The Canadian eCommerce industry is among the top performers worldwide, having raked in a total of $35 billion worth of revenue for the year ended 2021. Last year, the market realized a 14% growth, which in turn contributed to a 15% global eCommerce growth rate. That tells you how ripe the Canadian market is for entrepreneurs.
If you run an eCommerce website for the Canadian audience, how do you ensure that you reach the right audience? Are your marketing strategies effective enough to reap part of the revenue reported by the market? The first step to getting noticed is ensuring your website ranks high in top search engines. And that calls for implementing the right search engine optimization technics.
Search Engine Optimization – What It Means To Your Ecommerce Business
Search engine optimization (SEO) is essential for e-commerce websites. It’s a powerful tool that helps you to get found on search engines, like Google, and to drive more organic traffic to your website. SEO can also help you to build brand awareness, increase sales, and generate leads. SEO is all about optimizing your website to make it easier for search engines to find and rank it.
This means using the right keywords, making sure your titles, descriptions, and content are all optimized, and ensuring your website is mobile-friendly and easy to navigate. One important thing to note though is that you’re not creating the eCommerce content for the search bots. Rather, your target should be your audience. It’s the search engine algorithms that will get to decide whether your website offers the most appropriate content sought after by a user.
Apart from the traditional SEO strategies, how else can you ensure that your eCommerce site specifically built for a Canadian audience gets the right attention?
How To Implement The Right SEO Strategy For Your Canadian Ecommerce Market
Enough is said than done. Let’s show you how to increase organic traffic to your eCommerce website.
Geo-Targeted SEO
As the Canadian market continues growing, how do you ensure that your eCommerce website is accessed by the right audience? If you’re mainly selling and distributing your products within Canada, it’s best to create your content to speak to audiences from the regions that you sell to.
Implementing Geo-targeting SEO for your e-commerce website is a great way to make sure you reach the right audience. By identifying your target market, you can ensure that your search engine optimization (SEO) is tailored to them and that your website is visible to the people who are most likely to be interested in your products and services.
Geo-targeting also allows you to tailor your content and advertising to the local market, which can be a great way to build your customer base. It also makes it easier to localize your language, currency, and payment options. For example, if you are targeting customers in Quebec, you can display items and descriptions in French and English as an option.
Geo-targeting can also enable you to optimize your website for local search engine rankings. This can give you an edge over competitors who aren’t utilizing geo-targeting SEO and help you reach a larger audience. By taking advantage of geo-targeting, you can make sure your website is visible to the right people, maximize your ROI, and increase your sales.
To do this effectively, businesses need to use strategies such as geographically targeted articles, keyword optimization, and link building. Geographically targeted articles for your businesses to incorporate Canadian-specific keywords into your content, helping you rank higher in Canadian search engine results pages.
Link building
SEO also involves building links to your website from other sites, which helps to increase your rankings. Implementing backlinks into your eCommerce site is one of the most effective ways to improve your search engine rankings. Backlinks are links from other websites that point to yours.
They’re like a vote of confidence from other sites, signaling to search engines that your content is valuable and trustworthy. The more backlinks you have, the higher your site will rank in search engine results. Additionally, backlinks are a great way to drive more traffic to your site. When a user clicks on a backlink and visits your website, it’s like a digital referral and can lead to more sales and higher conversion rates.
Backlinks are also helpful for building relationships with other sites in your niche. For instance, you can collaborate with renowned bloggers to promote your products through a review or blog post in their blogs. By connecting with other websites, you can create content partnerships that can help you reach a wider audience. All in all, implementing backlinks into your eCommerce SEO is a smart and effective way to improve your search engine rankings and reach more customers.
Build a .ca domain
If you’re running an e-commerce business in Canada, having a .ca domain is essential for your SEO. Having a .ca domain is one of the ways to increase your visibility. Search engines like Google and Bing give priority to websites with local domain names, and having a .ca domain can help you rank higher in searches within Canada.
This makes it easier for customers to find your site when they’re looking for products or services in your area. Plus, having a .ca domain can help you stand out from your competitors, as most customers are more likely to trust a business that has a local domain name. So, if you’re looking to get ahead in the Canadian e-commerce market, consider getting a .ca domain to boost your SEO.
Select your keywords wisely
Everyone already knows that keywords make the backbone of search engine optimization. When it comes to eCommerce, building a robust keyword strategy is important rather than randomly choosing keywords. For instance, if you’re selling high-end wristwatches to clients in British Columbia, you may think of using a keyword such as “expensive wristwatches BC.”
But you need to find out what keywords are your audience searching for the most and incorporate them into your content. Luckily, there are tools for that. Some excellent keyword research tools you can rely on include Google Search Console, Moz Keyword Explorer, and Semrush among others.
SEO-optimize your product descriptions
This is one area that most eCommerce entrepreneurs overlook. Most often copy the product descriptions from the product manufacturers. Even though it’s the easiest, it doesn’t give your eCommerce site any credibility. There won’t be any difference between your products and those of other retailers.
To come up with unique product descriptions, think of what your audiences might be searching for online when looking for the products you’re selling. Think of the problems they’re looking to solve, or what might catch their attention that’s related to your products. Once you’ve compiled a list of points that address the audience’s concerns, you can create comprehensive and precise product descriptions
Keep your mobile users even closer
According to a 2018 survey by Consumer Technology Association (CTA), more than 86% of Canadians rely on smartphones for their daily activities, including shopping. And Alberta leads in numbers at 92%. That shows you that every minute that your website isn’t optimized for mobile, you’re losing a considerable number of sales.
If you want your Canadian e-commerce website to stand out in search engine results, you need to prioritize the mobile experience. Mobile devices now account for more than half of all online searches, so it’s essential to make sure your website is optimized for mobile users.
Here are a few tips to help you get started: Make sure your website is fast and responsive. Mobile users expect a website to load quickly, so make sure you have a good server and optimized images. Next, optimize your content and code for mobile. Make sure your content is easy to read and images are sized appropriately.
Identify and fix missing pages and broken links
Maximizing user experience while using your eCommerce site is important. Broken links can adversely affect this. That’s why it’s crucial to spot them before your customers do. Such links and missing pages can also hurt your Canadian SERP ranking, which in turn will harm your sales conversions.
Do a regular assessment of your site to ensure such missing pages or broken links are sorted. Some essential tools to use for this include Dead Link Checker, Google Search Console, Screaming Frog, and Sitecheker, among others.
Monitor your eCommerce site speed
How fast is your website compared to competitors? Most users lack patience with a slow website and will immediately turn to another if a site can’t load within 2 seconds. That’s because the purchasing decision takes place within 0 to 2 seconds. If that timeframe elapses, most users often start having second thoughts.
Some of the tricks to improve the speed of your site include:
- Optimise the code of your website.
- Compress the JavaScript, CSS, and HTML files.
- Avoid too many redirects.
- Ensure image size and format is optimized.
- Take advantage of browser caching for repeatedly visited pages.
Summing It Up
Running a localized eCommerce site targeting an audience from a geographical region requires a lot of input. Apart from working on the traditional SEO elements, you need to customize your website to meet the needs of your audience.
In the case of a Canadian eCommerce store, you can consider incorporating the language options of French and English. Using the right keywords, and making sure your product titles, descriptions, and content are all optimized and localized for your audience is also key.
