The Art of SEO

SEO for E-Commerce Sales

One of the most direct monetization strategies for SEO is driving relevant traffic to an e-commerce shop to boost sales. Search traffic is among the best quality available on the Web, primarily because a search user has expressed a specific goal through her query, and when this matches a product or brand the web store carries, conversion rates are often extremely high.

Forrester Research estimated the e-commerce market would top $235 billion in 2009 (http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9061108&taxonomyId=14&intsrc=kc_top), though the recent economic downturn may affect that number somewhat. With so many dollars flowing over the Web, it is little surprise that e-commerce-focused SEO is among the most competitive and popular applications of the practice.

Here are some factors to think about when considering SEO for e-commerce sales:

When to employ

Use it when you have products/services that are directly for sale on your website.

Keyword targeting

Paid search advertising is an excellent way to test the efficacy and potential ROI of keyword targets. Find those that have reasonable traffic and convert well, and then pursue them further. You’ll often find that the more specific the query—brand-inclusive, product-inclusive, and so on—the more likely the visitors are to make the purchase.

Page and content creation/optimization

You’ll typically need some serious link building, along with internal optimization, to achieve high ...