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Corey Kogan
Everyone on the internet has at some point stumbled on some popup, video or article talking about SEO. While everyone might not understand SEO or know how to use it, an e-commerce owner cannot afford to be ”everyone”. You need to learn as much as possible about SEO because your e-commerce site depends on it. In preparation for 2020, here are some SEO strategies that you need to start applying now.
Video Marketing
Do you know why MTV instantly became huge in the 80s? Simple, they played music videos 24/7. Everyone loves watching videos, even dogs do. Embed videos, preferably short videos around five minutes, on your website. Use medium or long-tail keywords for titles and descriptions. Having a YouTube channel is a plus, with that you can create long videos sharing relevant messages to your customer base. YouTube, which is owned by Google, is the biggest search network after Google. Hence, you can use the same tactics to make your videos rank high on both. Always use captivating thumbnails that will attract people to click play. You can also transcribe your videos to make it easier for Google to index.
You should know that Google loves videos. In fact, these days, Google tends to pull up YouTube videos to answer user queries. So, having quality short videos can help increase the chances of getting your website on search engines’ first page by 53x and invariably increase your profit by 49%.
Optimize for Voice Searches
By 2020, which is six months from now, half of the internet queries will be done via voice search. Already, voice searches account for 20% of queries done via mobile devices on Google. As a result, you have to create contents that will meet voice search standards. Start using question keywords starting with the 5 Ws – What, Why, Who, Where, When, as well as How. Ensure that your articles are within 7th-grade to 9th-grade readability so that average internet user can easily understand. You also have to start creating localized contents so that your website can come up in ”Near Me” queries. ”Near Me” queries have a high potential for conversion. 50% of Near Me searches from mobile devices lead to actual visits to the said stores on the same day.
Featured Snippet
Gone are the days when being featured on search engines’ first page was the grand reward for doing SEO well. Now, the goal is to be the number zero, which means being the featured snippet. Google’s featured snippet is a small box section that shows first on search results. That’s the first thing users see after Google loads the answers to their queries. It is a highly coveted spot that has the potential to increase organic traffic revenue by 67%.
If your site regularly turns up on SERPs top 10, it stands a better chance of being on Google’s Featured Snippet. If not, you have to start optimizing your web content better. Make use of question keywords, long-tail keywords, and infographics when necessary. Use these three most googled keywords in your web articles, ”best”, ”recipe” and ”vs”. E-commerce sites creating health, finance or DIY contents stand a better chance to make it to the snippet box.
Make Your Site Mobile-friendly
We can’t overemphasize this in 2019, 70% of internet activity is done from mobile devices. Google attests to this and is already shifting towards mobile-first indexing. This means that as an e-commerce business owner you have to make your site mobile-friendly. The first step to doing so is to increase your website and web pages loading speed. You also have to use a minimalist style for your website design, graphics and themes. Basically, keep it simple.
Hone Your Link Building Skills
Link building is an important part of SEO because it contributes to how Google and other search engines will rank your site. The more external links you have with authoritative sites the better. Reach out to sites in your field, although you may not be able to get big sites to build backlinks, start small. Join forums that discuss topics related to your e-commerce contents. As you build a reputation for your site so will your chances of building backlinks with authoritative sites increase. However, there’s no harm in trying guest blogging as it is a surefire way to get backlinks. The trick is that you must add value to the host site.
Keyword and Topic Clustering
Normally, using keywords means repeating highly targeted/mostly searched words or phrases in your web articles. Now, the Google algorithm now analyses and checks for ”words frequently occurring together” in contents. This gave birth to the new SEO keyword strategy. The best approach to doing this is by writing long-form articles ranging from 2000 words to 10,000 words. An article of this sort will extensively cover many related themes that can stand on their own. They’re usually written as guides, how-tos, listicles, or tips, with backlinks of contents focusing on each theme discussed in the article.
Long semantic indexing keywords (LSI) are the most effective for keyword clustering. You can find LSI keywords on LSI graph. You can also find keywords in ”searches related to” section at the bottom of Google’s search results page.
Optimize For RankBrain
Google’s RankBrain is used to determine web pages that deserve to top SERPs. Here’s how it works; a user enters a query, RankBrain analyses the keywords as a coherent intent. Next, it loads web pages that are related to the search query. When the user clicks, the algorithm takes note of the webpage the user finds most relevant to the search. If the user leaves a webpage too soon that means the content on the page is irrelevant to the search. If the user stays long on a page that means the content is relevant.
RankBrain will move the relevant webpage up and move other pages down. RankBrain studies users search history, search context and intent and uses that to rank web pages. Write quality content that users will find relevant. This will not only give you organic traffic but will also increase your site’s click-through rate and rank.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Can Make Your Work Easier
As a fan of sci-fi movies, I know that there are conspiracy theories about how AI is the death of humans, and how they’re going to steal our jobs. Well, before they do that, why don’t you take advantage of AI to improve your e-commerce business? Benefits of AI include being able to automate your SEO strategies, for example, automated email newsletters. You can also have an AI-powered chatbot on your site to engage and provide support for visitors 24/7. That means reducing your site’s bounce rate which in turn increases your site’s rank. AI can also help process and interpret big data accurately, therefore, you don’t have to manually analyze your data.
Bottomline
A lot of e-commerce startups often neglect SEO at the initial stage. What they don’t know is that this can be problematic when they’re finally ready to start practicing SEO. They will have to correct a lot of errors starting from the beginning. Imagine having to fix 500 or more web pages. The best practice is to start SEO as soon as you launch. However, it’s not too late to start now.
