In today’s world, many business owners run across the term “SEO” when they begin to research the e-commerce sector. If you’ve recently become interested in building your brand online, it’s important to know that using proven search engine optimization strategies is a highly effective way to draw prospective customers to your brand.
Read on to learn about 10 SEO strategies that can send your traffic rates through the roof:
1. Target Market Research.
To really sell something to a prospective customer, you need to know as much as possible about them. This is why target market research is an important, unavoidable component of the SEO process. With this strategy, you do substantive, ongoing research about your target audience so you can determine what their needs, values, and shopping preferences area.
As noted in How To Research Your Target Market, the four types of information you’ll want to attain on the target audience include their behaviouristic, psychographic, geographic, and demographic information. Additionally, you should take time to assess your audience’s spending habits. For example, you need to determine how much money they can or are willing to spend on your service and product. You should also determine how likely they are to use the product if they buy it.
2. Blogging.
Another SEO strategy that you can implement to optimize your traffic is blog work. Blogging is the ongoing process of creating and publishing dynamic, original blog posts that members of your audience will find helpful, entertaining, or information-rich. Blogging is an effective way to optimize your ranking in the search engine results pages. This is because blogging provides you with a medium through which to make your relationship with the target audience more interactive.
For example, you can develop Q & A style blog posts in which your prospects or customers ask specific questions about you, your products, or anything else that is directly or indirectly related to your brand. You’ll then answer the questions and publish the questions with answers in blog post format. If you have a weekly Q & A session, your audience will need to visit your site regularly to see the answers. Therefore, the Q & A technique can be a wonderful way to obtain regular traffic.
3. Content Marketing.
If you’re really serious about optimizing your SEO efforts, get serious about content marketing. Content marketing is important because it empowers you to continually publish web articles that share information about your brand with the target audience. The power of content marketing is multifarious. First, content marketing provides you with a way to make your interactions with the target audience ongoing. If you’re regularly publishing articles on your website and advertising their emergence through social channels like Twitter, you’re constantly interfacing with your people.
Another reason that content marketing is effective pertains to the fact that it enables you to provide your audience with valuable information. Let’s say you run a raw vegan website filled with recipes and advice regarding how to incorporate live fruits and vegetables into your diet. If you regularly publish delicious, easy to make desserts that new raw vegans or seasoned experts would want to know how to prepare, you’ll give people an incentive to visit the site regularly.
To make the most of the content marketing process, there are several things you should keep in mind. One, content containing at least 1,800 words is more likely to be read. Two, it’s important to make your content easy to read by including scannability components such as headers, subheaders, clickable links, and dynamic images. Learn more about the world of content marketing by visiting websites featuring informational articles on this type of topic.
4. Inbound Linking.
Another SEO strategy you should implement to optimize traffic is inbound linking. Inbound links are links from other websites to your website. They are important because they increase the credibility of your website in the eyes of prospective consumers as well as your current customers. Additionally, inbound links can increase your ranking in the SERPs, thereby making your brand more visible to the online world.
5. Outbound Linking.
Outbound linking is the process of including links to other websites on your own. This process is important for at least three reasons. First, linking to a reputable website can increase your credibility in the mind of the search engine. Second, these links can help you attain a more competitive placement in the SERPs if the other party responds by creating a link to your website on theirs. Third, linking to relevant sites increases the relevance and value of your website by providing your readers with information that is pertinent to your site. An example would be running a vegan website and linking out to two or three other highly reputable blogs filled with delicious recipes and tips on how to eat out at non-vegan restaurants when with friends and family members.
6. Social Media Optimization (SMO).
SMO is one of the most valuable SEO strategies under the sun. The process works as you continually communicate with members of your target audience through key social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. When word spreads about your brand through these channels, you will likely attain a more competitive ranking in the SERPs. There are several ways to interface with members of your audience on these channels. For example, you can run a Twitter poll in which you ask your audience specific brand-related questions such as “Which of my raw vegan recipes are you most likely to try over the holidays?”
- Apple pie
- Pizza
- Brownies
- Spaghetti
Getting the answers from your audience keeps your brand in their mind while simultaneously increasing the likelihood that other Twitter users will become curious about your product line.
7. Utilize Keyword Research Strategies.
Keyword research is the process of determining which phrases and terms people use when they start searching for specific products, services, or information. Knowing which keywords your target audience uses enables you to sprinkle them throughout your blog posts and web articles. Once this happens, your website is more likely to pop up in the search engine results pages!
8. Optimize Voice Search.
Voice search is now a common way for internet users to search for products and services. As such, savvy business owners need to start structuring their SEO campaign in accordance with the rules of voice search. For example, most voice search inquiries exist in the form of questions. This means that the keywords need to be long-tail and incorporate actual sentences.
9. Create More Video Content.
People are more likely to watch a video than read a blog post or article. This means that continuously creating compelling video content is imperative if you’re serious about attaining a higher ranking in the SERPs. You can either hire a team of video production experts or learn how to develop high quality, dynamic videos on your own.
10. Think Mobile.
Millions of people access the internet through mobile devices as opposed to PCs and laptops. As such, your website must be easily accessible to individuals who make use of electronic devices or you’ll run the risk of earning less traffic. One of the simplest ways to ensure that your mobile users can easily access and move through your website is by utilizing responsive web design services.
Conclusion
Once you realize that you want to send your site traffic rates through the roof, it’s time to start implementing proven SEO techniques. Utilize some or all of the SEO strategies outlined in this article so you can get your e-commerce efforts off the ground soon!
