It has been more than a year since the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed and announced on the news and known throughout the internet. Back then, we were opposed and barely believed that it was happening until the confirmed cases continually increased.

This scenario did not only happen in Singapore but to the rest of the world. Our government took preventive measures such as implementing the circuit breaker and required all non-essential business premises to close for a short while. However, it undeniably disrupted the global economy as many businesses closed their doors and several people went out of jobs.

Due to the extreme uncertainty of when the pandemic will end, businesses made commendable efforts and decided to hop onto the bandwagon of ecommerce and implemented search engine optimisation (SEO). They tried to replicate their brick-and-mortar shops and produced digital storefronts—some for the first time.

According to a report from Strait Times, the ecommerce sales of Singapore will continue to increase, expecting to reach S$13.4 billion by the end of 2026.

But ecommerce SEO is not as easy as it seems.

That is why some businesses did a great job and were able to do it, while others fell behind since they had little to no idea of how ecommerce and SEO work.

When using ecommerce SEO, one must know its primary principles, understand the latest trends and search engine’s algorithms before applying everything in real life. Doing so should help them rank higher, increase their visibility and prevent ruining their reputations.

Everything You Need To Know About Ecommerce SEO

What Exactly Is SEO For Ecommerce?

SEO for ecommerce is a strategic process that helps the products and services of a website become more visible. The more visible it gets, the higher ranking it has in the result pages of search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing

You should know that a well-designed and optimised digital platform with relevant and high-quality content would have more chances to rank higher. It could garner more attention and attract potential and existing customers. As a result, it becomes easier to gain leads and conversions.

The problem, however, is that SEO for content-focused and local SEO websites is slightly different from the SEO used in ecommerce. Compared to them, it is not just about adding keywords, posting blog articles or gaining links. You would also have to focus on feedback from the customers. Even more on positive reviews since most search engines use them as a factor to figure out the quality of the page

Here are the other factors that a high-quality ecommerce page should possess:

• Updated and relevant content
• Authority
• Credibility
• Organic traffic

When optimising your ecommerce store, you have to understand how the search engines work and what rewards you would gain along the way. That means you would need to work on your knowledge of ecommerce SEO in Singapore before actually applying the mentioned factors to your website. Doing so should help your web visibility and increase your search engine rankings.

The Importance Of Ecommerce SEO

Apart from the growth of visibility and rankings, netizens often go to the first five results on the search engine results page. The goal of ecommerce SEO is to increase your ranking until you reach that placement, which will, in turn, increase clicks and visits to your website, resulting in possible conversions.

Think of it this way: the better your ecommerce SEO strategy is implemented in Singapore, the higher your brand would appear on search engines. While it is true that the higher the rank, the more visible your brand is, other benefits come with it, such as:

• An increase in trust and credibility for your brand
• Better browsing and shopping experience for your visitors

At the end of the day, if you executed the SEO in your ecommerce shop correctly, you could expect more people to share your brand across various platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. It is important for you to understand Ecommerce SEO’s basic principles and master them.

Understanding How To Control Ranking Through SEO

The search engine’s SEO formula is secret, and no one knows when its algorithm update will happen. That means if you are no SEO expert like a digital marketing agency, then you would not have a clue how search engines like Google decide which page should rank first and which should rank last.

However, as a digital marketing agency, we know the vital factors that most search engines consider when deciding the ranking of an ecommerce website. Here are those that most SEO vendors agreed on.

• Backlinks
• Quality Content
• User Experience

Through these, you can further improve the visibility of the existing pages, from the home page to product pages. But you could also create different content that captures the attention of your target audience with the blog post—this strategy is also known as content marketing.

Let us go and look through each one to learn more about them.

1.   Backlinks

Just in case you have no idea what backlinks are, they are links on other websites that help drive traffic to the pages of your website. That is why they are known by most SEO vendors as inbound links because they allow visitors from a different website to come and visit yours.

For example, you are looking for a great place to hang out. You ask your closest friends, and most of them suggest a new milk tea house that just opened up.

With all of those suggestions, you would highly likely give it a try.

The same is true for search engines like Google. They use a similar process that decides which pages would show up on the results page, but instead of friend suggestions, Google scans the internet, looking for links from websites that match what you are searching for.

