There are many ways to market your e-commerce site online, including PPC ads, utilizing social media, and email marketing. But one of the best ways to get more organic traffic coming to your site every month is by focusing on your search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is how your site ranks on the critical first page of Google, and it’s how users and customers can find you more easily after simply typing in the keyword that relates to your e-commerce site. There are many elements to consider in order to be successful at SEO, and it can take time. But with the proper effort and diligence, it’s possible to rank for long-tail keywords that are relevant to your e-commerce site.

SEO Basics

Before working towards any SEO related gains, it’s imperative for e-commerce site owners to know what keywords they hope to rank for. This requires some research, and resources like Google Keyword Planner or SEOMoz can help in the process. It’s important to understand what keywords are possible to rank for, what keywords competitors are ranking for, and what keywords can be used for different parts of an e-commerce site to include the landing page, blog and product pages.

Next, a content marketing plan has to be developed to begin boosting SEO rankings. Producing unique, valuable content that includes a good keyword density of around 1% to 3% is essential as an SEO best practice. Furthermore, content must be produced on a consistent basis in order to grow the amount of content on the site, to attract new users and to increase the time on page for users as this metric is used in determining SEO rankings.

Finally, a responsive design is also a necessity for achieving high SEO rankings. Responsive design entails a site being designed for use across all different devices, including mobile, tablet, and desktop. Since roughly half of all internet use is mobile today, not having a responsive design could mean missing out on half of your potential users.

Later SEO Considerations

After the basics have been established, there are some further efforts that need to be taken to refine your site for SEO purposes. First, duplicate content must be avoided, as this can usually happen between product or manufacturer descriptions and is regarded unfavorably by SEO ranking algorithms. Next, loading times should be brought down as much as possible by optimizing site content and design. Loading times are thought to directly affect SEO rankings, and if your site is slow it can also cause users to leave before your site even loads. Additionally, SEO friendly URLs and page descriptions should be included throughout your site, and image tags should be optimized for search too. Finally, allowing users to post reviews is a great way to encourage user participation and promote user generated unique content for each product page.