When it comes to spring, green generally indicates something fresh and lively. On St. Patrick’s Day, it’s festive and fun. Green means “all systems go.” When it comes to ecommerce sites, keeping things green is all about building and marketing your brand while maintaining your website as a solid foundation.
Your brand is more important now than ever before. It’s what sets you apart from competitors and returns authority & trust to you from the search engines. Think of it this way, search engines are businesses too and their customers are people sending queries. In the business of search, it’s up to the search engines to provide the most relevant content to their customers.
As a brand trying to get those customers to your site, you have to prove to the search engines that you are a relevant, authoritative source they can trust to treat their customers well. Think of it as a B2B referral every time a search engine shows your website in the results for a user to click.
So, what can an ecommerce site owner do to earn those referrals?
1. Fix site errors.
Your site needs to be a solid foundation for your brand. If there are technical errors or issues with functionality, it negatively affects user experience and your authority/trust takes a hit. Regularly scan your site for errors and fix them, it’s as simple as that; Google Webmaster Tools can help. Start by looking for these glaring errors:
- 404 pages
- Missing title tags & meta descriptions
- Errors in title tags & meta descriptions (too long/short)
- Robots.txt files blocking the wrong page
- Duplicate content
- Incorrect redirects (or lack thereof)
- Search engine unfriendly URLs
- Missing image file names, alt text, caption, etc.
- Slow load times
By regularly identifying and fixing errors, your website will be a solid foundation for your business and will run smoothly for your customers. A great user experience is often an indicator of a site worthy of higher authority and trust from search engines.
2. Do keyword research.
Research, analyze, compare, & identify. Even if you’re convinced you have your keywords down, research again and refresh your categories. Take a look at what people are actually searching for and determine the right ones for your business.
Is your bounce rate through the roof? Attempting to target keywords that are too broad could be the culprit. Narrow down your focus to keywords:
- highly relevant to your business
- with a high exact match search volume
- not too competitive
These are your opportunities and you should build your categories around them. Don’t forget about your competitors either; once you have your keyword categories picked out, you should check them against your competitors.
3. Gain a local presence.
Showing the search engines that you have a physical location can pay off. Submitting your business to major and relevant niche directories with a consistent citation (business name, address, & phone number) provides hard evidence that your business is a real entity.
Your customers will trust your site more because it’s attached to a physical location and the search engines will trust your site more as well. Plus, optimizing each directory listing appropriately for your business makes each one a relevant resource – yet another way for potential customers to find & connect with you.
4. Have & update a blog.
Search engines love fresh, relevant content. Having a blog and updating it regularly allows your site to remain a living online entity. Plus, it provides an opportunity to establish your brand as an authority in your industry. Not to mention the opportunities it can give you for reaching out to your audience on social media platforms, launching new products, gaining valuable customer insights, etc. If you want to see an example, HubSpot does an amazing job with this.
5. Keep site navigation easy & efficient.
Your navigation is the way customers get around your site. If it’s confusing or difficult to use, potential customers will become frustrated visitors; they’ll leave your site, and they won’t become customers. Ensure your navigation:
- is separated into categories
- is consistent & clear
- provides easy search results
- includes filtering capabilities
- highlights CTAs
By improving your navigation & optimizing it for users, you can ensure potential customers will be able to easily find what they want and purchase it from you. Isn’t that why you have an ecommerce site?
6. Test and improve UX.
The user experience of your site is everything. Having easy navigation is part of that, but your site should be user friendly from the moment a visitor lands on a page all the way through checkout & order fulfillment. Any hiccups during any stage in the process means potential customers are dropping off and your site is leaking money. By constantly reviewing, testing, and improving UX, you can ensure potential customers can easily turn into loyal customers who will advocate for your brand and return to buy from you again.
7. Prepare for & improve the mobile experience.
Mobile cannot be ignored. Even if most of your traffic still comes from desktops, you still need to start providing a great mobile experience now as mobile usage will only increase. Having a responsive web design will ensure your site renders correctly on any device without having to create multiple sites. Besides, part of improving the mobile experience is providing faster, easier results and a more efficient, shorter checkout process – something your desktop users will appreciate as well.
8. Include product reviews.
Products reviews, descriptions, & testimonials are good for your customers and the search engines. When it comes to shopping online, customers do their research; your reviews and testimonials can be the factors that convince them to buy from you over a competitor. Including unique, engaging descriptions of your products helps too.
All of these are considered to be more content by the search engines and as they’re updated, it counts as fresh content. Ecommerce sites tend to be thin on content, the best solution to that problem is to include product descriptions, reviews, and testimonials (having a blog helps too!).
9. Use rich snippets.
You may have noticed an increase of these results with a little extra “oomph;” there’s a reason for that. Search engines and searchers love them. People are more likely to click on results with images, reviews, and/or video.
Rich snippets give customers a chance to familiarize themselves and engage with your brand before they even click on your link to visit your site – that’s a powerful tool to have in your corner. Install rich snippets or revisit the ones you have setup to ensure you’re providing the most attractive, relevant information to potential customers.
10. Stop ignoring social media.
Social media is a powerful tool your brand cannot afford to ignore. Your customers and potential customers are on social media having conversations, sometimes involving your brand and your products.
If you’re not on social media being part of those conversations, your customers are only getting one side of the story, or they’re getting the information from your competitors. Social media channels can be a powerful method to push your brand and engage with your audience.
11. Ensure tracking is installed & set up correctly.
Information & data analysis can provide actionable steps in order to improve your site, your conversion rates, etc. Using tracking & analytics, you can examine where people are coming into your site, identify where they’re dropping off, and why in order to identify & fix issues.
It’s also helpful in determining and analyzing the results of various campaigns and identifying trends. You can use the information gathered from proper tracking & analytics to make more informed decisions that are better targeted to successfully growing your business.
12. Implement a successful & realistic SEO strategy.
SEO is not dead; it’s not a quick fix, or an afterthought. Successful SEO is a part of your site’s foundation and its long-term marketing strategy. SEO is the culmination of all that you do for a successful site:
- branding & social media
- keyword & competitor research
- on-page & off-page optimization
- adding content for a more lively, robust site
- creating valuable content in order to provide a resource & earn authoritative links
- submitting to local directories to establish your presence
- designing & organizing a site for the best user experience possible
- running audits to identify errors & fix them
- starting the process all over again with necessary additions
A good SEO strategy tells you what to do and how to do it, while analytics lets you know what’s working and what isn’t (and where to go next). A successful ecommerce site implements both SEO & analytics to provide the best possible experience for their customers, while maintaining best practices for the search engines.
It’s about more than being #1 for a keyword; it’s about being the most relevant, authoritative resource for people who use keywords in that category in searches. Be the resource, be informative, earn the referral, and stay green this spring.