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Six steps to build an SEO-friendly ecommerce website

When your ecommerce website ranks on the first page, you are likely to generate more sales. But where do you start: web design or SEO?

If you own or wish to own an ecommerce website, you must be concerned about how it ranks on major search engines. When your ecommerce website ranks on the first page, you are likely to generate more sales. But where do you start: web design or SEO?

Most business owners will jump directly to calling a web designer when they have an idea of starting an ecommerce store. However, you should remember that ecommerce web design is not the initial step of setting up an online presence. Instead, you must start with keyword research. This step will help your web designer build an SEO-friendly website that utilises your keywords thus boosting your ranking in search engines.

In summary, here are the six main steps that business owners must follow in order to have an SEO-friendly ecommerce website that ranks highly in search engines.

1. Keyword research

Begin by doing some research on Google to find out the keywords people use to search for services/products related to your website. By identifying the keywords, you give your web designer the opportunity to determine how the architecture of your website will be arranged. This will also help determine how your product pages and other technical SEO elements of your website will look.

2. Site architecture

Your website designer will help you arrange your site/URL architecture in an SEO-friendly manner by inserting keywords in the URL.

3. Work on onsite content

In order to generate organic traffic to your website, you must have a detailed description of your product or services. The content must contain keywords that you identified earlier.

4. Choose the right CMS

Conduct thorough market research of various Content Management System (CMS) platforms on the market and choose the one that meets your needs. This is where your web designer comes in handy. They can help construct a custom-made one from scratch or choose one from the market.

5. Choose a reliable hosting provider

You do not want instances where your site is down for a long time because of poor services offered by a hosting provider – this will drive away your customers. Your web designer can help you choose a reliable hosting provider.

6. Your website must be mobile-friendly

Most ecommerce sales are executed on mobile devices. If your ecommerce store is not accessible on mobile phones, you are likely to drive away potential customers. Your web designer will help you design a mobile-friendly template so that you capitalise on mobile-based consumers.

Just remember that SEO is a long-term game. It’s unlikely that you’ll see results overnight, but the work you put in will pay off in the long run. Too hard? Or don’t have time? Let iFactory help you with your next website development or ecommerce website design.

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