While PPC, email marketing and social media marketing are great ways to drive instant traffic to an eCommerce website, SEO is necessary if you want to have a long lasting eCommerce website. Without a steady flow of traffic from organic search results, it is difficult to turn a large profit when running an eCommerce website unless the products you are selling have a very large profit margin. Creating an online marketing strategy that includes SEO along with PPC, email and social media marketing is the best approach to take when looking to advertise your eCommerce website online.

I was recently hired as a SEO specialist for one ecommerce website. These are few tips based on my SEO campaign I am performing for the client.

Keyword Research
The first step you need to take when starting an SEO campaign is thorough keyword research. Truly understanding your target audience will allow you to discover keywords they are searching for that are directly related to your website and the products you are selling. Also, through keyword research, you can ensure you are spending your valuable time and resources targeting terms that actually receive a good deal of searches on a daily basis. There is no point in obtaining a first page ranking for search terms that do not receive any traffic as consumers are not searching for those terms.

Create Content
Once you have a long list of keywords you are going to target with your SEO campaign, you will need to create new content for your eCommerce website. Since you are dealing with an eCommerce website, it can be a little tricky finding unique ways to put fresh content on your website. One great way to accomplish this goal is to install a blog on your eCommerce website.

When you have a blog, you are able to target a new keyword with every post you create. Each blog post will gain exposure in the search results, driving additional organic traffic to your website. Also, a blog can help you improve your internal linking structure, allowing you to gain additional backlinks to your product and category pages.

Do Not Ignore Social Media
Ignoring social media is one of the worst things you can when running an eCommerce website. As search engines start to place a greater emphasis on social signals when determining which websites should appear in the search results, you will want to make sure your website is ready to utilize social media as much as possible to assist with your SEO campaign.

Installing all of the popular social media buttons on your website is a wonderful way for you to reap the benefits of social media in regards to your website’s search engine rankings. By making it extremely easy for people to share your content with their social circles, you will gain valuable backlinks that will help you improve your search engine rankings.

Write Guest Blog Posts
One of the best ways to improve your eCommerce website’s search engine rankings is to become an expert within your industry. Writing guest blog posts for popular blogs within your industry will help raise awareness about your brand while simultaneously positioning yourself as an industry expert. When you write these guest posts, you will want to make sure you are adding value to the blog you are writing for so you will be viewed as an expert in your field. Also, make sure to include a backlink to your website and at least one of your social media profiles within your guest post so you can get some SEO benefits out of your work as well.

With a sound SEO strategy in place before you begin a campaign, you are much more likely to achieve your SEO goals. Performing thorough keyword research, creating unique, high quality content for your website, utilizing social media to grow your brand and writing guest blog posts are some of the ways you can improve your eCommerce website’s SEO rankings in 2013.

Citations:

• Photo taken from Flick with CC license. Author: SEOplanter

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•  License: Creative Commons image source

Ben is a well known blogger and SEO specialist. He is recently hires as a SEO specialist for http://paramold.com/ ecommerce website. These are his tips about SEO for ecommerce websites, based on his own work.