Crucial Ecommerce SEO Tips for Dropshippers
Apr 23, 2024Dropshipping is rapidly becoming a popular ecommerce model, allowing businesses to sell products without having to keep inventory themselves. However, the growing number of dropshipping companies means your store can get buried under the ocean of competition. One way to stay on top is by optimizing your content and virtual store through search engine optimization (SEO).
Kreidman, your team of ecommerce experts, dives deeper into the concept of SEO for dropshippers. We also want to share dropshipper SEO tips you can apply to increase your searchability and discoverability. Keep reading to learn more!
Why SEO Matters for Dropshipping Businesses
SEO is a process where you modify your website and product listings to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). SEO doesn’t just apply to Google or Bing, any website that has a search bar has algorithms that find content relevant to the search query. Thus, SEO is critical for any dropshipping business that wants to be found in search engines, social media platforms, and online marketplaces.
When done right, SEO can help you reach the front page of SERPs. The enhanced visibility increases impressions and engagement, and the more people engage with your website, the higher the chances of conversions. SEO is one of the key processes to help increase your revenue.
So, how do you improve your SEO for your dropshipping business? At the most basic level, you need to incorporate the right keywords in your content. These keywords are the strings of words that users type into the search bar. If you’re able to closely match these keywords, search engines are more likely to prioritize your content in the rankings.
The Dropshipping Model: The Inherent Risk
As a dropshipper, your role has more to do with marketing and sales — not much about inventory or fulfillment. You showcase products on your ecommerce website, virtual store, or online marketplace, and the manufacturer or supplier takes care of the orders. In this model, there is one common problem that absolutely impacts your SEO rankings: many dropshippers simply copy and paste manufacturer descriptions and leave them as is.
The practice hurts your SEO in a few ways. First, manufacturer descriptions aren’t optimized for search engines at all. They are usually too technical or too simple, talking about the features of a product without adding benefit statements or keywords that address customer pain points. Thus, your product pages may fail to rank since they don’t have relevant phrases.
Another way copy-pasting product descriptions hurt SEO is by making yours the same as the rest. Many dropshippers get products from the same manufacturers, and they might also be just copy-pasting product descriptions. Thus, many dropshippers have the same or similar content, making it difficult for anyone to rank on SERPs. So, what can you do?
Dropshipping SEO Tips and Best Practices
Now that you know the most common pitfall for dropshipping SEO, here are the best practices you can follow to ensure good rankings.
Make the Product Information Unique
The most fundamental yet effective way to vastly improve your SEO is to avoid copy-pasting manufacturer descriptions. You need to put effort into rewriting the content so it’s unique, relevant, and optimized for search engines. It will take some effort and knowledge to write persuasive content, but you can always ask for the help of professionals like us.
Leverage Keyword Research
One critical step in writing relevant content for your product listings is keyword research, which is the process of finding the right short-tail and long-tail keywords to include in your copy. Keyword research tells you what your target customers are looking for. With these marketing insights, you can understand trends and create product descriptions that adapt to these changes.
Without keyword research, you may use keywords that have too high of a search volume. They can bury your content under other dropshippers using the same keyword phrases.
If you do the process correctly, you can find and use keywords that people use when they’re about to make a purchase, increasing your visibility to those most likely to convert.
Use High-Quality Media
While you can rely on the pictures or videos that the manufacturer provides, you can always increase the quality of product media. Using high-definition photos not only increases product appeal to users, but the practice can also improve SERP results. Your item photo may show up in rich snippets, allowing search engine users to immediately see your offerings.
You should also add captions, alt tags, and descriptive file names to your product pictures. Search engines use this information during crawling and indexing, so when you provide relevant details in these captions, the search engine will be more likely to rank you higher.
Optimize Your Site Structure and Navigation
If you’re using your own website for your dropshipping business, it’s crucial to optimize its structure. Having clear category structures and intuitive navigation goes beyond enhancing user experience. A well-structured site makes it easier for search engines to crawl and index the pages, making them more likely to prioritize your page on SERPs.
One area you’ll want to focus on is optimizing for mobile use. The majority of online shopping happens on smartphones, so having a website that’s easy to navigate for mobile can increase your sales.
Go Beyond Product Descriptions
You can get one step ahead of the competition by publishing relevant content other than product descriptions. Blogs, reviews, and how-to guides can help you incorporate more trending keywords organically. That way, your website can still maintain good rankings even if your offerings are only tangentially related to a popular topic.
Publishing informative content can also make you an authority in your niche. This benefit helps increase customer confidence and loyalty. In addition, you may get inbound links from other websites that use your content as a resource. These links are significant to your SEO efforts since search engines see your content as relevant and authoritative.
Link-Building Strategies Are Key
Speaking of inbound links, one practice that has an immense impact on SEO is link building. In this case, you need to focus on creating inbound links to your products. These are the links from other websites that redirect to your product pages. For example, a blog post discussing the top five skincare products for oily skin can include one of your offerings and a link to your website. These links improve the credibility of your site to customers and search engines alike, boosting your authority and by extension, your SEO rankings.
Wrapping Up: Dropshipper SEO Tips and Tricks
SEO is critical to ensure searchability for your dropshipping business. To improve your rankings and increase your engagement, our top recommendation is to create relevant content that isn’t the same as the manufacturer’s descriptions. You can also follow our other tips, like using link building and optimizing product media, to further improve your SERP rankings. If you need guidance for these best practices, Kreidman can serve as your ecommerce marketing partner.
For more information about SEO for dropshippers, get in touch with us today.
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