Are you among the ones that believe having a website will suffice to bring the traffic that you desire? If yes, you are gravely mistaken, my friend. Having a website is another thing, and optimizing the same is another. You need a well planned SEO Toronto experts strategy to help your website become more visible to your audiences. With an increase in the competition among businesses to rank higher on Google search engine result pages, SEO, i.e. On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO, is truly the need of the hour for websites.
But optimizing for eCommerce websites is different. You need to have beautiful graphic images of your products or need to have navigation that easily carries your visitor to the page they want to visit. This user-friendly approach is well served by the On-page SEO technique that you will know in a moment.
What is On-Page SEO?
On-Page SEO is the activity of optimizing the parts of the website to help it rank better on search engine result pages. By optimizing your website, you help Google understand the context of your Content which then will be presented to the user with the exact search intent. It is a reciprocal service. You help Google help serve the users better; in return, you get traffic to your website, which will eventually lead to conversion.
How is it Different from Off-Page?
Well, you can say the aim of the On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO is the same, but the process involved in gaining the desired result is different. How? Look at the table below.
| On-Page SEO | Off-Page SEO |
| It covers anything that you do on the website to improve the ranking. | 1. It covers anything that you do outside of your website to improve the ranking. |
| Meta titles and descriptions are such examples. | 2. Link building and Public relations are such examples. |
| More control on On-page SEO factors. | 3. Less control on Off-page SEO factors. |
| It Costs no money to optimize a website. | 4. It can cost money to influence people to provide you a Backlink. |
How to Optimize with On-Page SEO?
On-Page SEO encompasses some key practices that aim to improve the ranking of a website on SERP. Having the knowledge about the same can help you target your On-Page SEO strategy for eCommerce websites better. Let’s start.
1. High-Quality Content:
Content is the King, you might have heard the phrase many times, but it is now the time to focus on the same. Content-only will decide if your audience will stick to your website or bounce to another one. The basic aim of the Content is to provide the very information the user is looking for the product over the search engines. So it becomes critical for you to frame the Content of your website in a manner that matches the search intent of the users. For Example, let’s suppose a user wants information on “What are the best foods for my Dog?” but instead reaches a web page that sells dog food. Here the search result and the search intent of the user do not match. This will result in leaving the website by the user to visit another one. Failing to provide the information that users desire can signal the webmaster that something is wrong with the website, which can eventually lower your website ranking.
2. Keywords Target:
Targeting keywords in your Content that match the search intent of your user is one of the best practices to achieve success on Google rankings. You can start by searching for keywords that are related to your product and services on search engines. You will be served with queries from the users that you can aim to answer in your Content. Adding the keywords in the People also searched for a section can help you to target a wide range of keywords.
Note: Try to inculcate long-tail keywords in your Content as it has less Keyword difficulty, which allows you to rank higher on the Search Engine result Page.
3. Meta Titles:
Also Known as Title tags are a piece of HTML Content that helps search engines understand the context of a web page. Though simple, it can be a clicking factor for the user when deciding to visit your website or not. So it becomes very critical for websites to frame their title tags with the target keywords to help users find your product. To write a proper meta title, make sure that:
- The length of the title tags should not exceed characters more than 50 for better readability on Google SERP.
- Avoid using the same title tags for your web pages so that Google understands the context of each page better.
- Better to frame it with a How? Word as it is the most searched keyword on the internet.
4. Meta descriptions:
It is an HTML code that aims to provide the context of the web page to the user. Compared to title tags, they are not a ranking factor in Google SERP. But they can dictate whether the user will click through your website or not. It is featured just below the meta titles on the search result page. Things to remember before you start writing your next meta-description piece-
- The length of the meta description should not exceed the character length of 150. Only a small piece of the meta description will be displayed, which will pose readability issues to the users.
- Include your target keyword with actionable CTA.
- Use Active voice to better communicate your message with the audience.
5. Headings and Subheadings:
It is a critical element for any website to improve the readability of your Product Content page. You want your user to quickly find the piece of information that they are looking for. Heading also helps Google to understand the structure of your website, which can help Google present it to the related search query. Use H1 title tags for the main topic of the website and H2 for the subtopics. If you want to further classify your Content, you can use H3, H4 and so on.
Note: Always remember to add target keywords in your H1 tags, introductory paragraph and H2 tags. This will help Google rank your Content higher in the user’s search query.
6. URL:
Did you know that Google recommends that the URL of product pages should not be confusing in nature to the users? You should make sure to add words or keywords that easily convey the idea of the said product page to the user. It can also help users in easy navigation through the different web pages of the websites. An optimized URL should look like the following:
- SEO optimised: www.forexample.com/best-dog-foods/
- Cryptic URL: www.forexample.com/2022/newpage-14552.html
Which one do you think is easy to read? SEO optimized, right?
7. Internal Link:
Internal Link is one of the key factors of the On-Page SEO strategy. Here is why:
- It helps Google discover new product pages on your website.
- It helps search engines like Google to understand the site structure of your website.
- It sends a signal to Google that the web pages interlinked are valuable to the users.
- It helps users easily navigate to the linked product page, which increases the UX.
8. External Links:
As the phrase suggests, it is a link, when provided by a website, points to another one. It can be understood as a recommendation provided by a website to another website. Google prefers websites with high-quality Backlinks when it comes to ranking on its SERP. It aims to provide websites with-
- Better ranking on SERP.
- Increasing the credibility and authority of the linked websites.
- Provide value to the users.
- Brings referral traffic to the website.
9. Optimize Images:
Google Images is one of the quick ways to find answers to your query. Many times it is the images that make us understand the context of the web page as compared to the Content. Optimizing for images to rank higher on Google can increase the click-through rate of your website. Adding alt text to HTML code can further help Google to understand the context of the image and present it to the related search queries made by the users. Image optimization thus becomes an essential part of the SEO campaign, where websites should be framed with images explaining the Content in a quick and swift manner.
10. Quick answers:
Optimizing your website for Google to show a part of your website as a featured snippet or Schema can help increase the click-through rate to your website. It is obvious that users will visit a website for more information that Google presents as Featured snippets or Schemas. For those who do not know what Featured snippets or Schema are, read below to find out.
- Featured Image: It is a short text satisfying the search intent of a user in a quick-to-read manner. It is displayed over the top of Google’s SERP.
- Schema: It is structured data that helps the Content stand out from the rest of the search results that appear on Google. It helps Google better understand the Content of the website, which in turn will make it easy for Google to present it as a quick answer to the user’s query.
Final Words!!
Optimizing your eCommerce website for On-page SEO can help you to become more visible to the audience you wish to target. SEO is a complex and time consuming process, no doubt about it, but what it brings to the table is better visibility and an increase in sales, which is the ultimate purpose of any online businesses. With the above discussed practice, eCommerce websites can achieve better audience outreach in the hope of converting them to paying customers.
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