One way to drive traffic to your eCommerce shopping cart website is by Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Getting your eCommerce website listed high in search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo will bring valuable hits to your website. The traffic generated by SEO is normally very targeted, for example if someone searches for ‘product x’ and your website come up as the top listing the user that is going to be visiting your website is likely to be very interested purchasing ‘product x’.

Structure and Validation

Following the correct HTML (or XHTML) structure on your website is very important. You should make sure you use the correct header, html, body tags etc and use them in the correct order. This practice is called on page SEO, you just need to make sure that your shopping cart software follows the correct HTML structure. You might be surprised to find that a number of popular online store solutions are not deployed with valid HTML structure.

SEO Friendly URLs

The structure of the links (or URLs) on your website is important using URL structures that read like:

http://your_domain/my_category/my_product

as opposed to

http://your_domain/?product_id=xsslkjl&cat_id=2627

are generally accepted to increase your search engine rankings. There is much debate about how much this kind of search engine optimization improves your rankings but the undeniable benefit of this is that when your page appears in search engine listings, the URL is included. If your URL is readable by a human then there is more chance the person is going to click on your link. Search engines also highlight the search terms in bold in the results the more of your listing to can get to appear in bold the better.

Maximize Descriptions

Search Engines deploy software robots to search the internet looking for pages, they are normally referred to as ‘Spiders’. Spiders love text, the more and more relevant the text on your website is then higher your chances of getting listed high in search engines is. Make sure your product and category descriptions are as in-depth as they can be, but keep in mind that you’re descriptions are going to be read by people who want to buy the products, so don’t make them full of gibberish just so there is text for the spiders. Accurate and detailed product descriptions have also been shown to increase the likely hood a customer will make a purchase from your online store.

Alternative Descriptions and Titles

Including alternative descriptions and titles for your products is a good idea. If you’re products is called ‘The XYZ3200’ then there is a possibility that someone searching for your product might not be aware that it’s called this, especially if it’s a small portable coffee machine. Including alternative more user friendly products titles will help the spiders and then, in-turn, customers find you. It’s a good idea to do some keyword research when choosing alternative descriptions. A keyword research tool will be able to tell you what descriptions people are searching for and give you a good idea which descriptions and titles to choose.

By employing these tips we have no doubt you will be able to increase the search engine traffic that your website generates.