Why is SEO Important for Ecommerce?

10 min read

Table of Contents

10 min read

Do you know that 39% of all eCommerce traffic comes from search engines? It demands the need for an effective eCommerce website. Search Engine Optimization helps your website get the top position in the search engine page results.

Though SEO is a lucrative strategy to be implemented in websites and search engines, some people don’t recognize is SEO important for e-commerce websites. No matter your business, a solid SEO strategy helps draw people to your website.

Search engine optimization determines the best, most popular, and most useful websites based on customers’ search terms. It’s no secret that focusing on SEO is essential since it contributes to rankings if you’re looking to get your website found on search engines. Ranking an eCommerce site is tricky since you need to optimize your keywords, ensure your website is user-friendly, check for lagging images, and so on.

Even your interest in learning about eCommerce’s ins and outs helps optimize your website for effective SEO.

importance of SEO for eCommerce website

Understanding Ecommerce

Ecommerce refers to the online purchase and sale of goods and services. The process is conducted through smart devices. E-commerce allows people to buy almost anything nowadays. It can be used in place of physical stores, though some companies prefer to keep both. E-commerce SEO is important & contribute significantly to global economic growth.

What Does “SEO” Mean?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps people find your business online by making sure your website appears high up in the list of results for relevant searches. If you build your site with relevant content and target keyword you’ll attract more visitors who will then convert into leads and eventually sales.

How Does E-commerce SEO work?

E-commerce SEO is a marketing technique used to get more traffic to your store by making it more visible on search engine result pages (SERPs). A well-ranked page will receive more traffic, so you want your page to rank as high as possible.

Unlike paid ads, which drive traffic to your web store by making you pay per click, SEO allows you to capture highly relevant traffic at virtually no cost. Search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo, all rank your web store based on SEO.

To improve SEO on your web store, it’s important to pay attention to the content on your web store. It’s possible to improve the importance of SEO for e-commerce through comprehensive web store product pages, optimized product descriptions, by implementing a blog, or by running a technical audit of your website.

For your web pages to rank higher in SERPs, you need to ensure your website is optimized for search engines.

Here are a few examples on what this looks like:

  • The keywords you use to target pages
  • The technical setup of your web store
  • Whether your web store is mobile friendly
  • These all have an impact on your e-commerce SEO and whether or not your web pages will rank in SERPs like Google.

Is there a Difference in Doing SEO in B2B E-commerce vs. B2C E-commerce?

B2B SEO VS B2C SEO

Though SEO in B2C and B2B e-commerce have the same outcome (increasing organic traffic), they do have some key differences:

  • Target Audience: While B2C SEO is targeted towards individual consumers, B2B e-commerce SEO content has to cater to a more formal audience, since their customers represent whole organizations.
  • Longer Buying Cycle: B2B is notoriously known for having longer buying cycles than in B2C. This also means that your customer may need more time, information and content before making a purchasing decision.
  • Goal: The goal of B2B SEO content tends to be educational/informational, while B2C SEO attempts to trigger a purchase.
  • KPIs: Since B2B and B2C have such different goals, their KPIs differ also. Whereas B2B SEO success is measured by lead generation, conversion rate, revenue and customer lifetime value, B2C SEO is more easily measured by traffic and average order value.

Reasons Why is SEO Important for Ecommerce

is SEO important for eCommerce

The eCommerce industry is growing at a rapid pace, and it’s easy to see why. With the rise in popularity of online shopping, more people are looking for ways to buy products or services online. The good news is that eCommerce SEO is one of the most effective ways to boost your business. Ecommerce SEO offers many benefits for business owners:

1. Enhanced Branding

enhance your brand

Brands that focus on their customers are more likely to succeed. An optimized website allows your brand to connect with its audience and provide value, thus increasing brand awareness. Adding Google’s Answer Box to your website can increase your SEO rankings and is a cost-effective way to create brand awareness.

