Your 2021 Guide To Building An Online Store

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How Do You Build A Captivating eCommerce Website?

What is and what isn’t important for optimising my eCommerce website to its full potential? Strategically optimising the design, functionality and SEO of your online store is the most important and effective way to boost your organic traffic. There are specific skills and tactics you can use to generate traffic to your website, and these will define whether or not you’re getting noticed by the right people.
When you are optimising your eCommerce website efficiently, you’re actively reaching your target audience, and you’re grabbing the attention of the big Search Engines like Google.
Just by knowing 93% of online experiences begin with a Search Engine, we can see how important it is to get it right!

Search Engines like Google

Let’s start by looking at the key aspects of creating an eCommerce website and what they mean for you:

  1. Using internal links within your eCommerce website is the key to showing Google how important your online store is. When this is done skillfully, Google will link and relate your topic with others, significantly improving your SEO.
  2. Using the right keywords throughout your eCommerce website will pinpoint your products to your target audience through SEO. Strategically using these keywords correctly aligns your brand to your customers.
  3. Detailing your product descriptions will noticeably optimise your SEO. Your product descriptions either encourage customers to read the content of your website, or it will steer them away.
  4. Optimising your products for better SEO performance will help you to reach your unique target audience. With81% of people searching online for a product or service, it’s important you select the right images and use the correct language in your content.
  5. Schema Markups are important tools for your eCommerce website because they provide snippets of important information about your business directly underneath your Search Engine heading. Schema Markups showcase the details of your business as well as your product reviews, stock availability and your product prices without customers needing to click through to your link. This gives prospective customers all the information they are looking for on the Search Engine page – making your content user-friendly from the get-go.
  6. The technical side is also vital in the effectiveness of the construction and utilisation of tools on your eCommerce website. Understanding what tools to use and how to use them in order to maximise organic traffic to your website will not only improve accessibility, but also enhance the experience customers have when visiting your platform.

The do’s and don’ts of SEO while building an Online Store

Online Store

Understanding what to do and what to avoid when building an eCommerce website is the easiest way to understand what matters the most when generating organic traffic and sales. Let’s take a look at how you can optimise SEO for your website to increase your traffic, find new customers and get better search rankings.

organic traffic

Don’t Make your website too content heavy.

Do use internal links.

  1. Internal links will optimise the SEO of your eCommerce website without making your content dense and heavy. They will improve your website’s navigation and guide your traffic to information and resources within your own domain. Doing this keeps customers within your platform and will enhance the SEO of your content, a win-win for you!

Don’t forget the importance of SEO.

Do optimise keywords.

  1. Keywords are the words and phrases users are typing into the search engines to find what they are looking for. They are an essential part of SEO, and the way they function can be very good or very bad for your platform. For example, if your target audience is searching for ‘the best shoes for hiking in New Zealand’, the keyword ‘hiking’ would not be the best choice. This is because the Search Engines will bring up pages relevant to the broader aspect of hiking, rather than your niche, hiking shoes. Tools such as Ubersuggest will show you what words and phrases people are searching for in relation to your content. Using this information to optimise your eCommerce website will align your products with your traffic. In other words, it will appease rather than confuse Google, giving you a top spot in the search results!
Importance of SEO

Don’t forget your audience.

Do engage your audience with product description.

  1. Engaging with your audience through your products’ description boosts your SEO and will help your customers identify with your brand. Try to think of how you can tailor your product description with the keywords and phrases your customers are searching for, but be careful not to be too descriptive and formal! Compelling product descriptions do more than just describe your products; they tell a story, persuade, and convince your customers, all whilst providing a clear solution. Identifying possible problems customers may have and relating your content to these needs will build trust and rapport within your brand, resulting in return customers that spread the word.

Don’t overlook on-page optimisation.

Do optimise your product pages.

  1. Your eCommerce website’s product pages are the heart of your business, so spending your time optimising these is a great investment. The product categories and subcategories of your website determine the framework of how customers experience your website. The organisation of images and text will determine how user-friendly your content is and how customers interact with your platform. When creating your eCommerce website, it’s important to make sure your product pages are catering for what your target customer is looking for and what they are hoping to find out or see. Your customer should only be 3-4 clicks away from what they want! Another helpful tip is to make sure your headings have the appropriate h1, h2 and h3 tags, these will ensure Search Engines will recognise your content, another way to improve SEO through targeted keywords and phrases.
product pages

Don’t forget Schema Markups.

Do use them to showcase your business.

  1. Using Schema Markups on your eCommerce website will make your business and your products stand out on the Search Engines. Ecommerce Product Schema showcases and consolidates important information about your store, such as product reviews, price and stock availability. This information then becomes visible to customers without them needing to click through to your website, these are called Rich Snippets. Here is how they look on Google, you can see the extra information between the URL and the description – pretty useful right?


Schema Markups are an extremely helpful tool for your eCommerce website, as they give customers the information necessary to generate greater sales, for example, Econsultancy reports that 63% of customers are more likely to make a purchase from a site that has user reviews. Your business information can also be used in Schema Markups, this will showcase your address, email and telephone number amongst other chosen specifics. This provides your customers with all the information they require to feel confident with the legitimacy of your business.

Don’t forget the technical side.

Do use Chatbots to interact with your customers.

  1. Chatbots are a universally helpful tool. It’s no wonder why they are a must-have when building an eCommerce website. Giving your traffic the ability to instantly connect and interact with your business from the comfort and privacy of their computer changes the game completely. Chatbots enable your eCommerce website to stay open 24/7, meaning customers from all around the world can access your information, solve their problems, and feel connected to your business regardless of whether you’re awake or asleep. Chatbots also combat one of the biggest issues eCommerce stores face when generating sales – cart abandonment. There is a current 74.5% abandonment rate for eCommerce websites, and Chatbots have been tested and proven to decrease this statistic. Chatbots offer a personal touch to the experience of your visitors, they are able to quickly clarify and remedy possible issues such as shipping queries and doubts about the product. The accessibility your customers have to your platform can prevent cart abandonment by 20-30%.
Chatbots

Take Away Points

When done right, building your eCommerce website can be a stress-free and liberating experience that transforms your website visitors into genuine buyers. Your website’s success depends on several key factors, the development of your platform, the proven systems that maximise SEO, and the technological systems used to optimise your organic traffic.

Choosing a professional website design company is paramount to the success of your business. Starting with a free SEO audit is a great way to diagnose your eCommerce website. It gives you the opportunity to see where you can improve and where to start. Get in touch with the team at KWD, and we can guide you through the best way to revolutionise your business!

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