Introduction

Identifying your customers’ demands and offering the right path to access your products or services is the top priority of your online business. Most customers look for information about goods by searching queries at the major search engines where your Shopify eCommerce site should be found properly to stay competitive in the market. 

Today we will share with you about SEO, one of the digital marketing strategies you should consider to get your websites found, acquire more new users and grow further.

 

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is a process to improve the page ranking at the organic SERP ( Search Engine Result Page). SEO involves the review of website architecture and optimization of the website content, making it easier for search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, Baidu to crawl and index it properly towards the top of the search result page. Implementation of SEO will bring positive awareness, efficient access and quality traffic to your online business.

 

What is the difference between SEO and SEM?

SEM (Search Engine Marketing) is also an important search marketing tactic to bring traffic to your website. SEM is a paid advertising service offered by search engines to display ads of a campaign at the top of the SERP that involves bidding strategy and budget planning.

Both SEM and SEO strategies will increase the visibility of your website on the search engine result page upon relevant keyword search queries. The key difference between SEO and SEM is that a right SEO strategy will improve the organic ranking that you don’t need to pay. As the search results with advertising are labeled with an “ad” at SERP, the unpaid organic search listings are usually distinctive from the paid ads. You can optimize the website content and structure for a better ranking without breaking your bank.

The planning and the workflow behind successful SEO and SEM strategies are different.SEO is the essential way to improve organic positioning, which is based on the search engine’s algorithm instead of advertising.

Unlike the paid ad, the optimized website will not rocket to the top on the first page in a night. The main business objective of SEO is to improve overall organic traffic in the long run for more sustainable growth of qualified customers by improving the organic search result rankings.

 

Importance of SEO to eCommerce Businesses

Search is the most prominent way for people to discover goods and services. Some of them look for a specific product by name; some of them look for tips, advice, reviews, comparison and other information for better buying decisions. Users tend to click on the search result at the top. If the potential customer cannot spot your website at first sight, you will lose the opportunity to convert.

A good SEO strategy can also increase the quality of your eCommerce site traffic acquiring relevant customers with high interests in your products and the resources provided on your website. Therefore, it is very important to rank your pages as highly as you can with your SEO strategy.

For eCommerce owners, other than having individual pages for every product with optimization on product names, images, videos, and user reviews, the other static pages such as FAQ, blog, about us and delivery details are also important. If these pages are well indexed at the organic search results, they may emerge as the landing pages bringing quality customers to your website. 

A successful SEO strategy for eCommerce businesses consists of thorough content planning and a product-focused workflow to increase conversion. We have some pro tips for eCommerce businesses to start with: 

Setting Up Goals and Framework: there are some steps to be taken for SEO that please track its progress and achievements by setting up goals and framework. Review the performance regularly and optimize.

Keyword Research and Analysis: do some research on the keywords you wish to add in your SEO plan such as search volume for popularity of active searches and the Cost-Per-Click (CPC) for competitiveness. Share the list with your copywriters, digital marketers and SEO strategists so that they can include the keywords in their work plan.

On-Page Optimization by Priority: start with the pages with the highest traffic so that you can focus and analyze with more data of customer behavior to further optimize. If the pages contain a CTA (Call To Action) linking to another page such as the checkout page, please also optimize that page and watch the conversion performance. Always adapt conversion rate optimization (CRO) strategy in your SEO plan to motivate users to take actions.

Competitor Analysis: review the current ranking of your eCommerce site and learn about the SEO effort of your competitors as your goal is to increase the positioning at the SERP against your competitors. 

 

SEO Services in Hong Kong for eCommerce merchants

Not all eCommerce entrepreneurs or marketers master the technique of SEO. There are numerous SEO companies in Hong Kong to offer help. We will share the common plans available in Hong Kong that merchants can choose the right one according to business needs and budget.

An experienced SEO service provider usually starts with an SEO audit to review the current status of your website SEO performance for improvement. Usually, it is charged on a monthly budget, ranging from HK$5,500/month to HK$9,500/ month depending on the number of keywords and service scope. These plans usually start from 3 months as SEO is a gradual process that takes time to work for effectiveness.  Set up mutually agreed goals to achieve SEO best practices. They mainly provide the following services: 

• Keyword research and analysis 
• Competitor analysis
• On-page optimization
• Off-page optimization
• Building of backlinks
• Content marketing planning
• Content or blog copywriting
• Conversion optimization
• Insight and report for keyword rank 

 

How to Select the Right SEO Service Provider?

The search engine algotherm is ever-changing. We encourage Hong Kong eCommerce merchants to learn more about the benefits of SEO and implement it as one of the digital marketing strategies for sustainable growth of the business.

When you choose an SEO company to work with, please learn about the SEO process and the elements of workflow that will be involved.

On-page optimization is essential for making your website relevant to the keyword query for easier crawling and discovery by the search engines. Some SEO companies give on-page optimization suggestions and your team handles the implementation; some will work it out for you directly on your website. 

Keyword research and analysis is also an important process of SEO planning. If you are allowed to choose your preferred keywords, it also hints  that the SEO company is not proactively doing keyword research and review for your website.

Some SEO companies offer Black hat SEO which is a set of tactics such as keyword stuffing or irrelevant content to manipulate the search engine algorithms to increase the search rankings temporarily instead of improving the website content to engage the customers. These practices may violate the terms of service resulting in affecting the SEO health of your website in the long run.

Unlike typical websites, the metric of success of eCommerce SEO to be achieved is not only building highly relevant and customer-centric content but also optimization of the conversion rate. 

 

Conclusion

There are a lot of SEO companies in Hong Kong but not many of them specifically address the needs of eCommerce merchants. InsCoder, a certified Shopify Plus Partner serving numerous international brands and SMEs, offers professional Shopify SEO services such as SEO audit, keyword research, and on-page optimization services led by experts of optimizing eCommerce sites for the rise of traffic and improved ROI.