You might have often planned about starting your E-commerce store and look to earn money. What If you don't own the inventory and is still curious to make money by E-commerce? The dropshipping was introduced further which made it handy and in fact easy to earn money quickly. But, the foremost thing that can be an obstacle to the progressive online business or any website is the absence of SEO.
'SEO'-This term would be so familiar to you when it comes to designing the content for your website. Google counts the smallest parameter for ranking the website. Thus, the SEO-friendly content is the key to grow without spending a penny.
We will read the need for SEO-ing the dropshipping store and how you can you save dollars by not spending on Facebook Ads and still progress your store.
What Is DropShipping?
I will be explaining the Dropshipping if you still do not know about what dropshipping is!! I have given more details about the Dropshipping in my other article.
Dropshipping is an internet business where you do not need to own the physical products. All you need is the website and just add the products to make the profits. You do not own the inventory, neither do you need to take care of the logistics or suppliers or packaging.
The only thing you would need to invest initially is some amount of money and a plenty of time to select the products that can actually be profitable for you. Initially, you might have to rely on the Facebook Ads or what we call as the apid traffic to get traffic to your site. Once, you have pulled enough traffic, it's time for the SEO to come to the rescue.
What Is SEO?
SEO- Search Engine Optimization is the method of improving the quality as well as the quantity of your website by following the certain set of rules. SEO is complicated to understand at first but once, you get familiar with it, and it can rank you higher.
Let's assume that when you search for a product in the Google search box and it shows the scads of results for you. You would surely be clicking the first to fourth results on the first page of the Google to look for your query. This is what SEO does!!
It brings more and more traffic to your site by just ranking your page higher on its search query. If you follow certain rules as suggested by Google for your content, it will reward you by ranking you higher and bringing more traffic to your site. SEO works slightly different for the Dropshipping.
Thus, to be a successful Dropshipper, read this must-guide on SEO.
Detailed Guide July 2018: How To Optimize Your DropShipping Store and Make it SEO-Friendly?
The detailed SEO guide for the Dropshipping and E-commerce varies slightly. I have divided this guide into different stages of SEO to make it more convenient for you. Also, I have covered each and every point and explained it in detail so that you feel no need to go somewhere else.
SEO in the initial stageTo start with a profitable Dropshipping business, you need a niche which is SEO-friendly. Thus, choosing the niche is vital because if the niche itself has less reach to be the SEO-friendly, it will take a lot of time in getting popular. Not all the niches in the E-Commerce are SEO-friendly.
SEO in the developmentNext in the line is the development of an SEO-friendly website. Besides crawling your content, these search engines also index and crawl your site well. Thus, proper orientation of products and easy navigation is certainly the most important part of the SEO-friendly site.
There are certain parameters that you would need to work on in the development stage. This includes choosing the right keyword, Site architecture, clean URLs and certain others.
SEO in the editing stageThe most important aspect of the SEO is its editing. A specific page ranks higher on the Google when it has got the quality content. Besides the content, editing and proper use of images are a big plus. You can turn the tables to yourself by using the unique content and the quality images. Use of proper tags is also a must for the SEO friendly sites.
Now, if you ask me what keywords do for your content, I would say that it is the name or the identity of your product. The keyword that you use for your product is the most important as the user would type in the keyword in the Google search box to find the product they need.
If the product they need is closely related with your keyword, Google will definitely consider it as a plus. Do not stuff just one kind of keyword to your post. You will need to make a variety in your keywords so that even if people search for a product with the scrambled keywords, Google will give the closest suggestion to the user.
These multiple keywords are called as the 'longtail keywords' and are of the utter importance. The longer the keywords, the better and easier it becomes for the Google to reach it. For example, the user would probably be closer to buy a product when he searches for ' black casual leather 8' shoes' instead of ' black shoes. This is where longtail keywords serve well.
Now, the best way to get the longtail keyword of your choice is to write some short as well as the long ones that are related to your niche. If you still need ideas, type in your keywords and look for the suggestions below.
For instance, I want to sell the camera and I need the keywords for it. I type in the camera and get the best searches for the camera. This way, my task for searching the best longtail keywords becomes handy.
Another way to get the keyword suggestions is to look up into the Google Keyword Planner. This keyword planner gives you all the relevant data regarding your keyword. Remember, if you would always choose the keyword with high monthly searches, they must be more competitive and thus it is advisable to use the medium as well as low frequency.
There are a lot of other helpful tools to make your search more relevant and wider:
Google looks for all the possible ways to make it convenient for the users to reach their desired queries. And thus, it also counts site architecture as one of the parameters though not important. If you are creating the customized dropshipping store, then you would need to learn the howabouts of the site structure.
When you create the site structure, it should be such that it shows the way to the Google as well as the users to your each and every page. This way, Google will index all your pages. If the site structure is not well or unidirectional, this would increase the bounce rate and Google counts that too.
What I would suggest considering important in the site structure is;
- Internal links: Create internal links on each page so that they can be crawled by one way or the other. In my article, you will find some internal links that surely considers all of your pages valuable.
- Breadcrumbs: The breadcrumbs are the navigational elements in the website that would lead you to relevant search. Try using that to make your site user-friendly.
- Create product categories and the subcategories.
- Mobile-friendly site
Improving the product title, meta description and the URL creates more attention to your product rather than the old or the dull Title. The title is the probably the first thing that any search engine will understand when trying to reach your store. It is representing your niche as well as the products you have got in the store.
