SEO is a high-priority for many e-commerce businesses.

Why?

There are thousands of websites around the world, each with hundreds of category and product pages.

Sure, you can promote your business through social media, email marketing, word-of-mouth, and paid advertising. But if customers can’t find your site on the first page of Google’s search results, you won’t get new customers or beat any competitors.

Unfortunately, most online merchants think that by creating tons of product pages and targeting common keywords, new customers will start rolling in.

This is far from the truth.

SEO is a lot harder than you think. Once e-commerce businesses grow their inventory and create more content, a lot of problems arise. They might eventually fall from the graces of Google because of too many 404 pages, unorganized site architecture among many others.

The good news? As long as you avoid these common SEO mistakes, your e-commerce site will be okay.

Mistake #1: Lack of Product Reviews

We all love product reviews.

In fact, having 50 or more reviews per product can mean a 4.6% increase in conversion rates. Sixty-three percent of buyers are also more likely to purchase from a site with a good amount of reviews.

And search engines love them too.

E-commerce stores with more reviews are ranked better because they are perceived as more relevant and trustworthy. In fact, Google’s search results on product pages reveal the star rating and the number of reviews—making it a strong indicator of credibility.

For example. Amazon’s product page for the Apple iPad was found on the first page of Google’s search results because it had 102 reviews and a 4.7-star rating. Since Amazon is popular and its accumulated many reviews, they’re able to stand out from other stores selling the same product.

Now, how can you get more product reviews? Tools like Yotpo let you collect more site and product reviews, ratings, and Q&A through AI requests made through their in-mail technology.

Mistake #2: 404 Page

A 404 error appears when a page can’t be found. It may show up based on several reasons:

• The page has been deleted.
• There is a change in the product categories.
• The products are not in stock or taken off the website.
• There’s a change in CMS providers which led to errors in the migration process.
• External or inbound links are pointing to a page that has been deleted or a page that doesn’t work.

Why is this relevant? 404 pages can frustrate site visitors.

If you see a page like this, will you come back to the site? Probably not.

Customers are dissuaded from returning to the site, so it’s clearly bad news.

If you have several 404 pages, this may reflect negatively on your site’s ranking. You might lose some link value and decrease user engagement.

The good news is you can find 404 pages with WebCEO’s Technical Audit tool.

Or follow-up with your web developer because they might be able to deal with deleted pages. For example, if a product is out of stock. they could set up redirects.

But 404 pages are sometimes unavoidable. If you have a high number of products in your inventory, it might be impossible to remove them completely. That said, you can customize your 404 pages to keep users engaged with your site.

Here are some examples:

Airbnb

AirBnb’s 404 page has a funny visual and some helpful links that get visitors back to the site.

HBO

HBO’s 404 page has a casual apology and links to their different categories. It also includes a site header that can get people to sign in, view the schedule or return to the home page.

It’s not rocket science, but customized 404 pages can be highly effective.

Mistake #3: Lack of High-Quality Content

Many amateur e-commerce entrepreneurs underestimate content marketing. They think that as long as there are CTAs, product descriptions, and content, then everything’s fine.

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

If you publish blog posts with poor meta descriptions, mediocre SEO titles and boring blog posts, then you’ll get lesser traffic and engagement rates. After all, would you buy from an e-commerce store with errors and boring copy? I don’t think so…

Both search engines and customers judge a business based on the quality of the content that they produce. Nobody talks about businesses that don’t have fresh, unique and useful content.

As a result, optimizing your content is a top priority. You need to create keyword-rich headlines, create interesting posts and adopt best practices for SEO.

Here are some examples of businesses with great content:

Taft

Taft, a seller of leather shoes, has become popular thanks to the superb presentation of its products on its landing page.

Glossier

Glossier started as “Into the Gloss” — a blog by Emily Weiss. It garnered popularity thanks to its feature on makeup rituals of celebrities and moguls. When the blog reached 1.5 million views per month, Weiss launched her own line of products. At present, the brand gets 1.86 million visits per month and is worth $17 million.

Businesses that fail to understand the importance of high-quality content will experience a drop in their search engine rankings. Therefore, invest in your content marketing strategy. Take time to create high-quality photos, visuals, blog posts, and videos.

Mistake #4: Duplicate Page Titles

Page titles appear at the top of search results and browsers. They explain what the page is about to users and search engines.

