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7 Effective SEO Strategies for Sustainable Businesses

Last updated by staff

The circular economy has been of increasing importance to the Indian consumer. Combined with the expanding middle class, people are actively looking for ethical products and businesses. Quick purchases were the norm in the previous decade. Consumers are now doing their research. They do not hoard their belongings and look for a singular long-term usage of their products, be it food or fashion.

7 Effective SEO Strategies for Sustainable Businesses

 

A potential customer, who always carries a mobile, is always on the lookout for new products, wherever they are. Such micro-moments have to be created by brands, with an IBM report mentioning that 35% of consumers shop in this manner. Customers are increasingly turning to online sustainable businesses, which provide information about what and why the consumer is buying, unlike traditional brands. 

The Voice of Fashion’s (TVF) India Sustainability Report mentions that 49% of respondents were open to adopting sustainable practices. In this article, we outline a few SEO strategies for sustainable businesses to gain better reach and customers online:-‘

 

SEO for Sustainable Businesses

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a method where organizations can organically get business leads or users without paying for ads or sponsored content. 

Building your SEO for a sustainable brand will involve two primary requirements- time and research. Doing thorough research of what your customers want would help to build your SEO content. Are customers looking for a specific requirement? Or are they looking for answers via your brand? SEO, like a brand, is to be built over time by earning trust. Posting content daily on social media and updating your website would go a great way in helping your Google Rankings. Also, read a detailed guide about the most common ecommerce SEO mistakes here. 

 

Create a Blog

Sustainable brands should educate consumers on what their product is all about. They inform them and do not bombard them with ads or posts. Having a conversation with a customer is what is utmost for a sustainable brand to gain trust.

Blogs help sustainable brands to educate and thereby gain the trust of their customers. Posting regularly about the latest developments in the industry, while also talking about your product enables your SEO too.

B Label, an Indian clothing line uses hemp to make affordable and everyday garments. It is a part of the Bombay Hemp Company, an Agro-enterprise. B label is consistent in writing articles on their blog. Examples include celebrities who use sustainable brands, the role of hemp, and the rise of slow fashion amongst others. Posting consistently has enabled B-Label to rise to the first page on Google Rankings. This also helps their parent company with its SEO, directing consumers to find out more about Bombay Hemp Company.

Posting high-quality and relevant content will keep consumers on your website for longer. The longer they stay on your website, the better it is for your SEO. Blogs help generate trust for the consumer and SEO for you, as an owner of a sustainable brand.

Create a Local Google Business Page

Local SEO, in simple terms, is optimizing your website for a specific local area. For this, you should include the name of your brand and the area it is located in. Both should go up in prominent areas such as contact us or our story on your webite.

Google Listings is another way to amplify your local SEO strategy. For example, Bhumika and Jyoti is a brand that makes clothes out of waste. Termed as a zero-waste concept store, they have successfully added their details on Google, which appears on the first page. This ensures consumers do not have to search aimlessly for the brand. Remember, you are fighting for attention in a world filled with noises. You will have to add or claim your organization, verify it thereafter and then add photos, videos, and your office timings on the page. In this way, people from a particular area can directly contact and rate you, which is a potential business opportunity for you and also increases your Google ranking.

For example, X runs a vegan food brand in Koramangla Bangalore. X should tailor their SEO to vegan food near me for consumers staying in Bangalore. People will click on the business profile and will be curious enough to go onto the website. Consumers who are conscious about their choice but unsure of their sustainable decision will often rely on ratings. How do unknown people feel about this product? Hence, ensure that your brand has ratings on Google.

Using the Skyscraper Technique

The Skyscraper Technique is a way of generating clicks in articles that are already published. Started by Brian Dean in 2015, this technique builds on content that is already out there. Let us go through it step by step for a sustainable band.

Finding Content That Has Many Backlinks

Sustainable brands, which are still at a nascent stage in India appear in an unorganized manner on Google. Most of the articles are listicles from websites that have a good reach. Such examples are Idiva, Elle, and Grazia. Use tools such as Ahrefs Site Explorer and Content Explorer to understand which websites have the most backlinks and organic search traffic.

Make The List Better

A preliminary Google search shows most articles on sustainable brands in India are from last year. Some even date back to 2019. Go through each listicle and find the brands which are not functional or the links which are broken. Add more brands to the list to better the original link. If the article lists 20 brands, you write 30.

Reach Out to the Original Creator

SEO has to be regularly updated. If you do not post regularly, your website will go down in the rankings. Articles written before will have information and broken links which are not of any use. Write to the website posting the original links to replace those with your superior links. They would gladly do it as their SEO rankings are maintained and your own rankings due to it being relevant.

In short, the skyscraper technique builds on content that is already out there. You need to find the best links, create updated and quality content and reach out to the original website.

Focus on Website Development

Perhaps an unnoticed feature of building a sustainable business, website development is gaining more importance. Google has indicated the mobile-first index will be used to determine SEO rankings in 2021. If a user is confused or irritated by the website layout, they will close the tab within seconds. The Google Search console helps website owners understand various user-experience issues for navigation via a mobile. Understand and hire an experienced web developer to solve all UX-related issues.

