Are you ready to double the organic traffic on your eCommerce store?
Silly question, right?
The reason why you are here proves that you are eager to boost organic traffic on your website.
It would have been wonderful if the traffic multiplied on the website just by wishing for it. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Effective strategies need to be applied to step up the SEO game.
Understanding SEO is essential to increase brand awareness and welcome a massive audience to the website.
There are thousands of consumers who are searching for the products and services in which you deal. You can reach all those people and convert them into your customers by improving the SEO ranking of your eCommerce store.
Did you know that 40% of the website’s traffic is generated by a search query? That is why every brand endeavors to improve its SEO and reach the maximum prospective audience.
How many times have you moved to the second or third page of the Google results? Hardly a few times, right?
You are not alone, 75% of the internet users don’t click past the first result page.
To make your website rank on the first page of Google, make sure that you implement effective SEO techniques that will boost traffic, increase conversions, and earn you good revenue.
So without further ado, let’s begin!
15 Effective SEO Techniques To Drive Organic Traffic In 2021
1. Satisfy User Intent
The first technique to drive organic traffic to your website is to provide the audience what they are looking for. Would you go to a shop that doesn’t sell things which you want? Of course not, the online audience will do the same.
If a website fails to provide users what they are searching for, they will exit the website and Google will rank down such a website.
It should be your utmost priority to provide your users with an amazing experience so that they don’t click the back button of their browsers.
The majority of the websites make the mistake of creating the content for the sake of ranking on the result pages. This is a wrong approach. While creating content, you should keep the user intent in mind. Create content for your users, not for the search engine bots.
2. Improve Website’s Speed & Enhance Security
The lazier the website you have, the more audience you will lose. Slow-loading websites are irritating for online users. They want the page to be loaded within a few seconds or else they will quit the website in an instant.
Did you know that 40% of online users exit websites that take longer than three seconds to load?
If a user comes to your website and leaves within a few seconds, it sends a negative signal to Google that your website provided a bad experience to the user. As a result, Google lowers your rank, which means fewer chances of visibility.
To improve the web pages’ speed, compress all the code files and images. Get rid of the unwanted plugins, and elements that slow down the speed of your website.
Apart from improving website speed Google also encourages to adopt HTTPS in order to protect your users’ connections to your website. Data sent via such server is secured via 3 layers of protection i.e. Encryption, Data Integrity & Authentication. In recent years IT Industry has seen an increase in Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks too. Such attacks can be damaging and should be identified and handled in a timely manner.
3. Optimize For Voice Search
Voice search is going to be the future of searching content online. Smartphones have the feature of voice typing and voice searching, and many people are making extensive use of them. Have a look at the following stats by finances online:
- 19% of smartphone users use Siri at least one time in 24 hours.
- 55% of teenagers use the voice search option daily.
- 44% of adults use the voice search feature on a daily basis.
The growing popularity of voice search options gives an excellent chance for your business to step up the SEO game and stay ahead of the competitors. By starting voice search optimization and curating content for the same purpose you can generate bulk organic traffic to your website in the upcoming time.
4. Make Your Websites Mobile-Friendly
In 2018, approximately 52.2% of all the website traffic was generated by mobile devices.
More than half of the online users access the internet and visit the websites through their smartphones. If you fail to provide mobile users a good user experience, your website can lose a good chunk of traffic.
However, if you provide them with an amazing user experience, it will boost organic traffic on your web pages.
Make sure that your website is responsive on various digital devices, especially smartphones. If your website is built on WordPress or Shopify, select a mobile-friendly theme that can adjust its design and content according to the screen size.
Provide easy navigation to your mobile users and do not use pop-ups as it irritates them.
5. Start Blogging
Blogging is the perfect way to attract an audience to your website. It doesn’t matter what niche you operate in be it tech, sports, fitness, or fashion, etc. Creating and publishing content can do wonders for boosting the SEO of your website.
You can easily integrate long-tail keywords in your blogs to make your web pages rank higher. Make sure to create unique and valuable content for your audience. Do not publish articles on the titles that your audience is not interested in. For instance, if a tech company publishes a blog on how to bathe a pet dog, its prospective audience will not benefit from it.
Make engaging content for your audience and add appealing images and infographics to keep them interested.
