SEO or Search Engine Optimization plays a crucial role in the success of your e-commerce website. Especially, if you have a localized website which you want to make popular in the global market, your website needs to go through some very important steps to deliver the expected sales.
While traditional and international SEO is almost the same, the latter requires a few additional information layers to make sure that the website reaches the most number of target audience.
No matter if you want to take your e-commerce store to global markets or are planning to launch a particular product in the international market, we have a list of 8 actionable SEO techniques that can help you make your presence felt on global search engines.
1. Researching keyword
Keyword research is one of the most important steps in every successful SEO strategy. The importance of using correct key terms intensifies when you are trying to rank high on global search engines.
If you’ve already selected excellent keywords and have spread them throughout the website, you can hire native translators to offer some linguistic and cultural insights which can help you find keywords that match the queries of local search engines. You can also hire professional SEO services that have extensive experience of international markets to do the needful.
2. URL structure for multilingual web pages
You’ll have to offer your website in multiple languages to attract audiences from different parts of the world. There are a few ways to select the URL of the website or webpage where the content would appear in a different language. Two of the most common ones are using subdomains and subfolders.
Most websites prefer using subfolders as they are known to be highly flexible and offer better SEO benefits. For instance, if your website domain is abcd.com, you can create subfolders like abcd.com/fr (French) or abcd.com/es (Spanish).
3. Know the local search engines
While Google rules the search engine landscape in Western countries, there are others like Baidu, Yandex, and Naver which are more popular in countries like China, Russia, and South Korea.
If you are planning to target international markets, make sure that you first try to know more about the search engines that are popular in your target region. Rely on the popular search engine for keyword research and other SEO efforts to get better results.
4. Using ‘alternate’ and ‘hreflang’ tags
Google makes use of hreflang=”x” rel=“alternate” attribute to inform the relation between different versions of a website to the web crawlers. E-commerce website developers implement such solutions to help websites rank better on global search engines.
Do not worry if you don’t know anything about these attributes or how to use them as any reputed SEO company would be able to help you with it.
5. Content creation
No matter if you have a local website or an international one, you’d need high-quality content on your website for it to rank better on search engines. Most of the e-commerce stores rely on their SEO service providers for the same who in turn hire professional translators to make sure that the content is up to the mark.
If you are new to the global market, competitor analysis would also be a very important step as it will help you understand the type and quality of content offered by your international competitors.
6. Using backlinks
Many experts suggest that the content of a website and the links on it are given equal importance by the search engines, making them a valuable addition to any effective SEO strategy. However, it is important to understand that it is the quality and not the number of links that matter.
To get popular in international markets, an e-commerce website needs a solid local backlink planning to gain at least a few high-quality and relevant local backlinks to the website.
7. Speed of the page
The speed of the website not only affects the ranking of a website negatively but also severely affects the experience of the website visitors. The distance between your target country and the country from where the website is hosted significantly affects the speed of the website.
As a result, it is highly recommended that you should use local servers from your target region to host the website as it’d help in improving its speed, ranking and website traffic.
8. Keep it mobile-friendly
Last but not the least- it is now very important for e-commerce portals to be mobile-friendly as more than 50% of the web traffic now comes from mobile phones. If the website is not optimized for handheld devices, you’d easily lose a lot of potential customers.
One of the most common and effective ways to make a website mobile friendly is to use a responsive website design which can adapt to screens of any size and type.
The importance of SEO in e-commerce is now greater than ever due to the cut-throat competition among the e-commerce websites. If you are planning to expand your online store to international markets, these are some SEO tips that can help. Discuss these tips with your SEO service provider to get effective results and help your store reach newer heights.
