How to promote an ecommerce website?

[Rephael]

I owe an ecommerce website and I don't know how to start with the SEO. I would be glad to hear some opinions and suggestions with how to start. Thanks!

[BrightHealth]

First, you really need to start with a good site. Without a good, fast and user-friendly site, you won't rank. Second, you need to offer something unique.. a bigger catalogue, competitive pricing, great customer service, faster shipping or a usability experience that is unique. Without that, you're still able to get rankings.. but you won't succeed.

The 2011 SEOmoz Ranking Factors study shows links matter. Even after 2012, they still matter. Ecommerce sites require a very unique link profile. One that's very difficult to manipulate. Product pages (for lack of a better term) really suck to build legitimate links to.. unless you have the cheapest product or you have something extremely unique to offer.

My advice is look to do something different, have a kickass site, offer the best shopping experience to your customers and provide amazing customer service.

SEO won't have the impact you desire unless your business & your online package is ready for it.

[Rephael]

Let's say that we offer something unique. What next?

[matbennett]

Hi Rephael,

The short, glib answer is to get your onsite optimisation right, then attract good links. That answer is 100% accurate, but in most cases about 0% useful.  Let's try to increase that second number:

Before you start doing anything:  Understand what terms you want to rank for and make sure that those terms are A) Going to make you some money and B) are going to be realisticly achievable with your skills/resources/budget.

OK - on site then. Once you know what you want to rank for you can compare you content to those terms.  Seomoz tools are a good way to do that.  Keep improving those and you'll make headway. If you have budget then get some insight from a pro too.  Seomoz tools don't deal with the structural aspects so well, and those can have a big impact. From your profile I am assuming that you work quite a competitive niche, so that is good stuff to get right from the start.

Links is tough. Without knowing more about what you do it is hard to give specific advice.  The favoured approach here is to build resources and them ensure that people who might want to link to them know about them.  If you want a tactic that will work in most fields then take a look at a blog post I have just had published here: http://moz.com/ugc/making-the-competition-sweat-or-how-to-make-giveaways-work-harder  . However the approach is to do stuff that DESERVES links.