Ecommerce websites have unique challenges when it comes to optimising product pages. Its important to make sure your website and products are easy to find in search engines such as Google. It is also important that your products are designed in a way that is user friendly and provides the information needed to lead to online sales. This guide outlines 6 ideas to help optimise your ecommerce website increasing traffic and hopefully sales.

1. Unique Product Descriptions

If you are using product descriptions given to you from suppliers or taken from other websites, this will be no benefit to you. Duplicate content is sure to lead to penalties with you Google ranking. Make sure your content is unique to your website, use the keywords of the product you are describing and be sure to mention the benefits and purpose of the product. If the product is used to solve specific problems make sure to mention the keywords of the problems associated with the product. Read more about targeting the keywords of problems rather than solutions in my previous article:  increase website traffic with a smart blogging strategy. 

2. Add Product Category Descriptions

Consider optimising your product category pages, by using a keyword rich title, adding a description describing the products found in the category and add an image with correct alt tags and titles. This will help with generic keyword searches for people searching for categories of products such as “men’s clothing” or “kids clothing” 

3. Unique titles with keywords.

As mentioned earlier Google penalizes websites with lots of duplicate content, If you are an online furniture company imagine how many other websites have product titles called “Oak Dining Table” consider adding unique descriptive or personality words such as “ Natural Oak Dining Table” or “Modern Oak Dining Table”. 

4. Use High Quality Product Photos

Product photos are important, especially for products that can only be ordered online. Looking at a product photo is an important part of the buying purchase. Large, high quality photos show viewers the detail they want to see building trust with your product. If your product needs to be shown from different angles to show the full product make sure you add extra photos. Consider providing photos of your product in use if it adds value to the function of your product.

5. Optimising Product Images with Alt tags + Titles

Add alt tags and use smart titles for all images. Do not name images photo1.jpg or image123.jpg. If it is a photo of a cow eating grass then name the image “cow eating grass” this will make your images show up in image searches. The image title and alt tag also get indexed in search engines so its important to add keywords about the image in the title and alt text.

6. Enable & Encourage User Product Reviews

Encourage buyers to review your products. This shows popularity and builds trust with people looking to buy your products. Getting reviews can be hard, consider sending email reminders to buyers offering a discount coupon for reviewing the products of their recent purchases.  

These steps outlined are all easy ways to get more out of your ecommerce website. For most modern websites the functionality to achieve these steps will be available to you already. Sometimes a slight change in your approach to images, keywords and content writing can be all that’s needed to see an increase in website traffic and online sales.

 

 

More business’s are experiencing the benefits of actively using a blog on their website. Benefits from having an active blog with well-written content include:

	More website visitors More visitors mean more chances to convert leads into customers. If your blog is well accepted, viewers will share your articles with others – meaning free promotion for your website!
	More backlinks When people share your articles or create links to them it works like a vote of trust to your website. This will improve your websites search engine ranking.
	More indexed pages Each blog post works as a separate page giving you more chances to be found online. Google likes large website with lots of unique content.
	More content with a wide range of keywords Each blog post can cover different topics, giving you chances to target specific keywords. This means your website will rank well for more keywords – not just the keywords on your ‘normal’ website pages.

 

What’s the right way to blog?

 A smart blogging strategy will look different depending on your business and target audience, blogging may not suit every business, but in most cases using a blog the right way will yield positive results.

The most important thing to remember when starting a business blog is to think about what you viewers want to read. Think about what problems they are facing? What they want to know, any tips they will find useful. To use a blog for lead generation you need to focus on what your market wants to know. New readers are not interested in your company or the brands you stock, they are not interested in your favorite colour or what you did on the weekend. New readers want to know how you can help them, how can you fix a problem they are having? What advice do you have to make their lives easier?

Address the problems your market is facing. 

People like to do their own research before making a decision. However people search the keywords of their questions or problems, not the keywords of the solutions to problems. An example of this would be a generic plumbers website. The content you would expect to see would be a list of services, information about the company, history, maybe some staff profiles and contact information. This is all great content and will rank well when people search for keywords such as “Plumber, Gas fitting” etc. however there is opportunity to get leads from many other search terms and keywords by thinking about what the target market is looking for. People searching for “why is my tap leaking? How to fix a blocked pipe? Why is my shower cold?“ People are usually researching their problems, not the solutions.

