Search engines, particularly Google, have been known to periodically change and improve their search algorithm. Truth be told, online searchers are constantly looking for an easier way to get the information that they want. That’s probably why Google will never stop improving their search engine — it’s their core business anyway!
As an online store owner, you should know that some SEO trends this 2016 have already been predicted by top content marketers and SEO experts. Just follow these trends and you’ll improve your SEO rankings in no time!
1. Long and Unique Content Is Definitely “In”
We all know how online stores used to have short and boring product pages. Most e-commerce sites wouldn’t even care about writing a blog post or two a month. Things have definitely changed this year; online shoppers now prefer sites with long, unique, and conversational content.
Aside from making your content long and unique, here are more things you should do:
● Avoid duplicate pages
● Target the right keywords (low competition and high volume)
● Use keywords naturally in the page title, headers, subheaders, content, URL, and alt text of images.
● Write about topics related to your industry
● Do a lot of research and link to sites with high authority
Google ranks online stores that try to make their content as helpful as possible higher than others. Content is still king — invest your time and effort in creating content!
2. Everyone Will Start Doing Content Aggregation
Due to the massive availability of information on the internet, content aggregation is becoming more popular than even. It’s simply a practical way to generate quality content and you don’t even have to be a great writer. All it takes is to do a lot of research from different, high-authority sites, compile all the information, and present it in a way that would appeal your audience.
Content aggregation won’t hurt your PrestaShop site’s SEO rankings — it may even improve it significantly over time. Combine this with producing high-quality content and sites like Google will surely bring more traffic to your site!
3. Social Media Is Your Key to Success
Social media plays an important role in our lives and, without social media, e-commerce sites will have a hard time growing. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat — no matter where your audience is, sharing your content on social media will help you distribute it amazingly fast.
Google places a lot of value on your brand and website if you have a lot of followers, engagements, likes, etc. on social media. Simply adding share buttons to each product page or blog post can boost your SEO rankings, conversions, sales, and traffic. That’s why more than 76% of marketers in the U.S. use social media to improve their SEO strategy!
4. Users Just Love Watching Videos
Video content is not only great for SEO (if hosted on YouTube) but these actually outperform all other types of content. QuickSprout has even discovered that videos get 50x better search rankings in Google compared to blog posts and articles. Additionally, Reseloo has reported that videos have a higher click-through rate (41%) than blog posts and articles.
Your potential customers love watching videos. Is this an opportunity? Yes, it is! E-commerce stores can definitely take advantage of this by creating their own videos to promote products, events, sales, and more.
5. A Mobile-Friendly Site Is Now a Necessity
Google has constantly reminded us that mobile-friendly sites will get better search rankings. Well, the truth is that more and more people are going mobile and since they bring their smartphones everywhere they go, it makes sense to reach them on mobile too.
According to statistics:
● 31% of users go online using their smartphones frequently
● 61% of customers immediately exit a mobile unfriendly site
● 80% of consumers use their mobile to shop online
● 15% of global internet traffic comes from mobile users
This 2016, mobile optimization is one of the many factors that will significantly affect your SEO rankings. Without a mobile-friendly site, you’ll be losing more than half of your sales to your competitors that have mobile-friendly sites. Make sure to optimize your site for mobile today!
6. Voice Search Is Getting Popular
Years back, voice-operated functions were often seen as unreliable since they usually fail to recognize voice commands accurately. But technology has significantly improved this 2016 and digital assistants — such as Siri, Alexa, Cortana, and Google Now — are now reliable to use for important tasks like searching for information online.
Voice search is convenient and safer, especially if the user is multi-tasking or driving. This is also why online stores need a voice search function to make them visible to the growing users of voice search.
7. Local SEO Can Get You More Business
We all know how targeting local users can get us more sales from customers nearby but this year, everything has improved. Thanks to Google’s improved local search algorithm, spending time and effort to boost local SEO is now an effective way to attract a constant stream of customers.
According to statistics:
● 50% of mobile users that use local search visit stores in a day
● 60% of consumers use local information in online ads
● 50% of mobile users are actually looking for local search results
This is why you should start building your local SEO by building links to local sites and using keywords of the certain areas you’re targeting for business.
Follow These Tips and Boost Your Search Rankings This 2016
Making your e-commerce site SEO-friendly is not that hard as you think. As long as you follow Google’s guidelines and the latest SEO trends, you’ll have no problem at all. The biggest problem, however, is the competition — imagine millions of sites trying to rank #1 for the same keywords you’re trying to rank for.
With a little patience (also, time and effort), you can eventually build your site’s authority and outrank your competitors. Ranking #1 isn’t impossible—we can help you rank higher too.
Check out DH42’s PrestaShop SEO packages