2. More Traffic & Sales

Drive More Traffic & Sales

Optimized websites tend to rank higher than non-optimized ones when it comes to search engines. This results in more visitors to your seo for online store by giving the SEO importance. With optimized e-commerce websites, you can attract more customers and increase sales. It also helps brands get organic traffic for free and it works! However, organic traffic isn’t just about getting more visitors from Google search results. You can also get organic traffic from other websites that link back to your website. Your organic search rankings can also increase if you are using target keywords and user-generated content for products and services offered by your business.

Targeted traffic is a high-quality traffic generator through visitors actively searching for the products and services that your website offers.

3. To Increased Conversion Rate SEO is important

Increased Conversion Rate

A well-designed website encourages users to make purchases. It makes the process easier by helping them navigate through the checkout process without having to leave the site. SEO helps fill the marketing funnel. It plays an important role in all stages of the funnel, such as

  • Awareness
  • Research
  • Action (purchase)

It enables you to track shopper movement through keywords used by visitors and helps target the intent of the shopper. The content marketing strategy also plays a vital role through all stages of the funnel. A fully optimized web page serves as bottom-of-the-funnel content which is the action stage for conversion.

4. Better Credibility

Better Credibility

Having a high-quality website helps establish trust between consumers and brands. Consumers feel comfortable buying from businesses that have been around for years. Having an eCommerce SEO strategy helps ecommerce seo agency become more responsive, publish quality content on the website, check for spam links, and use other social media platforms to promote their products and services.

All these activities result in gaining the customer’s trust and becoming credible.

5. Better Search Rankings

Better Search Rankings

If you want to be found quickly on search engines, you should optimize your website. Your website needs to be optimized to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). The higher ranking of your web pages translates into more clicks and increased search traffic.

6. Increased Customer Engagement

Increased Customer Engagement

The most important factor in the success of a customer engagement program is that it should be designed to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. The most effective way to do this is by providing customers with an experience they will remember, which can only happen if your website is optimized.

Websites with clear navigation and engaging type of content encourage customers to visit again and again. As a result, they become loyal customers.

7. High-Value Content

High-Value Content

Businesses invest a considerable amount of time in keyword research for their target audience. However, content relevancy does not guarantee visitors to the website. Content marketing is required, a well-written SEO content helps attract potential customers and keep them engaged resulting in a sale.

Using the SEO strategy the content of your website can be organized topic-wise to appear in search engine results. This process helps to get organic traffic from search engines. Creating helpful content is yet another technique for content optimization as it will keep the visitors coming back for more.

8. Improved User Experience

Improved User Experience

The world of eCommerce is changing rapidly. The days when you could buy a product and have it delivered to your door are long gone. Today, the customer can browse an online catalog of products from all over the world and make their choice based on price, quality, and convenience. If they like what they see, they can place an order directly from the website.

With this change in buying behavior, your website must provide the best possible experience for your customers. Your website needs to be user-friendly, fast-loading, and responsive so that your customers don’t abandon the site before making a purchase.

Choosing the right keywords and answering visitors’ queries helps customers have a positive user experience.

9. Reduced Customer Acquisition Cost

Reduced Customer Acquisition Cost

The customer acquisition cost is calculated for different time frames like monthly, quarterly, and yearly. It gives a clear picture of which marketing strategy is working and which one is not. It is a constant tug of war to keep the CAC low. SEO helps get visitors organically, thus reducing the cost incurred for Google Ads and social media advertising.

The basis of SEO is to create helpful content and positive user experiences to make customers take the desired action.

10. Digital Growth

Digital Growth

The best advantage of SEO is that the traffic generated can be used to power other marketing efforts. By placing cookies on the landing page products can be remarketed. The information captured through the cookies enables showing ads to the visitors even when they leave the website. Hence SEO enables digital growth without the need for paid advertising and a huge marketing budget; by just diverting the SEO-generated traffic to other marketing channels.

11. High Return on Investment

High Return on Investment

If you are still uncertain about the importance SEO for your website, let me tell you that it has a high return on investment and that too for the long-term. Paid advertisement stops the traffic flow once the budget is over. But SEO gives lasting results, as the traffic in-flow continues year after year.