The links the search engine is looking for could include a link to your website, and that is the process of backlinks. That means the more sites that have your links, the higher your website will rank and the more visible your brand would become.

2.   Quality Content

All search engines want to give the best result possible to the people searching online. So creating relevant and engaging content is the first step for ecommerce SEO not only in Singapore but anywhere else.

Let’s say that you are searching for the “best smartphone”. Among the following, which do you think you would like to read?

• An in-depth comparison between the top smartphones on the market with complete details from specifications, prices, and customer reviews
• A blog about a man sharing stories about how he found the best smartphone he ever owned
• A Wikipedia article on how smartphones came to exist
• A list of all smartphones for sale at Lazada, Shopee, and other shopping websites

As a wise shopper, you would choose the first option since it has everything you need to know. And if you search for the “best smartphone”, the phrase or sentence you type is the exact thing Google or other search engines will share with you on the search results.

To create good content for your target audience, you would need to figure out what they want. The best way to do that is to place yourself in their shoes. Start by thinking about how to lead them to your products and services when searching for similar or related phrases online.

Remember, if your content does not contain or says what your target audience wants, not only will it not rank, but no one will be able to find it. As a result, your products and services will not be able to get noticed by anyone online.

3.   User Experience

The ranking of a website is affected by user experience.

You should know that even if you have better content and backlinks, people will leave your website if it does not load fast enough.

In this fast-changing society, many have no patience when it comes to waiting. Therefore, if you notice your business is not ranking in search engines in Singapore, poor technical SEO could be the culprit.

According to Google, those pages that load within three seconds have a 32% more bounce rate compared to pages that load within one second.

How Soon Does Ecommerce SEO Work?

You should know that ecommerce SEO works differently—it depends on the industry and target audience. Hence, it could show results within a month or two for some, while it would take a longer time for others to see business-changing results.

Besides the factors mentioned, there are more reasons why it takes so long for others to show results even after adapting SEO in their business in Singapore.

First of all, the longer the content is, the more backlinks it will get overtime. Next, search engines like Google show distrust to brand-new content, and they prefer those that are a few months old. And lastly, the more content you have, the results you will get are much greater.

But of course, it will take a while before any of your content would make an impact. That is why every ecommerce SEO agency often recommends businesses to start with running ads during the first few months. Once they gain profit, they can focus more on the technical side of ecommerce SEO.

Can Anyone Manage Ecommerce SEO On Their Own?

Anyone who owns an ecommerce shop can work by themselves. After all, there are many pieces of information posted online, and ecommerce SEO does not need special or expensive tools nor software for beginners.

But as mentioned before, ecommerce SEO is no easy task as it seems. Unless you already have the knowledge, skills, and experience, you would only waste your time reading several articles, blogs, books until you gain enough knowledge to apply what you have learned.

As a business owner, time is precious. You could have made a profit or connected with potential customers each time you bury yourself learning about ecommerce SEO in Singapore.

In other words, you could have made your time much more beneficial and not beat yourself from trial and error, trying to make ecommerce SEO work.

Then again, if you want to get faster results, it would be best to hire an SEO company in Singapore. With their years of experience, skilled staff, testest SEO strategy, you could rank higher and have a better online presence than you planned.

How To Optimise an Ecommerce Website Through SEO?

As ecommerce becomes more relevant each day, ecommerce SEO is more crucial than ever before. For your ecommerce store to gain more traction from your target audience, you need to optimise the visibility of your website. Doing so should help them find your products and services online and improve your SEO rankings.

But keep in mind that improving the ranking of your web pages is only the beginning. Once you can direct traffic and attract more people to visit your website, you will need to earn their trust and provide your visitors with a user-friendly web experience.

When it comes to ecommerce SEO, your main priority is to establish an online presence so you can improve your rankings. By then, more and more people would check your website, giving you more opportunities to boost your sales.

Do Keyword Research

Keyword research is an SEO process that allows you to know what terms, phrases or sentences related to your business people use to type into search engines.

Once you have a list on hand, you would have to use it strategically in your content. Make sure you resonate with your target audience by including things they are interested in so you can engage with them. Doing so should help you create content that would most likely appear higher on their searches.

How does keyword research work?

You could do keyword research in many different ways, such as the following.

