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Optimizing an online store is a lot different from the way a marketer usually handles online promotions for non-commercial websites such as blogs, forums, directories etc. Devising a strategy that drives e-commerce sites to success can be quite challenging, especially if the company is working under a market constraint. The most effective and inexpensive means remains through SEO content, but that is not enough and other marketing means need to be implemented in order to make an e-commerce site bring in the profits.

Reasons why it is a challenge:

• Linking, voluntary or natural, is not really a preferable option to all. Other sites will allow links only if they earn a commission from the links.
• The ideas presented in content are restricted, especially if the focus is solely on endorsing physical goods.
• The sheer volumes of pages that need to be optimized are overwhelming. Most e-commerce sites have a separate landing page for each product and each page is directed towards a particular segment of people only. Optimizing each page, though not an impossible task, is a tedious work that requires hours for it.

To generate more interest, not only do the right pages need to be optimized, but strategically placed internal links, focus on non-promotional material and creating market awareness are also equally important.

So, here are some ways that you can employ for your on-site optimization to bring more traffic towards your e-commerce site:

Increase web traffic – Using reviews generated via users can help you to put the e-commerce site within the top 10 list. Search engines such as Google are known to utilize user activity as a means of ranking a site. Generating more user views help in determining which pages are most visited and then updating those pages regularly. Properly promoting it via Twitter, Facebook, RSS Feeds, email marketing will help significantly to drive traffic back to your site to purchase that item (this is where an SEO Consultant comes in handy).

Update the home page – The home page is the first page that any user sees and is an indication of what the site consists of and how useful it will be from the buyer’s point of view. The homepage needs to be updated continuously and be impressive in order to attract more visitors.

Keyword targeting – Assigned keywords should be completely relevant to those pages which form the landing and title page. Keyword targeting can be used in meta descriptions also. For example; while selling a mobile phone, if the homepage keyword is ‘affordable mobile phones’, the category page would be ‘cheap <brand name> mobile phones; the product page would be ‘buy <brand model> phones’ and the information page would have the keywords ‘<brand model> specifications’.

Product optimization – Use the targeted keywords in the description of the product as well as the Alt text features of the product images. This helps in increasing the relevance score of the pages.

Using user friendly permalinks/URL – The targeted keywords for a page should ideally be on the URL. At the same time, the URLs should be Search Engine Friendly (SEF) - clean and without too many words, symbols, numbers, etc.

Removing duplicate content – The URL is very important as one site must be redirected through a single URL only. Both www. version and a non www. version must redirect to the same page. Also, use Copyscape to determine whether your page content is unique or a replica of another manufacturer selling the same product.

Create linkable pages – Add cornerstone contents to your website. This not only generates user interest in the page, but also educates visitors and makes the site look better. Adding resource pages, blog links, award displays and downloadable objects makes the site more interesting from the buyer’s point of view.

Store Widgets – Let customers know what items are related, top selling, recent additions to your store. This helps upsell and get more items into their baskets.

Add videos – Increase your page views using video sitemaps. A video helps in generating traffic through universal search and a video post within the site improves the site rankings.

Add search features – Building up the site’s usability depends a lot on how easy the site features can be utilized by the users. Setting up a search feature makes it easier for a visitor to navigate through the site. It also increases search rankings in the Google search engine algorithm.

Include blog links – Blog entries pull in visitors. They not only improve the internal linking structure of the site, but also allow more flexibility in using keywords for SEO purposes. Blogs foster relationships with readers and other sites having similar usage. A blog reinforces brand name and builds up credibility of the site.

Apart from these few means, creating widgets for your e-commerce site, developing an easy interface and allowing sharing mechanisms on the site also help in directing more traffic towards your site, which in turn will ultimately help you to generate more leads and convert them into sales. So, optimize and promote your e-commerce site using these methods as mentioned above to enjoy an augmented ROI.