Ecommerce SEO Sydney – Approaching Online Hygiene in Retail
Online shopping is an essential thread woven into the fabric of everyday life. Combining convenience and cost-effectiveness, it has revolutionised the way we think about retail and financial transactions. As customers consume the presence of numerous e-commerce websites owned by brands, it is more important than ever to make your online store stand out from the crowd. This comprehensive guide delves into the effective ecommerce SEO Sydney strategies that online retailers in the city can employ to improve their websites. We’ll hear expert insights from SEO Sydney and explore the key components that can optimise your ecommerce website for success, making potential customers stay longer and more likely to purchase.
Site Structure and User Navigation: Foundation for Online Success
According to Adobe, 38% of people will stop engaging with a website if the content or layout is unattractive. A satisfying and well-structured site will ensure that users can easily find what they’re looking for, which in turn will positively impact your site’s search engine rankings.
Your site structure should follow a thematic pyramid structure, starting with your home page and then linking to several well-organised pages of your site. This is where navigation logic and hierarchy need to be considered. You can browse competitors’ sites and see what they do well and badly, and incorporate ideas for improvement into your site. Make sure you have a flat site structure – within 2-3 clicks of the actual content pages – that does not tax the user’s patience. In addition, the use of internal links can also improve the structure and relate the pages to each other, providing a clearer picture.
More practical is the use of breadcrumbs. As shown above, breadcrumbs are website links that allow users to track where they are on a website and how far away they are from the home page, while also making it easier to return to previous pages rather than bouncing off them. Breadcrumbs can be based on hierarchy, attributes or history. Useful breadcrumbs help Google to clearly categorise information in search results, which also has a positive effect on ranking.
Source: ‘How To Optimise Your Site Structure for Maximum SEO Impact’ by HubSpot
Product Page Optimisation: Turning Browsers into Buyers
When building your pages, your product pages should be given the attention they deserve, made visually appealing and informative to encourage users to buy. People like to see images that are vivid interpretations and direct explanations. Images are beneficial because they add depth and meaning to a user’s impression of a website. According to CXL, users spend an average of 5.94 seconds looking at the main image on a website. It is therefore important to ensure that the images you use are relevant, distinctive and of high quality. You may also want to consider adding alt text to captions and tagging files with keywords, all of which are practical ways to optimise images.
Meanwhile, users now spend an average of 5.59 seconds looking at written content on a website. Product page descriptions can make or break the conversion of website browsers into buyers. You need to think about your target audience before you write, and create relevant and emotional connections. Strategically, you should include keywords as well as detailed, keyword-rich descriptions, ending with a compelling CTA (call to action).
Source: ‘Importance of Product Descriptions: 5 Ways Product Descriptions Can Drive Sales’ by PepperContent
Technical SEO: Ensuring Seamless Experiences
You may know that people get frustrated when websites take too long to load, but you probably didn’t know that slow-loading websites cost retailers $2.6 billion in lost sales every year. With search engines constantly re-ranking sites based on their performance, ensuring your site is fast will keep users engaged and increase your chances of attracting new customers to your site. Mobile optimisation is also necessary to meet the current trend of the user ecosystem, and responsive design should be implemented to accommodate all possible screen sizes.
If we take a step back to the user journey, to increase click-through rates (CTRs) you can use schema markups. These are HTML tags that provide additional information to the search engine about the content of your site, allowing users to clearly understand the structure and reach the pages they want – compared to the internal navigation of the site, this will be a shortcut and effectively increase organic search volume. According to SEO specialist Neil Patel, schemes for e-commerce sites can be around product and product availability, comments, pricing, FAQs etc.
These are all techniques for optimising the user experience (UX), getting users to stay, love and pay.
Local SEO: Connecting with Sydney’s Shoppers
While more and more customers are embracing international online shopping, local brands still have an advantage in gaining visibility by implementing optimised local SEO strategies.
As you can see from Safari Digital’s local SEO report below, factors such as backlink profiles and on-page keywords from Google Business Profile signals are top of the list.
As well as the fundamental principles of making your keywords relevant to local customers, Google My Business (GMB) is also a great place to start. Make sure your business information is accurate and consistent, with regular updates and quick interactions, and encourage authentic customer reviews. This will increase your visibility in local searches and on Google Maps. Combined with proactive backlink building, you will gradually build local authority and gain stable traffic.
Stay tuned for more professional insights from SEO Sydney. If you would like a bespoke Ecommerce SEO solution to win the hearts of your customers, contact us today.