It might not seem like a big deal, but you need to avoid duplicating page titles from landing pages.

If several pages are identical, search engines will find it hard to choose which pages to recommend. In the end, they might not recommend any of them.

To fix this, you can check WebCEO’s Website Auditor and SEO Analysis tools. Visit their On-site Issues Overview page and scroll down.

Next, you’ll then find a list of pages with titles that are duplicated.

Mistake #5: Site Speed is Slow

Sure, it’s important to have high-quality images and videos in your landing page, but not at the expense of loading time. Studies show that people expect sites to load by 2 seconds. If it takes more, then the back button is the immediate option.

But how do you improve site speed? Here are some tips you need to know:

Image Optimization

Images with 2000 pixels feel great in your imagination, but not so much in reality. The higher the resolution, the more time it takes to load the webpage. And if users have to wait more than 30 seconds, they won’t be impressed.

The solution? Optimize your image on Photoshop or other image editing tools. You can also reduce pixel size, so instead of 2000 pixels, you can opt for 700 pixels.

Minify Codes

Most developers add unnecessary characters like spacing and comments in their JavaScript and CSS codes. They do this to improve readability and understand their work.

Unfortunately, more characters make it harder for computers to read and execute the codes. The solution? You can use tools like JavaScript Minifier. Just paste the code on the text box and click the minify button.

Minimize Redirects

Redirects can negatively impact your site’s loading time.

You click a link, it loads. You’re then redirected to another link, then it loads again. This takes a toll on your site’s speed.

Tools like W3C Broken Link Tool help you identify redirects and replace them with the appropriate URL.

Choose the Right Hosting Option

There are currently three options for hosting:

• Shared hosting
• VPS hosting
• Dedicated server

Most e-commerce site owners opt for shared hosting because it’s the cheapest. At $5 per month, you can get basic server resources like disk space, CPU and RAM – but you’ll share the server with other sites.

This option isn’t wrong per se, but you’ll need to upgrade when you pick up more traffic.

(Source)

VPS hosting gets you portions of the server’s resources but you still need to share with other sites.

Finally, dedicated hosting is like owning your own home. You don’t get to share your server’s resources. You get more space, but you’re also responsible for maintenance, technical setup, and configuration.

If you’re starting out, shared hosting seems like a good choice. But as you pick up more traffic and gain popularity, you might need to switch to VPS hosting or get dedicated server hosting.

Mistake #6: Lack of Mobile-Friendliness

In 2018, 52.2 percent of website traffic was generated from mobile phones. So, you need to be asking yourself, “Is my site optimized for mobile search? What are the steps I’m taking to ensure mobile users have a great experience on my site?”

Mobile-friendliness begins with a responsive design.

When browsing through a desktop, users can easily navigate and select items through their mouse and touchpad. However, the user selects items by touching the screen on mobile.

There’s also the issue of graphics and download speed. You might need to display fewer graphics with lower pixels, so it doesn’t take forever for the pages to load.

But it doesn’t there. Google prefers sites that embrace mobile-first indexing. In fact, the mobile version of a site may be the basis for rank determination. And if you’re not focused on mobile optimization, there’s a good chance that your competitors are.

You can use tools like WebCEO’s Technical Auditor and SEO Analysis tool to improve your mobile optimization. Head over to the Landing Pages Overview section to determine the Google mobile friendliness rating of your site. You can click on the green check mark to find more information about your site’s mobile friendliness.

Once you’ve clicked it, you can view how well your site does in terms of mobile page speed, flash content, and AMP.

At the bottom of the page, you’ll find information on what you should fix and consider fixing to improve mobile friendliness.

Mistake #7: Irrelevant Internal Links

Are you placing many links at random or are you following a plan? If you want to make it easier for visitors to navigate your website and get higher search engine rankings, then you need to improve your internal link structure.

An ideal site structure appears like a pyramid:

• The first level is the home page
• The second level is the category pages
• The third level is the product pages

If you have a huge inventory, this might be easier said than done. But you need to pay attention to link depth. Visitors should be able to get to the page they want by three clicks at best.

If you have content such as blog post, you can add internal links in the post. You can also consult an expert to improve your site structure and internal linking. When that’s done, you can improve your rankings and site traffic.

