Running an ecommerce business can be a highly competitive endeavor. With millions of online retailers worldwide, entrepreneurs are vying for the attention of customers from one another. With this in mind, it is essential for online business owners to find and utilize strategies that help boost online visibility in order to rise above the competition.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is arguably the most powerful tool in digital marketing. This is particularly true when it comes to written content, such as blog posts and website copy.
However, SEO writing can be complex and feel somewhat overwhelming. To help you with this, here is a brief overview of the concept and importance of search engine optimization in ecommerce, as well as tips on how to write for SEO better.
What Is SEO?
Search engine optimization or SEO refers to the process of optimizing content to ensure its quality based on the standards of search engine analytics. It is a tool used to generate traffic by ranking content’s value and relevance in relation to specific keywords, topics, or niches.
In the realm of writing and marketing, SEO is critical as it gauges quality and sets the standard of what good and bad content is. Search engine-optimized content appears higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), which enhances its visibility to online users. Thus, SEO is regarded as a powerful marketing tool for websites to generate and direct traffic organically.
The Importance Of SEO In Ecommerce
Search engine optimization can do more than just generate organic traffic for ecommerce websites. It offers a handful of benefits and advantages critical for business growth and digital marketing.
Cost-Effective Marketing Strategy
Digital marketing can be expensive. With popular strategies such as video marketing, influencer marketing, and paid advertising, online businesses need to allocate a significant portion of their resources just to establish an online presence and engage with their target audiences.
Luckily, search engine optimization is a much cheaper strategy compared to other marketing tactics. According to the latest reports, roughly 93% of web activity starts with a search engine search. In addition to that, 71% of online customers conduct their research online using search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
With these numbers, SEO boasts of an average return on investment (ROI) ratio of 22:1. In comparison, pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns have an average ROI of 2:1, and paid social media holds a 19:20 average ROI ratio. Thus, leveraging SEO to generate organic search traffic is paramount, as it is a powerful driving force and source of web traffic worldwide.
Build Brand Credibility
Branding is another important element in the ecommerce industry. Considering that there are thousands of online retailers within the same niche as yours, it is essential to differentiate yourself from your competitors.
Search engine optimization aids in building brand credibility as consumers are more likely to trust a brand that appears higher on search engine result pages. A spot at the top of SERPs serves as proof that search engines recognize your value and relevance to your industry. Aside from that, strong branding helps reduce consumer’s perception of risks in online shopping, such as scams, fraud, and security breaches.
Therefore, optimizing content can bolster your brand’s authority and encourage customers to purchase from your ecommerce website even without reference or prior experience.
Must-Know SEO Writing Tips For Digital Marketing
Now that you have a better understanding of what search engine optimization is and its importance in ecommerce, let’s jump into the different writing tips that can help you write optimized content.
Establish a keyword research plan and strategy
Keyword research is a critical part of search engine optimization marketing strategy. In SEO, keywords are used to establish links and the content’s value in relation to web searches. Basically, marketers use keywords to improve their content’s search engine ranking by showing search engine analytics that their content features these terms that people are looking for.
Generally, keyword research focuses on three factors – competition, search volume, and commercial intent.
Search volume refers to the number of online queries made featuring a specific keyword or key phrase. Competition shows the current landscape and how much content is already available online. The higher the degree of competition, the harder it is for content to rank at the top of search engine results pages. Lastly, commercial intent analyzes what type of content people seek, whether their purpose is to purchase something or educate themselves.
Building A Keyword Strategy
With this in mind, digital marketers need to devise a strategy for utilizing SEO keywords in their content.
The first step in doing so is to analyze your website and determine what niche or industry you belong to. Ideally, you focus your keyword research around the core products or services you are trying to sell. This will help you generate traffic for your ecommerce website, whether they are looking to buy something or want to know more about what you have to offer.
The next step is to scour for seed keywords for your blog posts or website copy. Seed keywords are broader terms or concepts related to your industry or niche used to expand your content’s reach. Another way to do this is to utilize long-tail keywords.
However, another important aspect of keyword research revolves around analyzing which keywords to use. To do this, it is essential for digital marketers to gauge the competitiveness of a certain keyword and decide whether or not it is worth pursuing. It is best to prioritize keywords that are realistically valuable in terms of search volume and the level of competition.
Leverage both short-form and long-form content
There is a common misconception that written content should be long and that the longer the content is, the better. While this is not entirely false, it is important to understand that both short-form and long-form content have benefits in digital marketing
First, let’s discuss the difference between short-form and long-form content. While there isn’t a strict rule, the general distinction between the two is that long-form content are more than 1,200 words long. This includes the likes of evergreen pages, lengthy blog posts, detailed guides, ebooks, and whitepapers.
Generally, long-form content are designed to heavily engage audiences and are meant to discuss topics in depth and detail. It is primarily used to educate and provide answers for people looking to learn more about a specific topic.
On the other hand, short-form content are those that are less than 1,000 to 1,200 words long, such as social media posts, infographics, short blog posts, email newsletters, news articles, and the like. Short-form content are designed primarily for quick engagements. Its primary purpose is to deliver a message as quickly and as effectively to an audience as possible.
But why does the content length matter in SEO?
One of the first things digital marketers need to understand is that the length of content should align with its purpose to reach a particular goal or objective.
Thus, the length of content plays a particular role in SEO in terms of audience search intent. If your target audience is looking to educate themselves, it is ideal to provide them with a long-form blog post discussing the topic in detail.
Another factor to consider when it comes to SEO writing and content length revolves around link building and its effect on search engine ranking. A recent report supports that long-form content is more capable of acquiring quality backlinks because of its in-depth and detailed nature, which in turn contributes to its SERP ranking.
However, this does not mean that digital marketers should focus solely on long-form content. The general rule of thumb is to create content that effectively answers a query, regardless of how short or long the content is going to be. Short-form content on ecommerce websites can still generate traffic and boost SEO ranking as long as it is capable of providing answers to its target audience.
Utilize link-building strategies
SEO writing is not all about creating content that features keywords and phrases. A critical part of search engine optimization revolves around building credibility through link building.
But what is link building in the first place?
Link building is an SEO practice that aims to boost SEO ranking by getting other websites to link your website as a reliable and credible source of information. Also referred to as backlinking, search engines view this process as a vote of confidence, significantly contributing to a website’s SEO ranking and performance.
One of the most effective ways to build links in SEO writing is to create authoritative content that other websites would naturally link as a resource. Some of the most effective content types for link building include in-depth guides, original research, data and statistics, infographics, and the like.
By doing so, you are able to establish your brand as an authority and further build your credibility.
Bottomline
Writing content for SEO can feel like a daunting task. Not only are you writing content, but you also need to ensure that they are optimized to boost search engine rankings.
SEO writing starts with understanding the concept of search engine optimization and its role in ecommerce marketing. Through SEO, ecommerce websites can generate traffic organically, increase conversion rates, as well as establish their credibility, reliability, and authority in their industry.
From there, digital marketers need to learn about the best SEO practices when writing content. This includes utilizing keywords and conducting effective keyword research, leveraging both short-form and long-form content depending on its marketing objectives, and learning how link building helps in improving SEO performance.
With this knowledge on hand, digital marketers can write optimized content and copy that can aid in increasing their online visibility and boosting their search engine rankings.
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