You have probably heard of the term SEO when it comes to website management and marketing, but did you know that there are different types of SEO?

Here, we focus on on-page SEO, what it is, why it’s important, and how you can implement it on your eCommerce website.

What is SEO?

SEO, which stands for search engine optimisation, involves improving your website to ensure that pages are being viewed favourably by Google and other search engines. This will improve your rankings and ensure that more people find your website when inputting search queries that are relevant to your eCommerce company and the products or services you sell.

An overview of on-page SEO

An important part of any SEO strategy is on-page (or on-site) SEO. This includes any changes that you make to your webpages and their content to improve your search rankings and user experience. Some on-page optimisations include:

Page content

All page content should be user-friendly, unique, and high-quality. If search engines deem your page content to be irrelevant, poorly written, or copied from elsewhere, they will not place your webpages in a prominent ranking position. Your content should be written for the user and not for search engines as this is what will make it useful and engaging.

External linking

It may seem counterproductive, but including external links is seen as being useful by search engines as you’re providing additional information to your readers. You don’t need to include lots of external links on your pages, but choosing a handful of relevant links to authoritative, trustworthy websites is great for on-page SEO.

Keywords

Keywords help search engines to work out what your webpages are about, and which search terms are relevant. It’s important to understand your keywords and what potential customers are searching for, as this will ensure you’re including useful information and answers to the questions that people are asking. Although keywords are a vital part of on-page SEO, don’t overuse them as search engines view this negatively.

Meta data

Meta data, including page titles and meta descriptions, help search engines and individuals to see what your webpages are about. Both pieces of information are included on the SERP (search engine results page) and can have an impact on whether someone chooses to click through or not. By making your meta data clear, concise, informative, and engaging, you’ll encourage people to click through which will improve your rankings over time.

Images

Just as page copy can be optimised, images can too. This is achieved through including alt text (alternative text) for each image you include on your website. Alt text tells search engines what is being shown in your images and how they’re relevant to the rest of the page. Screen readers use alt text too, so including it improves the accessibility of your website.

How important is on-page SEO?

On-page SEO is very important if you want people to be able to find your website organically via Google and other search engines. The content of your website enables search engines to understand what each page is about and how they link to search intent. By making this clear for both search engines and individuals, you’ll notice an increase in organic traffic and, ultimately, a boost in sales and revenue.

The difference between on-page and off-page SEO

Where on-page SEO looks at changes and improvements you can make to your own website, off-page SEO focuses on how you can help your website to rank via external factors. This includes:

• Link building – Finding relevant, authoritative websites which will include a link to your website.
• Local SEO – Claim your Google Business Profile if you have a physical location.
• Create shareable content – Infographics and videos are perfect for this.
• Influencer marketing – Create external content with industry influencers.
• PR – Share company news and updates with relevant news sources.

3 tips for successful on-page SEO

As previously mentioned, there are many ways in which you can implement great on-page SEO on your website. Here are a few extra tips:

1. Optimise existing web pages

Going forward, it’s important to have on-page SEO at the front of your mind when you create a new web page. However, you can also optimise your existing pages as search engines will crawl these again and take any optimisations and updates into consideration. When optimising your current pages, think about including additional keywords, adding internal and external links, structuring them with headings, and including relevant imagery.

2. Create an internal linking strategy

While external linking is important in enhancing the usefulness of a page, internal linking also helps with user experience and encourages people to explore your site further. When looking at SEO in terms of your content strategy, you should ensure that pieces created under each content pillar link to each other as they share the same theme. Links to relevant products and services across blog posts and articles are important, and linking to related products from product pages will help with this too.

3. Include headings

Headings help you structure your content in a user-friendly way and let search engines know what’s included on the page. A page’s H1 (or heading 1) is the main title and should clearly highlight what the page is about. From here, H2s can be used to split your content up into smaller chunks and H3s can be used to highlight separate points under your H2s. Essentially, headings are there to let readers know what each content section is about and enhances the flow of information making it easier to read and digest.

We hope we’ve helped you understand what on-page SEO is and how important it is for your eCommerce business. We’d love to help you with your on-page SEO, including recommendations and how to take your strategy forward.

For information about how we can support you and your on-page SEO efforts, contact us today.

To discover more about the different ways in which SEO can positively impact your website traffic, sales, and engagement, look at our News page.