Meta Descriptions are short paragraphs that directly appear below the title tag on the search engine results. While meta description does not affect SEO rankings directly, it can lead to higher click-through rates. Each page on your website will have a unique meta-description, which involves page information and a call to action. Ensure the meta description is updated and carefully curated.

Adding an encrypted connection (HTTPS), checking for dead pages, and updating content are also the objectives a business owner should keep in mind for the website.

Long-Form SEO Queries is the Goal

2015: Organic Food in India

2021: Which are the best organic food brands in India?

The internet, which is a limitless sea of information, is often leaving consumers confused. Sustainable brands, in their nascent stage in India, would do well if they started using SEO to answer long-form queries. Users would use 3-4 words in their Google search in 2015, while 2021 has seen users use 7-8 words to ask queries. They want direct and simple answers.

A good idea would be to write blogs on such queries. Inform consumers by writing simple blogs, which tackle the answer in the very first paragraph. They will then read the rest of the article. 

Google’s RankBrain, a machine-learning algorithm has been functional since 2016 and is the third most important factor in determining search rankings. It rewards long-form content based on time spent on the site, click-through rate amongst others. Informative and longer content ensures more people on the website and more click-through rates. Long-form content on sustainability would be relevant for a few years, while trendy content will not last more than a month.

Research About Your Competitor’s SEO Game

Until you don’t understand which keywords are working, how would you begin using SEO for your business? At times, SEO marketing is based on assumptions that work only 50% of the time. It would be better if you back up your SEO with research.

Spyfu is a great resource to understand the SEO strategy of competitors. It covers organic keywords, paid keywords, and PPC (Pay Per Click) rates. You will eventually understand how well your competitor is doing, rankings, paid campaigns, and much more. You can eventually start maintaining a keyword list of successful and unsuccessful campaigns

Involve Your Customer in Your SEO Strategy

Show, don’t tell. Show your customer what the product is about and involve them. A sustainable business involves the customer making a conscious choice. Have them try and understand your product. Instead of saving the world through your product, show how their lives will change. 

Good Dot, a vegan food start-up based in India involves the customer in the journey and shares their feedback on their social media. Another idea would be generating SEO through video content on Youtube. Tie-up with digital influencers who are growing at a fast rate would be an additional source of increasing your SEO reach online.

Lastly, keep updating yourself on the latest SEO trends. Google has indicated that voice searches will be on the rise in 2021, with many consumers dependent on Alexa or Google Assistant for their daily needs. A good strategy would be to update yourself and try the latest SEO trends, even if they fail once a while. 

Orvador works primarily with sustainable brands. If you are looking for a sustainable brands digital marketing & SEO agency, you can contact us.

10 Ways in Which SEO Can Help eCommerce Businesses post COVID-19

Last updated by staff

The COVID-19 pandemic has shifted the way we consume the media, how we move about in public, and more importantly, our methods of buying essentials and products have completely moved online. 

In March 2020, when the lockdown was announced, UPI transactions skyrocketed to an incredible 565%, as per an ET Money report. Any business, be it a traditional or an eCommerce one has been forced to move online. 

Shopify, a proprietary eCommerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems, grew over 38% to 457 million merchants in 2020. 

SEO of Ecommerce in Covid

 

Let’s understand what is SEO?

The pandemic has seen most people searching for products via search engines. SEO offers a unique opportunity to grab eyeballs and in turn, customers. SEO or search engine optimization is a method where organizations and businesses can organically get business leads or users without paying for ads or sponsored content. A good starting point in the SEO game is to use the EAT (Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness) strategy while formulating your online strategy.

 

Now, let’s move on to 10 ways in which SEO can help eCommerce businesses move past COVID-19:

 

  • Earn From The Trend

Let’s assume, you are a retailer selling shoes of all types. It is summer in India and the cricket season is on. The particular manufacturing company has announced a discount on the sports shoe. As a retailer, you can run a small SEO campaign that focuses on that particular shoe.

The advantages would be that the customers would come across your website or social media pages on the first page of the search engine while searching for those shoes. Remember, customers are in a hurry and nobody goes beyond the first page. A Forbes report mentioned that the first page of Google captures over a staggering 71% of clicks.  You can then change your SEO strategy as per your sales and vice versa. 

Google has also indicated the mobile-first index will be used to determine SEO rankings in 2021. This means that the longer a user stays on your website, the higher your SEO rankings will go.

 

  • Leverage YouTube To Rank Higher

As per a report, India has 342.3 million YouTube users, up from 168 million in 2017. A 2019 Think with Google report on India also mentioned the following on the use of video- “we found that 80% of auto buyers watch YouTube videos to find answers and reviews before making their purchase”. 

The pandemic has seen many consumers take to YouTube to make purchases for the household, be it a laptop or healthy food items for young children. 

