Time is precious with any business, but it’s especially valuable for eCommerce brands. According to Shopify, retail sales online will exceed $6 trillion by 2023. As an eCommerce business, you likely want to get in on those sales with a proven but cost-effective strategy—like working with an eCommerce SEO agency to grow your online presence organically.
An eCommerce SEO agency is an agency dedicated to growing eCommerce business’ websites online through organic search methods. They utilize SEO (search engine optimization) strategies to grow e-commerce brands’ digital presence via key inbound strategies that drive traffic and increase brand awareness.
Read on to learn the perks of working with an eCommerce SEO agency
Partnering with an e-commerce SEO company has several advantages—the biggest one being that you work with industry professionals who expertly conceptualize, plan, and execute your SEO strategy. In this post, we’ll go over:
One of the biggest advantages of working with an agency is you get key e-commerce SEO services, including a site audit. A site audit is the process of analyzing a website and getting insights into its visibility and performance on search engines. Site audits are done before any major work is done to the website, such as a large redesign or SEO initiative.
A site audit is beneficial because it allows e-commerce businesses to identify any potential website pitfalls that could hinder their SEO strategy and get them fixed. Site audits allow you to catch things such as:
The sooner your e-commerce website identifies these pitfalls, the faster you can get them fixed and get your website optimized successfully.
One of the key pillars of any SEO strategy is keyword research. Keyword research is the process of finding relevant search terms for your eCommerce business to target through organic or paid channels. These search terms are words internet users type into search engines, so the more you know about them, the more you understand what your audience is looking for.
An eCommerce SEO agency will have professionals find relevant keywords for your business to target, look at the intent behind those keywords, and come up with a strategy for how to rank for that keyword—ideally, on the first search engine results page (SERP). According to MailChimp, websites that rank on Google’s first SERP get more than 90 percent of consumer traffic.
Having your e-commerce website on the first SERP of a relevant and highly searched keyword can lead to great traffic numbers, but there has to be a strategy behind targeting a keyword. Ecommerce SEO services help build that strategy.
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Local SEO is a search strategy that focuses on getting your e-commerce website to rank for local keywords. This helps boost your visibility for local searches. For instance, if your e-commerce business has physical locations, you’d adjust your SEO strategy to target the areas you’re located. Some instances of local keywords include:
There’s more to local SEO than local keyword research, though. An eCommerce SEO agency will provide other local SEO solutions like:
By embracing local SEO for eCommerce, your business establishes an important SEO pillar that can drive local traffic to your website and increase conversions.
An SEO strategy is only as strong as the foundation it’s built on—and that foundation is technical SEO. This term refers to the technical aspects of your website or e-commerce platform that help search engines find and rank it. Elements of technical SEO include:
At the end of the day, the job of a search engine is to provide users with the best experience possible. Technical SEO helps e-commerce businesses ensure that people are getting a seamless and user-friendly online experience. No broken links, no slow loading page speeds—just a great experience.
Whether you use Magento, WooCommerce, Shopify, or WordPress, an eCommerce SEO agency will evaluate the technical aspects of your CMS. From there, they will see what’s going right, and what needs improvement. The more technical SEO fixes are made, the better search engines can index your platforms, which increases your chances of ranking well online.
Product and category pages are critical components of your business’ online presence. Luckily, eCommerce SEO services provide assistance with optimizing product and category pages so they rank well online.
For product and category pages to rank well, they need to do the following:
An e-commerce SEO agency will come up with a comprehensive and strategic SEO plan that helps your product and category pages rank online. Remember, eCommerce brands need to put themselves in the searcher’s shoes when optimizing their product and category pages. An agency will determine the intent behind the search and optimize the pages accordingly, ensuring users have a seamless experience.
One of the biggest advantages of working with an eCommerce SEO agency is that you’ll have assistance with creating and optimizing landing pages. Landing pages are exactly as they sound—they’re the pages users land on after taking an action in a marketing campaign, such as clicking on a pay-per-click (PPC) ad or a marketing email. These pages typically have one goal: lead generation. They collect a user’s information, such as their email address and/or phone number, and in exchange, the user gets something of value—typically, a free resource (like a newsletter) or free trial.
