COVID-19 has certainly had an adverse effect on the globe. So many industries were hit hard during the pandemic and have experienced a massive decline in traffic conversations for their various businesses.
One of the most interesting trends affected by a pandemic is E-Commerce in terms of SEO and conversion.
According to research conducted by Slackline, certain online retailers have now increased their sales in medical supplies, food, and fitness equipment have grown a considerable amount. On the other hand, non-essential and travel-related product sales are on the decline during the pandemic.
At estore.novita.com.sg, we know that this is the perfect time to restructure and improve your online store’s SEO and content for the impending traffic of virtual customers. We come up with steps and ways to make this possible. Below are steps you should start from:
1. Do an In-Depth Technical SEO Audit
A lot of people were using their time in quarantine to tackle home-improvement projects that they had neglected. E-commerce business owners should do the same with their businesses as well.
The technical SEO audit is one of the best mediums to set yourself up for success once traffic rates begin to pick up again. However, it requires you to go through all aspects of your platform, such as your site’s structure, tags, site mapping, and content issues.
Also, it is essential to update the internal linking structure for both your mobile and desktop versions of your website. To improve your site structure, you have to, first of all, identify all 404 link errors using the site crawler.
You can decide to either delete these pages if they are no longer relevant or you can fix them if they are relevant. Consider restructuring your pages better if you have lots of pages within your website because you offer many products or have a blog.
2. Optimize for Mobile-First Indexing
In March 2020, Google announced that it will switch to mobile-first indexing for all websites starting in September, meaning that Googlebot will prioritize your site’s performance on mobile phones before desktop as the majority of users makes use of smartphones.
If you are used to using an e-commerce site that does not support mobile phones, now is the time to make some changes. The first thing to do is to ensure that Googlebot can properly access all of your website contents using the same meta robot tags on both your mobile and desktop site devices.
The next thing is to ensure that your mobile site has the same contents as the desktop version. Many developers tend to simplify the mobile versions, saying that the screen is smaller.
While a new design and layout may be necessary, you mustn’t cut out content for mobile phones as it is the data that Google will index first.
3. Consider a Website Redesign
It’s proper to rethink and come up with an e-commerce site design and layout to give your online store a new look. Know that this is not compulsory for everyone. However, it is important to restructure your online site.
The most essential task in redesigning our site is to improve the User Experience (UX). Take a close look at the complaints you’ve received from your clients concerning the use of your website.
It may be that there is an issue of trouble checking out, or there is missing information on product pages. Also, consult the metrics of your website to measure the CTRs and bounce rates for various pages.
These numbers will help to indicate specific portions of your website that need to be reworked. During this process, pay close attention to the overall look of your website. Its appearance has a huge impact on how your brand is perceived.
