Now, more than ever, optimizing your Ecommerce Store is crucially important for any Small Business looking to make its mark in the online world. It doesn’t matter if you have intuitive navigation, a stunning layout and beautiful graphics, if you can’t be found by potential customers, you may as well not even be online.
It is this notion of being ‘searchable’ that makes optimization strategies like Search Engine Optimization (SEO) so vital when establishing your Online Store. SEO has the potential to boost your Ecommerce sales and revenue, and position you as a leader in your industry.
While many Small Business Owners may be hesitant to embrace Digital Marketing tactics such as SEO, you shouldn’t fall into the same trap. By overlooking this powerful tool, you’ll be limiting your business’s growth potential and passing on the opportunity to reach a huge portion of your target market. And no one wants that!
So, whether you’re just establishing your Ecommerce Store, or just haven’t jumped on the optimization bandwagon yet, we’ve put together the top reasons why SEO is so important for every Ecommerce Store.
It’s Critical for Helping Customers Find You
Let’s start with the biggest selling point that SEO has to offer; helping customers find you online, which inevitably increases traffic to your Ecommerce Store.
Essentially, SEO is the process of optimizing elements of your website, whether that be content, headings or alt tags on images, to gain better recognition from Search Engines such as Google. The greater your optimization, the better your credibility as a reliable source of information, making Google place you higher up the Search Engine rankings.
Online search is now an integral part of the customer’s decision-making process, with 89% of consumers using Search Engines to inform their purchase decision. This means that by adding SEO targeted keywords to your product titles, headings, ALT images and product descriptions, you’ll be making your merchandise more ‘findable’ online. Think of SEO as the guide map that helps lead shoppers right to your online door!
In other words, Google drives the lion’s share of profit-producing traffic, so if you have an Ecommerce Store without SEO you’re basically leaving money on the table. Ignoring SEO means you’re putting yourself at risk of being ‘invisible’ during your potential customer’s buying process. Less customers know you exist, which results in lower traffic and, unfortunately, a decrease in sales.
It Gives You Long-Lasting Results
While many other Digital Marketing Strategies finish as soon as you stop investing in them, SEO delivers results that are both effective and long-lasting. Unlike Pay Per Click (PPC), which ends as soon as the budget is pulled, SEO works overtime for you.
Furthermore, unlike other Digital Marketing tools that often start fresh each year, SEO builds upon itself and grows stronger over time. This means that you have the chance to grow your authority within your niche industry and potentially dominate your market.
While SEO can take few months to ramp up compared to Paid Marketing Strategies such as PPC, the benefits are extended and long-term. This means you can be safe in the knowledge that you have a sound and proven Marketing plan that will benefit your business well into the future.
You Get Return on Investment
Unlike Paid Search Traffic, such as PPC, the traffic gained from SEO is “organic”, or in other words, free! That’s right, no cost per click, no cost per conversion and no cost per impression. This makes it an extremely popular option for the Small Business Owner working within a tight marketing budget.
In fact, according to a recent Email Marketing Industry Census, SEO came out on top as the marketing tactic with the highest return on investment, leaving Email, Paid Search Ads, Social Media and Affiliate Marketing in its dust.
While you may need to invest in a professional SEO Specialist to help you set up and manage your campaign, you’ll likely find this is a small price to pay given the typically excellent results that can be achieved using SEO.
It Provides Trackable and Quantifiable Results
One of the great things about SEO is the way in which you can track and assess almost every aspect of your campaign. You can view everything from increase in rankings and traffic, through to Click Through Rates and conversions.
These comprehensive analytics are invaluable when it comes to making any necessary changes or alterations to your campaign. It means that as your business grows, you’ll be able to track this growth and adjust your campaign effectively to suit your progress.
For Ecommerce Stores, a trained SEO professional can identify the paths a user takes on your site to complete a sale and which keywords they used to search, allowing you to constantly be tweaking and improving your strategy.
Increases Your Site Usability
While SEO does indeed work to make your Online Store more friendly and appealing to Search Engines, it also does the same for your site visitors.
Just by using SEO, you’ll be rearranging the structure of your Ecommerce Store in such a way that makes it easier to navigate and understand for your customers. Your headings will be more clearly defined, content will be sharper and products will be effectively labelled, all of which will increase your site’s usability phenomenally. Customers will be able to find and identify what they’re looking for without batting an eyelid!
Not only will this increase your chances of turning prospects into customers, but will also help endear you to your shoppers. By offering them a completely user-friendly and pleasant online shopping experience, you’ll strengthen the relationship and trust between you and your customers.
Strengthens Your Brand Awareness
When it comes to growing your brands awareness, almost nothing is as effective as ranking highly on Google. Having your Ecommerce Store topping the results page puts you instantly in the Online Limelight, translating to more exposure for your website.
This will inevitably grow and strengthen your brand awareness, as users will begin to associate your brand with the specific keywords they are searching. It will also ultimately increase your potential customers trust and likability in your business, as companies on the first page of Google are typically perceived as being trustworthy and authorities in their field.
Of course, if you’re not even appearing on the first page of Google, you’re severely decreasing your chances of standing out against your competition and becoming a known entity online. Staggeringly, less than 10% of people advance past the first page of Google, making even the second page, well, second rate!
Hopefully by now you can see just how important SEO is for your own Ecommerce Store. It’s a fantastic way to drive free, organic traffic to your site, establish your brand, stand out from your competition to ensure you have a great, long-term Digital Marketing Strategy! So, if you haven’t yet taken advantage of this Marketing powerhouse, what are you waiting for?!
One Response to “Do you need SEO for your Ecommerce store?”
COOLSEO
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