If you are looking to amp your social media strategy, think in terms of video. Google owns Youtube, which means that if your SEO keywords for the search engine are optimized, your videos will also turn up in the video bar of the engine. Customers will search for a product and look for its reviews in the video format. 

YouTube is comprehensive in its parameters for reviewing SEO- target keywords, engagement rates on a video, subtitles, video descriptions, and sentiment among others. You can then add links to your website or social media in the description. A good thumb rule for YouTube is that of TOP- Targeting, Optimizing and Promoting your videos.

 

  • Go LOCAL in Your SEO Strategy

Local SEO, in simple terms, is optimizing your website for a specific local area. For this, you should include the name of your business and the area it is located in. If you are a sports store, make sure to add your details online. Ask happy customers to rate you online so that your Google Rankings improve.

Google Listings is another way to amplify your local SEO strategy. You will have to add or claim your organization/business, verify it thereafter and then add photos, videos, and your office timings on the page. If you are a supermarket, you can add your location and timings online. In the pandemic, consumers will want to shop local in their nearby areas, rather than traveling miles to buy their essentials.

 

  • Prepare For the Trend- Voice Searches

“Hey Siri, play Despacito.”

“Alexa, when is my order arriving?”

We have all used these two lines before. Voice-related technology is on the rise. 20% of searches in the Google App are done by voice. Google has its own Digital Assistant for a while, with the tech giant talking about schema on websites. But what is Schema?

Schema is a semantic vocabulary of tags (or microdata) that you can add to your HTML to improve the way search engines read and represent your page in SERPs (Search engine results pages). The technology is available only for news publications due to them putting out verified stories and information. It will soon be available for organizations and businesses.

How to prepare for this trend? Revamp your SEO strategy or hire a digital marketing agency specializing in eCommerce businesses. Write coherent and easy-to-read sentences on your website to rank higher in the search engines. Remember, you are writing for people and not robots. You are also writing for consumers who are busy and cannot read for more than a minute. 

As for the technical aspects, there are four points to understand- 

  1. Follow all the specifications that Google has mentioned (content, data protocol, etc.).
  2. Add the Google Schema in the coding of your website.
  3. Test and approve the data.
  4. Send the content for the eligibility and onboarding process.

 

  • Go Headless

The importance of SEO in eCommerce is only growing. The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated its importance manyfold. SEO, which is both, front and back end of a website would aid your content management, and by extension, headless commerce.

Headless Commerce is simply an eCommerce solution that stores, manages, and delivers content without a front-end delivery layer. A prominent example is that of Nike. The sports retailer wanted to get more sales via mobile. They implemented headless commerce. React SPA, combined with Node.js backend for frontend was what Nike did. They eventually overtook Adidas for the number of sales in 2020. You can read more examples of Headless Commerce here.

Part of the IoT (Internet of Things) technology where everything is connected to the cloud, Headless Commerce is also helpful when it comes to user experience. A good thumb rule to follow in UX is that of three clicks: users should find whatever they want within three clicks on a mouse. This gives the front-end developers the freedom and the backends the space to experiment on a website. Read a useful post about how to SEO for Headless Commerce 

 

  • Experiment With Your Content

Experiment with what you want to say on social media. Even if you run a bricks and mortar business, make sure to post adequately online. This solves two objectives. It will amplify your business among current customers and create a feeling of reliability and trust amongst potential customers. You can experiment with memes or even a few self-deprecatory can earn a snigger on social media and SEO channels. If you do not try, you would not know.

 

  • Understand Analytics

There are many tools available to evaluate your social media content. The process might take time but as a business owner, you can understand what type of content, marketing techniques are working for your business. Here are a few tools:-

  1. Google Search Central – For the latest updates on the Google Search algorithm and best SEO practices
  2. Crazy Egg –   Crazy Egg is essential in understanding what customers are looking at your websites. It generates heat maps and also provides A/B testing for your website.
  3. Semrush – A competitive marketing and business analytics, Semrush is known for its keyword research and local SEO features.
  4. Moz – A blog on the latest SEO trends and practices.

 

  • Make SEO A Part of Your Overall Marketing Strategy

Ensure that your overall brand tone and image are in sync with what is being on social media and for SEO content. Do not sacrifice your brand strategy just for a few clicks or numbers. Do away with dead links or pages on your website. Your website should talk about COVID-19 protocols, and ensure phone numbers and email IDs are in use. Your advertising strategy does not happen via a campaign, but on a daily basis through social media content and SEO changes.

 

  • Nurture The Relationship Between SEO & User Experience

SEO, which is a continuous and not a one-off process will be helpful when it comes to the user experience of your website. You might notice a navigation tool is not working, or a banner is not catching as much attention as you wanted. Such practices will only help you get better in a time where customers are spending extra time on the internet, due to the pandemic. 

Even if you are in a business that did not run during the pandemic, you can use this time to build trust and potential sales amongst clients. The Google Search console helps website owners understand various user-experience issues for navigation via a mobile. Understand and hire an experienced web developer to solve all UX-related issues.

