Your E-Commerce Website and Search Engine Optimization

E-Commerce has been around only since the early 1990s, when Amazon.com and eBay.com became two of the first companies to sell products on the Internet. But E-Commerce is already revolutionizing the way goods are bought and sold around the world.

Buyers love E-Commerce because they can “shop till they drop” while lounging at home in their pajamas or riding the subway during rush hour. Sellers love it because they can offer their wares to people around the world without expensive marketing campaigns.

But successful internet marketing has become more and more challenging, especially for new businesses. With the proliferation of websites offering similar products, buyers have become overloaded with information. Typing one simple item in a search engine can return thousands of entries spanning multiple screens. A small entrepreneur can invest a huge amount of money to create a fantastic website, but the website won’t attract customers if it appears far down the list produced by a search engine. Competition has become fierce among vendors to ensure that their company is listed at the top of the list, on the first screen that the searcher sees.

One way to accomplish this is with a Paid Listing. These are advertisements, similar to paid ads in a magazine or newspaper. Whenever a potential buyer searches on a particular word or phrase, these ads will usually appear on the right side or very top of the page under the “sponsored links” heading.

The other way to get your company listed near the top of the search list is to employ a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) specialist. Search Engine Optimization basically means getting qualified customers to visit your website by insuring that your website is ranked high on the list when a potential buyer searches on a particular word or phrase related to your product. A good SEO will also be able to easily tie their software to your existing software, including your financial packages and shopping cart software, in order to help you track sales and produce return sales.

SEOs use a variety of techniques to get your business and to drive customers to your website. Unfortunately, they aren’t all ethical. Google and other search engines are able to spot unethical techniques, and will remove your website from their index if it employs such techniques. You can find advice on Google’s website for choosing a reputable SEO firm. Google’s first admonition is to be wary of SEO firms that send you emails out of the blue (spam) soliciting your business. Google also recommends that you have a contract in writing that includes pricing. The contract should also require the SEO to stay within the guidelines recommended by each search engine to include your site in its search results.

Achieving a high search engine ranking has become so important in the world of E-Commerce that experts now recommend including search engine optimization techniques in the design of any new website.