Online shop promotion
The e-commerce market is growing steadily, which means that the online shop is a great way to boost sales and deliver strong economic results for businesses of almost any size and niche. But this very shop needs effective promotion to bring it ‘closer’ to its target audience (CA) – the potential customers. We’ll tell you more about how to promote your online shop in search engines.
The main tools for promotion of the online shop:
- search engine promotion;
- contextual advertising campaign;
- price aggregators;
- other promotion methods: media advertising, teasers, social media.
The promotion of the online shop should be preceded by a proper goal and objective setting. This preliminary stage often makes it possible to understand which promotion tools to use. So, first you need to understand what the business wants, and then look for an answer on how to achieve it.
The challenges of promoting an online shop:
- increase the level of sales;
- gaining a clear advantage over competitors;
- increasing brand awareness and promotion;
- expanding the target audience and finding new clients.
Most of these goals can be achieved through search engine promotion, which means that the online shop is promoted to high positions in the search results for the targeted queries. Let us show this with an example. Let’s say you sell stationery and your target market is Ukraine, especially large cities such as Kyiv and Kharkiv. As a result of SEO promotion your website may appear at the top of the results, for example, for such queries as:
- buy stationery in Kharkov;
- buy stationery;
- office supplies are cheap;
- buy notebooks in Kiev;
- buy office supplies for the office;
- stationery at a low price;
- school exercise books are cheap, etc.
In this case, more visitors will start coming to your online shop, and your target audience will expand (and this is one of the objectives described above). The increase in traffic will also lead to an increase in sales (the first objective in the list above). The very fact of being in a high position in the search engine can become a competitive advantage over other sellers of stationery on the Internet. In addition, those who often buy stationery, will remember your shop, and as a result of the promotion brand will become more recognizable in the market. It’s all thanks to SEO.
Creating a semantic core is a top priority when it comes to promotion
In order to increase the visibility of your online shop, and for Google’s robots to be able to correctly identify it and rank it in the top positions in search queries, a semantic core of the website is created.
Selecting LSI-queries and keywords is only the first step towards building a semantic core. Our company will select keywords and LSI-queries for your online shop, which will be used by users to visit your website. All chosen queries become the base of a certain group of key phrases. This work is done using synonyms as well as paraphrasing.
Competitor and niche analysis
Competitor websites are one of the sources of semantics. We will monitor and analyse your competitors’ sites in the region and identify the queries that drive customers to them. A tool such as Serpstat can be used to identify keyword queries. It accurately displays your competitors’ semantics and this can be used to your advantage.
By cleverly using competitors’ queries in your content, we will bring a large number of customers to your online shop.
Internal optimisation of online shop pages
Internal optimisation is a set of tools that enable you to get your website to the top of the search results without any errors. Among these seo-tools an important role is played by:
- Tags;
- duplicate pages;
- a properly configured txt file;
- unique content;
- re-linking;
- site map, and many others.
To optimise your online shop we will apply all available and effective algorithms to promote your web resource on the web. The combination of such SEO tools will allow search engine robots to unmistakably determine your website and show it to web users. Due to such optimization of the online shop the number of visitors will increase, sales will increase, and consequently, the site will begin to produce a stable and high income.
Stages of promoting an online shop in search
The effectiveness of SEO and promotion is really high, as it helps online shops to achieve their main objectives. In terms of cost and real returns in the form of increased revenues and profits, search engine promotion is also among the best tools. But SEO is a rather lengthy process, and in some areas with a high level of competition (electronics, real estate, construction, legal services, etc.) is a very costly way of promotion.
Search engine promotion involves a number of crucial steps, without which an online shop is unlikely to succeed:
- Preparation (niche analysis, study of competitors’ actions, development of a promotion strategy).
- Formation of semantics (collection and grouping of keys, preparation of a semantic core for promotion).
- Internal optimization including numerous processes:
- find and eliminate errors, duplicate pages;
- creation of sitemap and robots files;
- Region setting for the internet shop;
- making “human readable” URLs;
- developing key optimised meta tags and pages;
- preparing optimised texts;
- hiding technical pages from indexation, etc.
- .
- Usability (creation of a proper structure and menu, internal relinking and other aspects of promotion that allow to make the online shop convenient for the target audience).
- External optimisation (link building, link exchange, etc.)
- Analytical work (an important point of progression, allowing you to monitor results and make timely adjustments to your work).
If you are planning to promote an e-commerce website online yourself, the following advice may be useful:
- Because of the serious competition in many subjects, it is advisable to focus on promoting not high-frequency queries (eg, “buy stationery”), and the low-frequency key, such as (“buy school notebooks in bulk cheap in Kiev”). Reach the top for such key is easier and faster, and most importantly – you get the CA, which is ready to make a purchase (low-frequency keys are traditionally considered more sellable);
- Pay extra attention to optimisation and the formation of a semantic core. This is the basis of effective promotion on the Internet. When selecting keywords, you should use as many sources of information as possible, including search engine cues, special services (paid and free), analysis of main competitors, etc;
- use the opportunities of local promotion. For many topics in SEO, you should not just select a region, for example, Kharkov or Kiev, but promote with a specific district, neighbourhood or street in mind. This is a good way to attract mobile users who search the internet for goods and services using their smartphones and want to get the most relevant results, including in terms of geographical proximity to the seller.
Search engine promotion for e-commerce can and should be combined with other effective Internet marketing channels. Contextual advertising and price aggregators are among these in the case of online retailing. Let’s take a brief look at these online promotion tools as well:
Context is an effective sales promotion channel that, unlike SEO, can deliver almost instant results. Contextual advertising can also be used to increase brand awareness, outpace competitors who are difficult to displace from the first places in organic search engine rankings, and expand the business’ target audience. The only disadvantage of this tool is the cost of advertising, which in competitive areas will not allow a start-up online shop to compete with market leaders.
The cost of promoting an online shop
The price of promoting an e-commerce project depends on a number of individual factors, including the age of the web resource, the number of pages and product positions, the subject matter and level of competition in the niche, and the specific objectives you want to achieve online.
Promotion can also be based on a different set of tools. In some cases, the client opts for SEO, while in other cases the client simultaneously connects contextual advertising, active work with social networks, wants to add the project to price aggregators, place media banners, etc. In the latter case, the cost of promoting the online shop will be higher, but the results can be felt not after 1-2 months of work, but from the first days of the marketing campaign in the network.
Possible timelines for promoting an online shop
Serious web resources need constant support and promotion. The stability of their activities and income generation depends on it. We are ready to permanently optimise and promote your resource, on fairly favourable terms. The minimum period of promotion is 6 months.