 

  •  Search Your Customer & Your Brand

Potential customers are scouring the internet, looking for new content to consume and new items to go for tab shopping (the online term for window shopping). Search Engine analysis would be the best way to get to know your customer well and even find the pressure points of your brand story. It is time to revamp that.

eCommerce which had taken a hit due to the pandemic is slowly getting back to its hit. Our ways of shopping have changed, with AR/VR also going to play a major role. SEO would have its role in being consistent with its messaging and tone for every business, which is vying for those crucial 30-second attention spans. Every company is a media company in 2021, and it’s best to start now.

 

Top 10 Benefits Of eCommerce SEO Audit In 2021

Last updated by staff

An SEO audit is a process of analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of a website and how well it performs on the web. The main purpose of the audit is to identify various foundational issues that can affect the organic search performance of a website. 

benefits of SEO Audit Report

This process (that usually takes 2 to 4 weeks) also helps to discover the new SEO opportunities on the website and allows the website owners to stay updated with the current SEO requirements and trends. Comprehensive audits will assess the most significant of these ranking signals to identify where your website can improve. In this blog, we are going to identify the top 10 benefits of an SEO audit for an online store in 2021 are important.

Why Is eCommerce SEO Audit Important In 2021?

eCommerce SEO audit helps to develop a strong website and marketing strategy to fine-tune the website. It also gives insights into what our competitors are doing. Keeping an eye on competitors’ actions is necessary when even a small CTA can improve your website’s visibility. 

Search engines use ranking signals, which would determine the site’s ranking on search engines. Here are the top 10 SEO audit benefits of an eCommerce store.

  • Improves Your SEO Strategy: Google changes its algorithm often to improve the users’ experience. eCommerce SEO audit identifies those changes and allows you to improve the SEO strategy for your online store. This in turn helps to increase the website’s ranking which is the goal of any SEO  activity. Hence,  timely auditing is important as it enables the evaluation of the plan to improve your eCommerce website.

 

  • Improves Conversion Rate: The importance of eCommerce SEO audit is that it helps to examine the top landing pages and their content, design, and CTAs that play an important role in maximizing the conversion rates. It takes a lot of trial and error to figure out what is best for an eCommerce website. This eventually has an effect on the ROI of the business with improved SEO and a better website ranking. The best part of Conversion Rate Optimization through SEO audit is that it doesn’t simply focus on increasing the traffic but getting the right audience to your online store who can be your potential customers. It also keeps a track of such prospects and helps in conversion.

 

  • Identifies Offsite & Onsite Issues: Website audit identifies the issues that drive traffic away from the website. They may include spam, unfriendly URLs, broken backlinks, etc. Once these issues are resolved, it improves the retention rate of the customers on your website which could mean increased sales. To evaluate your on-page content strategy to find any gaps or places where you need to improve, you can also look at your competitor’s content strategy. This helps you evaluate what type of content they create and how does it impact their eCommerce business.

 

  • Helps In Improving The Content: Among all SEO activities, the content remains at the top. The most important reason why anyone becomes a regular visitor to your online store is the content or the value you add to their life. Technical SEO audit helps in identifying the content that works and also that doesn’t, on your eCommerce website. Improving the content could mean higher engagement and better organic ranking on Google.

 

  • Improves Keywords Strategy: Planning a solid keyword strategy comes from extensive research and an eCommerce SEO audit. As discussed previously, content is the core behind organic search visibility, and content is all about value and keywords. SEO audit helps to come up with improved keywords that can be used in meta tags, headlines, multimedia engagement, etc. which increase the chance of organic search visibility. Never add irrelevant keywords. Do your research carefully and pick out a few important and relevant keywords for each page.

 

  • Makes Page Speed & UX Better: Even though proper optimization is required, Google also focuses on user experience. It ranks those websites higher that provide outstanding UX besides higher website speed, minimum linking error, better site architecture, URL, and most importantly, crawlability. For better crawlability, it is important to use robot.txt files, proper sitemap, and efficient use of rel=noindex tag. Regular website auditing helps to find such issues with the code through  Page Speed insights. It helps to analyze different popular pages of the website to make sure you check over every bottleneck that slows things down.

 

  • Identifies Backlinks: Backlinks work on the simple concept: the higher the number of reputed links we have attached to our eCommerce website, the higher are the chances of getting traffic organically. One should also be aware of how many backlinks are there on the competitors’ websites. This is again where auditing helps as it helps you identify how many backlinks your website has and also the quality of those.

 

  • Discovers Revenue Sources: There is a whole untapped market of influencers or affiliates who can become partners of your brand. Their followers trust them and often follow their advice. If such influencers collaborate for your eCommerce brand, it can be possible to create an impact on millions of people in one go. To find these potential influencers keyword research also helps. This is where auditing your eCommerce store helps by providing you the list of top influencers and bloggers using similar keywords.

