SEO for eCommerce: How to Drive More Organic Traffic to Your Store

If you have a website that has eCommerce capabilities, then you want to make sure it is optimised and working well. The nice thing about doing this is that once you get all of the “major muscle movements” correct, your website operates as a lead generation funnel for your business, and even as a sales channel in its own right.

One of the key pieces to the puzzle is getting more organic traffic to your website and eCommerce pages. Organic traffic is the kind that finds you as the result of a Google search, either from a specific query (e.g. “where to buy work boots in Sydney”) or a more general search (e.g., “home decorating ideas”). This is different from paid online marketing, where a lead might find its way to your ecommerce website via clicking on an ad on the results page on Google, Instagram, or Facebook.

Keywords Identification is Key to Success

The internet is the world’s largest haystack, and your website is just one needle in it. To continue the metaphor, if you pick the right keywords, then your potential customers will be searching for your needle with a metal detector – and they’re much more likely to find you as a result. Your keyword choices should be well-researched, but the first step is understanding exactly what your potential customers will be searching for.

A useful strategy for this step of the process is to create three to four “customer personas”. These list the age range, likely job, background, goals, attitudes and budget of your ideal customers. The exercise allows you to get inside the thought process of someone who might search for your goods or services.

You can then take that mindset and either try and think of the searches they might be likely to conduct, or try and find someone in your network of colleagues or your family who matches each persona.

This step will help you to isolate the keywords and key phrases that your likely customers will be entering when they try and find a business like yours. That’s step one completed.

Keyword Research

You can use any number of online tools to research keywords and phrases, but a strong eCommerce marketing strategy doesn’t have to be a complicated one. Opening Google or Amazon on your browser and typing each keyword and combination into the search bar will give dozens of different suggested search queries. These queries are a fantastic, easy to identify, and free indication of what people are already searching for.

The suggested keywords at the bottom of any of these searches (after you click on one) also highlight variations that are worth investigating. Often, this step helps you identify a niche area that doesn’t have strong content written for it already that you can fill with your own material.

Of course, there are more comprehensive ways to do keyword research, and an experienced eCommerce marketing agency can take you through these.

Right URL Structure

Once you have your keywords, the next step is to categorize them and in a logical way so you can structure your website accordingly. This includes having keyword specific URLs which should be no more than three layers deep.

Also – the closer the page is to the root domain, the better chance it has of ranking. Therefore, it’s better to have a flatter website structure that doesn’t go beyond more than 3 levels deep.

An example of this is a shoe store. The right structure would be to break keywords into categories and then have one page per category. Ideally, your site structure might be something like:

  • domain.com.au/mens
  • domain.com.au/womens
  • domain.com.au/womens/platform
  • domain.com.au/womens/flat-shoes
  • domain.com.au/womens/boots
  • domain.com.au/womens/stilettos
  • domain.com.au/mens/dress-shoes
  • domain.com.au/mens/sandals
  • domain.com.au/mens/runners

In addition, items at the product category level should be a single layer. For example, the URL for a specific product from the women’s boot subcategory from the example above would be domain.com.au/janine-black-leather-boot but would still have breadcrumbs that help the user navigate up the site.

Unfortunately, for people new to eCommerce this is often done after the website has been built but all of these things should have happened in the website planning stage not after.

Set Your Strategy

Up until now, your actions have been about collecting bricks and mortar. Now it’s time to build the house. In this case, the “house” is your eCommerce marketing strategy. An effective eCommerce marketing strategy not only creates effective content for your business, but it applies it in a way that is most effective for your particular industry or niche.

For example, the primary form of content on the Bunnings’ website is not pages of technical information about how to install a flatpack kitchen or prepare a deck for restoration. That’s because the best format for the home improvement industry is videos with easily understood narration and supported by checklists and repetition.

The final form that your content takes to showcase your keyword research and position your business is a crucial choice in attracting more organic traffic. Useful, memorable, actionable content is the goal, and each step we’ve mentioned is key to achieving it.

Ecommerce marketing is not simple, but when done right, it can be the best tool your website has to generate leads passively for your business. Swoop Digital is a leading agency in the field of Australian digital marketing and has experience across a range of industries and verticals to match your eCommerce marketing strategy with your industry for the best results. For an obligation-free discussion about the needs of your organisation, we invite you to get in contact today.