Within the e-commerce industry, the global market expected to rise this 2022 to a whopping $5.55 trillion. And that figure is only expected to grow over the next couple of years.

If you’re looking to turn your business into an e-commerce business in the upcoming weeks or months, then it’s important to take into consideration the steps that you need to take for your business to take off on the right foot.

Thankfully, we’ve compiled in this article a shortlist of steps to ensure that your e-commerce business is optimised for both conversions and SEO. Let’s take a look.

1. Start with Optimising Your Homepage

Everything starts with the homepage. One of the most visited pages on your website, it’s important to ensure that everything on your homepage is optimised and working. The last thing you want‌ is to have one of the links in your navigation menu to lead potential clients to a 404 error page.

But what, exactly, on the homepage do you need to make sure is optimised?

Put All the Important Information Above the Fold

Content that is considered “above the fold” is usually any and all the content at the top of a page, before one starts scrolling. Here it’s recommended that you put in all the important information, such as your branding logos, navigation and search bars, shopping cart, contact information, and primary call-to-action.

If your website at the top of the page has a banner (often called the hero banner), one best practice is to make sure that the hero banner contains the pain point that you’re trying to solve for your customers. That way they’ll know right away if you’re business is one that can solve their problem.

Primary Call-to-Action

Often attached to that hero banner is a call-to-action. It’s here that you put in the number one thing you want your visitors to do once they land on your homepage.

Whether that’s to subscribe to your mailing list, register for a course, avail of a flash sale, or start browsing through your products, you want that message front and center for visitors to see the moment your homepage finishes loading.

Optimise Your Loading speed

Speaking of loading speed, this is a major factor in your SEO rankings. Slow loading speeds usually result in higher bounce rates. And bounce rates are a huge element in determining your search engine ranking. A good loading speed for any website is usually between 0-3 seconds.

Optimise Homepage Title Tag, Meta Description and Images

All of the above are important elements in search engine optimisation. Make sure that all these elements on your website and web pages contain relevant keywords.  While most make sure to do so on titles and meta descriptions, one sometimes overlooked aspect at image alt texts. These are the snippets of text that would replace images should they fail to load open visiting a certain page. These are also the elements that Google crawls through to determine how to rank your images on their search engine. So make sure that every element on your blog posts and pages is optimised for search.

2. Make Your Site Mobile Responsive

Mobile responsiveness is also another important factor that affects not just SEO, but your overall e-commerce business. Mobile devices generate roughly half of all global traffic, and about 3.5% of all mobile visits to e-commerce websites are converted into purchases.

Mobile search is only increasing globally, and so if you haven’t optimised your website for mobile just yet, there’s no better time than today to get started.

3. Increase Site Security

If you’re an e-commerce website, then the most important thing that you can do for your customers is to ensure that their information is safe and secure.

This is where a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate comes into play. Most web hosting companies and content management systems (CMS) already offer SSL certificates along with their product plans. Given that, it would make sense to avail of their services once you purchase a domain and hosting. Of course, there are other companies whose specialty offers include SSL certificates at either cheaper or more premium prices.

Obtaining an SSL is of utmost importance, especially since Google has officially pushed their HTTPS-First mode. This means that any visitors attempting to access a website that’s in HTTP and not HTTPS, will first be given a warning that the website that they’re about to enter isn’t secure. And for an e-commerce website, that’s the last thing you want your visitors to be notified about.

4. Improve Product Pages

It’s always a best practice to feature your best products on your homepage. However, when it comes to optimising your product pages themselves, there are a few key elements you should take into account:

• Product Page Titles
• Product Images
• Product Descriptions
• Image Alt Texts

In terms of SEO, your titles, meta tags, meta descriptions, and image alt text should all contain the keywords that you want to optimise the page for. This helps you rank better on search engine results pages.

When it comes to product images, on the other hand, it’s always a good idea to showcase several images of your product. Show all the angles of your product so that customers get a good idea of what to expect.

Best of all, you can also include some user-generated content from your customers. Ask permission from people who’ve purchased your product if you can share their posts on your social media page or website. This helps solidify social proof that there are people out there that have purchased and loved your product.

5. Reduce Cart Abandonment

According to the research done by the Baymard Institute, about 69.57% of online shopping carts are abandoned. One of the main reasons for shopping cart abandonment is unexpected costs and high shipping costs. In fact, 56% of shoppers attribute their abandonment to these additional fees and charges.