 

  • Better Use Of Keywords: Google recently changed its algorithm to filter out those websites or articles from the web, where keywords are used simply to increase their visibility. Such articles didn’t give any value to the readers. It was just a bunch of keywords put together. With the new algorithm, any article that uses keywords inappropriately is being penalized by Google. We helps you to design content strategically for your brand. Your content and words should be engaging enough and easy to understand. To rank higher in search results, you need to know what your potential customers are looking for and then build your website to include those keywords.

 

  • Enhances Usability: The website’s usability not only depends on how beautifully it is designed but also on how efficiently the site is organized and arranged. Website visitors should be able to navigate easily and find the required information with the few clicks as possible. This is important because users’ retention rate on digital platforms is short and to ensure sales, their needs must be fulfilled within a few seconds of them being on your eCommerce website. A website audit can help identify the drop rates on particular web pages that can be improved for better results besides identifying which all web pages are performing well.

 

eCommerce SEO audit is a regular exercise that needs to be performed periodically for a better understanding of the website and to keep you ahead of the competition. We hope that this blog gives you an idea of why SEO auditing is crucial for the better performance of your online store. It ultimately has an impact on the sales and ROI of the business unit. If you are looking for website auditing services, get in touch with us for quality and affordable results. Orvador digs deeper into your traffic data to provide concrete data analysis, structured strategy, and logical execution to provide all benefits of SEO audit.

Top 5 SEO Trends For The Future Of Ecommerce In 2021

Last updated by staff

Due to the coronavirus crisis, 2020 was filled with natural growth opportunities for eCommerce stores. With offline shopping becoming dangerous and inconvenient in many places, customers were inclined to make online purchases instead. However, the future of eCommerce in 2021 is such that eCommerce stores will have to work very hard to maintain and strengthen the momentum of the previous year. As the pandemic slowly fades away, customers will likely return to old habits. Don’t leave the future of eCommerce to unpredictable circumstances. Rather, take control of your eCommerce store’s growth by embracing the following eCommerce trends in 2021. 

ecommerce seo trends 2021

 

  • Page Experience Optimization Is Necessary For The Future of eCommerce in 2021

 

Google uses page experience – among several other factors – to determine the rank of a website. There are currently five search signals determining page experience. They are mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS-security, and intrusive interstitial guidelines. 

Among these signals, mobile-friendliness is the one that is of the greatest importance to eCommerce platforms. Customers are placing orders through their phones increasingly more often, and the mobile-friendliness of eCommerce stores must keep pace with them. This requirement is made more urgent by the fact that Google is set to complete its transition to mobile-first indexing (looking at a mobile site first as the primary version of that store) across all sites in March 2021. This means that a subpar mobile experience will lead to a lower search engine rank, while a better one will improve your eCommerce store’s rank. This makes heightening mobile-friendliness one of the key future trends of eCommerce.

Furthermore, Google has derived three new signals that will also be important determiners of a website’s page experience score, starting in May 2021. These signals are the largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay, and Cumulative Layout Shift. They measure loading speed, time to interactivity, and visual stability respectively. Each signal represents a unique aspect of the user experience of a page, judging how user-friendly it is. Accordingly, greater investment in improving page experience is going to be a key aspect of the future of eCommerce in 2021. If you are concerned about the page experience score of your eCommerce store, read this article to learn about how you can improve pagespeed score using core vitals. 

 

  • Using A Keyword Strategy Centered Around Purchase Intent Is Essential 

 

Customers often use phrases like “nearby” or “near me” while searching for products or services. For example, think about every time you’ve searched for the nearest hospital in your area, the closest shopping center in an unfamiliar part of your hometown, or a restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Such search terms are excellent for spotting strong commercial intent from customers. Thus, accounting for such keywords is one of the most important future trends of eCommerce. Voice Search will also rise since Mobile traffic is increasing for the past few years. Read more about Tips and Tricks of Voice Search SEO here. 

However, by focussing on keywords that imply some strong acquisition intent, eCommerce stores can be well prepared for the future of eCommerce in 2021. Including such phrases ensures that eCommerce stores are reaching out to customers when customers are looking for something their business offers. By doing so, eCommerce stores can reveal online options to customers who may not be aware of them. Local SEO will also play an important role in this. 

 

  • Understanding the Role Of Artificial Intelligence In Search Engine 

 

Artificial Intelligence is becoming increasingly more important in the context of Search Engine Optimization. Google’s use of Artificial Intelligence algorithms started with RankBrain, a machine learning algorithm that adjusts results based on the current query and past information. At the end of 2019, Google employed BERT, another Artificial Intelligence that seeks to understand the nuances of the language used in a search and tries to interpret longer terms to find the most relevant results. It can also contextualize words in a search term based on the other words around it. 

With respect to the future of eCommerce in 2021, this means that eCommerce stores will need to develop high quality, well-organized content that engages and informs users. Although traditional SEO markers like keywords, etc. will remain important, the use of Artificial Intelligence by Google mandates their intelligent, sensible, and relevant use. This means that technical SEO will become more important in the future. 

