Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) might appear like distinct strategies. While each strategy offers unique benefits to marketers, when you combine them, they can deliver ample e-commerce success. How? Let us find out!
As a matter of fact, combining SEO and CRO efforts can turn your e-commerce site into a high-performing revenue generator. Together, these strategies are capable of yielding better traffic, more engaged visitors, and a better e-commerce conversion rate.
How SEO and CRO Work Together?
While the association of SEO with CRO can be applied to other acquisition-based strategy also, there are specific benefits when these conversion practices are aligned to your e-commerce organic growth efforts. These benefits depend on the respective search landscape and how Google has expanded its search engine strategically, algorithmically, and visually in the past few years.
When you combine SEO and CRO, you can achieve the following:
- Offsetting the decline in organic Click-Through Rates
- Becoming more user-focused to align effectively with the ranking systems of Google
- Validating changes to stakeholders with user-centric data
Combine SEO and CRO Strategies for E-commerce Growth
Keyword Research and User Intent
- Keyword research serves to be the foundation of a relevant SEO-based content strategy. These keywords depict what your customers are searching for. Moreover, they can also inform how you build your content pages.
- Keyword also help in understanding user intent and the overall behavior. You can make use of relevant keyword-research platforms or tools to come across high-converting keywords amongst the target audience.
On-page SEO and User-friendly Content
You can look forward to fulfilling the user intent by optimizing the site content for CRO or Conversion Rate Optimization. Some strategies to try out are:
- Update landing pages and product descriptions with the use of relevant keywords. Include the keywords in subheads, page titles, and body text. At the same time, you should be cautious about keyword stuffing, which can adversely affect your SEO ranking.
- Streamline the process of content creation by minimizing page elements and the overall clutter.
- Divine pages with well-defined headings and proper bullet points for user-friendly content.
- You can also think of improving on-page SEO by integrating keywords into metadata like meta-descriptions, title tags, and image tags.
Mobile Optimization and Website Speed
Ensure that you have a mobile-friendly website that loads quickly across devices. Here are some important mobile optimization strategies to note down:
- Improve the Website Speed: Make use of relevant website speed optimization techniques for better load times. For instance, get rid of extraneous code, minimize external scripts, and compress heavy images.
- Design a Responsive Website: With the help of responsive design, your website will automatically adjust to fit the device on which it is displayed. This makes it easier for visitors to go through your content while navigating your pages easily. This helps in improving user retention and engagement.
- Test the Mobile-friendliness: If you are in doubt, you can run your site through a mobile-friendliness test to observe whether or not it is suitable for smartphone use.
Use High-Quality Images and Detailed Descriptions
A picture is as relevant as the content on your website. This is especially true with respect to e-commerce marketing. High-quality images can help in improving the overall search rankings as well as the UX or User Experience. The use of right visuals can influence purchase decisions and ad clicks. This is why it is crucial to pair the keyword-rich product descriptions with high-quality product images.
Internal Linking and Better Navigation
As far as the overall UX or User Experience is concerned, there is nothing more irritating than clicking on an ad and being taken to some odd website. It is the duty of e-commerce marketers to make sure that visitors easily find what they are exactly searching for. It can be achieved with the help of strategic internal linking. In this way, you can create cohesive UX, right from the search results pages to the checkout page. This is one of the primary reasons why conversion rate optimization and SEO ranking strategy are crucial in driving performance outcomes.
Importance of Combining SEO and CRO for E-commerce Growth
As both SEO and CRO are primarily involved in the process of improving the performance of your website, these strategies can offer you competitive advantage when you use them together.
SEO helps in improving the website performance by gaining access to organic traffic through search engines. It achieves the same with the help of dedicated SEO strategies that are rooted in off-site and on-site techniques. At the same time, CRO eventually works towards leveraging this traffic. It goes ahead with testing customer journeys before proposing the right routes towards ensuring a conversion, thereby increasing the overall revenue.
SEO understands the specific needs of the target audience. Then, it moves towards tailoring the content around the needs and using the approach to influence core KPIs like CTR (Click-through Rate) and visibility out of organic SERPs. CRO makes use of the acquisition to understand how target audiences have currently reached the desired actions, usually associated with a service inquiry or a product sale. It then tests variants, hypotheses, and gains knowledge from these insights to implement a highly optimal and conversion-based pathway.
When you apply your resources to both SEO and CRO efforts, they offer a more comprehensive solution to maximize your organic revenue.
Conclusion
As your e-commerce business grows, It is crucial to continuously analyze customer-centric data to effectively understand how online visitors behave and how you can optimize their overall experiences. You can make use of relevant Google Analytics metrics to track core KPIs like referral sources, clickthrough rates, bounce rates, and conversion rates.
If you are not adept at handling SEO parameters effectively, digital marketing experts O+ can help you out. With the help of a reliable digital marketing agency, you can fuel your e-commerce success across every stage of the e-commerce journey.
