Owing to the rapid and dramatic changes in the information technology in the past two decades, ecommerce has become one of the fastest growing sectors today. More and more people are preferring to shop online to save their precious time, while businesses are using this opportunity to reach a much larger audience base and boosting their revenues. According to Statista, e-retail revenues are projected to grow to 4.88 trillion US dollars in 2021.
The promising and exponentially growing business model of ecommerce has also intensified competition in this field. Today, countless businesses are competing with each other neck and neck to sell their products or services online.
Although, in the ecommerce industry, there is something for everyone, but companies that are able to make most of this opportunity are the winners of this game. SEO is one such strategy for ecommerce businesses that can make a big difference in terms of success and failure.
When you launch your ecommerce website for the first time, the only people who know about it are your family, friends, and staff. So, it’s your primary objective to take your business to as many people as possible. This is where SEO comes to the picture that brings customers to your site and maximize your profitability.
Now the question is how much budget should you spend on SEO activities apart from other marketing strategies? According to a recent survey, SEO makes up to 11% of the budget for marketers with rising and steady CPAs. In fact, SEO is the area of the budget that marketers feel like they must invest in no matter how expensive customer acquisition is getting. It clearly suggests, there is an SEO arms race with the competition.
Here is how SEO is highly critical for your ecommerce business:
- SEO is the key for helping customers find you
The success of an ecommerce startup largely depends upon its visibility. No matter how good your products or services are, if you aren’t to be seen anywhere, no one will ever come to you. The consistent SEO efforts on your part will give you higher ranking on search engine results, which means more people get to know about your business. Without SEO you actually run the risk of losing your profitable customers. Quite clearly, no SEO means no visibility.
Google is the most visited website for organic search, which plays a huge part in your business’s website performance. In other words, being highly visible as a trusted resource especially by Google in always going to work in your favour. If your web page flashes right kind of keywords and promising content, you are highly likely to attract more conversions and sales.
Amidst the noise, there are two factors that can impact your SEO efforts; these are your site’s uptime and your page speed. If you don’t take care of them, you will witness a negative organic performance. So a good hosting provider like HostPresto can help you achieve your SEO goals much faster. One of the many ways for optimizing your site and improving page speed is using control panel. There are many cPanel features that work best for your ecommerce site. As a result, your website will load as fast as possible in order to take full advantage of your SEO efforts.
- SEO is a cost-effective way to grow your business
SEO is often termed as one of the most affordable and cost-effective strategies of online advertising. Though it requires a long process to yield results, but the results are extremely fruitful, nonetheless. SEO targets users who are actively looking for your products or services online, which results into more qualified leads than many other marketing strategies. The inbound nature of SEO helps you save money as opposed to outbound nature like cold-calling.
As your ecommerce site contains several pages and each page requires separate potential SEO campaign. So by establishing a single SEO campaign, you ensure that each page is properly optimized. While attempting to optimize the entire site with one SEO campaign, you have to bear in mind that different pages should target different keywords.
The other important cost-effective aspect of SEO is it builds a powerful link profile. Search engines use the number of links pointing to your site as a guide to its value. While doing this, not only the utility of your links is considered, but the value of that page is also taken into account.
- You achieve long-lasting benefits through SEO
One of the biggest advantages that SEO has in ecommerce is that the results obtained are maintained for a relatively longer time. In case of paid ads, when the campaign ends, the advertisement is no longer displayed, and the website no longer appears in the top positions of search engine rankings.
SEO doesn’t have a shelf life as no one pulls the plug on it. Rather, it keeps going, working night and day. Hence, long-term results. Unlike other forms of marketing where you have to launch a new one from the scratch, SEO builds upon itself to grow stronger over time. With continuous tweaks here and there, you layer your SEO efforts, until your brand emerges as a winner and you dominate your niche. Therefore from the perspective of investment, SEO is worth waiting as the ongoing process is hard to miss.
- It serves as a vehicle for bringing traffic and generating sales
If appropriately implemented, SEO can increase the number of visitors to your website, which goes on to generate more leads. Well, it’s interesting to understand how it happens. SEO boosts your business’s search ranking based on the content that uses keywords you want to target. When prospects search for these keywords, they find your content in the search results. The content obviously carries links that point to your website, now when they follow these links, you get organic traffic. If your content is highly relevant for them and meets their needs, chances are they will convert into leads. Later, you will make sales.
A powerful SEO serves as a funnel that brings a stream of prospects to your website. Now, when they find exemplary service or great products on your site, they will more likely to convert into customers. Also, to make most of this opportunity, you need to create and optimize quality content so that search engines and searchers see the value in what you offer.
- SEO optimization improves all aspects of your ecommerce experience
When customers get exactly what they want from your content then a positive user experience sets in, which is pivotal to your website’s success. So a good SEO makes all this happen. Customer experience begins with mapping the customer journey to gain insight about their behaviours and preferences. When you align your SEO efforts with your buyers’ journey, you have the opportunity to drive increased traffic and capture more potential customers in your funnel.
Blogs are a great way to enhance the customer experience while building your SEO. For that, you must create valuable content that helps your prospects. Updating and refining your site regularly with fresh content improves your SEO and keeps Google happy. Thus, SEO will leave you with a better and more professional website that will work towards achieving conversions and driving sales.
Final Thoughts
The first and foremost requirement for ecommerce business is web visibility, which is mostly provided by good SEO practices. In today’s competitive landscape, it’s not enough to have a website with attractive designs and interactive features. A powerful SEO is what can make or break online sales.
