SEO is the engine that drives online marketing. However, not all SEO strategies work equally well for every company. Consider e-commerce companies. Standard SEO strategies do help to some degree, but they need more specific e-commerce SEO to maximize both on- and off-site performance.
Webtek Digital Marketing is a Salt Lake City, Utah company that offers e-commerce SEO along with a full menu of SEO and digital marketing services. They say the most important thing to understand about e-commerce SEO is how to go about keyword research.
- Keywords Drive Everything
Keyword research is the most important aspect of SEO. Why? Because every other SEO related task a developer undertakes is birthed out of that research. For instance, how does one create productive content without knowing the right keywords on which to base that content?
E-commerce businesses have an additional angle to be concerned about – how keywords can be used to sell products. Nailing this down requires a keen understanding of how people search for products online as opposed to finding information about things like local restaurants, sports scores, and so forth.
- Product-Specific Keywords
Most online searches are based on informational keywords. This is to say that people want to know how to do things, where to find things, and so forth. The user searching for news headlines wants to know what’s going on in the world. Another looking to follow a favorite sports team wants to know last night’s score.
Informational keywords can apply to e-commerce, but most e-commerce searches revolve around specific products, product categories, manufacturers, brands, etc. A consumer is not going to search ‘how do I find…’ when they are looking for the latest pair of Nike sneakers. Instead, they are going to search specifically for those sneakers.
This dictates that, for e-commerce SEO purposes, keyword research has to take a different angle. Developers have to search keywords in relation to specific products and manufacturers. They have to be very cognizant of how potential buyers will search for the products or services on an e-commerce site.
- Multiple Tools for Research
Thankfully, there are multiple free and paid tools that SEO developers can utilize for keyword research. One of the best for e-commerce SEO is Amazon Suggest. The key to this tool is Amazon’s position as the world’s number one online retailer.
Using this tool is easy and free. It costs no money and only a few seconds of your time. Just go to the Amazon homepage, go to the search bar, and enter in a keyword pertaining to a particular product. In seconds you will see a drop-down menu showing all the most common keywords consumers rely on to find that product.
A keen SEO developer will notice that most of these keywords are long tail keywords rather than single words. Long tail keywords tend to lead to better conversions because they are more specific. And in the e-commerce world, specificity is like gold. The more specific you can make your search results, the greater the chances that visitors will buy a product or service.
- Thinking Like Your Customers
What this all boils down to is the reality that you have to think like your customers. You also have to consider where they will start the shopping journey. Some shoppers begin every online journey with a search engine. Others, particularly those who have had good experience with a particular retailer, will go to that retailer’s site.
Either way, keywords drive e-commerce SEO the same way they do traditional SEO. The significant difference is the approach one takes to research the best possible keywords.