 

  • Video Optimization Is Key For The Future Of eCommerce in 2021

 

The importance of images in eCommerce is well documented. They build trust, boost customers’ purchasing tendencies, and convey important information, both implicitly and explicitly. However, it is online video content that is imperative for the future of eCommerce in 2021. Although videos and images serve similar purposes, the dynamism of video content makes it far more powerful in attracting and retaining customers for your eCommerce store. 

While making video content for your eCommerce store, ensure that your video channel’s name and description are optimized, and provide a comprehensive, user-friendly overview of the channel. Additionally, using the keywords smartly is crucial. For example, while optimizing for YouTube, take inspiration from the auto-complete feature of the website’s search box. Type in your video’s topic, noticing what appears up in the search field. Use the results as a list of suggested keywords, because the autocomplete feature reveals exactly what YouTube users are looking for! After creating a list of keywords, ensure that you are using them intelligently, without compromising users’ experience of your channel or its videos.

 

  • Fulfilling the EAT Principle Is Imperative

 

Providing high-quality content is critical to achieving a high rank. However, which parameters determine quality? The EAT principle is the answer to this question and will shape the future of eCommerce in 2021. Standing for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, the acronym ‘EAT’ describes the three key attributes of quality content, as determined by Google. 

Accordingly, you can take several steps to ensure that the content on your eCommerce store is evaluated highly by Google. To begin with, create buyer personas, which will help you understand the type of content that appeals to your clients. You must also conduct search intent research to better map out the consumer journey. Then, use this information to create content in your users’ preferred formats. For example, if you’re catering to youth, video and short-form content is probably the way to go. If you’re serving an older audience, easily navigable text-heavy content may be more appropriate.

Finally, be mindful of the EAT principle as you craft content, because attention to detail will add up to improve the ranking of your eCommerce store. For example, support the claims you make with statistics and facts, linking to reputable sites with great DA. Having authoritative websites backlink to your website is another way to fulfill the EAT criteria. Create Pillar Content for your store and do an outreach campaign to promote this and outshine the competitors. 

The future of eCommerce in 2021 indicates that gaining and maintaining an enviable position in the eCommerce space will not be an easy task. However, by improving these five aspects of your eCommerce store, you can ensure that 2021 is a successful year for your business.  We can help your eCommerce store implement the future trends of eCommerce and create a competitive advantage. Get in touch with us today for expert advice and services! 

What are the most important Ecommerce SEO KPIs?

Last updated by Ajit Singh Kullar

Understanding KPIs and their Significance – 

 

When you launch an ecommerce business, you invest so much more than just money – numerous ideas, countless hours, probably your life’s savings, and the trust of the people in your team. Now the time has passed and it is time to evaluate the actual results – for the people above you in your organization, for the client, and above all – for yourself!

How do you prove productivity? 

How do you show that you have added value to this project – in a measurable way? 

The answer lies in the Key Performance Indicators or the KPIs!

Key performance indicators, or KPIs, are the different aspects that measure the performance of a project or task. In case of eCommerce businesses, the KPIs allow the business owners, webpage developers, and marketing people to determine the profitability of a particular site. By understanding how successful the site is, further business plans can be made. In case of a not-so-desirable output, the team can work on the aspects that need to be improved in order to get the desired business results. 

One factor that needs to be taken into consideration is that the KPIs in the SEO or ecommerce industry may not necessarily be the same as the other business models. And hence, it is of paramount importance that an online business owner, SEO agency or webmaster understand the KPIs very clearly, and also the specific KPIs that need to be taken into account while assessing the profitability of the business.

What to presume before you evaluate – 

We have already established that an ecommerce business model will have a different set of KPIs than the other businesses. But another factor that needs to be considered is the nature of the business of the e-commerce entity. For instance, an ecommerce store dealing with a luxury clothing brand may have low number or orders but a very high Average Order value. However, the business like Grocery products etc. usually have high number of orders but low or average product price. 

The right set of ecommerce KPIs or Questions to ask business will depend on the following main factors – 

  • The business entity’s age
  • The line of business
  • The organizational goals

It is also necessary to choose realistic, measurable, and achievable KPIs. With specific KPIs set, and measurable results in hand, you can make decisions based on solid data rather than assuming things. KPIs can actually help a business rework on SEO components such as keyword ranking and strength, abandonment rate, average session duration, etc. 

Now the question of which KPIs to track is answered here…

We are here to help you shortlist the key Ecommerce KPIs. Let’s have a look at some of the top SEO KPIs that you need to track-

  • Organic Sessions

The traffic on your website is perhaps one of the most apparent key performance indicators, which a business owner will want to track. As a rule of thumb, the higher the traffic in organic search, the better the chances of conversion of these into actual sales. However, this may not always be true. And the numbers can exponentially increase with the increase in the number of people that visit your site. Apart from increasing the chances of converting organic visitors into actual purchasers, an increase in traffic also means more awareness of your brand, which, in turn, may lead to referral traffic. One needs to keep a track of this KPI, and look for noticeable highs and lows and the pattern in the increase or decrease.

