Every company’s survival is dependent on sales, and in today’s world, growing sales necessitates a strong digital presence. E-commerce generated $2.3 trillion in worldwide sales in 2017, with that figure anticipated to rise to $4.88 trillion by 2021. It’s important to have a solid search engine optimization (SEO) plan in place if you want to capture a share of those revenues.
It goes without saying that the E-commerce industry is competitive, and understanding and applying cutting-edge SEO strategies may help you stand out online, turn more prospects into loyal customers, and ultimately increase sales. However, because SEO is always changing and best practises vary, it’s tough to tell if you’re doing everything you can to boost sales with SEO.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, don’t worry: there are lots of tried-and-true strategies you can employ, and you’ll discover some fantastic suggestions about how to utilise SEO to boost sales now.
1. Be Keyword Clever
Keywords in SEO aren’t used as much as they previously were, but they’re still an important factor to consider. Prospects may never discover you if you don’t use keywords, which is why keywords are such an important part of any SEO approach.
Let’s assume you own a business that offers handcrafted fly-fishing lures. Handmade fly-fishing lures is an apparent keyword phrase for which you’ll want to rank. There are, however, additional keywords and phrases that buyers are almost certainly using to find items similar to yours, and it’s up to you to figure out what they are and start utilising them in your:
- Content
- Web pages
- URLs
- Headings
- Image descriptions
- Metadata
- Page titles
- Emails
Although Google AdWords is a good place to start with keyword research, there are a variety of additional keyword planning tools available. Longtail keywords are important to consider since half of all search inquiries are four or more words long, and these phrases have less competition and better conversion rates. When you have the proper keywords in your arsenal, you’ll be able to connect with people who want to buy what you’re offering.
2. Create Stellar Content
Keywords, on the other hand, are meaningless without outstanding content: they’re just a word salad. Content, on the other hand, is more than simply a vehicle for keywords; it’s a tool for converting prospects, something useful to provide consumers, and a shared resource for reaching new audiences.
Here’s how content can help you sell more: When potential customers search the internet for information on a product or service comparable to yours, they’ll come across social media postings, blogs, web pages, and other material that was created to answer their questions, give information, and otherwise help them make a buying choice. Prospects will find your brand before all others if you try to have the finest, most relevant, most engaging, and most authoritative material on the internet, giving you the chance to establish connections and convert leads into customers.
Great content comes in a number of shapes and sizes, and your objective should be to cultivate and create content in all of them, including:
- Blogs
- Video (which can boost organic search results by 50 times more than text-based content)
- Infographics
- Podcasts
- Animations
- User-generated content
- Guest blogs
- Ebooks and whitepapers
- How-to guides
- Lists
- Product reviews
Inbound marketing revolves around content, and if you have a solid inbound plan in place and outstanding content to back it up, people will be knocking on your E-commerce door. However, keep in mind that you should optimise all of your content with relevant keywords, and that the keywords you employ are relevant to the piece and type of information you’re providing.
3. Use Social to Grow Your Audience and Reach
Because a rising number of customers are flocking to these platforms to connect with companies, social media is one of the fastest growing aspects of a comprehensive and current SEO strategy. Nearly 80% of people use Facebook to find fascinating material, which means there’s a big opportunity for you to reach new audiences, attract more prospects, and build long-term connections with consumers on the platform.
Aside from that, social media can be utilised to present a more human aspect of your company, it can be used as a direct marketing strategy due to resources like Facebook Ads, and it can even be used to supplement customer care efforts.
4. Go Local and Go Mobile
The emphasis on mobile and local content are two of the most important improvements to SEO best practises that have emerged in recent years, and the two work hand in hand. Because 30 percent of all mobile searches done today have a local purpose, local SEO is becoming increasingly essential as more customers utilise mobile devices to seek for companies. Furthermore, after conducting a local search, over 70% of people will visit a nearby business, so if you want to drive traffic to your physical or online store, you must focus on local content (including local keywords and landing pages) and make sure your digital footprint is completely mobile-friendly.
5. On-Page SEO
There are several reasons why on-page SEO is critical to your success; thus, if you want to increase sales, you must focus on on-page tactics. Here are a handful of the reasons, in no particular order: On-page SEO improves the usability of your site, makes it easier for search engines to index your pages, improves your search rating, and allows you to focus on important components like aesthetics. If you’re new to on-page SEO, these are some of the most important steps to remember:
- Creating unique and descriptive title tags
- Increasing your page load speed to reduce bounce rates
- Writing descriptive and keyword-optimized alternative text for the images on your site
- Optimizing headings with keywords and relevant descriptions
- Linking site content with internal links to improve navigation and indexing
- Using sensible and easy-to-read URLs
- Writing meta descriptions to improve visibility on a search engine results page and improve relevance
6. Manage Your Reputation Carefully
Although reputation management isn’t usually included when discussing SEO, it’s a vital component that shouldn’t be overlooked. Controlling what people see when they search for your company online is all about reputation management. Assume you’re a business that has received numerous negative Yelp reviews in a succession and has gotten into an immature Facebook feud with a client. After then, each potential client who uses the internet to determine whether or not to dine at your institution will first come across the negative reviews and social media debate, and that will be your restaurant’s reputation for the rest of its life.
As a result, reputation management entails ensuring that you present your best face online when clients search for you, which you may accomplish by:
- Always being professional when engaging with customers online
- Regularly reviewing online reviews
- Responding to negative reviews quickly, calmly, and professionally
- Encouraging positive reviews and testimonials from satisfied customers
7. Develop an Integrated Strategy to Keep You on Track
If you want SEO to work for you, it can’t be done part-time or with minimal effort. To boost sales through SEO, you must be smart and dedicated to your efforts, which necessitates a well-thought-out strategy that includes all of the aspects discussed today. To do so, you’ll need a team in place that is familiar with SEO best practises and can assess your company’s goals before developing and implementing a long-term strategy to assist you achieve them.
Key Takeaways to Remember
SEO is critical to the success of any modern business, not only because it can help you increase your visibility and reach online, but also because it can help you increase sales by driving more traffic to your site, giving you more opportunities to convert leads into customers, and providing you with the tools you need to boost conversion rates. However, SEO is a multidimensional monster, and the following are the essential elements to concentrate on if you want to increase sales:
- Researching, selecting, and implementing relevant keywords
- Using keywords strategically everywhere you can
- Creating engaging and exciting content that will delight and inform
- Making use of social media to grow your audience and develop relationships
- Focusing on local SEO
- Making sure your digital strategy is mobile-optimized
- Working hard at on-page SEO that will make sure you have a site that will attract and retain prospects
- Keeping your online reputation squeaky clean
Finally, keep in mind that developing and maintaining a complete plan that prioritises all of these aspects is just as essential as the elements themselves since it’s the only way to ensure that you construct a well-oiled SEO engine that will help you increase sales.
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Need help with getting your business found online? Stridec is a top SEO agency in Singapore that can help you achieve your objectives with a structured and effective SEO programme that will get your more customers and sales. Contact us for a discussion now.