On-Page SEO or Link Building: Which Is Better for eCommerce and Why

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As an eCommerce business, you must ensure that your website is SEO-friendly. This means more than just having a good domain name but also ensuring that your website ranks well in search engines and gets traffic from organic searches. There are many ways to ensure this happens, including building backlinks or optimizing the on-page content of individual pages within your site.

On-page SEO and link building work great for companies promoting their products or solutions. But what about eCommerce businesses? What’s best for them among the two, and why? Continue reading this guide to find answers to those questions.

What Is On-Page SEO?

On-page SEO refers to the process of optimizing your website for search engines by making sure your content is relevant and readable, as well as easy to find and navigate. It’s essentially a combination of content creation, keyword research, interlinking, and technical SEO that works together to ensure any page on your site will rank highly in search results.

On-page SEO can be broken down into three main categories:

  • Content optimization
  • Page structure optimization
  • Internal linking

It is a part of organic search optimization. The better your on-page SEO, the more organic results you get. While many search engines have different algorithms to rank web content, you must focus on Google. The reason is that Google holds around 83% of the global search market. This means that you must follow the on-page SEO best practices for Google rankings.

What Is Link Building?

Link building is a strategy to build links to your website. Links are essential for search engines like Google and Bing because they mean that your website is relevant, popular, and well-known. The more links you have pointing to your site, the higher the search results will appear. Google’s top-ranking results have an average of 3.8 times more links than the average web page.

Moreover, more than two-thirds of search engine optimization professionals believe that backlinks significantly impact search engine rankings. This means that, like on-page SEO, even link building holds significance in SEO.

The most common way to get links is through guest posting. It is the process of writing articles on blogs or other sites with an existing audience and getting people to publish them on those sites. You can also gain links by publishing infographics on social media or creating videos people share. This method is called link baiting.

Another option if you’re strapped for time is using automated tools like HARO or HelpAReporterOut (HARO). These services send out emails daily with opportunities for journalists and bloggers who need sources for their stories; all you have to do then is fill out a form with information about yourself and respond when contacted by one of these outlets.

What Is Better for Ecommerce? On-Page SEO or Link Building

In terms of eCommerce sites, link building is not as important as on-page SEO because it takes a long time to build links compared to optimizing your site for high rankings based on search keywords.

Now that you understand the basics, let’s get into more specific tips for improving your on-page SEO.

Keep Your Page Titles Clear and Focused

It is of utmost importance that your page titles are clear and focused and include your target keywords. It’s also essential to use LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords or related keywords to help search engines understand the context of your target keywords.

For example, suppose you are targeting ‘green organic products as one of your main keyword phrases. In that scenario, it would be a good idea to include ‘organic’ in the title tag as well as any other appropriate LSI or related keywords, such as healthy, environmentally friendly, etc.

As with everything else in SEO, there are no hard-and-fast rules about how many words should appear in a title tag. However, it is recommended to use between 50 and 70 characters (including spaces) for most eCommerce sites so that they can be easily read without being cut off by search engine results pages. Anything above 70 characters will be cut off in the SERPs and will only appear if the users open the webpage.

If you are unsure about SEO best practices or don’t have the right expertise and resources, it is always best to seek professional help. There are many eCommerce service providers you can choose from. Ensure selecting an eCommerce SEO services provider who can help you with both on-page SEO and link building.

Aim for About At Least 300 Words of Content

According to WordPress’s most used SEO plugin, YoastSEO, the ideal length for a page is about 300 words. Anything from 300 or above words is fine, but don’t keep it below that amount. If you have more than one page on the same topic, it’s best to keep the total number of words per article under 500.

You can also use the rule of thumb to aim for 300–1000 words and make sure your target keywords appear within the first 100 words of each post (the “first paragraph” or “first sentence”).

For example, if you’re writing about the best way to grow roses in containers, start with something like “When growing roses in pots…” or “Roses need plenty of sun and soil…” before getting into specifics such as pot size and fertilizer regimen.

Link-Building Can Also Play a Vital Role in Ecommerce SEO

Link building can also play a vital role in eCommerce SEO. The reason is that links can help improve your website’s ranking, increase traffic to your site, and build authority for the site. Google has indicated that backlinks to a website are one of their top three ranking factors.

Links are essential for eCommerce because they can lead to conversions, the most important part of any business. Without sales, businesses won’t thrive, so it’s essential to focus on getting as many high-quality links as possible.

Link building is also essential for user experience (UX). Links contribute greatly to UX by providing users with better website navigability and helping them find what they’re looking for quicker and easier than ever possible.

Conclusion

The bottom line is that link building can be an important part of eCommerce SEO. For example, a vital link profile will help you rank well in search engines and get more organic traffic. However, eCommerce sites should prefer on-page SEO over link-building. Once you get efficient in the on-page SEO concepts, you can start focusing on link building for all the products listed on your web store.