  • Goals vs Conversions

Goals are the first step towards launching any business, whether it is a physical store or an ecommerce one. Unless we know where we want to go, we cannot plan how to reach there. Based on the goals, SEO strategies are formulated and budgets are allocated; and based on the achievements (in our case, conversions), strategies need to be revisited. Hence it is of great importance to understand where a business stands as compared to the goals determined. Google Analytics can be of great help here – by setting up goal tracking in Google Analytics, you can monitor the goals for your website and work on the marketing strategies based on the data in hand. Google Analytics is undoubtedly a blessing for those working in the SEO and digital marketing domains.

  • SEO ROI

SEO is a long-term process and it takes at least 4-6 months of investment on SEO, Content and Website before one start seeing results. So it is very important to understand the benefits associated with any investment that is done in a business. Consider this example – content marketing is one of the important components of SEO; it involves payment to the content writers, charges associated with press and media releases and in some cases, digital costs. Now, the ROI on this would be calculated based on the cost of the actual content. If you end up spending more than the cost of the content, then the ROI is bound to be very low. In such a situation, the strategies in place will have to be relooked at and then revised or reworked.

  • Competitor Rankings & Strategies

Many times, we are so involved with our own strategies and designs, that we often forget the other significant part of the business – the competitor! When in business, it is very important to keep an eye at the competitor – not only to understand what makes them better than us, but also to understand what we can do to be better than them.

Whether it is the product line, or the discounts offered or even something as simple as the appearance of the website – it is necessary to keep yourself at par or above, so that the ultimate aim of giving the customers a better user experience is fulfilled. Always remember, one satisfied customer may always help you in getting more referrals and conversions.

Few other important SEO KPIs are Landing Pages Performance, Impressions vs Clicks vs Page Position, Featured Snippets performance etc. Some of the most important Featured Snippets in Ecommerce business are:

  • Product Markup schema, the code that describes the basic information about the product
  • Website Business Schema like Organization, Local Business etc.
  • Category Schema markups like Breadcrumbs etc.
  • FAQ schema markup which will help users answer questions in the Google Search box directly.
  • Reviews Schema, which add more value to the search by providing more information
  • Price Schema, which helps people to make the purchase decision by comparing the price across various ecommerce sites.
  • Product Availability Schema, which will provide additional information to the buyer regarding the availability of the product.
  • Video Schema, another tool to provide more information regarding the usage or appearance of a product on the SERP. This, however, may not be applicable to all types of products.

 

  • Page Load Speeds

Customer’s time is of paramount importance, no one wants to sit and look at the screen while it takes its own sweet time to load the pages! The speed at which page loads could be a debatable KPI. According to Google, pagespeed of a webpage is extremely important, as it ultimately leads to a better experience for the user. Many SEO experts also advocate that the page load speed plays a crucial role in deciding the rankings and popularity among the customers. Moreover, Google’s upcoming Pagespeed and user experience-related update “Core Web Vitals” will be a major game-changer and create a far better experience in the future. Google AMP is another great example. 

Concluding thoughts…

As a business owner, it is necessary to understand your goals, create strategies, and execute them. While looking at the effectiveness of the strategies, it is necessary to understand that there are certain parameters that help you assess the profitability of your business. We at Orvador are constantly trying to help our clients assess whether their SEO strategies have worked in their favour or not. Feel free to let us know your thoughts on this.

 

The Core Web Vitals of SEO That Will Affect Your Ecommerce Store’s Google Ranking in 2021

Last updated by staff

What Are The Core Web Vitals Of SEO?

A lot of different factors influence how Google determines the rank of a website. One of these is page experience, which essentially evaluates the users’ experience on the page. 

 

SEO Core Web Vitals

 

The existing search signals for page experience include mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS-security, and intrusive interstitial guidelines. These factors are called the Core Web Vitals of SEO. They each represent a unique, measurable aspect of the user experience of the page, judging how user-friendly it is. Furthermore, since the Core Web Vitals of SEO measure user experience, they are likely to change as user expectations evolve.

Breaking Down The 3 Core Web Vitals Of SEO

 

core web vitals infographic

Image Source: Google Developers

Google has derived three new signals from the Core Web Vitals of SEO for its May 2021 update. Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay, and Cumulative Layout Shift each measure loading speed, time to interactivity, and visual stability respectively. 

  1. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) 

A “good” LCP score is achieved if the LCP occurs within the first 2.5 seconds of the page starting to load. 

LCP measures the time taken by a page’s main content to load. Since the Core Web Vitals of SEO are all user-focused, LCP measures how long it takes for the page to become readable from the user’s perspective. More technically, the LCP metric reports how long it takes for the largest image or text block visible within the viewport to become available to the user. If the LCP occurs between 2.5 and 4 seconds, it “needs improvement”, and if it takes longer than 4 seconds, it is designated as “poor”.

