Ecommerce websites are the digital world’s shopping boutiques and stores. When a customer is looking for digital products, goods, or services to purchase, they will most likely end up on an ecommerce website to check and browse what they have to offer.
Considering this, it is important for online business owners to pay close attention to their websites’ components, elements, and features. Their online stores should be designed to simplify online shopping, from viewing products to the checkout process. The website’s user experience (UX) design should be user-friendly, easy to navigate, and straightforward.
But aside from that, it is also essential for ecommerce websites to be optimized for search engines. Doing this will make your site more visible online and thus bring in more traffic.
With that, here is a comprehensive guide on the essential components of an ecommerce website and tips on optimizing it to provide a great user experience.
Grading Your Ecommerce Website
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Before we dive into the hows of optimizing your website, it is important to know how exactly your site is doing.
Let’s say that you’re starting a business online and you’ve set everything up. Your ecommerce website is up and running, but you fail to draw traffic and generate sales.
Grading your website allows you to identify the specific aspects or elements of your website that need fixing. Many website grading tools are available online, such as the Website Grader from HubSpot Tools.
Programs like this will show your website’s performance in terms of security, mobile friendliness, load speeds, and the like.
Optimizing Key Components of An Ecommerce Website
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Now let’s jump into the topic of website optimization. Here is a list of the key components of an ecommerce website, along with some tips on optimizing them for better user experience and SEO.
Domain Name
Most rookie online entrepreneurs don’t know this, but your business’s domain name is important. It serves as your website’s address and is the primary way for web users to locate you. It is what people type into their web browsers in order to access your web page.
When coming up with a website domain name, one of the things that you should consider is the length. Ideally, domain names should be short and simple, around 20 characters or less. Aside from that, it should also be catchy enough and easy for people to remember.
However, coming up with a completely unique and relevant domain name for a website is not as easy as one would think. There are millions of websites on the internet, and a huge number of them could be part of your niche or industry. Even smaller businesses can be surprised by how many websites they share similar brand names with.
When a domain name with your brand is unavailable, the next best thing to do is to include industry or niche-related keywords that can help target users find your website easier.
Page Titles
Also referred to as the title tag, page titles serve as descriptors to webpages. When browsing through a website, the page titles appear at the top of the browser, which helps users identify what the web page is all about. But aside from that, title tags also play a critical role in search engine and website optimization.
While page titles are meant to describe a web page, it doesn’t mean that it needs to be excessively long just to provide better context. A well-optimized page title must be brief and specific, at most 70 characters long. In addition, use unique and compelling page titles to pique the interest of your website visitors.
URL Titles
URL titles are the complete website address that appears on a user’s browser when browsing through a website. It is a form of website address that directly links to a specific web page. URL titles include the website’s domain name, page title, and the relevant terms that help identify a particular web page and its content.
URL titles have an important role in website optimization as search engines use them to index your site’s content. Considering this, your URL titles should be able to accurately describe and identify specific web content such as blog posts, product descriptions, news, and the like.
The general rule of thumb when it comes to writing URL titles is to make them easy to read for both web users and search engines.
Content
Your website content is one of the most important elements when it comes to search engine optimization. Given that search engines run through your website’s content to gauge its value and relevance to user input, content is essential to boost online visibility and increase traffic.
But how do you exactly make optimized content? What exactly do search engines consider good content? There is a lot involved in optimizing content. However, the most common practice is regularly publishing up-to-date and high-quality content.
It is not enough to simply bombard your website with content with little to no value to your target audience. You can’t publish content based on information from something that no longer reflects today’s current situation.
In order to ensure that your content remains valuable and relevant to your target audience, it is important to provide them with information and news that reflects current situations. Offer solutions to existing pain points and cater to unanswered questions.
Most importantly, adjust your content style according to your audience’s likes and preferences. Follow a tone that is friendly and easy to understand, as well as provide content in other media forms such as videos, images, infographics, and even case studies.
Keywords
Using keywords is a critical practice in optimization. Keywords or key phrases are what web users work on to find relevant online content through search engine results pages. The more visible these keywords are on your site, the more likely you will pop up at the top of a customer’s search results.
In order to make your website relevant to a specific niche, it is important to place keywords in your website that will reflect your relevance to the subject. However, it is essential to choose and use keywords strategically and carefully.
Thoughtlessly bombarding your website with target keywords can flag your website and do you more harm than good.
You need to remember two things when using keywords for your website’s content. First, they should align with what your target audience is searching for, and second, they should correspond to what search engines are thinking.
Conducting in-depth keyword research on your industry or niche can boost your keyword game, generate website traffic, increase conversion rates, and increase online visibility through search engines.
Headings
Search engines look further than what’s in your content. Aside from running through your web pages, your blog posts, and other content, optimization also involves content style, format, and structure.
An important part of content and website optimization revolves around using the right header tags and header formats. Not only does this make your content look better, but it also allows search engines to seek content that features appropriate headings and subheadings. Doing this helps rank your content and perform better in search engine results.
Meta Tags
People who are not familiar with web development may consider meta tags confusing. But what are they exactly?
Meta tags are simply descriptions that provide users and search engines with more information about a specific web page. Search engines also use it to analyze further and classify the contents of your ecommerce websites.
So not only do meta tags provide users with a sneak peek into what the web page is about, but they also boost their visibility for search engine systems. Therefore, an important part of optimizing your ecommerce website is adding meta tags anywhere possible, whether on your blog posts, page titles, etc.
But more than adding meta tags, knowing how to write optimized meta descriptions is essential.
First, meta tags should be short and sweet. The character cap (including spaces) is 155, and it should include the keyword. Meta descriptions should also be written to entice and pique the interest of your audience. Consider the customer’s point of view and write meta descriptions thinking of offering solutions or answers to an important question.
Bottomline
Making an ecommerce website is more than just pure aesthetics. Aside from making your site look good, it is also essential that you make it easy to use and locate. Optimizing your ecommerce website is all about making it visible to search engines and the millions of people searching the web.
Search engine optimization is more than just a marketing strategy. It is also a powerful tool that can directly impact your online sales. Considering this, it is important for online entrepreneurs to pay attention and learn how they can optimize their websites to boost their performance.
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