An Ultimate Guide to eCommerce SEO for Startups

If you are done with the development of an online store and now waiting for customers to come and purchase, stop right now! There are thousands of eCommerce businesses on the web that are selling the same or even better products than you and also offering an amazing experience.

So, why do you think the customers will come to your store?
Gone are the days of beliefs like “If you build it, they will come.” The eCommerce industry is thriving and the competition is immense, especially after the pandemic. Thus, you need to drive customers to your website by earning their attention and showing up at the top of search engine result pages? Now, the question is, how can you do that?
The best way to generate qualified leads for your Digital Commerce Solution is by using SEO which means Search Engine Optimization. It can help eCommerce businesses increase their visibility on the web and outshine competitors by showing up more often at the top.
Having scaled 100+ eCommerce startups using marketing strategies like SEO, we have curated this eCommerce SEO guide for startups and businesses looking for ways to get traction and scale. We are going to discuss everything about eCommerce SEO and best practices in this guide. So read on to market your online business like a pro.

What is eCommerce SEO?

SEO for eCommerce focuses on optimizing your store so that it can generate more leads and conversions. It is basically a set of strategies that help retailers rank higher in SERPs, which results in more visibility and traffic.
According to a survey by SEMRush, more than 35% of eCommerce traffic comes from organic search and that is another reason why it makes sense to invest in SEO optimization of your online store. It will result in optimized product pages and a fast-loading website.

However, unlike other websites, SEO for eCommerce is much more than just adding content, keywords, and obtaining backlinks. It is more about providing your users an experience that they love and taking special care of speed.
Thus, before starting working on optimizing your online store for search engines, you have to analyze your visitors’ preferences, consider Google’s algorithms, and form a killer strategy to drive traffic and increase conversions. Let’s now see how you can do that.

5 Tips to Rank Your Online Store Higher in SERPs

While the eCommerce industry is growing fast and also generating millions in sales, it is still tough for startups to stand out and secure enough traction due to several challenges, including:

• Increasing customer acquisition costs
• Increasing competition in the market
• The market share occupied by big giants like Amazon
• Higher business management costs & less visibility

That’s the reason why businesses opt for SEO. It is a weapon using which businesses can kill many birds at a time. Moreover, it is a low-cost alternative and if done strategically, it has the potential to solve every one of these challenges. Here are a few tips to help you get started:

1. Pay Heeds to Your Website Structure

In SERPs, Google prefers websites that have a simplified structure. Moreover, simplified site architecture and structure are also good for usability purposes along with crawlability. For eCommerce stores particularly, this means keeping the navigation and design of the website as simple as possible.
Search engines prefer websites that do not give users a hard time looking for products they want to purchase. To cite an example, here is the model of poor website structure:

Now imagine the time a website visitor would spend finding products that fall in the lowest category range. It is going to be much more than the average time a user spends on a website finding products.
Thus, your website must be designed in a way that enables visitors to find products in just a few clicks without getting lost. This will help improve the customer experience along with decreasing the bounce rate of your website.
On the other hand, it will become easier for search engines to crawl your store. Here is an example of what a good eCommerce website structure looks like:

2. Create a Seamless Customer Experience (CX)

Until recently, people believed that user experience and SEO do not have any connection. But, after Google’s core web vital update, that perception changed forever and now CX plays an important role in increasing or decreasing the visibility of your store.
You can improve the CX of an eCommerce website in many ways. For example, optimizing for speed, creating good designs, and using visually appealing graphics are some of the things that will have a greater impact on the CX a website offers.
The CX is also about keeping users engaged while they are browsing website pages and providing them personalized recommendations on products that they might like depending on their buying history and preferences.
If Google thinks that your website isn’t providing seamless CX, it will rank it lower in SERPs. Although it is hard to list every factor that affects the CX of the website, here are some important ones that you should care about:

• Every page on your website must load in under 3 seconds
• There must be CTAs on every page so users know what to do next
• Your website must provide users with personalized product recommendations
• Advertisements on your website must not restrict the view of content
• Your website must be mobile-friendly and the checkout process should be seamless
• It must have multiple payment options for users to choose from.

3. Make Efforts to Remain in Google’s Good Books

Google algorithms are becoming more and more intelligent with every passing day and it is becoming more proficient with time in detecting websites that are a perfect fit for users’ search queries. But, there are certain things that eCommerce business owners have to do to get the desired position in SERPs. Let’s see what are these:

Voice Search: Using voice-over text is also one of the emerging trends in eCommerce and it can help you get better at SEO as well. Isn’t it interesting?

Visual Search: Along with voice, eCommerce websites these days are implementing visual searches where a user just needs to enter the picture of a product to find something similar. For example, live search in Adobe Commerce supports visual search and Google ranks these websites higher.

Semantic Relationships: If your website gets a link back from a high-authority website like Forbes or CNN, Google counts it using Artificial Intelligence and passes link juice to your website which again increases your visibility in SERPs.

4. Optimize Your Website URLs

Website URLs play an important role in deciding the position of your website in search engine result pages. Moreover, a simple and easy-to-understand URL structure not just improves rankings but also improves eCommerce SEO up to a considerable extent.
With optimized URLs, it becomes easier to share products on social media and it also provides enough data for search engines to comprehend what is inside the page.
For example, if you are selling sports shoes and want to write an article about the qualities of your products, here is an example of what you need to avoid when it comes to deciding URLs:
https://www.amazon.com/article-about-sports-shoes-buy/
Instead, you must use a URL that is simplified and easy for search engines to understand, for example:
https://www.amazon.com/why-buy-sports-shoes/

5. Optimize Pages for Long-Tail Keywords

Choosing keywords to target with your website pages is an important strategy and you must hire search engine experts to execute the same.
Basically, long-tail keywords are those that you see on the right side of a SERP. They usually have low search volume but still are able to generate a lot of traffic for your website if used in the right manner. These types of keywords are great for:

• Ranking newly launched websites
• Increasing conversion rates
• Understanding the intent of your users

You can use tools like Google keyword planner, SEMRush, and Ubersuggest to find long-tail keywords that are specific to your niche and can drive you more traffic. There are a number of other tools as well.
In Conclusion
SEO for eCommerce startups is a way to stand out and get much-needed traction in the online space. But, at last, it is the process. You will have to invest some time to fall in line with Google’s guidelines but the results will be long-term.
If you are looking for effective and reliable eCommerce SEO services or a Magento Digital Marketing Agency, get in touch with breakneck marketing experts at Envision eCommerce.