Introduction
eCommerce or the business activity of trading goods and services via online mediums is by no means a new concept in the global markets. From MNCs like Amazon and eBay to smaller stores like the website of the supermarket near you, where you can place an order and have it delivered to your doorstep in a stipulated amount of time and in exchange for a small fee, alongside the actual cost of the item – we are surrounded by examples of online businesses on all sides.
The eCommerce arena is young and growing at a rapid pace with each passing day and the introduction of every new player on the pitch. In a world where people flock to eCommerce business, you must adapt to change or stagnation.
Quite a few organizations have also been caught though asking the vital question of “why”, i.e., why should we try the digital channels to promote and sell our goods, when we are already earning well enough through our brick-and-mortar establishment.
Unlike the changes in the web-based field, the answer to this remains undisturbed. An online presence not only increases your chances of being found but also expands your reach to audiences and buyers who were till now outside your purview.
What is to be essentially noted is that a digital persona alone cannot be the driving factor in your business’s success or growth. There are several factors that affect the same, and an important one out of this list is the visibility of your store. If you successfully manage to build an eStore, there is still the task of you being noticed. Spectacularly, as search engines are responsible for 67% of traffic to your site, it is of great importance to boost Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your eCommerce store.
Using the several techniques and tools in its quiver, SEO assists you in the job of making sure that your store is found easily, both online and offline. For instance, if technical SEO sounds complex, tools like JetOctopus can help improve your site’s crawl ability and indexability.
Investing in SEO also earns you a higher ranking on the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) to put you on the map so the nearby locale can benefit from your services.
Today, in this article, we will discuss the factors that are affecting or can potentially affect your online rank so that we use all our measures optimally and derive the greatest benefits available.
6 Ranking Factors To Keep In Mind for eCommerce
Out of the multiple elements that can influence your store’s rank on a search engine, we have compiled a list of top 7 that should be taken care of at all times to ensure the best possible results.
File Size
A normal webpage, like that of a firm mentioning its services or of an artist displaying his/ her art portfolio, is often of a much smaller size than the website of an eStore. This is because an online business’s site could be filled with product descriptions, reviews, images, product comparisons, and much more.
On average, when compared to the websites from within the industry, the file size of the top 10 eCommerce pages was found to be approximately 30% larger. These higher sizes can also drive a store’s ranking to a higher position as it often represents that more informational and relevant data will be accessible on them.
Scope Of Interaction
When it comes to purchasing any product, the most basic requirement of a human is the interaction that helps them decide whether an item is worth investing in or not.
For example, when shopping offline, the bargaining and negotiation process in the smaller shops is a well-observed activity, while physical shopping in malls and supermarkets also includes some level of communication through signages, verbal announcements, and sometimes even shopping assistants asking if they could help with something.
Likewise, online shopping also needs a certain extent of dialogue and expression to make the experience enjoyable and one that the customer might want a repeat of.
Owing to the above, it is of utmost importance that the number of interactive elements on your website is used to the optimum level without it feeling stuffed through the content.
Shopify is one of the best eCommerce platforms that allows you to integrate multiple tools available on its own portal to enhance the communication and shopping experience of your incoming clientele while maintaining the higher rank of the webpage.
The platform is SEO-friendly and helps eCommerce business owners to implement the best SEO practices. Check out this ultimate Shopify SEO guide that’ll help you lay the foundation of SEO success for your store.
Internal Linking
As you are already aware, an SEO technique does not depend solely on keyword targeting and retargeting, but on a lot of other factors as well. One of these determinants is the quantity and quality of links a page has.
While as a general rule, it is believed that the higher the number of links, the higher the page ranking climbs. But the quality of these links is also to be taken into consideration. If these hyperlinks have been received from websites that do not have a good domain or page authority, they automatically tend to be of a lower value. On the contrary, too many links from within one’s own site can also be thought of as unethical. However, that is the case with general webpages.
In the case of eCommerce-based websites, higher internal linking may be indicative of how thorough and detailed the site structure is. A close-ended structure with an elaborate site map is highly appreciated by the search engine algorithms as they provide proper pathways for the crawlers to find relevant content and display the same in response to related queries.
Number Of Bullet Points
How important detailed information is to a search engine is something we have already established above. Nevertheless, it goes a step ahead when ranking those pages higher which have relatively more bullet points in the lists mentioned through its content.
As per the study by Searchmetrics that we talked about, amongst the top 10 Google pages, on an average, eCommerce sites hold approximately 70% more bullet points than the total benchmark.
.com Domain
In times where all major enterprises have started shifting to their private domains, it has been witnessed that almost all top-ranking eCommerce websites have a .com extension. Understandably, multiple multinationals have also begun using local domain extensions like .in for India and .uk for the United Kingdom, given their huge repository of data and the requirement for multiple geo-pages. The search engine algorithms make up for this by determining the area from which a site is being looked up.
.com Domain
Thus, while for instance, Amazon.com reigns supreme amidst all amazon pages, when searched for in India, Amazon.in will be the featured result.
Word Count
Seeing as how an eStore page is supposed to display not just images and videos of the different products on sale but also their descriptions, comparisons, and reviews, it does not come as a surprise that most eCommerce websites tend to have a higher word count as compared to other sites on the web. Although a higher count may not always mean relevant information, the algorithms under each search engine have their own ways and means of determining whether the data shared is appropriate.
Therefore, even though a higher word count may place you on top, make sure that what you write or display on your page is of significance to the buyers. You can read how to start a WordPress blog guide to clearly understand your site and attract more customers to your website.
Wrapping Up
There are a number of studies and researches that have been and are currently being executed to identify more such factors that leave a lasting impact on the ranking of an eCommerce-enabled store. While we await the results with abated breath, why not give these already proven determinants a chance?
Admittedly, not all of these might be applicable on your website depending on the geographical location, kind of business, size of business, etc., which means deciding on some crucial elements may be a tougher task than it seems.
So, choose wisely!