The success of online stores relies on high volumes of quality traffic . This is usually achieved through various marketing and advertising methods, such as social media, paid social media ads, and paid search engine ads.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is often overlooked as a crucial part of an e-commerce business’ marketing strategy. This is usually because other methods provide business owners and marketers with a more predictable and immediate source of traffic.
However, there are several benefits of SEO that make it as, if not more, valuable than other marketing and advertising methods. In this guide, we are going to give you 10 benefits of SEO for your e-commerce site .
What is natural referencing?
Before we dive into 10 of the benefits of SEO , let’s define exactly what we mean by search engine optimization in e-commerce.
Search engines such as Google rank their results based on the perceived value of the website in response to the query. The exact algorithms used by Google are a closely guarded secret, but there are several proven, tested, and widely accepted methods to improve your search engine rankings. These include posting high-value content , using the right keywords, and ensuring your website is user-friendly.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of following these methods in order to improve your website’s ranking in search engines and thereby drive more traffic to your site.
Generate sustainable traffic
Methods such as social media ads and search engine ads can generate large volumes of visitors in a relatively short period of time.
However, maintaining this level of traffic through paid methods can be costly. You will have to keep paying the ad provider, and over time you may have to pay more to get the same amount of traffic as the competition increases.
. Most of your SEO investment is made early in the process, with lasting results. You need to keep the content up to date and running smoothly on your website to continue to achieve the same levels of search engine success.
advantages of working on your SEO for an e-commerce
Generate quality traffic
This usually involves researching short and long keywords that are highly relevant to your online store. If you can find these keywords and target them successfully, you will see high volumes of visitors looking to buy your products.
For example, let’s say you run an online store that sells indoor plants. You could target a search term like “buy cheap houseplants” and have your store rank well for that keyword.
This increases the number of visitors to your store, and also helps you find visitors willing to buy your products. The more specialized your keywords are, the more relevant traffic you can generate for your store.
Give visibility to your brand
Not only does ranking high on search engine results pages drive traffic to your site, it also ensures that your brand is always part of the conversation when a purchasing decision is made.
Even in cases where a person selects a competitor from the result list, when he sees your website in the same result list, he subconsciously registers you as an alternative. This is a strong position, especially if your competitor is failing to meet customer expectations – because hopefully those customers will come straight to you!
Give customers an exceptional experience
Ranking high in search engine results also makes you easier to find when your customers are looking for you. This is especially important if your URL is a bit hard to remember, doesn’t exactly match your brand name, or is easy to misspell.
Being at the top of the charts when your customers search for you reduces friction and increases the chances that they will buy from you. In fact, only 0.78% of users click on websites that appear on the second page of Google’s search results, so being on the first page of Google is a must!
Even when searching for a specific store or brand, a significant number of people head straight to Google, rather than typing in the URL. Good SEO is therefore essential to help customers find you online.
It’s free (or almost)
Unlike paid social media ads or search engine ads, following SEO best practices gives you a great source of traffic without having to pay big upfront costs.
However, what they say is true: “nothing in life is free”.
The good news is that you don’t need to directly spend money on SEO. However, this can be a big investment of time and energy. Also, enlisting other people to help you, such as content writers , editors, and website experts, can greatly speed up the process of improving your search engine rankings, but it will cost you. money.
Improve customer confidence
One of the disadvantages of selling online compared to physical stores is that it is more difficult to gain the trust of customers. Still, it is essential that customers trust your business, otherwise they will never feel comfortable buying from your online store.
There are many things you can do to build customer confidence in your online store, and one of them is to boost your search engine rankings. First, Google ranks websites it trusts, which sends a strong signal to users looking for businesses: the higher your site appears in search results, the more trustworthy it is.
For example, if you are looking to hire a lawyer, will you click on the first result on page 1 or on the last result on page 2? The higher you rank, the more trustworthy your website seems!