A few ways to reduce shopping cart abandonment include:

• Providing free shipping
• Offer 100% money-back guarantees
• Avoid website registration requirements
• Add testimonials

If You Need Help With Optimising Your E-Commerce Website, The Search Marketing Experts Team Has You Covered

Now that you’re familiar with the steps necessary to rank your e-commerce website higher for SEO, there’s nothing left to do but optimise those pages! We hope this article has cleared things up enough to pull you out of the rabbit hole and make search engines seem less intimidating. Ready to increase your SEO knowledge even further? Contact the team at Search Marketing Experts today for even more insight into the wide world of SEO! We’ll be there to help you increase your website rankings and achieve online success for your business.

The post How to Optimise Your E-Commerce Website for SEO this New Financial Year appeared first on Search Marketing Experts.

Believe it or not, internal linking for SEO works similarly to those grocery aisle signs. Internal linking helps organise and structure the content on your website by lumping them into specific categories, sections, and branches much like how a tree would have thicker branches that disperse into smaller, thinner ones.

Did you know that 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine? This is why, as an SEO company in Brisbane, we always encourage businesses to invest in SEO as a way to help them grow their traffic and sales organically over time.

The question is, how does internal linking for SEO affect your business?

What Are Internal Links?

Internal links create a bridge between one page on a website to another page of the same website, just like how the signposts above each grocery aisle connect you to different sections of the same grocery.

What Are the Benefits of Internal Linking for SEO

There are several benefits to internal linking, especially when it comes to optimising your website for SEO. Internal linking doesn’t just affect the way that search engines rank your pages, but it also affects the way that users behave when they visit your website. A few benefits of internal linking for SEO include:

1. Website Navigation and Structure

There are different types of internal links, each with their own distinct functions. Internal links can often be found in the following locations:

• Navigation Menu – This is the menu at the top of your website.
• Footer – This refers to the text and links located at the bottom of your website
• Sidebar – Most websites have sidebars that also contain links to other pages on the site.
• Contextual Links – These refer to links located within bodies of text, usually in blog posts.

To best organise your internal links, you first have to determine which pages on your website matter the most. Which pages get the most traffic? Which pages are incremental to your business’ growth?

From there, you start building out content to support your goals. Make sure your navigation menu, footer, and sidebar contains internal links that will lead site visitors to content they’re most likely to consume.

This leads us to our next point. 

2. Distribute Page Ranking & Authority

Distributing page ranking is where building content hubs are helpful.

Content hubs are like an aisle at the grocery. As an example, if you have several posts and pages containing information about “SEO Best Practices” or “Brisbane SEO Services” that are linked together, then those posts begin to form a content hub.

Should a visitor want to learn more about your offer for Brisbane SEO Services, then, it would be easier for them to navigate through all the content surrounding that topic if you had a link dedicated to the category on your menu, footer, or sidebar.

With each blog post or page you create, add contextual links that supports your main topic. Afterwards, you can add each new blog post on this topic to your content hub. This will help lead readers from one subtopic to the next, and help distribute your page rank to other pages on your site at the same time.

3. Provide a Better User-Experience

Think about any Wikipedia page and how everything on there seems interconnected. It’s especially helpful when you’re doing your research. As you dive into a topic, there might be terms that you’re not familiar with. Luckily, there’s a link that leads to another Wikipedia page on that very topic!

When it comes to internal linking for SEO, this pretty much works in the same way. Sometimes, visitors come onto your website wanting to learn about a specific topic, product, or service. Sometimes, as they come in and start reading, they discover all these new terms and definitions that they’d never heard of before.

Linking pages internally helps them better rely on you, as an authority and expert, to provide them the knowledge they need to succeed.

Internal linking also reduces your bounce rate. This happens when someone clicks a link to your website and then almost immediately afterwards, either closes that link or clicks away from your website. The deeper that you’re able to have a visitor dive into your website, the better it is for your search engine rankings.

Talk to the Search Marketing Experts Today for More SEO Advice on Internal Linking!

SEO is a long-term strategy for your business. If you feel that you need some help implementing internal linking for SEO, we’re more than willing to lend a hand as an SEO company in Brisbane. Get in touch with one of our digital marketing experts today and we will grow your digital presence and optimise your website, increasing your online success and boosting your business. Whether you need help with SEO marketing, Google Ads, full website rebuilds, or something else entirely, we have the services for you. Contact the Search Marketing Experts today and learn how we can help your business reach new heights!

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