1.   Related Searches

You can find them at the bottom of the Google browser, and they are the eight things most people search related to the keyword you typed on the search bar.

Here is a good example.

In this picture, the user searches for an ecommerce SEO agency, but at the bottom, Google recommends these eight things. They are there since they are somewhat similar or relevant to what the user is searching for. As a result, the user might be able to find the solution to their problem or need

2.   Google Trends

Another free tool you can use for your keyword research is Google Trends. It is a platform where you can type the item related to your products and services. Below that, you can change the location, time range, categories, and type of web search to get more accurate results of what people are searching the most on Google

Take a look at the image to see how Google Trend looks.

If Google Trends is not your preferred method to do keyword research, there are more tools you can use

• Soovle
• Jaaxy
• Moz Keyword Explorer
• Ahrefs Keyword Generator
• SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool
• SEO Power Suite
• Ubersuggest
• SpyFu
• Keyword Surfer

Just make sure to choose the one that suits your ecommerce SEO needs the most.

Focus on Top-Ranking Pages

Assess and evaluate your ecommerce site and see which web pages garner the most visitors. Those web pages are the perfect example of effective ecommerce SEO since they probably have high-quality content or an SEO friendly web design.

However, guarantee the strategy you use belongs to white hat SEO. They are a guideline that follows the terms and conditions of search engines. If you practise white hat SEO, expect to create and drive more traffic to your website and no penalties from search engines

KNOW MORE: White Hat SEO: Increasing Your Rankings By Following The Rules

You should know that you would receive penalties from search engines if you cheat your ways and disregard their algorithm. Your ranking would not only drop, but your online presence would also slowly fade away.

That is why it is important to check your top-ranking web pages and find out why they are performing well on search engines. Besides the homepage, the most highly visited web pages are service pages, testimonials and blogs. So start from these pages if you do not know where to begin.

Once you go through those web pages, use the right keywords to enhance and make your content more relevant. Doing so should help you gain more organic traffic, which is why you should make sure the keywords you use are the things that your target audience often search for

Utilise the keywords in the following:

• Meta Titles
• Meta Descriptions
• Content

It helps to further enhance the quality of your web pages since it would increase the visibility of your ecommerce shop, including your SEO ranking.

Enhance Product Pages

There is no doubt that the product pages are the most crucial part of an ecommerce website. Most SEO vendors agree that they are the actual reasons why most people will even take the time to visit an online store.

Therefore, optimising your product pages should be one of your priorities when adapting ecommerce SEO to your business. Being able to do so provides your target audience with a much more informative and engaging shopping experience.

You should know that the downside of an ecommerce store is that people cannot inspect the product in person. As a business owner, you should resolve that problem and write an in-depth description and insert high-definition images at different angles of the products you are selling.

Besides the product descriptions and HD photos, you should also include customer reviews for each product. The feedback you receive from your previous customers would assist future buyers to weigh the pros and cons and make the right decision with their purchase.

Here is an example of customer reviews from Motherswork. It is an ecommerce shop where new mums can buy things for their little ones.

As you can see in this image, the buyers include the details about the product they have bought and how they feel about them. Because of these insights, more people would get interested in the item and consider buying it.

Use Internal Links

Even though producing quality content of your products and services is a crucial task for SEO, relying on internal linking also heightens the quality of your content.

You should know that internal links are the technical part of SEO, and they work by redirecting customers to your high ranking pages. That is the very reason why it does not only enhance content but also help increase dwell time and decrease bounce rate.

But to take note that having too much is not good. If you have so many internal links on your content, it could harm your ecommerce website. According to John Mueller from Google, excessive internal links on the same web page can decrease the value. Also, that is when the search engine would not understand a website’s structure.

Therefore, make sure you avoid doing this at all costs. If you can, try to limit your internal linking to a minimum of three to four. This ratio is for a 300-350 word count per article.

Your Takeaways

Moving online and utilising ecommerce SEO is a wise decision to reach out to a larger group of target audiences.  With our current situation, searching online is the safest and practical option for consumers to search for what they need and want in life. Hence, increasing your online presence and SEO rankings is the only way you could get in front of these consumers.

For more tips and news about ecommerce SEO, get in touch with one of our SEO specialists! Contact OOm by visiting our website today.