Every eCommerce website should share the common goal of trying to attract visitors with a website that is both SEO friendly and visually pleasing. It may not seem like the design of your website has anything to do with SEO, but in fact, it does.

We at Genius eCommerce are going to take a look at how the two are linked, why design is just as important as SEO, why people tend to focus more on SEO and more. Our goal is to provide you with insights and information about how you can improve your eCommerce SEO.

Design vs. SEO

Obviously, SEO targets specific keywords that are relevant to your business with the goal of bringing traffic to your eCommerce store. We tend to look at SEO on the surface and simply think about the content itself — that if the keyword is featured and you can start ranking for the words to generate organic traffic, then you are on your way to success.

Targeting the right keywords and getting people to your website on SEO alone doesn’t do the trick though. Consider what could happen after people get to your website. The website may have content that relates to the search query, but be in need of a better user interface. Even if you get people to come to your website with the right keywords, that isn’t enough.

If you are a business that has not put in the effort to improve your website experience, customers may not care to do business with you. People want to see businesses that care about appearance and a good website design makes people more likely to stay on the website.

Why People Focus on SEO

SEO is so important to eCommerce success because it can help create a better flow of traffic. Naturally, people are going to look at statistics and want to see them rise. While the rise in numbers may look good on the surface, your SEO efforts aren’t completely working if you don’t have a great design to go with it. Customers like to hang around websites that are nice to look at. Here are a few tips for bringing SEO and design together.

Optimize Content – Content is everything. You want to consider the search terms and keywords you are trying to rank for and make them a big part of the content. Use long tail keywords and phrases that are going to be searched and create a content plan based off of that. Use your keywords in the title and subheadings. Keep things organized by having subheadings to separate large blocks of text, and make sure you are not keyword stuffing by using the keyword naturally throughout your content.

Mobile Friendly – Search engines today are looking to see which websites put an emphasis on mobile users. Today, internet browsing and shopping are being done with mobile devices more than desktops. Having a responsive design that can easily adjust your website to a mobile, or other, format makes a huge difference in retaining customers. If your website is not mobile friendly, people will likely go back into the search results and find a competitor that is.

How do these two very different elements of eCommerce work together? A website that has a good design and uses the right SEO practices is more likely to succeed. SEO drives more traffic and potential sales to a website. A great design keeps people on the website for longer, which can bring your bounce rate down and help you rank higher on search engine result pages.

Both of these elements hold the key to success in the eCommerce space, especially in your digital marketing efforts.

For more tips, tricks, trends and more from Genius eCommerce, continue reading our blog. Our goal is to provide eCommerce SEO tips that can help you succeed in the online space.