Gray shopping cartPhoto by Bruno Kelzer on Unsplash

When someone wants to buy something online, their first stop is most likely Google. And as we all know, usually no one has the time or patience to get much further than the second or third search page.

If you have an online store, and it does not appear among the first search results for potential buyers, they may not even know that your page exists. That is why you must make sure that your site is optimized for search engines (SEO). Fear not, it is not as complicated as it sounds, these are some strategies you can use to help your site attract a greater number of customers:

Keyword optimization

If you want customers to find your store through organic search, you need to have the correct keywords on your pages so that it can rank highly on search engine results pages (SERPs).

The first step is to identify the keywords you want to rank for on your home page, product pages, and blog posts. The next step is to identify the exact keywords that your ideal customers can use in their searches.

Once you've identified the keywords to rank for, the next step is to assign them to each of the pages on your website.

SEO on your page

On-page SEO helps you get targeted and relevant traffic to ensure that users who visit your online store through search results are high-quality prospects.

To improve your site's SEO, you need to strategically incorporate keywords in multiple locations:

• Page title
• Headers
• Subtitle
• Paragraphs (especially the first ones)
• Product description
• Image file names
• Meta title and description
• URLs

Many people overlook page URLs, meta titles, and descriptions because they are not "visible" on a page. However, search engines refer to them to determine relevance and ranking.

Mobile optimization

In 2016, the mobile surpassed the desktop computer as the most used device to access websites. Google's algorithm now gives a higher ranking to mobile-optimized websites.

If your online store isn't optimized for a smooth and fast mobile user experience, you'll miss out on other factors that could drive SEO, such as long wait times or low bounce rates.

Optimizing an eCommerce site for mobile devices is no longer just a matter of squeezing all the content onto a smaller screen, it's about browsing speed and page redesign.

Google shopping

When you enter a product name in a Google search, you will see a series of images at the top of its search result, above the other paid ads.

Listing your product directly on Google Shopping is the fastest way to get in front of potential customers who are already searching for the products you sell.

To list your products on Google Shopping, you need a free merchant account on Google Merchant Center. From there, you can upload product data and put your website in front of millions of buyers.