SEO Remains a Crucial Topic as Ireland's Ecommerce Hits $5.42bn in 2024
In our contemporary age, operating online for any business has become more than a luxury - it is a necessity. If you want to purchase, say, a refrigerator, you are more likely to research online before purchasing. This has become the predominant behavior of many customers. It's no wonder Statista estimated the retail e-commerce industry in Ireland to reach $5.42 billion in 2024 alone. As more companies join this industry, how can you ensure you stand out?
Well, this is a question that comes to the mind of everyone who seeks to dominate this sector. One way you can achieve this is by ensuring you are right in front of your customers. Research shows that up to 81% of shoppers will survey online before purchasing, and targeting such customers can lead to greater business performance.
And as if that's not all, there are numerous tools where you can check any domains traffic, especially for competitors, which helps you uncover their SEO tactics. This way, you can always measure what competitors are doing against you and tailor your strategies even more. What fascinating benefits of SEO these are? Read on to discover more.
The Power of Responsive Designs
Most consumers in our contemporary world are multi-screen consumers and will want to access shopping platforms on different devices. They definitely will expect the process to be seamless, whether they are accessing your platform via mobile or laptop. This is the power of responsive designs - they can automatically adjust the website to suit the viewing device.
In SEO, such designs can improve your website's loading speed, which many search engines love. In fact, loading speed is one of the top 20 Google ranking factors. If your site takes more than three seconds to load, you might lose up to 40% of online users. A responsive site will ensure that potential buyers can view, navigate and interact with content better on all devices. This can increase user experience and encourage them to stay on the platform for long.
Duplicate content is one of the enemies of good websites. Responsive designs can help avoid duplicating content because the same content is supplied on one link instead of many. While this is still a contentious issue - whether or not Google penalizes duplicate content - it is always safe to take the preventive stance.
Incorporating SSL certificates
SSL certificates go beyond encrypting data and help your website rank high in search engine results. Google favors sites that start with HTTPS instead of HTTP. Such websites also tend to easily gain the trust of potential customers as they perceive them as secure. This encourages them to spend more time on the website, explore more pages and complete actions like signing up for updates, which increases engagement metrics.
About ten years ago, Google confirmed that it would be considering SSL certificates as part of its ranking factors. Although it didn't start by giving it heavy emphasis, things might have changed, especially now that the search engine advocates for safe internet. Data integrity is critical in today's connected world, and catering to such preferences can affect how you feature in search results.
Users who access websites that do not have an SSL certificate might receive a 'not secure' notification. Such experiences are not something to ignore—just like the adage goes, the first impression lasts. Imagine the risk they present, especially now that over 9 in 10 customers think organizations prioritize making profits over safeguarding customers' data.
Taking advantage of On-Page SEO
A website that optimises keywords, web content and tags to suit a targeted audience can greatly improve its visibility. The purpose of search engines is not so that users can dig and dig for the information they are searching. When you do a search, you want to find the relevant results as quickly as possible. That explains why only about 0.44% of Google users visit the second page of search results.
What are the common phrases that users are likely to use when searching for services like the ones your business offers? If you are targeting a global audience, are they similar across different countries? Answering such questions can help you ensure you meet your potential customers quickly.
You can't talk about SEO and fail to mention quality content - these two are interconnected. Besides adding relevant keywords, providing informative and engaging content can help drive organic traffic to your site through social media shares. Plus, when Google crawls websites, if it finds high-quality content, it will perceive the site as relevant and might rank it higher. Link building is another way to improve your ranking on search engines. Actually, 79.7% of SEO experts believe link building is an important aspect of their search engine optimization strategy, according to Write Sonic.
Conclusion
In a world where many potential customers research online before purchasing, service providers have such a lucrative opportunity to connect with new customers. And thanks to SEO, you can now adopt effective strategies like keyword optimization to rank higher on search engine results and encourage conversions.
As technology has yet to reach its peak, we can expect future innovations will only improve how we connect with new customers and retain existing ones.
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