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Where would your eCommerce site rank on Google if you had started SEO a year ago or even 6 months ago? If it’s something you’ve wanted to add to your store’s website, you’re not alone.
The problem is businesses don’t always have the right people to optimize their websites. However, search engine optimization is necessary, especially considering 75% of searches never go past the front of Google.
New tools make it easier to tackle digital marketing tactics, but search engine optimization still comes down to what the experts know, specifically when it comes to ranking up with frequently changing Google algorithms.
To find an SEO agency, it’s important to compare experience, services, previous work, and client testimonials. We’ve created a checklist to help you find the best SEO agency for your eCommerce store.
Why Hire an SEO Agency for eCommerce
While some of the common SEO errors can be identified by automated tools, who will implement those changes and make sure your website is on the good side of Google’s algorithm.
Benefits of SEO Agency Services for eCommerce
- Dedicated SEO expert
- Content marketing plan with keyword research
- Dedicated content writer
- SEO audit
- Optimized product descriptions and other content
- Marketing Event leveraging partners in the media like USA Today and FOX News
- Technical SEO markup
- Schema optimization
- Google My Business optimization
- Local SEO strategy and implementation
- Website and blog content calendar
- On-page and off-page SEO
- Backlinks to your store
- PPC Option: Google Ads setup and management
eCommerce can be particularly difficult if you don’t have keyword research and a content marketing strategy that optimizes your product descriptions for customers searching for those keywords.
SEO agencies can typically update and optimize your website in 1 to 2 weeks, depending on the size.
It’s best to use an SEO agency who provides all of the necessary services to help your website rank up and achieve a higher domain authority.
However, SEO agencies provide many services, and if you’re not careful, you could also pick a company that doesn’t have any expertise in what you need. For example, there is technical SEO, which involves code and markup on your website, but there is also content marketing with keywords.
Any company looking to hire the best SEO agency should review the services first and look for examples of their expertise. You may even want to dig a little deeper and look at testimonials. One great way to check an SEO agency’s reputation is to look at their website’s rank with a Google rank checker or even look at their client websites.
Best SEO Services for eCommerce Stores
If you plan on selling anything online, you need to make sure that potential customers can find your website. Without SEO, there really isn’t a point to have a fancy, well-designed website, because you won’t be able to pull in organic traffic.
In addition, if your page does show up in the top 3 results on page one of Google, you’ll get up to a 32% click-through rate. Best of all, SEO generates organic traffic for your website and products for free. In the long-term, this will save more money than using PPC or social media advertising, which requires a daily budget to get impressions and clicks.
Here are four of the top SEO services that specifically work best for eCommerce websites:
#1: Keyword Research for eCommerce
Any SEO agency you work with should provide a keyword report with all of the research available, including how competitors rank for the same keywords. Not only that, this research should inform all the content for your website.
SEO agencies will look at the data from tools like Google Analytics or SEMRush. If your store sells pet products for example, you might see top keywords like ‘cat toys’ or ‘dog chews.’ These terms can be pretty specific or broad.
In addition, expert keyword research would consider user intent to provide you with the best list of keywords to pursue for organic traffic. SEO’s also consider how to balance search volume with competition. For example, ‘dog food’ is a highly searched term, but it’s also super competitive.
A small, start-up eCommerce store likely would not be able to rank on the first page for this specific keyword, but they could rank for keyword phrases related to this keyword. This is where topic research and content marketing can help you earn traffic.
#2: SEO for Products
All of your product pages should have more than just a photo and a price. You’ll want to have a detailed description that not only sells the particular item, but it also uses keywords. A great SEO agency will think through the information of the product and include relevant information in the description with keywords that will increase your relevance for searches related to the search term.
Copywriters also work with SEO experts to craft the perfect product description so that it sounds natural. You definitely don’t want to stuff keywords just to attract search engines, which can spot keyword stuffing and down-rank your website.
Product descriptions and URLs are two of the best ways to incorporate keywords and attract organic content.
#3: SEO Audit for eCommerce
Do you know if your site’s links are broken? What keywords do you rank highest for? Does your site have trouble loading? These are a few of the questions that a comprehensive SEO audit would answer.
One of the first things that your SEO agency should do is an SEO audit. This is a review that ensures your website is fully optimized and updated so that it has the best possible chance of ranking up.
The audit informs you of everything that you need to optimize on your site, as well as any errors. For example, if your site has multiple broken links, dead pages, duplicate content, or missing metadata, SEO audits will quickly identify all areas for improvement.
It’s crucial to fix these errors before moving forward with new SEO tactics.
#4: On-Page and Off-Page SEO
There are multiple ways to improve SEO, but these boil down to on-page and off-page SEO tactics. On-page SEO tactics refers to actions you can take on your website to improve your search engine rank and domain authority, such as using keywords in your titles or adding internal and external links to your posts.
You also want to dig deeper into your website and make it easier for crawlers to understand your content. Scheme markup is one way to do this, and any skilled SEO expert should be able to set this up on your website so that your content is categorized perfectly for search engines.
Off-page SEO includes ongoing tactics to improve your back-links and build content around the web to drive traffic back to your website. Most SEO agencies use guest posts and directories to build back-links, but it’s important to understand where these links are being placed.
Some agencies employ spam tactics to get more back-links for your website. In the long run, this doesn’t work and may lead to your website being de-ranked if Google discovers that you’re spamming or posting on other websites considered to be “spam.”
eCommerce stores should look to build content around the web that fits naturally on websites that cater to your audience. Content should inform the reader with links that fit naturally and link back to your products using keywords for anchor text.
Pick a Top SEO Agency for eCommerce
SEO agencies are everywhere, but the good ones always have a portfolio or case studies with clients to show their process and how they helped other clients clean up their SEO and rank up. Any time you engage with an SEO agency, ask questions about how they’d improve traffic to your top pages and what they would do to help your content rank higher in search engines. If you don’t see them mention anything in this article, then they’re likely not going to provide you with a good SEO strategy.
About Lead Generation SEO Services…
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