Use SEO Technology to Grow E-Commerce Site Traffic and Sales
Contrary to popular myth, there are no real SEO secrets; it all boils down to content and links. But this tends to put e-commerce sites at a disadvantage. The two major SEO challenges facing e-commerce sites are lack of substantial content, and incoming links.
It is good to note quality “consumer-generated” content is a major key in attracting links to your shopping site. No, I’m not going to outline yet another start-a-blog strategy.
Here are some tips to improve your ecommerce site’s content and link count:
1. Make your site content-rich and interactive. Display photos and informative details about each product. Allow customers to post ratings and reviews. This way, you are actually beginning to have instant product testimonials, while ensuring you always get fresh, updated content.
The key is to make your site a busy, noisy market place! Be sure to moderate comments, unless you want a long thread of negative customer rants.
2. To generate more links, syndicate timely press releases. When you have a new line of products on sale, big discounts to offer, or any news on your site, publish them to press release sites. The value comes from syndicating and sharing your press releases. You get both backlinks and traffic.
3. Alert those coupon sites. Whenever you release a time-bound big time offer, let it work for you to the fullest by dropping a line to coupon sites. These entities are mostly high-traffic, generating a bulk of visits from long tail searches. They can be a great help to boost your online sales.
4. Start a contest! When you offer a new product on sale, let the blogosphere rave about it! Something like “I Heart the [insert product here] blog content”. The best product review or post will receive a prize. As for you, you get traffic, links, and sales!
5. Deliver freebies. If it is too hard to convince people to buy a new offer just to join a contest, you can give it to them for free! Deliver your items to industry acclaimed bloggers who can influence people to buy. If it is a new tech gadget, send the freebies to popular tech geeks writing online.
E-commerce sites don’t have to be plain and too hard-sell. You can invite your target consumers to participate in your online marketing campaign. As you give them the chance to be involved, you are benefiting your site by generating attractive and updated content, and an easier way to build more links.
Utilizing this kind of SEO technology, you can expect a good return on your investment of time and effort.
7 comments
I think the issue with a lot of webmasters is that when they have an ecommerce site they use ecommerce techniques. When they have a blog, they use blog techniques. If only they would step back every once and a while, they can see that these techniques can be adapted and used for any site.
A few more ecommerce techniques I actually just used.
Turn your catalog into a PDF file and submit it to software sites after you zip it. OsCommerce has an addon that will do this.
Add a blog on a subdomain with articles your customers would need and use every blog promotion technique in the book to promote it.
If you sell things that need technical or installation assistance, create a directory of the people who can do the job. They will promote that directory themselves.
It only takes doing a little more than your competitor to beat him.
@Stephan: Thanks for adding these valuable tips to the post. I especially like the idea of adding a directory; even if none of the listed people promote it, you’re adding value for the customer.
I agree, e-Commerce sites don’t have to be so “HARD-Sell”. I find syndication is a great way to capitalize on your links. Not only for press releases, but article marketing and Blogging as well.
Thanks for the thoughtful presentation.
Mariannes last blog post..Old School RULES
yes, blog post and article write ups are great for syndication when you want to drive traffic and links to your e-commerce site.
thanks
Romela de Leons last blog post..How to Optimize Pages for better Visibility
You are exactly right about “no real secrets to SEO”. I opted to do SEO research and work on my site rather than fork over 12,000 dollars to an SEO company. What I learned really goes back to the fundamentals of good website design and structure. In addition good content updated frequently and most of all patience. SEO certainly is not instant.
I recorded a video entitled “How I Went From 600 to 14 on Google in 100 Days” and uploaded to my blog. If you watch it you will see there are no magic tricks and no super secret formulas. Just basic principles that can be learned simply by studying other blogs and websites dealing with the subject.
I would be interested in hearing the sucess stories of others.
Thanks…….. Eric
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