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) Score

Image Source: web.dev

  1. First Input Delay (FID)

A “good” FID is less than 100 milliseconds.

FID measures the time taken by the page to become interactive and responsive to users. For example, it measures how long it would take for a user to perform an action like choosing an option from a menu or clicking a link. More technically, FID measures the time difference between when a user first performs an action on a page and when the browser begins processing event handlers to respond to that action. The FID “needs improvement” if it is between 100 and 300 milliseconds, and is considered “poor” if it is greater than 300 milliseconds.

First Input Delay

Image Source: wed.dev

  1. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

A “good” CLS score is less than 0.1. 

CLS measures the volume of unexpected layout shifts in the visual page content. This metric essentially measures how smooth the user experience is. If elements on your page remain fairly stable as the page loads and do not shuffle around a lot, your page is probably in a good place in terms of CLS. An expert explains, “CLS measures the total of all individual layout shift scores for every unexpected layout shift that occurs during the entire lifespan of the page. A layout shift occurs any time a visible element changes its position from one rendered frame to the next.” A CLS between 0.1 and 0.25 “needs improvement”, and a score above 0.25 is considered “poor”.

CLS Core Web Vitals

Image Source: web.dev

How Will The Core Web Vitals of SEO Affect Your Ecommerce Store’s Google Ranking in 2021?

Google will roll out an update in May 2021 that will make the users’ experience one of the ranking factors for any website. As per this Google update, user-friendly sites will rank higher than sites that aren’t user-friendly. This is in line with Google’s ambition to rank the sites that users love the most.  

Since the Core Web Vitals of SEO measures a user’s experience on your eCommerce store’s pages, it will be imperative for you to improve them. By improving your scores for each of these parameters, you can help users have a better experience on your site, encouraging them to return to it and use it more frequently.  Ignoring the Core Web Vitals would be one of the major Ecommerce SEO mistakes! 

Although the page experience metric is only one of many used to determine Google ranking, it’s certainly worth investing in if you want to improve the Google ranking of your site’s pages. Get in touch with us today if you want to improve the Google ranking of your eCommerce store in 2021!

Where Can I Find My Site’s Core Web Vitals of SEO Data?

You can find your site’s Core Web Vitals of SEO data in the “enhancements” section of your Google Search Console account.

 

Search Console Enhancements Core Web Vitals Report

 

How Can I Improve My Site’s Core Web Vitals of SEO Score?

Once the Google updates roll out in May 2021, improving your site’s Core Web Vitals of SEO score will be essential to improve its Google ranking.  In anticipation of the update, developers can undertake several actions to improve each parameter’s score.

To improve your site’s LCP, you can:

For a page that’s composed of just content (like a blog post or news articles), FID isn’t very important, since the only “interactions” involve scrolling down the page or zooming in and out. However, for a page that is populated with actions that involve users needing to quickly click on and/or input something (like a login page), FID is extremely important. 

To improve your site’s FID, you can:

  • Minimize (or defer) JavaScript
  • Remove any non-critical third-party scripts
  • Use a browser cache

Finally, you can lower your site’s CLS score (reminder: a lower CLS score is better!) by:

  • Using set size attribute dimensions for any media
  • Ensuring ad elements have a reserved space
  • Adding new UI elements below the fold
Note: Consult with your Tech team before implementing above recommendations on Store. 

Although effective, these methods are certainly very technical. These SEO jargon and concepts are often challenging to understand for non-professionals in most circumstances, so if you would like some expert advice, or want to outsource SEO of your eCommerce store with respect to the Core Web Vitals, get in touch with Orvador today by getting Free SEO Audit of your website. 

 

5 Examples Of Sustainable eCommerce Brands

Last updated by staff

 

eCommerce Sustainability Is In Demand

There is an increase in demand for sustainable brands around the world. This demand is led by the millennials and Gen Z consumers who are said to have a “social-first” mindset. Several types of research have proved the youngster’s preference for eco-friendly and green products. Making up for a good percentage of overall consumers in the market with high spending power, eCommerce brands have no choice but to fulfill this demand to thrive in the future. 

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Social Commerce – The Path to Progress Your Ecommerce Business

Last updated by staff

Social commerce or social e-commerce refers to using social media platforms for creating a tailored and targeted in-app shopping experience for users. In other words, social commerce enables the functionality of an ecommerce platform on social media platforms. When users are happy with your product offerings, your presence on social media enables them to spread positive word of mouth in the market, and can even make your brand go “viral”.

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Questions to ask Ecommerce Client when onboarding

Last updated by Ajit Singh Kullar

Congratulations on sourcing the new client!! It is definitely time to celebrate!

Now comes the process of client onboarding for an ecommerce company, and believe us there is no rocket science behind the process! Orvador has the expertise and experience in streamlining the entire process of client on-boarding, making the job easier for the ecommerce business. Always remember, the right beginning is the first step to a successful and long term relationship in the ecommerce industry, or as a matter of fact, in any industry.

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