Terry Costa, VP of Marketing at SLI Systems, spoke last night at the Search Marketing Expo (SMX) in San Jose, Calif., on how to improve your eCommerce site’s search engine optimization (SEO). In addition to using techniques like User-Generated SEO, he also highlighted the importance of improving the user experience of landing pages.
According to Costa, most consumers use similar keywords when searching the Internet for an eCommerce site that offers the product they want. When searching for a product on a retail site itself, they tend to vary their search phrases more. He also mentioned that the search box on an eCommerce site is one of rare places where visitors actually tell a retailer what their intent is. Matching those keywords with products they actually click-on and capturing this data is very important in improving not only your conversion rates, but also your SEO efforts.
Costa also talked about how imperative it is that you help customers find what they’re looking for quickly once they land on your site. Focusing on the user experience by showing visitors more sorting options, refinements, similar products, merchandising information like “3 left” or “free shipping”, is important to help reduce abandonment.
It’s also helpful to show users other recommended products when they enter your site through a link from an Internet search engine. Let’s say a customer searches google for “scorpion exo 900” and clicks on the first link with that title. It will take them to a Motorcycle Superstore product detail page.
However, if that exact helmet isn’t what they want, Motorcycle Superstore uses that search term to recommend other relevant items that match the phrase, to ensure that customers see other possible items they might like.
Surveys by SLI Systems have shown that 73% of visitors will leave a site within two minutes if they are unable to find what they are searching for. By giving them other options, you’re increasing the chance they’ll stay on the site and make a purchase.
To learn more about improving your site’s SEO, email us at discovery@sli-systems.com
