This guide is the most comprehensive online guide to ecommerce in Nigeria. In this well-written guide, you’ll learn what you need to know about ecommerce SEO, from keyword research to content marketing to local SEO as well as google my business for ecommerce retailers. So if your aim is to get more targeted traffic and sales from search, then this guide is for you.

Let’s dive in.

Why SEO for Your Ecommerce Site

Let’s consider some interesting stats…

1. According to a SaaS software “Channel”,  44% of internet users start their online shopping journey with a Google search.
2.  Research from SEMrush has it that “37.5% of all traffic to ecommerce websites comes from search engines”.
3. And based on Backlinko, “23.6% of ecommerce orders are directly tied to organic traffic”.

Let’s jump into the strategies.

Reasons for Ecommerce in Nigeria 

1. It’s Important For Helping Your Customers Find You: An ecommerce business without SEO is leaving plenty of cash on the table. The evolution of technology over the years has transformed the way customers purchase products online. And from the statistics above, search is now an important part of the decision-making process, with online users using search engines to inform their decision to buy or not. Ignoring SEO means you’re risking not being visible in your targeted customer’s buying journey. And when you don’t show up on search results, fewer customers will know about you. While this is happening your competitors will increase their sales and profits. Why? Simple! You allowed them to grow stronger.

2. Cost-Effective Way To Grow Your Business: In a highly competitive market, paying for traffic can run to a lot of dollars per click. But with effective SEO, you’ll be less dependent on this traffic. And of course, you’ll still need to buy ads to create awareness for your ecommerce business. If you’re on a tight budget, SEO can be a lifesaver that will keep sales and profit flowing. Successful ecommerce business has a unique mindset, their approach, preparation, and planning are quite different. In their marketing strategy, they integrate SEO into all their activities like content marketing and social media marketing, and this will be headed by experienced ecommerce SEO agencies.

3. Its Effects are Long-Lasting and Great Investment to Do: The effects of a solid SEO strategy are clear. When compared to most types of marketing, where every year you start with a clean slate. SEO strategy is what you do that builds upon itself to grow stronger with time. It means laying upon what you did the previous time and it keeps growing until you’re able to dominate the market.

Keyword Research for Ecommerce In Nigeria 

Why is keyword research the foundation of every ecommerce in Nigeria? Simple! You’re aware of every other SEO-related task you do on your site. And without keywords, your product and category pages won’t be optimized. The truth is keyword research is very important for your ecommerce business if you want to generate more sales. And here’s exactly how to find phrases your customers are searching for and how to choose the best for your website.

Ways of Finding Keywords For Ecommerce Product and Category Pages

Informational keywords are keywords people type into search engines to find helpful “how-to” content. You must understand that most of your website’s keywords will be around product searches. E.g. “Laptop for software development.” You need to tackle your keyword research with product-focused keywords.

Here’s how you can do it.

• Amazon Suggest – Amazon is the biggest ecommerce site online which makes product keyword research a lot easier.

     Steps of tapping into Amazon for keyword research:

1. Go to Amazon and enter a keyword that clearly describes one of your products.
2. Amazon will bring out a list of suggestions around the keyword.
3. Long-tail keywords convert better than short-tail keywords, but they’re less competitive as well.

• SEMrush – It is as a keyword tool that doesn’t generate new ideas based on seed keywords.

     How to use this tool to find keywords for your ecommerce website:

1. On SEMrush’s search field enter a competitor.
2. In the sidebar, click on “Organic Research”.
3. Under “Positions” you’ll see all keywords that your competitor is ranking for.
4. To get every keyword out of SEMrush, check the “competitors” report.
5. With the “competitors” report, SEMrush shows you websites that are similar to the one you’re looking at.

• Keyword Tool Dominator – This keyword tool will help to scrape Amazon’s search suggestions.

1.  Just enter your keyword into the tool.
2. Dozens of keyword suggestions will spit out.
3. With this tool, long-tail keywords from Amazon are made faster giving you more keyword ideas.

• Wikipedia – Yeah, Wikipedia is a great place to find keywords for your product and category pages. Wikipedia has done the work by organizing things by keywords and categories, just the way your competitors have done on their websites.

     How to use Wikipedia for your ecommerce keyword research:

1. Enter a keyword describing a product your website sells.
2. Take your time and scan Wikipedia entries for phrases or words that make sense for the products on your site. Also, look at the contents box. They can reveal excellent category page keywords as well.

