Benefits of SEO for E-Commerce

An e-commerce site has only one goal – to make sales. Like a physical store, what increases the chances of an e-commerce site making more sales?

The answer is simple – create more traffic!

An e-commerce site that utilizes SEO to its advantage can drastically improve its website traffic, ensuring that it gets more eyes on their products.

Aside from those, using SEO has a ton of other benefits, many of which will be discussed here.

What is SEO?

SEO is a shortened term for Search Engine Optimization. As the name implies, SEO pertains to the process of optimizing sites to make them more palatable for search engines.

This means that a site that uses SEO has a higher chance of ranking in search engines such as Google or Bing. The greater the SEO, the higher up they will appear in search results.

SEO is a continuing process to ensure that you keep and maintain your rank. Many companies have a budget to ensure that they have good search rankings due to the benefits that this provides.

What Can SEO Do for My Business?

Increase Website Traffic

A study made in 2024 by FirstPage indicates that the first result on a search engine such as Google has a Clickthrough Rate of 39.8%.

This figure drops drastically for the second and third-rank results, getting 18.7% and 10.2%, respectively, based on the study.

This is supported by another study that indicates that over a quarter of people will click on the first result of a search. At the other end of the spectrum, those at the 10^th position will only be visited about 2.5% of the time.

So, what does this mean? This means that there is a big premium to ranking high in search engines. If you want people visiting your site, then optimizing your site for SEO purposes is the way to go.

Improve Brand Awareness

If your site always shows up at the top of the list once related keywords are searched, then you will have better brand recall.

Take “fast food”, for example. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when they say “fast food”? For the majority of people, it’s going to be McDonald’s.

The concept for SEO is the same. An optimized website will be the one that more frequently shows up. In the user’s mind, your site or brand will be the first that they will recall for a related term or product.

If you can accomplish that feat through SEO campaigns, then that will be a huge win for your e-commerce site.

Lower Advertising Costs

There are many ways by which you can advertise your e-commerce site, but many of these will have varying costs, as well as effectiveness in terms of ROI.

These other methods include Google ads, Youtube ads, influencer marketing, affiliate marketing, e-mail marketing, and the like.

SEO, while capable of incurring a higher upfront cost as well as requiring multiple initiatives for ranking improvement and retention, has more tangible and permanent effects. Clicks made through the search results are organic. Plus, they’re free.

With this, we highly recommend setting aside a bigger budget and focusing on SEO campaigns rather than other forms of advertising or marketing that can bloat your costs with less-than-satisfactory returns.

Promote Better User Experience

In order to rank high in search engines, there are several steps that must be done to your e-commerce site during each SEO campaign. Among these is the enhancement and improvement of your site.

Changes in the design, navigation, and functionality of your site will drastically improve your ranking score. Not only will this allow you to rank higher, but it can also provide your site’s visitors with a more pleasant user experience.

An e-commerce site that works well and is easy to navigate will make users more comfortable to visit your store, especially when compared to a site when going from point A to point B is much more difficult.

Generate More Leads

Higher traffic will mean more visitors. Through cookies, you can target these visitors with your ads, making targeting more effective and efficient rather than reaching out blindly.

More visitors will also increase the likelihood of more users signing up or subscribing to your site. This means that you would be able to reach a wider market through email marketing for sales, promotions, or other purposes that it may serve.

Gain a Competitive Edge

If you are constantly at the top of search rankings, you will instantly earn some credibility as compared to your competitors.

SEO also involves providing constant and updated content such as blog articles. This will add more authority and trust for you as you would be considered an expert in your field or industry.

Search engines reward experts by ranking them higher. If you become a better authority compared to your peers, then your ranking will definitely improve.

This gives you the advantage compared to others competing with you on the same niche.

Increase Sales

At the end of the day, the purpose of any campaign is to help increase sales. Many companies attest that their web traffic, and sales, have remarkably increased immediately preceding SEO campaigns.

With all the advantages previously mentioned, you can safely say that the higher you are ranked, the higher your potential to get more customers and close more deals.

This means that you are definitely missing out on opportunities to grow and expand your market if you do not have an SEO-friendly e-commerce site.

Conclusion

Using SEO to enhance your e-commerce site is essential if you want to enjoy more sales, get more website traffic, and build your online presence and reputation, among others.

Take note, though, that SEO is a continuous process, and factors that determine how well you rank will change from time to time. As such, SEO is not a one-time investment.

Still, if you are able to understand the concepts and are in touch with a SEO expert, you can stay ahead of the pack and continue to enjoy the advantages that come with a high-ranking site.