When properly optimized, a landing page is an incredibly value marketing and lead generation tool that marks a crucial touch point in the customer journey. According to HubSpot, nearly 1 in 10 people (10 percent) who find themselves on a landing page will become potential leads and, eventually, potential customers. Ecommerce brands looking to boost their lead generation efforts and feed their sales funnels should focus on the design and optimization of their landing pages—services an eCommerce SEO company can provide.
An agency can help e-commerce brands create and optimize their landing pages by:
When talking about SEO for e-commerce, a viable strategy that can boost a business’ online ranking is doubling down on content marketing. Content marketing is a marketing strategy that features the creating and distribution of digital content. Ecommerce brands can use content marketing to increase brand awareness, boost their SERP rankings, and show their value to customers and prospects.
Elements of content marketing include:
An eCommerce SEO agency will assist with the planning, creation, and execution of a business’ content marketing strategy. This includes cataloging what you already have, seeing where content opportunities lie, and evaluating which channels (website vs. social media, email, etc.) are best for distributing that content.
Why should e-commerce businesses care about content marketing? Well, let’s look at some statistics to paint a picture. According to HubSpot, more than 50 percent of marketers who utilize blogging say it’s effective, and 10 percent say it has the biggest ROI. And, according to Semrush, who conducted a survey among content marketers, 45 percent of respondents wanted to increase brand awareness through content marketing in 2022, and 37 percent want to get more traffic to their site.
Ecommerce brands can achieve similar goals by working with an agency to plan and execute their content marketing plan. The best part? You can hone in on organic inbound traffic, meaning leads can come to you.
Does your website have all 10? Learn the secrets to driving more traffic to your website, generating more leads, and ultimately increasing sales.
Another advantage of working with an eCommerce SEO company is that you get assistance with your link building strategy. Link building is a strategy that involves websites obtaining links from other websites, meaning those other websites link to their web pages. For example, a website may link to another website if it’s being used as a source, or if it’s a product, it may be linked in a shopping roundup.
What’s the advantage of having a link building strategy? Think of getting links as getting points in the eyes of search engines. The more points (links) you get, the higher your score (Domain Authority) is. The higher your score is, the more trustworthy and legitimate you look to search engines. As such, the search engines will be more likely to rank your website and pages higher on the SERP.
How does an eCommerce SEO agency play into this? An agency can:
A PPC strategy is an online paid advertising strategy which has businesses pay each time their ad is clicked. While an organic strategy pays off, it can take time to build out the content and see the results. On the other hand, you can get results quicker with a PPC strategy—but it will, of course, cost you.
When money’s in the mix, it’s important to work with professionals who understand the ins and outs of PPC advertising and know which strategies will help you achieve your goals. That’s why working with an eCommerce SEO company that also helps with PPC ads can be a game-changer for your e-commerce business. An agency can:
When it comes to lead generation and lead nurturing, one of the best channels e-commerce businesses can utilize is email. When done right, an email marketing campaign yields impressive results—according to Oberlo, you can expect to make a whopping $42 average return for every $1 spent on email marketing.
That kind of return doesn’t just come magically, though. It takes:
Since email is such a valuable owned channel you can capitalize on, it only makes sense to have an eCommerce SEO agency help maximize your email efforts. An agency can help you set up and monitor abandoned cart campaigns, flash sale campaigns, product launches, newsletters, and more. An agency will also evaluate these campaigns and make strategy recommendations based on data.
Yes, one of the goals of an SEO strategy is to increase organic traffic to your e-commerce website—but another goal is to maximize your conversion rates. By conversion rates, we mean a user taking an action after they get on the website (purchasing a product, signing up for a newsletter, etc.)
Getting eyeballs on your website is only the beginning. An agency will utilize copy, design, testing, and data analysis to delight users into taking action with your brand. From there, you can nurture them depending on where they are in the customer journey.
Ecommerce brands have plenty on their plates, and admittedly, coming up with an SEO game plan can seem daunting. Luckily, working with an eCommerce SEO agency gives brands like yours the best of both worlds: you get to pass the SEO buck off to the professionals and see the results come in, saving you valuable time and resources. If you’re ready to capitalize on eCommerce SEO and grow your brand organically online, contact Mediaboom today—we’d love to discuss taking your brand to the next level.
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