We get it, budgets are really tight at the moment. Not only are small businesses and start-ups battling to keep their heads above water during this time, but corporate giants are also feeling the pinch.
With this in mind, we thought we would step in and give you a helping hand with one of the trickier, yet vitally important parts of running your online business – SEO. SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is one of the key elements in getting your site ranked and found on Google.
But why is it important, and why should you be investing your time and resources into SEO? Statistics show that 92% of traffic will go to sites found on the first page. Think to yourself how many times you have gone to the second, or even third page. Hardly ever right? Well, this is why you need to get this right.
The bonus is if you find yourself sitting at the top of the page. This position tends to get 34% more click-throughs than the rest of the page. But the reality is that it is tricky. There are tons of elements to consider, and sometimes, it is easier to get someone to do it for you.
But the budget may be tight, and you might want to get things going yourself right now. So, where do you start, and can you do it yourself? We unpacked some DIY hacks for you to follow to start getting your SEO off the ground and start increasing your conversions.
How Are Your Keywords Doing?
The best place to start with SEO for eCommerce optimization is by looking at your keywords. It is important for you to keep checking what keywords are ranking highly in searches to keep your page relevant. Doing a search on some of the free (or even paid) tools to check what is relevant, and what your competitors are using shouldn’t be a one-off exercise.
In fact, keep going back to this tool and see if anything new has popped up, and if so, get it added onto your site ASAP. Include it in your content plan for a new blog to be written, look at adding a new paid ad, but keep yourself relevant, and your SEO rankings will skyrocket.
Keep Putting that Content Out There
The more content you put out, the more Google can find you and rank you. Blog as regularly as possible about topics relevant to your brand, products, and services. But, be savvy about your blogs. Don’t make them sales pitches, but rather informative, educational content about the subjects around your products.
Let’s say that you are an online pet supplies store. Create regular blog posts that discuss everything pet related. “Top 5 Exercises for a Home-Bound Dog”, “3 Signs That Your Dog is Ill”. These are topics pet owners are going to be googling, and you want to be the first site they come across. Be savvy about your topics.
If you have a product going on special that month, create a post relevant to it. In the exercise post, a CTA leading the customer to the leash that is on sale will absolutely boost your conversion rates.
Get As Many Eyes on it As Possible
Backlinks are one of the easiest ways of getting more eyes on your content, and, in doing so, getting your brand out there. Spend some time every week looking for affiliate sites, influencers, and partner platforms that you can share your content with.
In fact, find as many sites as you can to share your products and content. If the affiliate asks for a small fee to post your content, a factor that into your marketing budget. Consider what their viewership is, who their target audience is, and do a test run to see what the results are.
If you monitor your traffic for a few days after they have posted your content, and you see a significant rise, consider striking up a partnership with them to increase leads. Remember, these are more qualified leads than most sources, as they will be coming to your site out of genuine interest. Most companies spend about $1,000 on link building a month, just to put that into perspective.
Optimize Your Videos and Images
A big pitfall that a lot of companies miss is the size and formats of images and videos. If your images are too big, it’s going to have a massive impact on your SEO rankings. You will need to regularly check your images, compressing them to reduce their size, and make sure that they are in .jpg and .png format. But look for an online tool that will help you compress the file as you don’t want to lose the quality of the image.
When it comes to your videos, which are an absolute must in your content strategy, optimize them by optimizing your titles and the metadata of the videos. You want them to be really clickable and include at least one relevant keyword to get it ranked. Create a unique thumbnail for the video and try and go as far as transcribing your video text to help YouTube’s indexing.
Use Free SEO Tools
There are so many free tools out there. Use them! The best place to start is Google Analytics. We love this tool because you can see everything you need to know about how your site is doing. What is your traffic looking like, where is it coming from, how is it behaving on your site and where is it going?
With these tools, you can see which pages are getting the most attention, where traffic is lacking and what people are interested in. If one blog post is doing better than most, it will show in the charts, and you can start creating similar posts.
Luckily, Google has also created another free tool that assists with the technical side of SEO. The Google Webmaster Tool allows you to monitor site speed, image sizes, and search console reporting. Here you can pick up those nasty URL errors, get them fixed, and boost your traffic considerably.
Last Thoughts
SEO is an ongoing exercise for your site. Things change all the time, new trends pop up, visitors come and go. The best way for you to stay on top of this sometimes challenging element of your eCommerce site is by setting a few hours aside each week to work specifically on it. Keep updated with trends and keywords, and you will find that it becomes easier as time goes on.
