticked all these points, it means that you have to keep an eye on your website's performance and stay on top of it. This is the only way for your website to rise to the top of search results on Google and other search engines and stay there.
