With the first month of the new year already gone by, it is high time for eCommerce stores out there to overhaul their SEO strategies, if they missed taking care of it on the advent of the new year. With 44% of the customer segment initiating their shopping with a Google search and 37.5% of all traffic on eCommerce sites coming from the search engines, SEO is a sacred and compulsive tool that an eCommerce store owner needs to absolutely swear by. 

This is an equally important call for budding eCommerce stores that have failed to realize how SEO is the holy grail for all eCommerce websites. It is so much more important for new eCommerce stores that are running on a contained budget and need a sure-shot way to make sales once they are combat-ready.

The logical explanation of this statement stands with the fact that social media spending is recurring and dies out once you stop spending. Also, 80% of online prospects do not give in to paid ads in search results. So, that’s not very RoI-positive. But, once you have done the SEO right and your eCommerce website starts ranking, you can sit back and relax; though, only for a while.

If you have been looking to nail the SEO strategy for your eCommerce store in 2020, you have arrived at the right place. In this guide, we will be helping you with all the right SEO moves you need to make in 2020 if you are looking to rank your store well and skyrocket the overall sales figure. Here are the essentials you have to absolutely take care of:

Nail your Keyword Research

We all know how keywords form the base pillar for any site’s SEO endeavors. For an eCommerce website, in order to be able to optimize your product and category pages, keywords are the magic bricks. Hence, for the best outcome, product-based keywords work like a charm.

For an eCommerce website, “how-to” content keywords don’t fit the bill as they do for generic content. Since eCommerce content is going to push products, it is important to ensure that your site’s keywords are chosen as per the product searches.

For example, Amazon Suggest is a great way to look for some very valuable keywords that customers are widely using for their product search.  It would be no exaggeration to say how this resource is a treasure-chest for eCommerce keywords. 

While choosing your keywords, just make sure that you are able to straight down to the true search intent of the keyword you are choosing as well-weighed qualifiers. Some other useful keyword research tools that you can use are SEMRUSH, Ahrefs Keyword Explorer, Google Keyword Planner, KWFinder, etc. 

Taking care of the On-Page SEO

In order to make sure that your eCommerce products rank higher on the search engines and bring to you the optimum target traffic, On-page SEO has to be accomplished. 

You must begin with adding your prominent keywords to your site’s page titles, headers, subheaders, paragraph copy, product descriptions, image file names and alt text, meta title and description, and URLs. It is a highly-recommended move to furnish all product information on a single page itself so that the prospect does not have to make extra clicks or visit more pages for information on a single product. 

A lot of users think that the On-Page SEO is about stuffing the copy with keywords which is an absolute no-no. Make sure that your keyword sprinkle makes sense and follows the SEO-experts’ instructions. Here are the other things that you should implement on your eCommerce site for its On-Page SEO:

• Remove any unavailable products from your index. 
• Let Google only index the pages from your Sitemap
• Hire a bunch of blogging professionals to get help with your blog as blogging is a great resource for your eCommerce site’s On-Page SEO. With blogs on your site, you get to incorporate essential keywords on your eCommerce site and educate your prospective audience about your products and other eCommerce listings. 
• Meta Title & Description should be aptly put together along with special consideration to the Header tags i.e. H1, H2, H3, and so on.
• User-generated content in the form of reviews and testimonials is a goldmine of organic and fresh content. Just make sure that you make it easy for your customers to leave reviews for their purchases. 

Off-Page SEO is crucial

Based on the link building tactics and external relationships that help the website, the Off-Page SEO is just as important as the On-Page SEO of your eCommerce site. With Off-Page SEO, one has to focus on outreach to other websites and resources that can help you establish the authority of your website and vouch for your eCommerce expertise.

You can incorporate several link building activities to promote the products or any recent offers on your website. Just make sure that the incoming links are high-quality ones. Affiliate marketing is also a go-to eCommerce link building move; all you have to do is figure out your affiliates for your keywords and get in touch with them. 

Guest blogging, influencer marketing, blogger outreach, and sponsorships are some other ways of promoting the link juice of your products and ensuring that your eCommerce sales skyrocket. 

There are a lot of other crucial consideration as well

Here are some more factors that are a must-consider if you really want to do the SEO of your eCommerce site the right way:

• The website architecture of your eCommerce store in 2020 is crucial. The rule of thumb is that each and every product listed on your eCommerce store should always be three clicks away from the homepage. Having breadcrumbs on the site is also an UX-enabler and serves the SEO purpose as well; scalable site architecture is what works wonders. 
• Your eCommerce site’s overall content marketing strategy is a prominent determining factor. So, put out good content that is sprinkled with the right keywords that matter for your product listing. Good content is always a great way of driving additional organic visitors.
• Do not miss out on your site’s Local SEO efforts. Make sure that you claim your business profile on Google and try to gain local links as well. Local citations will also work well in order to boost your local SEO juice.
• eCommerce site audit at regular intervals is a great way to make sure that your SEO efforts are working and helps you assess the current standing of your site. With a performance report at hand, you can easily get rid of broken links, duplicate content, and other shortcodes. 

The success of your eCommerce website can only be ensured when your site receives its fair share of recurring and high-converting traffic. All you have to do is make sure that you target the right keywords, use high-quality images and videos, answer all the questions around your products, promote your site well, and offer an impeccable user experience to your eCommerce store visitors.