Just like your body requires periodic check-ups to keep it fit, your eCommerce website’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO) needs constant attention and optimization to maintain sustained traffic for optimal performance over time.
Studies indicate that even a slight rank improvement of one position can raise your click-through rate as high as 32.3%. That makes measuring and improving the key eCommerce SEO metrics essential for identifying areas for improvement and making data-driven decisions.
But which metrics should you track?
Let’s explore the different metrics and how you can measure them accurately.
1. Organic Traffic
Organic traffic refers to the number of people who visit your website through unpaid search engine results, such as Google and Bing.
Tracking organic growth is essential as it explains how effective your eCommerce SEO strategies are in attracting visitors based on your website’s content and technical qualities.
Generally, organic traffic is considered the most valuable form of web traffic since it shows long-term sustainability and greater potential for conversion. At the same time, organic traffic is the hardest to improve because of its complexities, as shown by the search engine ranking factors.
However, robust tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console allow you to easily track and analyze website traffic.
2. Keyword Rankings
Keyword rankings are your website’s position on search engine results pages for specific terms or phrases. A better keyword ranking means your SEO content strategy works well, improving your chances of gaining visitors and boosting sales.
Tracking relevant keywords allows you to monitor site performance for terms related to your industry, identify trends and changes in keyword rankings that could impact traffic, and see which pages need further optimization.
You can use enterprise technical SEO tools like Ahrefs to track your keyword rankings. These enable you to input your target keywords and often set up the tracking of any changes in ranking on SERPs over time.
3. Conversion Rates
The conversion rate is the percentage of overall site traffic that completes a desired activity, such as clicking an order-now button at your online store.
Though the conversion rate is not directly relevant to the positioning of your keywords in the SEO results, better website optimization and ranking generally increase the chances of visitor conversion to buyers at your eCommerce website.
You can also use tools such as Google Analytics to determine which keywords or landing pages have a higher conversion rate and fine-tune the SEO strategy on more valuable and relevant search terms.
4. Bounce Rates
The bounce rate represents the percentage of visitors who reach a given webpage but bounce off without further engaging, such as clicking or navigating to other pages.
As an SEO metric, it is significant because it points to user engagement and how well your content can capture and keep a user’s attention.
The higher the rate at which visitors bounce from a page informs that your page is not serving what the user is searching for, thereby severely affecting search rankings.
Reducing the bounce rate improves user experience, lengthens sessions, and increases conversions.
Use Google Analytics, SEMrush, or Hotjar to track and analyze bounce rates. These tools can help one deduce visitor behavior and optimize his website for better engagement.
Tools for Measuring SEO Performance
Measuring your SEO performance requires the proper tools in your toolbox. Let’s examine several vital tools that really boost SEO efforts.
- Google Analytics tracks how your website performs. It contains a detailed report, analyzes traffic, is aware of users’ behavior, and even tracks specific SEO goals like organic traffic growth or keyword performance. In this sense, it is excellent for getting an overall picture of how your SEO strategies are working.
- SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Moz are excellent tools for SEO optimization and insights on keyword rankings, backlink profiles, and competitor strategies. SEMrush is perfect for a full-fledged SEO audit, Ahrefs does well in backlink analysis, and Moz is suitable for domain authority metrics.
- Most eCommerce sites have built-in SEO tools. Whether you have Magento, Shopify, or WooCommerce, these platforms offer meta-tag customization, sitemap generation, and SEO-friendly URL structures. That way, you won’t rely on third-party tools to manage your SEO.
These tools are robust enough to offer you a process of monitoring and improving your SEO performance.
Improve your eCommerce performance with an SEO Audit
An SEO audit is an overall assessment of your performance on the website in the search engine. It identifies its areas of strength and weaknesses and finally provides an overview of what can be improved, including site structure, content quality, and keywords used.
Routine audits improve your visibility and upgrade the user experience on your site, increasing traffic and conversion rates.
