Ethical SEO Hacks For eCommerce Merchandising

If you want to know more about ethical SEO hacks for eCommerce merchandising then this article will be very useful for you. So keep reading.

More than ever, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has become an essential survival strategy every eCommerce platform needs to incorporate. Unfortunately, many online retailers spend most of their resources on eCommerce merchandising with little or no attention to SEO. Even though they might appear different, SEO and eCommerce merchandising are meant to synchronize for optimal results.

What is eCommerce SEO?

eCommerce SEO is the process of making your online store more prominent in search results.

You may have read a lot about SEO and its extraordinary power in getting any site to the first page of search engines. Yes, all the lists about backlinks, keyword planning, and tags are true, but it is tricky for an eCommerce website.

What Is eCommerce Merchandising?

eCommerce merchandising is an overall strategy employed to boost sales on your site. It includes the deliberate effort to optimize customers’ experience irrespective of how they got to your site.

In brick-and-mortar stores, you can control the visual and location of products since all customers arrive the same way.

In contrast, search engines, social media, and direct links sharing are some ways customers can land on your site.

According to Fast Simon, a company that helps merchants optimize shopper experiences to increase conversion rate, AOV & revenue, “merchandising gives you full control over what you promote and sell irrespective of your store type”.

Optimizing your site only for people who visit is equivalent to shortchanging yourself. You can leverage it to get more customers from search engines.

Think for a moment, when people are in search of a product, where do they go? You guessed right; they type the product name on search engines like Google. This is why it is recommended to ensure your site is the first they see whenever they search Google.

SEO Hacks For eCommerce Merchandising

In case you are wondering why this section includes the word “ethical”; there are different ways to gain a search appearance advantage. Dark SEO hacks are sure to give you overnight success but could get your site penalized and incur damage you may never recover from.

Below are some ethical (white) SEO hacks to boost your eCommerce merchandising;

Keyword Research

Keyword research is important for page optimization as search engines usually return results related to a user’s keyword query, which could be a potential customer.

Do thorough keyword research of what your targeted audience is likely to search while researching your product.

This should be strategically placed as meta tags, categories, and product titles for better SERPs.

Optimizing your eCommerce site for the most searched keywords could be tempting, but the recommended action is that you only focus on those relevant to your business.

Image Optimization

Images are another interesting SEO merchandising trick. A lot of people look for images on search engines like Google.

In a hint by Benjamin Ling, Director of Search Products at Google, more than 1 billion google images are viewed daily.

This is an opportunity not leveraged by most eCommerce sites. Take advantage and use it to your favor.

Upload your product photos in PNG format and serve them to site visitors in WebP format.

PNG produces better image quality, except that it may come in larger file sizes; while WebP serves small lossless file-sized images best compatible with Chrome and Firefox.

Content Delivery Network (CDN) service providers can help you compress your images to reduce the load on your server and invariable speed up the site’s load speed.

Add alt text to your product photos for better visibility. They are displayed whenever a browser is unable to render the image successfully.

Also, ensure all uploaded images are well-named and avoid copyrighted pictures. Aside from de-ranking your search appearance, it can get you into legal trouble.

Mobile Optimization

Your customers will likely access your e-commerce site using their mobile phones. Explore all you can to make the experience seamless for them.

The page should be easy to navigate, and it should also load within milliseconds to avoid them leaving. Not only that, search engines usually favor websites well-optimized for mobile.

If done right, you will discover that while you satisfy your customers, you will also ace the SEO strategy.

Social Media

Establish your presence across social media platforms; where your customers are likely to be found — upload photos and videos about your products.

Search engines usually index social media accounts with enough engagement.