As many businesses already know, SEO marketing is one of the most sought after marketing tools used today. With more people using Google as their primary way to find products and services, search engine optimization has become one of the most important tools a business can have in their digital growth marketing arsenal.

No matter how great your product or business is, you won’t be able to succeed if potential customers can't find your webpage. By following a leader in ecommerce marketing services, you can learn the best SEO practices and start ranking higher and attracting more customers. Let’s learn about some of the most important aspects of SEO practices like keyword research, blogging, product descriptions, meta tags, and image optimization.

Start Smart Keyword Research

Establishing the best keywords for your business is the first step for any ecommerce marketing service looking to improve SEO

When you begin optimizing your online content for SEO, the first step is to do some keyword research to find out exactly what your potential customers are searching for. For example, if your company is selling water bottles, some of the search terms you may find people commonly searching for are “durable water bottles” or “inexpensive water bottles.” By discovering and using these keywords in your website copy, your product page will rank higher when people search for these blanket terms. An experienced ecommerce marketing service will be able to perform this task for you if you need assistance finding the best keywords for your company.

It is important to choose keywords that people are already searching for and that are relevant to your brand. The more people that are searching using these keywords, the more people will be directed to your website after you have optimized your site.

One of the tricky things about SEO is that you ideally want to fill an information gap  in the search engine. To put it more simply, you have to analyze the competition and choose your keywords wisely. In general it is much more difficult to get onto the front page of Google with non-specific keywords. A good keyword is usually a search term that is used often that other competing brands have yet to fully utilize. A complete keyword research project will answer the following questions about your potential customer base:

• What are the needs of your customer base?
• Which words do they use to find the best results?
• What problems are they trying to solve?
• What is leading them to competitors?

After your research has been completed and some keywords have been identified, it is time to talk about the best SEO practices for putting your keywords to use.

Create Compelling and Descriptive Meta Tags

Your meta tags are the first pieces of copy that inform potential customers about your website

Meta tags are the small headlines that appear at the top of web pages, Google searches, and web page tabs. These little bits of copy can inform and persuade internet users to visit your site depending on the details of the meta tags. The most important meta tags to consider when optimizing your website are the title tags and meta descriptions. Let’s take a look at what differentiates these different types of tags and how they can influence search engine traffic. 

• Title tags -  Title tags are the headlines that appear in Google search results. They are usually between 50-60 characters long. In order to create effective title tags, you need to condense the most important parts of your web page into 50-60 characters. Writing extremely concise and descriptive language is key to creating title tags. It is also important to try to include keywords whenever possible, without overwhelming the algorithm.
• Meta descriptions - Much like title tags, meta descriptions must be very concise and clearly state the most pertinent information about your webpage. Meta descriptions generally appear underneath the title tags and elaborate on the 50-60 characters allotted for the title tag. These descriptions are limited to 155-160 characters and should also include some of your researched keywords. To create the best meta descriptions, it is best to accurately describe the page on your site while using active language to encourage potential customers to click on your website first.

One important element that applies to both title tags and meta descriptions is keyword stuffing. Though you want to rank highly, Google will actually penalize you for using too many keywords in your title tags or meta descriptions. For these short sections of copy, it is best to use no more than one or two keywords.

Spread Your Company’s Message Through Insightful and Original Blogging

Blogging is an excellent way to share your message through fun, informative and SEO boosting content

Once you have established the best practices for optimizing your meta tags and finding the best keywords. It is time to combine those two skills to start blogging! Blogging is one of the best and most sharable ways to create unique content that directs potential customers to your site.

The first thing to consider when writing blog content is subject matter. Your topics should be related to your company and be relevant to the current time and target audience. You should also strive to produce unique content, which will give you a better chance with the Google algorithm. 

If every water bottle brand has an article titled “How to Clean Your Water Bottle” you will want to find a way to integrate your keywords and write from a new perspective. By using our best SEO practices, you could turn your headlines into something more like “The Best Water Bottle Cleaning Techniques While You’re In the Wild” to appeal to a more outdoorsy demographic.

Moving past the blog title, there are also a few important rules to follow when writing the body of your blog post. The goal of the body paragraphs is to seamlessly integrate your keywords into longer and more shareable content. This means that Google is looking for dense informative content that people will want to share. Usually most blog posts should be anywhere between 800-1000 words to have enough copy to satisfy the algorithm. Your content should promote engagement and shareability as well for an SEO boost. The more your page is clicked and shared, the more Google will want to show your blog content to new customers.

Create Insightful Product Descriptions That Attract Consumers

By optimizing your product descriptions, your customers can locate your products more easily

In order to cultivate an audience and promote your brand, it is especially important to succinctly identify the right ways to describe your product. Keeping in mind your target audience and the message you want to convey, it is time to start improving your product descriptions. 

The best kind of product descriptions are the ones that are completely self explanatory. After reading a product description, a potential buyer should know exactly what your product is and what it does. Remember to highlight what makes your product different from others and use universally understood language that cannot be misunderstood.

Keywords also play an important role in creating product descriptions for better or for worse. For example a well placed and relevant keyword in your product description will lead more searches to your product page. However, beware of keyword stuffing that can undermine your SEO. Above all else, you want to make sure that your product descriptions are readable and accurately describe your product. You can consider all of the SEO best practices, but ultimately product descriptions should be written with your customers in mind.

Make Sure Your Images are SEO Friendly

You should always consider how images can improve the visual interest and readability of your website

Though perfecting your site copy is a big step to assist your SEO, you should also pay attention to the images on your site. Images, in the same way as text, can increase traffic to your site and positively affect your webpage’s status in search results.

In order to optimize the images on your site there are a few things you should do :

• Choose your file formats carefully - JPEGs generally work best for photos, PNGs work better for graphics.
• Compress your images - There are many free sites online that compress images for free. Sites like TinyPNG can play a big role in your SEO optimization and webpage loading time.
• Alt text - Alt text is a detailed description of the photo in the HTML code that can contain keywords. Just like product descriptions, it is considered best practice to be descriptive and avoid keyword stuffing in your alt text.

Now that you have compressed your images and have optimized your alt text, expect some more traffic to your site and higher Google search results. You should never underestimate the power of Search Engine Optimization.

When it comes to writing excellent SEO copy, it takes a lot of practice to become familiar with all of the practices and ways to improve your Google ranking. There is always more to learn about SEO and how it affects how we use the internet. Not only that, but algorithms change all the time, so SEO is also a bit of a moving target.

If you have questions about SEO marketing best practices or are looking to improve your ecommerce marketing services, feel free to contact the team at Responsival to find out how you can boost your online presence.