SEO Strategies and Optimization for ECommerce Websites

Internal Linking Strategies

 

Related products

 

• Including a section for related products on each of your product pages can help improve their search rankings, as these links are considered as very relevant votes, particularly if rich key phrases were used as the links’ anchor texts.
• Can somehow improve sales as your pages suggest other related products that might be of their interests. However, this method may sometimes distract your visitors, depending on its placement.

 

Category pages should link to products with keyword rich anchor texts

 

Create separate product information pages that link to product sales pages

 

• Product information pages can contain more in-depth descriptions or specifications of the site’s offered products that will direct readers to the main product page (through call to action and keyword rich text links). Basically, it’s a support page which aims to help boost the product pages’ SERP rankings.
• You can as well choose to cross-link the two pages, wherein the product page can link to its particular information page by displaying a link that explains they can read more about the product.

 

Product comparison pages

• Comparing your top products will help your visitors in making wise decisions in purchasing and it also generates highly relevant internal links to your top products.

FAQ pages linking to site’s important pages

Highlight your top products through sidebar widget

 

Produce  blog posts that will act as support pages for your product pages

• Content ideas – written/video reviews, best selling products of the month, newly added products, product A vs. product B, etc…
• Use keyword rich anchor text links when linking to your product pages.
• Images of the posts can link to the product pages.

 

Off-site Optimization

 

Content Distribution

Ebook distribution

• Create a useful content in PDF format, which links out to important pages in your site. The concept of the content may focus on giving guides, price list or your own research about the industry.
• Distributing the content can be done through directories, reaching out to bloggers for them to upload and promote your free Ebook and by promoting through your own blog.

 

Press release and news submission

• This method can certainly provide high quality links to your site, and it can as well amplify your brand if your news gets syndicated and picked up by other news articles as a source over the web.
• It’s important that you first do a comprehensive research about the angle of your news story (ex. industry expert interviews, charity work, upcoming events, state of your market, analysis/reactions or current business performance and findings) before creating your press release. Gathering your contacts in media for a smooth sailing publication process is also a vital part of this research. 

 

Video product review

• Submitting your product reviews or other interesting videos related to your business on video sites can boost your product pages’ search rankings, especially if they are linking to it.
• Video sites are known to be a good traffic source, given that users mostly search for visually appealing reviews about products that they are interested to purchase. It can also help generate relevant and organic traffic to your site as these pages from highly trusted sites can rank on its own on search result pages (mostly for long tail keywords).

 

Link Building and Brand Development

 

Reverse engineer competitors’ links

• Analyzing your competitors’ links is an imperative phase of any SEO campaign, mainly to understand how they are ranking for certain keywords (which you want to rank for).
• Acquiring links from authority pages or domains where your competitors are getting their links from can help you achieve the same results.
• A thorough competitor analysis will also allow you to know what methods best work in your industry as seen from what your competitors have done to obtain good rankings.
• You can use tools  to track your top competitors’ links. It’s best to choose 10 – 20 competitors to monitor.

 

Reach out to bloggers and build relationships

• Engage with bloggers that provides content related to your products by regularly following their blogs and leaving sensible comments, sharing their posts and connecting with them via social media, personal email messages or phone calls.
• Request for your products to be reviewed if it’s possible, and offer incentives to increase the chances of getting the request approved.

 

Guest blogging

• In choosing the blogs to submit your guest blog entries, focus on blogs that provide information related to your site’s theme and are specifically targeting the same market as yours. The blog should also have high Page rank and traffic (can be determined through low Alexa Traffic ranking) to make the most out of the technique (in generating highly relevant traffic and of high quality backlinks)
• It’s best to direct the links that you’ll be acquiring from this method to your category pages – using their targeted keywords as anchor texts – and to your homepage using your brand as its anchor text.
• Make your guest entries extremely relevant to your targeted keywords as well as to its target destination pages, and of course – promote your guest posts to make it a strong linking page.

 

Contact suppliers, dealers or manufacturers for links and offer to write a review or testimonial of their products.

 

Branding through community participation

• Build your online store’s brand by providing useful information about the products you are selling through related forum threads and questions posted on Q&A sites. Link to informative contents published in your site as your resource whenever it’s possible.

 

Brand monitoring

• Monitoring your brand/mentions of your brand over the web and social media help you acquire more quality links that are really intended to your site, particularly to articles that have cited your brand with no link attribution, wherein you can request for a link placement or links with your preferred anchor texts.
• In setting up your Google Alerts, it’s also important that you include your targeted keywords on its daily reports to keep track of what you’re competitors are currently doing, to find more relevant linking opportunities and also to generate more content ideas for your own campaign.

 

Encourage your users to make positive product reviews

• You can give incentives such as freebies, discounts or coupons to persuade your past customers to make a positive review about your products through your newsletter or a blog post.
• Users can make a review of your products on the list of product comparison sites and shopping engines listed above.
• Garnering positive reviews through those given sites will optimize your product pages’ search rankings through Google product search.

Encourage your staff members to link to your site through their social media profiles or blogs/websites(if they have).

Sponsor or organize contests

• Collaborating with other online stores and/or bloggers to organize a contest can produce massive quality and natural links to your site. It’s also a win-win-win situation for the sponsors, hosting site and participants.
• Contests can expose your brand to a wider range of audience.

 

Establish business-related link partnerships

• Find online stores that offer related products (if you’re selling shirts, find stores that exclusively sell jeans, accessories, shoes or basically products that you are not offering on your site) and try to build a linking relationship. You can help promote each other’s products through product feeds placed on both websites. .
• It benefits both sites as the generated traffic is very relevant and doesn’t conflict with the other site’s interest.

 

Link out

• Linking out or making a shout out to your loyal followers through your social networking accounts or blog posts is also a good way to establish company-customer relationships. This in turn can lead to word of mouth or more natural links from your followers.
• Voluntarily mention and promote events (charity, conferences, webinars, etc…) in your industry to help your business build more relationships – eventually potential link partners. It also allows you to produce unique and useful content in your blog that can improve readership and increase your blog’s subscribers.

 

Google Product Search Optimization

• Optimize your submitted products by making use of all the attributes in defining your products for higher relevance and better search rankings – get to know more on how you can optimize these attributes.
• Acquire positive user reviews from the list of sites cited above as much as you can to improve your products’ performance on Google Product Search