Still confused on how to research for keywords, then you can get the assistance from any ecommerce SEO agencies.

How Do You Choose Keywords for Your Product and Category Pages

Now you have gotten a list of potential keywords and probably you’re wondering which one should I choose? Use this 4-step to know the one to choose.

1. Search Volume – The most important metric when evaluating a search term is the search volume. If no one is searching for the keyword, it doesn’t matter how competitive Google’s first page is, it’s left for you to choose one that has a reasonable search volume.
2. Suitable Keyword Product – Having a keyword that gets tons of searches. It doesn’t mean that you have found a gold mine. Why? Because the keyword may not be a perfect fit for what your website sells. And if people are not searching with the exact word it will be difficult to get any sales because it’s not converting. This means before moving onto the next two stages in this process, double-check the keyword to know if it fits your site.
3. Commercial Intent – Before deciding on a keyword, take time to see if people using that keyword are people that have the cash. And this is easy to do using the Google Keyword Planner. First, check the keyword’s “Competition” rating. “Competition” shows how many people bidding on the keyword in Google Ads. Generally, if many are bidding on a keyword, then know there’s money to be made. That’s why you need to stick with “medium” and “high” competition keywords. The “Top of Page Bid” shows you how much people tend to spend on a single click in Google Ads. And when it comes to utilizing the commercial intent, the higher the suggested bid, the better.
4. Competition – You need to know how hard it’ll be to crack Google’s first page.

Use SEMrush’s “Keyword Difficulty”: With this metric, you have an idea of how competitive a given keyword can be to rank for. To find a keyword’s difficulty in SEMrush, enter a keyword into the search field and look at the “Overview” section. The higher the number, the harder it is to rank for the keyword in Google.

Content Marketing for Ecommerce in Nigeria

With content marketing, you can get a lot of targeted traffic and sales for your ecommerce business. How can content be used to get higher rankings and traffic to your ecommerce business? Content marketing does not only increase your traffic but it ultimately increases your sales. Also, it makes it easier for you to build links to your website and increase your domain authority as well. Trust me it’s easier for you to build links to high-quality blog content over a product or category page.

Let’s look at how to achieve this.

• Find Where Your Customers Hang Out Online: This gives you in-depth insight into their pains, thoughts, fears, and desires. With this information, you will be able to create content that speaks to them and their needs.  For instance, your target audience can be in places like Reddit, Quora, Nairaland etc. One of the ecommerce SEO agencies like Deyo Digital can do this effectively and efficiently for your company.
• Learn the Words and Phrases Your Customers Use: You now know where your target audience hangs out online. It’s time you tail- gate them (do not  send spam messages) because you might be blocked out of the platform. What I mean is for you to keep an eye for words and phrases they use to describe their problems and desires. Those phrases are keywords your audience uses when they are not shopping for products. They are great keywords you are to use while creating blog content.
• Create a Great Piece of Content Around the Keyword: Time for you to create a piece of content that’s the absolute best on the planet. Publishing content consistently on your ecommerce business will bring about links, traffic, and social media shares that will help your product and category pages rank better.

Local SEO – Google My Business for Ecommerce Retailers

This only applies to ecommerce business that has a physical store or you want more local website traffic. Then you need a local SEO for a nice boost. It also increases foot traffic to your store through search on google my business directory.

 What do you do?

• Get a Google My Business Profile: This Google feature allows you to put the details of your business into Google’s database. However, this does a few things, but majorly it allows your business to show up in local search results. But to show up in local results, you’ll need some local citations done by an SEO specialist.
• Build local citations: This simply means backlinks from other local websites, like news outlets, press releases, and other local media in your country or territory. You need citations for your business because it shows Google how popular you are in your area. Also, this works with international SEO. If you want your website to rank higher in another country’s search results, you’ll need more links from the country’s local business directories’ websites.

Hope you got value from this guide and I would like to hear from you.

Conclusion

Ecommerce in Nigeria is vital for your business growth. Deyo Digital can help you to measure your business performance through an effective SEO campaign that guarantees ROI.

We also go ahead on crawling your site on Google and carry out a keyword research for the optimization of product pages, landing pages, and content pages. Our team of SEO specialist, content writers, PPC expert will  ease your stress in no time.