Four E-Commerce SEO Trends To Prepare For In 2019

Tech giants like Google and Facebook continue to invest time, money, and energy into developing their algorithms. As a result, search engine optimization (SEO) trends and marketing tactics are continually changing.

Meanwhile, e-commerce businesses with SEO marketing strategies must adapt to these changes if they want to remain relevant and dominate their respective markets. Make one SEO mistake, and you could set your business back significantly.

That’s why it’s essential to maintain a firm grasp on the latest e-commerce SEO trends as they emerge and leverage them so you can start 2019 at the top.

A 10-Point Ecommerce SEO Checklist for Marketers

1. Voice Search

While most people were still sleeping on voice technology, trailblazers like Gary VaynerchU.K., owner of VaynerMedia and author of Crushing It! (highly recommend), we’re already advising business owners to hop on these platforms.

If you’re one of the lucky few who listened and became an early adopter, you’re probably starting to reap the benefits. Alexa, Siri, and Cortana are fast-growing and indelible parts of our daily experience, as you can now interact with them on your phone, in your car, and at home.

You can apply the 24/7 access this technology gives your customers through smart SEO tactics. Start by working on optimizing your questions. When you use voice search, most searches are in the form of problems, not disconnected phrases. For instance, rather than saying “winter jackets Toronto,” most users will search, “Where can I find a winter wear store in Toronto?” Therefore, it is essential to structure your website content to answer your potential customer’s questions, incorporate trigger words (e.g., how, what, best, etc.), and avoid flatly feeding in keywords.

One of the most important things in a voice-search-dominated world will be obtaining the featured snippet spot (or position zero). The snippet is the zero result for Google, placing it higher than any other search result in a query. Remember to include the most relevant keywords in the page URL, title, and H1 tag to further optimize your content for featured pieces. When using voice search, people tend to place a query in the way they speak in their day-to-day lives. Google shows that about 70% of voice searches are natural, unlike the keywords people usually type in.

2. Brand-Building And Conversions

For a business-oriented e-commerce site owner, I believe conversions trump rankings every time. That’s because while orders are great at attracting traffic, conversions are what put money on the table.

Link-building has always been an essential aspect of any e-commerce store owner’s SEO marketing arsenal — and it still is. The only difference is that moving forward, you will focus more on creating brand-building relationships with website owners and bloggers in your niche. Link-building should be done for SEO purposes and referral traffic, which increases the website’s overall traffic.

As author and entrepreneur Tony Robbins once said, “The quality of your life is in direct proportion to the quality of your relationships.” In this case, we can substitute “business” for “life.” You can boost your brand profile and generate even more links by forming strategic partnerships with similar entities. You may also want to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) technology to run your link-building campaigns.

3. User Experience

Google has always emphasized the value of user experience (UX). The ranking algorithm allows precedence to speedy, coherent, and simple websites. Research shows that sites with more than three seconds of loading time lose out on 40% of their website visitors.

Even if it isn’t a matter of internet speed, a fast-loading website with a confusing layout or user interface will lose visitors. They will merely bounce without wasting their time. This is why the readability of your website is so important. Content that is difficult to understand and mechanically filled with keywords is less likely to see returning visitors. However, a good user experience extends the time a user spends on the website.

The focus should be on the user at all times. Therefore, providing a consistent and flawless user experience for desktop and mobile is pivotal. The number of searches on mobile devices has become significantly high and will only keep growing. So, websites need to be optimized for use across all devices.

4. Website Security

These days, users aren’t likely to waste their time visiting a site that doesn’t have an HTTPS or a green “secure” sign before the address. To most consumers on the web, HTTPS means that the website is safe enough to enter and share sensitive information, like banking details, at the checkout page.

Plus, Google rewards secure websites with good rankings and better visibility on the search engine results page, which gives e-commerce site owners a better chance of reaping the rewards from their SEO strategies. Fortunately, many detailed guides are available on migrating your website from HTTP to HTTPS to provide a safe browsing experience for your visitors.

2018 brought us quite a few developments on the SEO front, and e-commerce business owners will do well to follow these trends if they want to finish strong this year. These trends can also give companies an added edge by the time 2019 arrives, right around the corner.

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I have been working in the field of SEO and content marketing since 2014. I have worked with over 500 clients and more than 100 websites. I started blogging in 2012 and have now made my first steps into the world of freelancing. In my spare time, I like to read, cook or listen to music.