When people are looking for an online store, they usually visit search engines such as Google. For this reason, your website needs to be listed on the first results page. Otherwise, it’s unlikely that customers will ever see your store, much less visit it. With this in mind, it’s important that you consider attracting their attention by optimising your website. Once it begins to rank well on the search engine results pages (SERPs), your store’s organic traffic will also start to rise.
In addition, your SEO campaign should also focus on interacting with shoppers and engaging them with applicable and relevant content. Here are the top organic SEO methods for gaining your customers’ trust.
1. Optimise your keywords
Customers will find your online store by using certain keywords. Therefore, it is vital that you use the most appropriate keywords to rank at the top of the search engine listings. Accordingly, it is imperative that you think about identifying the keywords that will put your homepage and products in top spot. You should select these keywords based on their:
- Relevancy
- Search volume
- Ranking difficulty
You should also take account of your customers’ personalities, interests and any queries they might have about your products. One of the best ways to find out about your potential buyers is to visit niche forums such as Reddit and Quora.
Next, it is crucial to ascertain the exact keywords that your potential customers might use in their queries.
2. Improve your on-page SEO
Once you have identified the relevant keywords, you need to place them in strategic locations on your website:
- Page title
- Headers
- Sub-headers
- Paragraphs (at least the first few)
- Product descriptions
They may not be visible, but search engines still consider the following for ranking and relevance:
- Image file names or alt tags
- Meta titles and descriptions
- URLs
These items show up in the search pages and enable users to decide whether or not to click and proceed to your site.
3. Optimise your online store content for mobile devices
It is now essential that your website is mobile-friendly as Google prefers this format. Failure to ensure this will result in:
- Search engine (Google) penalties
- Slow loading times
- High bounce rates
In order to tailor your site to mobile devices consider:
- Speeding up the loading time – Approximately 75% of users leave sites that take more than five seconds to load. In fact, even if it takes more than just three seconds, you will lose more than half of your potential visitors.
- Cleaning up your site design – Avoid using outdated technology such as Flash (this is not even applicable to mobile devices). Use HTML5 if you want to add some special effects. To create an excellent user experience (UX), consider designing your site so that it can be easily navigated by large fingers. This will make it easier for customers to click on the correct links or to fill out forms.
4. Consider producing blog content and update it regularly
Writing regular blog posts will help your ranking as Google seems to like fresh content. This type of article will also encourage visitors to stay on your website a little longer which signifies that your content is still relevant.
Blogging is also suitable for capturing long-tail keywords which account for more than seven out of ten online searches. Since long-tail keywords are specific, you can use your blog posts to focus on each one. In addition, each blog can:
- Boost your ranking in the search results
- Enable you to share timely and seasonal content
- Help your SEO through social media shares
To learn more about how to create relevant and engaging content, please have a look at this guide: Ultimate Guide to Blogging for SEO Success.
5. Make your site relevant to users through link building
You can improve your SEO ranking by building:
- Inbound links – These are external pages that link to your website. However, consider the quality of inbound links to avoid damaging your SEO ranking. Link only from sites that have:
- High authority
- Excellent SEO ranking
- Optimised pages
- Relevant anchor text
- Outbound links – These are links that go out to external or third-party sites. To make your content relevant, consider linking only to:
- Helpful websites where your readers can get useful and detailed information
- Sites that are related to your topic, content and products
- Authority websites, and inform the site owners so they can also share your content
Conclusion
An online store that is always visible on the search engine results pages is likely to attract both leads and customers. Achieving top spot requires the use of organic SEO techniques. This strategy involves using keywords, links, blogs and other tools. Of course, this is not easy and will take time, but the results are long-lasting and profitable for your business.
Chris Anderson is the founder of Springhill Marketing.
Organic SEO stock photo by Stuart Miles/Shutterstock