To apply this to your business – Do you have a product or service that deals with problems your customers are having? If the content on your website is always talking about your product, but not what your product does or how it can be used to solve specific problems then chances are you are missing out many leads from people who need your product or service – they just don’t that it is you who has the solution they need. Think about how someone would find you if they didn’t know what you did or sold. Think backwards.

Think from the perspective of a general user not an expert, as you will be with your products and industry. Chances are most of you reading this will not be an expert in freshwater aquariums. If you had a problem with green slime appearing in your fish tank you probably wouldn’t know you needed a product called “Algaefix” all you would know is you have a problem with green slime. Optimising your websites for keywords relating to the questions or problems people are having gives you the opportunity to position yourself to people who do not know you, but want what you are offering. These are very high quality leads as you have what they need. After all what’s the point in focusing your efforts optimising your website for a product name or brand name – those who are familiar with it already know you. Focus on those who don’t know you, but have problems that you can help with.

People are looking for your help – are you positioned in a way they can find you?

 

GIVE THEM A REASON TO RETURN

Maintaining activity on your website comes down to a few factors and depending on your business goals and target audience will determine the best way to go about keeping people interested and returning to your website.

WRITE EXCLUSIVE CONTENT THAT IS RELEVANT

Rewarding viewers for their loyalty with exclusive information or advice creates lasting relationships with viewers and gives them a reason for going back to your website. Creating a resource library of useful links, advice, eBooks and other useful resources are a great way of making your website the go-to place for your viewers.

UPDATE YOUR WEBSITE CONTENT REGULARLY

A blog, news feed or advice column for getting people to come back to your website – Even if information is not the primary purpose of your website, It can be a method of getting people there who can then be open to seeing the primary reason for your website – e.g. sales or interaction.

CREATE INTERACTION WITH A FORUM

A forum can be time consuming to manage – but extremely rewarding for building a very loyal community of returning viewers. Forums can be perfect for informative websites where opinions or advice is encouraged by viewers. A forum can also be effective for managing support enquiries, event information and other open or closed group discussions.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media can be a great way of communicating with your customers. Offering exclusive offers or advertising new products, events or advice is a great way to increase your community presence.

 

EMAIL NEWSLETTERS TO CONNECT WITH VIEWERS

Email newsletters can be an effective way to inform viewers of changes to your website such as – new products, sales /promotions and events.

 

Having the perfect website is great,

but is ineffective if nobody can find you…

It’s important to make sure your website is easy to find on search engines and set up with Google Analytics to report the traffic and statistics about who is viewing your website. Using this information you constantly improve aspects of the website that are not working as well as others, you can see how people are finding your website to determine the most successful key words and advertising methods.

GETTING THE RIGHT PEOPLE TO YOUR WEBSITE.

Again this comes down to knowing YOUR business, and your customers/target audience. It is important tat your website attracts and relates to your target audience. Appealing to your audience can be done through design, relevant content and advertising where your viewers will find you.

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

This determines how well you show up in search engines. This is decided by a few factors; some of this is determined by the way the website is built and indexed. Another important factor for SEO is content. It is always important to include well written content and relevant images in your website, with a focus on keywords for your industry – If your website does not say, “We offer affordable kitchens in Hamilton, New Zealand” how will people (or search engines) know that you do? Updating the content regularly helps too; this is why we often suggest a blog or news feed. Search engine algorithms are always changing and updating so it’s important to maintain your website and keep up with the latest standards.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Using social media to give you an active online presence and interact directly with your audience. Social media can be a great way to spread the word about promotions or information as news spreads quickly among social media users.

 

PAID ONLINE ADVERTISING

Google Adwords and online advertising can be effective at generating leads particularly in industries where keywords are in competition.

 

OFFLINE ADVERTISING

Print Media – business cards, posters, flyers, billboards

The digital world has provided us with many great ways to advertise and promote, but let’s not forget the ways of old. Print design is still an effective medium for communication – Newspaper advertising, flyers posters and billboards can be a great way to promote your business and especially effective when used in as part of an all-media campaign combining print and online advertising.

FACE TO FACE SALES AND COMMUNICATION

For some businesses nothing beats the personal approach of talking directly with your audience. In the ever-advancing digital age remember how important it is to spend time and talk directly with people. Print media such as business cards and brochures can have great lead generation results when combined with a friendly chat and a handshake.