If you have imported the product from Aliexpress, do not use its product title. The title or the H1 tag used by the Aliexpress looks ugly and too lengthy. Delete a few irrelevant words and keep the words that display your keyword well.
For example, In my Best Top Rated Drone Cameras article, I have added the relevant title tag.
After you have edited the product title, the next thing you would need to edit is the meta description. The meta description should be between 120 to 155 characters. Add the meta description smartly. You have to display the best features or the better pricing or the most significant thing about the product in merely 155 characters. I would suggest using the words such as 'free' or 'offers' or the 'discounts' in your meta description as it would give the viewers the reason to jump to your article.
Not just the H1 tag and the meta description is vital here, your URL also decides the credibility of your page. Suppose you have imported the product from the Aliexpress, the product, as well as the URL, might be ugly. So, make sure that you shorten the URL. Avoid the use of vague words and numbers or symbols. Make use of the keyword in the URL too.
The most important aspect of the SEO is the content. If your content is not user-friendly or if it is not related to your keywords, Google wouldn't like it and won't rank it too. In fact, the more content you have on your page related to the product, the better it will rank. So, keep the word count of your content up to at least 500 words to rank well.
The content must have keywords and that shouldn't be stuffed too. It means that if you have a content of 1000 words, then the keywords must be up to 20 and not more than that. Do not stuff the keywords as it might look ugly. To make your content SEO-friendly, the keywords must be long-tail as I told above and should seem readable.
The same goes for the product description. It should be not copied or the duplicate even if you have imported it. Try using your creativity and use the best keywords for your product. Create the description which should be more in bullets and less in the paragraphs.
The reason why most of the pages do not rank well despite the healthy content is that they do not have images with it. Images become valuable when you are creating the SEO-friendly content. If you have the image of the product, it creates the sense of trust among the readers.
Always use the original image of the product. Even after adding the images, you will need to add the Alt tag to make it accessible to the search engine. Add the Alt-tag to your image and be sure that the Alt-tag has the keyword in it. Use the image title and Alt-tag as the same.
Below, I have inserted the ALT tag in my wordpress blog.
Links are another important aspect of your SEO-friendly content. The links help Google to crawl each of your pages. There are two types of linking; Outbound or external linking, Inbound or Internal linking. Internal links are the links that point to a particular page on your site. It is important as it gives the search engine an idea that which page you want to rank for a specific keyword. Moreover, use internal links wisely and do not overdo it.
Similarly, external links point to a page from your website for a specific keyword. Always use the site with high PR for the external linking as it would create trust among the visitors. This also boosts the page ranking.
Why Do You Need SEO for E-commerce?
- Get Featured: SEO helps your page to rank higher than other pages if it deserves that reward. Higher rank means more traffic to your website. The top rank pages also get higher in PR and DA. Thus, to get featured on the first page of the Google, follow what it says.
- Cut the cost: Initially, your site might need some cost for marketing. Creating the ads on Facebook, Instagram or even the Google Adwords might cost you dearer for a long time. Also, using the paid traffic reduces the reputation of your site. Using the SEO or no cost click can make your site more visible and eventually save you a lot of money. Instead, you can spend on some paid SEO tools.
- Long-lasting effect: Once you have stopped paying for the ads, it will rank lower. On the other hand, SEO has a long-lasting effect on your site.
Recommended SEO tools for Dropshipping
To improve the SEO of your website, a lot of useful tools can be used which can help you rank better!! Some of them are listed below:
- Keyword Tool: Here with this amazing WordPress SEO Tool, you can easily find the keywords that people are trying to type into the Google search box. No doubt, this WordPress SEO Tool is the best alternative to the Google Keyword Planner. And the best part of this Keyword Research Tool is, it is absolutely free.Here this tool will allow you to generate keywords ideas just by typing a keyword in the search box. The keyword suggestion you will get here is gathered from Google's auto-suggest features. Basically, these keyword suggestions are the treasure information. Here the Google autocomplete suggest the keyword based on how frequent and often used it in the search box.
- Yoast SEO: The most downloaded WordPress SEO Plugin of all time and this SEO plugin are used by millions of people all over the world. Here WordPress SEO is a complete solution for all of your on-page optimization. This tool will allow you to add SEO title, meta descriptions along with meta keywords to each of the post and page of your site.
- It has full controls over site breadcrumbs
- It comes with Content and SEO analysis
- It provides advanced XML Sitemaps functionality
- This plugin is capable of setting canonical URLs just to avoid duplicate content.
- SEO Ultimate: SEO Ultimate is regarded as the most powerful WordPress SEO Plugins in the market as it comes with 20+ modules and more than hundreds of free features through which you can easily optimize your site.
This plugin offers Title Tag rewriter feature that will allow you to edit your title of the post along with optimizing them for the improved on-page optimization. Here Meta Description editor let you add a Meta Description to your post, pages, and categories. The best thing is that here open graph feature allows you to automatically create open graph data for the post.
SEO for Dropshipping July 2018: How Vital Is It?
As I have mentioned, SEO is the most important part of any website. If your site is not SEO-friendly, you cannot perform well and would eventually fail. I have therefore given the detailed SEO guide on Dropshipping. You can use some tools to improve your SEO.
If you have more tips to share, please write us in the comment box!!
