In order to get your online shop way up in the search results, the triad of unique content with added value, high-quality backlinks and perfectly coordinated technology is the most powerful combination. Our 5 seo tips for better online shop performance show what this means in detail.
1 Establish Content Marketing
Content marketing is strongly recommended in connection with a good performance of your online shop . There are good reasons that make content marketing so important for your business:
- With content marketing, you can make your company or brand known online.
- It becomes possible to position yourself as an expert.
- Backlinks ensure that the content produced has a positive effect on the ranking.
- Your own content opens up the possibility of working and ranking with many keywords.
- Businesses can use the option to use transactional and informational keywords.
- Good content has a positive effect on the sales of your online shop.
Nowadays, a shop can be created with just a few clicks. But just because the shop is there doesn’t mean customers come. Getting known on the web is a challenging task. Content marketing is great for increasing your brand awareness. Guides or eBooks can be written, graphics created or videos posted. The content is then distributed in a targeted manner, this is also known as seeding . This will help you reach many users and potential customers. A positive effect of content marketing is that backlinks result naturally.
2 Build Quality Backlinks
Another key building block for improving the performance of your online shop is building backlinks . Quality backlinks are so important because they qualify the website they link to as trustworthy and popular. Good backlinks are integrated into the text in a natural way and serve as added value for the reader. If Google finds that there are links to another website from various other trustworthy websites, it classifies the target page as popular, important and interesting. This in turn means that this website is pushed further up in the ranking.
An uncomplicated way to generate qualified backlinks is to set up profiles for your online shop on prominent platforms. Amazon or Yelp, for example, should be mentioned in this context. On the one hand, links are set in this way, on the other hand, visitors also reach the website. Of course you can if you are into link building wants to tackle specifically, contact a link building agency. Link building professionals know exactly how to get the best impact on online store visibility. The optimization of the link profile can be approached strategically and the experience of the experts ensures that the strategy leads to more success for the online shop. We have put together a checklist that will certainly help you with link building:
- Links are made from high-quality pages with thematically relevant topics.
- The backlinks generate real traffic and lead qualified users to the website.
- Link texts are integrated into the text in a natural way.
- Posts are well written (in the sense of being reader-oriented and informative) and show no keyword stuffing.
- Links are not simply exchanged or automated links are used.
- Comprehensive PR work, coordinated content marketing and seeding can help to generate additional backlinks.
3 Pursue a Seeding Strategy
It is often read that good content spreads itself on the internet. That sounds promising, but practice shows that it is not quite that simple. First and foremost, companies need a suitable seeding strategy in order to be successful. First of all, you should clarify where the target group can be found. In doing so, it is effective to turn to multipliers, i.e. to find those who can serve as opinion leaders . As a rule, they already have numerous fans or followers and achieve a correspondingly large reach when they share a post on social media channels – for example on their Facebook or Instagram account.
Seeding does not necessarily mean reaching the masses. It is often even more effective to position yourself as an expert on a specific topic. Interest groups of niche topics have it relatively difficult to find suitable information. From the website operator’s point of view, this is a favorable situation because the chance of being found quickly increases.
4 Clean Up the Site Architecture
Online shops can be optimized in many ways. A clean site architecture is one possibility. The well thought-out site architecture helps users to quickly find their way around the shop. The aim is to get users to their destination using the shortest possible route. In addition, it is also important that all pages have a certain link strength.
Clear Folder Structure: Reach Your Goal With Just a Few Clicks
The fewer clicks to the goal, the better. An example of a bad link structure would be:
- onlineshop.com/shop/clothing/jacken/leder/zoha
In comparison, a good link structure looks like this:
- onlineshop.com/jacken/leder/zoha
You should also keep an eye on the length of the URLs. If they are longer than 2,048 characters, Google will no longer read them.
5 Technical SEO for Online shops
Technical SEO deals with on-page search engine optimization and focuses on what cannot be classified as content. Technology is just as important as backlinks and content, because if a page is technically flawed, it will fail to rank well. A major reason for this is that users leave a page quickly, for example if it loads slowly or the page is generally not user-friendly. If users jump off early, you will not generate any sales. There are numerous settings that are essential for a successful website. These include the following:
- The robots.txt file opens up the possibility of excluding selected pages from the website from crawling. The file can always be found at https://www.shopdomain.com/robots.txt. In order for the crawler to scan a page efficiently, it needs the sitemap of the online shop. The sitemap can be stored in the Google Search Console so that Google can record the website quickly and in a targeted manner.
- Optimize your website for mobile devices , as more and more users use their smartphones to buy products and services or for research. In some areas, the use of smartphones far outweighs the use of tablets and PCs. When a website is optimized for mobile internet use, Google takes notice and thanks you with a better ranking.
- Your page should load as quickly as possible. If a page loads too slowly, most users lose patience and jump off. High bounce rates signal Google a bad user experience and therefore the website is shown lower in the search results.