Here are the elements that are included in an SEO audit:
1. Technical SEO
Technical SEO makes your website search engine-friendly and provides a good user experience. It includes the site’s speed, mobile friendliness, and crawlability, greatly affecting its performance and visibility.
Here’s how to do it:
Check Site Speed:
- Start by assessing loading times using tools like GTmetrix or Google PageSpeed Insights to improve your website’s speed.
- Optimizing images is crucial; reduce their size without sacrificing quality to guarantee faster loading times.
- To further reduce HTTP requests, reduce the number of items on your pages and use browser caching to keep frequently requested resources locally.
Enhance Mobile-Friendliness
- Use a responsive web design that responds to various screen sizes. This allows users to easily understand and navigate the website using a computer or mobile device.
- Apply Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool to reveal errors and optimize particular touch elements so they can be clicked easily without zooming in.
- Finally, ensure text readability on smaller screens.
Improve Crawlability
- Design and submit a sitemap to facilitate search engines in indexing your pages as effectively as possible.
- Use files with control over which pages you want the search engine bots to crawl or avoid through robots.txt.
- Make sure the website structure is logical for easier navigation and user-friendly so that both humans and bots navigate using your page.
- Look for broken links and fix them so humans and bots can navigate your page without problems.
2. On-Page SEO
Optimizing your website through on-page SEO is essential to raising its visibility and boosting user experience. A proper on-page SEO works toward producing quality content relevant to your audience, which promotes more satisfaction and increases loyalty.
Here’s how to perform on-page SEO –
Optimize your Metatags
- Your title tags for meta tags should appropriately reflect the content of your website and be both captivating and keyword-rich.
- To ensure your text appears properly in search results, keep it between 50 and 60 characters long.
- Create concise 150 – 160 characters meta descriptions and add a call to action and important keywords.
Compelling Headings
- Having your main title tagged as H1 ensures you have incorporated your primary keywords.
- Then, organizing subheadings H2 and H3 helps search engines better understand your content and keeps them readable for your audience.
High-Quality Content
- Optimize content by throwing in keywords naturally within your writing.
- Do not stuff in keywords; let the flow seem so natural that it hooks your readers.
- Provide valuable, informative content that answers or solves users’ questions and problems, and they will return for more.
Optimize Images and Alt Text
- Rename image files according to their content and ensure they contain relevant keywords.
- Include descriptive alt text for each image.
- Improving access and contributing more to your SEO efforts is the best way to ensure that search engines can index your images.
Monitor And Update Regularly
- Use tools such as Google Analytics to track the performance of your page.
- Track the performance of your content and be prepared to adapt your strategy accordingly.
- Updating older articles with fresh information or opinions keeps them relevant and interesting, so your audience will always find value in whatever you offer.
3. Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO increases your website’s visibility and credibility by emphasizing domain authority and backlink profiles and telling search engines that your content is reliable and valuable to improve rankings.
Backlinks from authoritative sites and a high domain authority score improve organic traffic, establish industry authority, and build a good online reputation.
Here’s how to improve off-page SEO:
- Analyze the current backlink profile with premium tools such as Ahrefs or SEMrush. Find quality links and detect any toxic ones that may harm your SEO.
- Reach out to industry influencers and guest bloggers on good websites and shareable content that attracts organic backlinks.
- Constantly check your domain authority using Moz and focus on high-authority domains to acquire backlinks.
- Use the Disavow Tool via Google to remove harmful backlinks that might drag your domain authority down.
- Share your content actively on social platforms to increase visibility and organic backlinks from various sources.
Conclusion
A successful eCommerce SEO involves technique and creativity.
SEO is not just about following rules and algorithms; it is also about connecting with your target audience and offering them an experience that attracts and motivates them to take action.
Hence, it is high time you start incorporating continuous analysis and performance measurement into your marketing strategies and expand your eCommerce business.