Ready to Get Started with Your SEO Strategy?

How do you create a killer e-commerce SEO strategy? In the end, it all comes down to avoiding the most common pitfalls.

Invest in high-quality content. Encourage customers to leave reviews. Customize your 404 pages. Improve your site speed by optimizing images, minimizing redirects and minifying codes.

The post 7 Business-Killing E-Commerce SEO Mistakes appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.

In 2017, a lot of entrepreneurs will be choosing between Yahoo Commerce Central, Magento Commerce, Ebay and Amazon as platforms to sell their products. Many make it a full-time job, reaping steady rewards from buying and selling various things. Many businesses use these platforms to move products they also sell on their websites.

But it’s not always easy to stand out now that there are hundreds of thousands of sellers taking advantage of this market. On a major commerce platform, Amazon, selling your products successfully and marketing your online store is all about understanding marketing.

We will discuss how to market your products on Amazon specifically There’s more than $283,000 being spent every minute globally on this platform, and you can be a big part of that if you’re willing to put in the effort. Research from Amazon shows that when people sell and market their products in earnest, they see a 50 percent increase in their overall revenue from the venture.

Most sellers on Amazon aren’t expert marketers, but that doesn’t mean you can’t tap into this niche to get more potential from your selling platform. Here are some tips for better marketing your Amazon products.

1. Utilize SEO

An SEO Strategy matters a lot, even though your Amazon shop may not be accompanied by a website. Since most of your search will come from organic search terms, keywords are your best bet for attracting these searchers. The Amazon Keyword Tool is an excellent resource for helping you master SEO.

Additionally, WebCEO’s Keyword Research tool can provide deeper insights into the most effective keywords for your products, ensuring you capture the right audience on Amazon.

2. Gather Reviews

On Amazon, customer reviews are currency. Word of mouth marketing is by far the most effective form of advertising, and 88 percent of consumers say they trust online reviews, even if the review is from a stranger. Collect reviews for your products through any means possible.

3. Give Freebies

Obviously, you can’t make a profit by giving away all of your merchandise, but you can attract buyers by throwing in free gifts with purchases. This is a great tactic if you’re competing closely with another seller who stocks the same products.

4. Use Social Media

Spread the virtual word about your online products. Though you don’t necessarily need a business page to market your store, you can share some of your more popular products with friends and family. Facebook also offers some excellent geo-targeted advertising features that would be especially useful in this scenario.

5. Get a Pro Merchant Subscription

Pro Merchant subscribers don’t pay-per-transaction fees. Instead, they pay $39.99 per month to list their products on Amazon. It’s a great way to save money on those transactional fees, particularly if you’re selling more than 100 products per month. It also comes with a whole host of reporting, selling, and formatting options that aren’t available to individual sellers. It’s a great way to boost revenue and improve the credibility of your selling platform when compared to the individual plan.

6. Automate Listings

This is a service that comes with the Pro Merchant subscription, and it automatically updates inventory levels and product descriptions. Like the previous step, this isn’t an external marketing technique, but it does make your page look more professional and useful to Amazon customers.

7. Purchase Advertising

Sometimes you have to spend money to make money. Amazon has a sponsored products option that lets you advertise above your competitors for a small fee. These products will show up primarily in the “recommended for you” section of the site and in exterior advertisements. Amazon monitors the search history of consumers on all their devices, which means your sponsored product advertisements will be put in front of people who are most likely to buy them.

8. Offer Coupons and Discounts

Aside from the convenience factor, people often shop on Amazon because it’s cheaper than other marketplaces. Offering special discounts and coupon codes to customers can be excellent conversion tools. It doesn’t hurt to cut into your profit margins a little every now and then to make a quality sale.

9. Price More Competitively

As mentioned in the previous tip, Amazon shoppers are always on the hunt for the best deal. You can’t price your products much higher than a competitor because customers are often out to find the best price.

10. Win the Buy Box

The “buy box” is a term used by Amazon sellers to describe how your product won out compared to the 30 other sellers featuring the same product. Pricing competitively is part of this, even if you only sell something for one cent cheaper than someone else. You can also gain this status by using Amazon Prime as your shipping option, developing an excellent seller rating, and raising shipping performance.

The post 10 Amazon Marketing Tips Sellers Must Know appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.