Every business directs its efforts toward improving sales. After all, its survival depends on it. And in today’s world, success demands a strong online presence. And building your digital presence begins with your website, a highly optimized, user-friendly, and fast website. So, it has become essential to implement good search engine optimization because you can use SEO to increase sales.
Also, considering how exceptionally competitive the e-commerce world is, you have to be constantly on your toes, observing and trying out the latest SEO techniques. The thing with SEO is that it is perpetually evolving. What used to be an excellent technique before may not be anymore and could even do you more harm than good. Therefore, you must stay vigilant. Always.
You don’t have the luxury to drop the ball because you can, and you will get stomped by your competitors. Moreover, besides keeping you on top of the first pages of search engines, a solid SEO strategy will also help you convert more leads. Then, the image you create online will help turn those first-time customers into repeated, loyal buyers. It is crucial because while generating new leads is necessary for growth, retaining your customers is equally important.
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when you comprehend how critical SEO is and how much attention it requires. However, there is no need to worry because we have some easy-to-implement techniques to share with you. We will help you learn how to use SEO to increase sales and boost your online business. And if you still feel like you are in over your head, you can always seek professional help.
Focus on the right keywords
Keywords are still one of the fundamental elements of a solid SEO strategy. They are what enables your potential customers to find you. Thus, if you use the wrong ones or fail to use them entirely, you will miss out.
So, for example, if you sell handmade jewelry, you will obviously want to rank well for the keyword “handmade jewelry.” However, the story doesn’t end there. Keyword search entails many intricate details, and you may want to include something more specific. There are probably some other phrases your prospects use when searching for products such as yours. Your job is to find out what they are and then use them across your website. Here is where you will want to incorporate these keywords:
- Web pages
- Content
- Image descriptions
- Headings and subheadings
- Metadata
- URLs
- Page titles
An excellent place to begin your keyword search would be Google AdWords, although there are many other tools that can help you plan your keyword strategy. Moreover, you have to use longtail keywords too. These are essentially longer, four or more words long phrases. They are vital as they are typically less competitive, leading to higher conversion.
Create great content
There is little you can do with keywords if you have no content to use them in. Your content is what will give these keywords meaning and context. As a result, it can be a powerful conversion tool. Therefore, it is crucial you create engaging, informative, and shareable content. If you can offer something valuable to your potential customers, they are more likely to turn into buyers. High-quality content that people will find helpful, that will provide them with answers, solve their problems, and explain to them how to do or use something will do wonders for your conversion rates.
And how does this happen? When people search for something online, search engines will blast them with a sea of different blog posts, social media posts, website pages, and similar content that will offer the answer to what they are asking. So, good content gives prospects the information they need, facilitating their buying decisions. If you want to be the one these prospects choose, your content has to stand out. You must produce something more engaging, more informative, and more relevant than others. That is also the way to build authority online, and once you are established as an authoritative figure in your field, people will trust you. And Google and other search engines will reward you by pushing you higher up in the search results.
Types of content
So, what kind of content should you create? There are various forms, and you should choose the ones that suit your product best. And make sure you use multiple forms as it will be more engaging and diverse, thus appealing to a broader pool of audiences. Here is what you can focus on:
- Blogging (including guest blogging)
- Video content (highly beneficial as it increases organic traffic a lot more than text)
- Podcasts
- Infographics
- How-to guides
- Product reviews
- E-books and other downloadable resources, etc.
Whatever you do, ensure your content is optimized for relevant keywords. If you want to use SEO to increase sales, your content will be the vehicle to help you do it.
Implement the link building strategy
Link building is an essential part of every SEO strategy and can benefit you tremendously. There are different types of links, and they are all equally important:
Inbound links –
These are links to your website, and Google perceives them as a vote of confidence. It would be best to focus your efforts on acquiring as many high-quality links to your website as possible. That means that only authoritative sites should link to you. The story of backlinks is a complex one and requires an entire article to explain in more detail.
Outbound links –
These are links from your website to other high-authority sites and pages. They are a signal of excellent user experience and something Google and other search engines will reward.
Internal links –
These are links between pages on your website, i.e., interlinking. It makes your website more user-friendly, which is another significant ranking factor.
Citation building
One way to get links to your website is to work on your citation-building strategy. The key is to find relevant directories where you will create listings. It is another way to improve your online ranking and get more leads. Beware, though, as the experts from AZ Citation Services warn of the danger of having your brand listed differently in different directories. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze your existing listings, remove duplicates, and update inconsistent information.
Some other ways to use SEO to increase sales
There are many more ways in which SEO can help you increase conversion rates. Here are some of them:
- Use social media to reach wider audiences. Social media will enable you to communicate with your customers and share your content.
- Make your website mobile-friendly. It’s vital to have your website optimized for mobile devices because most people use their phones and tablets to search for things online and make purchases.
- Ensure your website speed is up to the standards. Not only will you lose prospects if your pages take ages to load, but search engines will also look at your website speed as a ranking factor.
- Have an SSL-secured website. If you don’t, Google will penalize you, and some browsers will warn visitors that your website is unsafe. If you are an e-commerce business, this is potentially fatal. Also, an extra layer of security is critical for such companies due to sensitive customer and payment data.
The bottom line
Search engine optimization will increase your online visibility, help you reach wider audiences, and strengthen your online presence. That way, you actually use SEO to increase sales because increased exposure almost invariably leads to improved traffic to your website. And with more traffic come more opportunities to convert prospects into buyers.
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Meta: Search engine optimization increases your visibility, reach, and traffic to your website. Because of that, you can use SEO to increase sales. Here is how.
