Importance of SEO for E-Commerce

Before talking about the significance and gravity of SEO for an ECommerce website, let’s thoroughly look over the nature and features of ECommerce.
ECommerce is a wide term used conducting transactions which includes sale or purchase of goods and services through cyberspace.

Some of the salient features of E-Commerce are listed below-

B2B ECommerce or business-to-business electronic commerce- It includes digitally involved transactions between businesses. Since all the transactions are conducted online, the efficiency of wholesalers, distributors and manufacturers and other B2B participants increases.
B2C ECommerce or business-to-consumer electronic commerce- Most companies wish to directly sell a product or service to the end users that are consumers. It acts as a link between online virtual shopping and potential customers.
P2P or Peer-to-peer transactions- P2P which is also known as ‘sharing’ or ‘on‐demand’ economy which involves the transaction of goods and services between consumers facilitated through a digital intermediary.

According to the the U.S Bureau of Economic Analysis data 2017, the digital economy current-dollar value added and share of total current dollar gross domestic product is more than 1200 billion dollars and 7% respectively.

Components of Digital Economy

• ECommerce and digital media
• Telecommunications
• Software
• Hardware
• Support Services

The Real Value-Added Average Annual Growth (1998-2017) of the Digital Economy increased to up to 10%.
The digital economy supported 5.1 million jobs or 3.3% of total employment.

Average annual compensation per employee in the digital economy totaled $132,233 compared to $68,506 for the total economy.

Sales from ECommerce in 2015 were $341.7 billion for the year. That is a 14.6% expansion contrasted with 2014s $298.3 billion. The report went on further to take note of that online deals were 7.3% of complete retail deals in 2015, versus 6.4% in 2014.

3 SEO strategies for ECommerce

Technical SEO Checklist

1. Install Google Analytics. Essential to measure key SEO metrics like website
traffic, conversions and revenue. Use Ahrefs to measure keyword ranking and
link building.
2. Using WordPress? Download the Yoast SEO Plugin. It will make your life 10x
easier. Use it to complete many of the Technical and On-Page SEO best
practices in one place.
3. Verify Your Site in Google Search Console. This free tool allows you to check
how the search engines view your site with reports about indexing status,
search queries, crawl errors and penalties. To learn more, read this helpful
guide.
4. Improve Website Performance & Speed. Analyze your site with Google
Page Speed Insights. Aim to score 80+. Speed things up with WordPress
Plugins: Better Delete Revision, WP Smush and W3 Total Cache .
5. Take the Google Mobile-Friendly Test. Your site should deliver a great user
experience across all devices. Extra important now that Google’s algorithm
favours mobile friendly sites.

Keyword Research Process

6. Develop a Buyer Persona: Getting into your customers shoes is the first step
to keyword research. Remember, customers are not searching for your site.
They are searching for valuable information to solve their problems.
7. Keyword Strategy: Aim to target less competitive “body and long tail
keywords” that competitors have overlooked. Create content around a
portfolio of keywords rather than one single term.
8. Brainstorm for Keyword Ideas: Make a copy of this Keyword Research
Template. Hack Wikipedia for Topic Ideas and Synonyms. Generate 1000’s of
long tail keywords ideas using 3 automated tools: Google Autocomplete,
Ubersuggest & Keyword Shitter . Discover untapped keywords and topics
using Quora.
9. Narrow Down Your Keyword List: Use search volume data from Keyword
Everywhere Extension or Google Keyword Planner To cut down the list. Be
sure to consider commercial intent using Cost-per-click (CPC) figures as a
Guide.
10. Choose Target Keywords: Once you have a list of possible keywords &
phrases, start by reviewing the first page of Google for each keyword. Look to
see if there are well established sites with high quality content. Then, use
data from the MOZ SEO Toolbar to see the authority and number of links
competitors have. Eliminate overly competitive keywords and focus on
eywords you actually have a chance to rank for. Your chosen keywords will
be the centerpieces of your content.

On-Page SEO Checklist

11. Pick One Keyword Per Page: You’ll generally want to start with lower-volume
keywords.
12. Write Title Tags Search Engines Love: Every page of your website should
have a unique title tag, preferably starting with a relevant keyword. Include
modifiers like “best”, “2016” etc. to stand out and to pick up long tail
searches. Keep title tags 55 characters or less or they’ll appear truncated in
search results.
13. Follow Best Practices for URL’s: Use short and sweet URLs that include your
target keyword. e.g. www.yourdomain.com/target-keyword. Avoid numbered
URLs like www.yourdomain.com/p=123. Always-use-hyphens-in-URLs.
Never_use_underscores_in_urls.
14. Skyrocket Clickthrough Rate with Meta Descriptions. Highlight the benefit of
your post or product compared to competitors who already appear in the search results. Keep meta descriptions 160 characters or less or they’ll appear
truncated in search results.
15. Optimize for the Google Image Search Results: Create with Canva, include
target keyword in the filename and add keyword-rich alt text to images when
uploading.
16. Reduce Bounce Rates: Make the topic clear by including your target keyword
in the first 100 words of your article.
17. Give Your SEO a Boost with Heading Tags: Include your keyword once in an
H2 or H3 subheading.
18. Include Outbound Link: At least 2 outbound links to authority sites (popular
blogs, news sites and .edu and .gov resources) in every piece of content that
you publish.
19. Add Internal links: 2-3 internal links to older articles when you publish a new
one.
20. Publish Longer Content: At least 300 words. 1500 words for competitive
keywords.
21. Use Prominent Social Sharing Buttons: Make sure your social sharing buttons
are front and center on blog posts and articles. Use Digg Digg WordPress
plugin.
22. Double-check everything. Once you’re live with an SEO Audit Tool.

Conclusion

However, according to the above facts and figures, the transformation from traditional advertising to modern advertising revealed that there is a drastic change in owning SEO strategies that would boost up a business in one way or the other. Knowing the demand of consumers, attracting them through online platforms in attractive ways and selling a product with the intention of retaining customers in future is a cycle is all a business would desire. There is no reluctance in admitting the fact that SEO plays a vital role in enhancing the functioning of ECommerce.