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If yours is a small business with an online shop, we’re guessing you’re all too familiar with the struggle of gaining visibility for your business when you’re competing against larger, big-box juggernauts that seem to have cornered the online markets.

Making sure your business is seen can feel futile and exhausting.

But here’s the good news—there are things you can do to move your business up on the search engine results page…and they all have to do with tweaking your search engine optimisation (SEO).

As one of Sydney’s most trusted digital marketing firms, we’ve learned a few things over the years that can transform the success of your business’s SEO. Perhaps the holiday season has us feeling generous, but we’ve decided to share 4 of our favorite tips for using SEO to level the online playing field.

1. Keywords are…well…key.

Coming up with high-quality, relevant keywords should be the priority of any e-com business owner.

Why? Because the wrong keywords can ruin your rankings. If you overshoot and opt for overly complicated keywords, you’ll reduce the odds of ranking on the coveted first page of any search. But if you choose irrelevant keywords, you might rank but odds are low that people will actually click on your link.

Google’s free-to-use keyword planner can help you find new keywords related to your business and shows how those words fit within categories related to your brand.

Another excellent source for keyword ideas is the Amazon search bar (yes, really). Simply enter your keyword into their search bar and watch as the drop-down menu appears with autofill options for expanded versions of your word.

Another way to get keyword inspiration is by doing a little recon work on your competitors. Enter your keyword into a Google search window then choose a high-ranking competitor that pops up on page one of your search. Spend some time perusing their site, checking out products and categories, to see if there are any relevant keywords you aren’t using.

2. Spruce up our website structure.

Before you start embedding keywords into your site (more on that later), it’s important to take an honest look at your online store and make sure it is easily navigable. This can be harder than it sounds…after all, you likely created the structure of your shop yourself—or paid someone to do it and approved the final version—and it can be hard to see flaws because the current structure makes sense to you.

But site visitors who are less familiar with your products or services may struggle if your categories, subcategories, and products aren’t laid out in a simple way. One industry rule of thumb is this—no page on your site should be more than three clicks from your home page. If your customers are forced to go down a digital rabbit hole in order to find your products, you can bet search engine bots are also struggling.

So, do yourself a favor and clean up the navigability of your site…or pay a pro team to take care of it for you.

3. Webpage Optimisations

Now that your site is nicely buttoned up, it’s time to start embedding all those optimsations that appeal to site visitors and search bots alike.

Every page of your website should have title tags that include your relevant keywords and other words that can extend keyword reach. For example, if your business sells organic skincare, your title tag might be women’s organic skincare. To extend the reach, you might also include shop women’s organic skincare or women’s organic skincare reviews. Though the tweaks seem small, they will increase the odds of your site showing up when someone searches more specifically.

Make sure you also optimise product descriptions and images. Keywords should be included in all product descriptions, but please use them tastefully. Keyword stuffing is real and comes across as forced and unnatural to site visitors. Images on your site should be high resolution and their file names should be chock full of relevant keywords.

4. Don’t discount the importance of quality content.

While much of SEO seems to take place behind the scenes, the quality content you put out for visitors and followers to consume can have a real impact on your SEO. A well-written blog that generates multiple backlinks as other industry experts share and link to your post will lead to higher rankings. So, make sure you’re creating grade-A content like:

• Informational videos
• Tutorials
• Visually appealing graphics and flow charts
• Blogs
• Helpful lists

And so…

Don’t let the idea of adjusting your e-commerce SEO overwhelm you. If you feel as though you don’t have the time or the ability to tweak your SEO properly, know that your friends at Digital Canteen are here to help. Contact us today and let us help you become one of the top choices for your customers and generate more hits for your online business.