For many eCommerce business owners, SEO seems like a complicated endeavor. You are told to be patient with the results. You are told that it takes extensive research. You are told about the importance of search engine optimization and the things you should update for better optimization.

As complicated as it seems, SEO is not a hopeless endeavor. It’s quite the opposite in fact. You know that you want to improve your SEO rankings, but just need the guidance to take the best practices to get you there.

There are five things that you can do, or find a digital marketing agency to complete, that will help you be set up for SEO success. Check out these steps with us here at Genius eCommerce. This is who we are and what we do.

Coding – One of the most important parts of SEO rankings is the behind the scenes work that coding does. Having a good code to your website does not achieve rankings alone, but if your code is not in order, it can prevent you from reaching the success you want even if everything on the surface is being done well. Technical SEO is an aspect that you simply cannot overlook.

Content – Your content still rules overall. After all, Google reads words first and foremost and looks for the ways it is relevant to search terms. For better Google rankings, you want to have a content marketing plan that focuses on specific keywords and carries some meaning. Relevant and meaningful content helps to boost your domain authority and quality content connects with people who will be reading.

Link Building – A piece of advice you hear a lot when college students are preparing for graduation is to make connections and start networking. Essentially, that is what link building is to your SEO efforts. Building links is making new connections and increasing your domain authority.

Social Shares – Social media has no direct effect on your SEO, but it does go hand in hand with building domain authority and backlinks. Creating connections helps increase your relevance and authority as a leader in your industry. The more shares you can get by promoting your content on social media, the more people will see it organically. This, in turn, helps build up your brand and give it a recognition, which can help you get more clicks from results in search engines because of recognition. Because people may already know the brand from social media, your bounce rate could go down with people visiting having an idea of what to expect from you. That can only improve your conversion rate, establishing that trust in people.

Keyword Ranking – A key part of SEO is choosing keywords that can help improve your overall rankings. The problem is that far too often, SEO clients choose to keep it basic and target words that are broadly searched. With so much competition for the top spots for these keywords, you can easily get lost in the shuffle. That’s why the best way to start your campaign is to do extensive research on keywords where there is an opportunity to achieve the top ranking spots. Using keywords that are more specific to your goals can help you get to the places you want to rank.

With SEO, there are no guarantees or shortcuts to achieving success. It does take patience and research to get the results. With that in mind, having the right team to guide you along the way with the research and strategy can put you on the right track. Taking these steps may not be the easiest thing to do, but it is the most effective in the long run, and that is ultimately what will allow you to achieve the success you desire.