What are the Challenges of E-commerce SEO?

The challenges that many companies overlook when optimizing their e-commerce SEO are:

1. Lack of Quality Content

The biggest problem with optimizing e-commerce SEO is that some sites try doing so quickly and forget that it’s not just about the quantity of content. It’s about the quality of the content. Your product pages can’t just be a copy-paste of the manufacturers’ description, they need to be concise descriptions accompanied by pictures.

For organizations focused on B2B e-commerce SEO, it’s tempting to check all the technical requirements for strong SEO and neglect the most necessary component: unique content that adds value for visitors. Content is the biggest ranking factor for SEO and is vital for a successful long-term strategy.

2. Forgetting About the Technical Setup

Although content is king, you can’t forget about your technical SEO setup. Things like HTTPS, mobile-friendliness, page speed, indexation, XML sitemap are often forgotten about.

Conclusion

In conclusion, SEO is a crucial part of any eCommerce business’s digital marketing strategy. By optimizing your website for search engines, you can increase traffic, improve user experience, increase sales, and gain a competitive advantage over your competitors. If you are not investing in SEO for your eCommerce business, you are missing out on a significant opportunity to grow your business online. 

FAQs

1. Can I do SEO on my own?

It is possible to do SEO on your own. However, using the right strategies can lead to increased traffic, website penalization, and lost business. Doing it yourself can be very time-consuming and challenging. It is essential to have a good understanding of search engine algorithms to optimize your website and content. It’s best to enlist the help of a professional with SEO experience.

They will be able to provide you with guidance and advice and execute your marketing strategies on your behalf. If you decide that hiring a professional is not for you, many free tools available online can help you get started with SEO. These include SEOMoz’s MozBar, Ahrefs’ Site Explorer, Ubersuggest, and SEMrush’s toolbar. Make sure to experiment with different techniques and try out different keywords until you find the ones that work best for your website.

2. How important is SEO for e-commerce?
SEO is an essential part of online marketing, and it can play a significant role in the success of an e-commerce business. Optimizing the website for search engines can attract more traffic, leading to higher conversion and increased sales. In addition to attracting new customers, good SEO helps the website rank high on Google when users are looking for specific keywords or products. It boosts visibility and builds trust with potential buyers considering buying.
3. Which is better for eCommerce on-page SEO or link building?
On-page SEO and link building are essential aspects of any online marketing campaign. It can be helpful to combine them to maximize results. SEO can help target potential customers with relevant content that has been well-researched and written. In contrast, link building can help you generate quality links that will improve the website’s ranking in search engines. Both strategies have their strengths and weaknesses, so it is essential to pick the right approach for your business.
4. Can SEO help increase conversions on an e-commerce website?
Yes, SEO activity impacts conversions on an e-commerce website. Optimizing the website for relevant keywords and enhancing user experience, SEO helps attract targeted traffic and increase conversions. High search engine rankings build trust and credibility. This positively influences purchase decisions. Optimization of product pages, good product descriptions, optimized and well-researched calls-to-action(A/B test), and easy checkout also improve conversions.
5. Is SEO an ongoing process for e-commerce websites?
Yes, SEO is an ongoing process for e-commerce websites. Search engine algorithms constantly change, competition also changes, and consumer behavior shifts. It is essential to monitor and analyze the website’s performance regularly, track keyword rankings, update product pages, create fresh content, etc., to stay ahead of the competitors. By staying proactive and consistently optimizing the e-commerce website, one can keep the ranking intact and stay ahead of the competition.
Picture of Manoj chauhan

Manoj chauhan

I'm Manoj, a digital marketing professional with over 5 years of experience and a bachelor's degree in computer applications. I've successfully helped e-commerce businesses generate over $500,000 in monthly sales through organic traffic. My expertise includes keyword research, white hat link building, CMS-based SEO changes, social media optimization (SMO), technical SEO, content SEO, and impactful content marketing.

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