What is the core driving force behind a successful eCommerce website? While every detail about your business website counts, proper search engine optimization is a critical driving force for business website success. Successful online businesses use SEO to drive targeted traffic to their website. When it comes to eCommerce websites, there are two types of SEO: On-Page Optimization and Off-Page Optimization. I’ll walk you through on-page optimization. Also known as SEO for website development.

On-page optimization includes title tags, header tags, anchor text, and general content. As a business website developer, your goal is to make sure search engines can see your website and index it with relevant search terms. To achieve this, there are three important SEO tips that every web developer should know.

1. Market research. Study your niche market inside and out. Who are your most successful competitors? Follow them and learn from the best. I’m not saying I’m going to be a copycat. I tell you to find out what works and do it better. Find out how your competitors are succeeding. For example, what keywords are they using? Are they driving traffic through free or paid methods? What do your websites have in common? Look for similarities like layout, color scheme, title, header text, anchor text, etc. All of this will give you an idea of ​​how you need to build your website.

2. Keyword research. Find out what keywords successful competitors are using in your niche. Your keywords are the first few words of the title, the header, and even the domain name. Find out what keywords people are typing into major search engines like Google and Yahoo. This is very important. Ideally, you’ll want to spend about 3 days collecting enough data. It helps to take notes and organize them using Excel. Also, keyword tools like Google’s own Keyword Tool and SEO Toolkit are perfect for the job. They contain recent and accurate data and are free.

As a guide to choosing keywords, try to focus on more specific keywords in your niche. Choose keywords with less competition. This will greatly help your website to be found in search results. For example, suppose you sell shoes. “Shoes” is a general keyword that would have a very difficult time showing up in search results. Choose relevant keywords with less competition, such as men’s running shoes, women’s tennis shoes, prom dress shoes, beach sandals, kitchen clogs, kids’ hiking boots, 2-inch heels, small heels etc. One thing you should be aware of is the use of brand names like Nike or Reebok. You can use them for organic search results, but for paid advertising campaigns like Google AdWords, certain brands are not allowed.

3. Keep keywords relevant. Now that you’ve done some keyword research, the third thing you need to do is keep your keywords relevant. Google, Yahoo, and other major search engines rank high for relevant content. Relevance is the foundation of success as a business website. Your title, header tags, body content, anchor text, the content of all the websites that link to yours, should all be keyword-rich and share a common theme.

SEO for website development is vitally important, but it may only represent 30% of overall SEO. As an internet marketer, off-page SEO is an exhausting, never-ending journey through winner-takes-all road and error. For the dedicated salesperson, it’s a rewarding addiction.