6. Create Awesome Videos
In the era of social media, people no longer prefer to read the content published by brands. They prefer visual content over textual one.
If you want the people to come to your website, start creating awesome videos to provide them the information they’re looking for, or just to entertain them.
Don’t create long videos. Instead keep them short, interesting, and engaging. Hold your viewers’ attention in the first 10 seconds and then keep them hooked with the rest of the video.
Don’t forget to provide the subtitles so that people can enjoy your videos, even when they have muted the audio.
7. Internal Deep Linking
It is the strategy to link the low-ranked pages or blog posts with the high-ranking pages.
Internal linking allows the search engine bots to understand the depth of your web pages and crawl the maximum pages of the website. The majority of the websites only focus on getting traffic to their homepage, and consequently, they face a hard time ranking their internal pages.
By linking your blog posts, and pages, you provide a gateway to the search engine bots to crawl the maximum pages of your website in a limited time. You will improve the internal pages’ SEO value and improve their ranking on the result pages.
8. Link To Sites With High Domain Authority
Linking to high authority websites signals Google that your web page is a Hilltop hub.
Hilltop is an on-site SEO signal that informs Google if the website is a hub of information or not.
By linking to high authority sites, you signal the Google algorithms that your content is useful and credible.
Link your blog posts to a minimum of three relevant and high-authority websites. Providing the links to the external websites to prop facts and figures mentioned in your content, makes it appear trustworthy to the audience.
9. Rank In ‘People Also Ask’ Section
People Also Ask is a section that contains questions relevant to the query entered by the user. The companies who find it hard to rank their websites on the first result page can easily make their place on the people also ask section.
43% of the search results contain a PPA section, and a good majority of the users check it to find short and to-the-point answers to their queries.
Ranking in this section is not difficult. Write an answer to the questions that are frequently asked about your niche. Keep it clear, concise, and simple to read.
10. Fix Broken Links
Error 404 is another culprit responsible for lowering the ranking of a website on the search engine result pages.
If a user lands on a page that doesn’t exist, he will hit the back button of his browser to exit the website. When a user leaves right after a few seconds of arriving at a website, it sends a negative signal to the search engine algorithms and affects SEO.
Fix all the broken links on your website to improve the SEO.
11. Keep An Eye On Your Competitors
Are your competitors achieving higher ranks on the result pages? Don’t worry, keep an eye on what they are doing.
Browse their web pages, look for the keywords they are targeting, and what kind of user experience are they providing to their visitors. Understand the strategies that they have applied to implement the same on your website.
12. Encourage Social Sharing
Adding social sharing buttons is an excellent way to boost your SEO. If a reader likes the content on your website, let him share it with his friends and family on social media.
Your content will reach a wider audience and people will visit your website if the content interests them to learn more about you.
13. Write Click-Worthy Titles And Descriptions
This item on your eCommerce SEO checklist will not boost the SEO of your website but will increase the probability of getting the link clicked by the users.
Remember, you only have 65 characters for writing the headline. Hence, ensure that it is catchy and concise. Moreover, refrain from using click baits. Your titles should be in accordance with the contents of your page.
14. Be Found On Google My Business
Another effective SEO strategy to boost your local SEO is to claim and verify your local company’s GMB (Google My Business) listing.
Getting on GMB increases the chances of the business of showing up in Google Maps, Google’s Local Pack, and Local Finder.
15. Provide An Amazing User Experience
All the above techniques will go in vain if your website fails to provide an excellent experience to your users.
Your website should be well organized, user-friendly, and responsive to various digital devices. Users love to explore websites that provide a good experience. On the contrary, if the website fails to provide a nice experience, users will quit the website in a blink of an eye.
Wrapping It Up
The techniques mentioned above aren’t the only ones to be added to your eCommerce SEO checklist. There are many other strategies to boost your SEO.
Keep working on your SEO to improve it. Remember, it’s not going to happen overnight. Consistency is key to improve the ranking, click-through rates, and of course the conversions.
What other strategies do you think are essential to driving organic traffic in 2021? Enlighten us in the comments below.
Author Bio:
Ricky Hayes is the Co-Founder and Head of Marketing at Debutify – free Shopify theme, helping dropshippers build high-converting stores in minutes. He is a passionate entrepreneur running multiple businesses, marketing agencies, and mentoring programs.