How eCommerce Supercharges Your Small Business SEO

Last Updated on January 22, 2024

You Can Use ECommerce Tactics to Improve Your SEO – for Free

When you think of online shopping, you probably think of Amazon. Coming close behind them is another online shopping company you have also probably heard of Alibaba. For the sheer volume of sales, these two companies dominate the online shopping world. They are also two of the most visible.

a detective looking for a shop holding a camera

People shouldn’t need a detective to find your business.

If you’re visible, people can buy things from you. That’s the same whether you are a street vendor or an international company. If people haven’t heard of you, they can’t purchase from you, talk with you, or even meet you.

Being seen is core to SEO. SEO is about getting in front of people who have never heard your name.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a digital marketing strategy that optimizes websites to rank higher in search engine results, increasing visibility and organic traffic. It’s free, it takes time, and it isn’t hard to learn.

SEO helps funnel in new buyers that are more likely to buy from you. SEO enables you to gain the trust and confidence of online buyers, and thus increases their lifetime value to your business.
https://seller.alibaba.com/businessblogs/px1n7p78-why-seo-is-important-for-e-commerce-an-easy-to-follow-guide

Why is eCommerce so Important for SEO?

If you think about search engines, you probably think about Google and Bing. Possibly as well, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and others. If you need to find the answer to your problem, a search engine will probably have an answer. You can also ask Alexa. Or your mum.

However, there are other ways to search for things. You might ask your friends, or look in the paper, or the bulletin board at your local store or community center. You can also go right to the source. Amazon, Etsy, eBay, YouTube and other large platforms are also search machines.

We go to specific platforms and search for what we want when we’re ready to compare prices, check product specs, and buy. Who searches on Google for sneakers?

During the information-gathering phase of our shopping journey, we might go to Google, but if we are ready to buy? We’ll probably go straight to our favourite online shop to begin our search.

There are many ways eCommerce helps kick your SEO up a notch or two. Here are four of them. And, they’re free to implement.

Advantage Online Shop: No Code

This is an easy one. From Facebook MarketPlace to Ebay and countless others; there are many options available to you if you don’t want to build your own shop. It’s not a knockout.

You can create online shops using Shopify, Squarespace or Weebly, to name just three You can also simply add shop functionality to your website by using a plugin like WooCommerce too. It’s free and there is nothing to code.

Don’t let fear of code, or lack of budget stop you from selling – or being found.

Advantage Online Shop: Store Process = Longer Connection

How long does the average visitor stay on your page? Three seconds? Ten? Are you offering a free download? How many clicks does that take? One?

Why not take the opportunity of gathering an email, and giving your visitor a short tour of your website and get some more clicks? Maybe they see something else they like.

Drop the free download into the basket
Enter an email address
Confirm the “purchase”
And download.

Someone interested in you and your product will take the extra 20 seconds to click through the process.

Want to see this in action? Click here for your Aha moment: https://easywpguide.com/

Advantage Online Shop: Storytelling

Everyone knows Nike doesn’t sell sportswear. They sell “doing sports”. Starbucks doesn’t sell coffee, they sell “tribal identity”, Villeroy & Boch don’t sell porcelain, they sell “Home Wellness”. How do they do this? Through Storytelling.

We love storytelling. It’s the oldest way we have as a species to communicate. When we find a story we identify with, we connect with it. We call that Brand Affinity. We buy the story, and we feel good, safe, motivated – whatever it is we are feeling.

If you don’t believe us, go to https://patagonia.com and look at their website menu.

Our products enable us to tell stories that rise above and beyond the product itself. That’s something we can use to help market not what we sell, but who we are. It’s stickiness, and it’s worth so much more than the products we sell. It’s evergreen.

Best of all, storytelling is interactive! Make it meaningful enough that people share it to enhance your social proof and social traffic.

https://www.shopware.com/en/news/the-art-of-good-storytelling-with-shopware-6/

Advantage Online Shop: Rich Snippets and Schema Markup

Sure, you can use schema markup to generate rich snippets without an online shop, but why not go the distance?

Rich snippets are more visible in organic search (they can include stars in the rating in addition to price) than non-rich snippets.

Visibility = more attention = more clicks.

“Structured data isn’t going to impact your SEO directly. It will, however, provide you the best opportunity for rich snippets, which can help improve click-through rates and conversions, and ultimately, these elements can have a flow-on effect for SEO.”
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/ecommerce-rich-snippets/465106/

What can you include in your rich snippet? Only a lot!

Product Name
Product Image
Price
Availability
Rating and Reviews
Brand
Product Description
Breadcrumbs
Seller Information
Product Category
SKU (Stock Keeping Unit)
Product ID: An identifier, such as a UPC or EAN
Shipping Information
Offers and Discounts
Payment Methods
Location and Contact Information
Additional Features
Video Thumbnails

You Can Hire a Local SEO Agency, or You Can Do it Yourself.

SEO takes time, but it isn’t rocket science. This book will help you.

SEO All You Need to Know: Get Yourself and Your Website Found!

A 7-Step Beginner’s Guide to Basic Search Engine Optimisation

(2022 / 4th Ed. October 2023)

My SEO course book is intended for those who are starting their search journey. SEO is an essential component of your online marketing strategy.

Paperback and eBook.
Auch auf Deutsch erhältlich!

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SEO Beginners books in English (left) and German (right) by Warren Laine-Naida and translated by Bettina Heuser

Image Content credentials: Post Image Generated with Bing Image Creator AI ∙ October 7, 2023 at 6:37 AM