When most online business owners optimize their websites for organic search, they start by optimizing their copy for the search terms they’ve selected. They flavor those terms into their text and add them to their meta tags. But many stop their efforts there, and that is a mistake. There are some pretty easy steps you can take to further optimize your ecommerce website to capture more traffic and generate more sales.

Other shopping sites

Many online shoppers start shopping for a product using a search engine. You can include your product details and photo in Google Merchant Center. Just open a free Google account first, if you don’t already have one. The information you post with the products you list will be linked to your e-commerce site.

Always include a photo of the product with your ad. When possible, make it one you shot yourself if you have the equipment to do it right. Otherwise, your photo may look the same as those of your competitors.

Update regularly. Put a reminder on your calendar to update your listings so they always show the latest model, price, features, etc.

If you can, it’s best to vary the copy on your product listing from the copy on your website. This is because Google looks for duplicate content, and instead of listing all sites with duplicate content, it picks the one it deems most valid and only lists that one. So if you change the copy in your external listings, your products may appear multiple times in a search, instead of Google seeing it as a duplicate and leaving it out of the results.

Blogs and other social networks

Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter became much more relevant to e-commerce when search engines began to index them. However, social media posts tend to affect search rankings only temporarily, so it’s best to post regularly. There are auto posting tools where you can pre-load posts for some social networking sites to help you have a constant presence.

Every social networking site you establish a presence on adds another touchpoint that can help increase public awareness of your website or products. It’s easy to get overwhelmed when you start to realize the myriad of social media options available to you. What you have to do is start small. Pick two or three social networking sites and be good at keeping up with them. Once you’re comfortable with them, you can add more to your social media repertoire and start to get a feel for which sites are doing the most good for your business. Then you’ll know how your time is spent most profitably.

local search

If you haven’t listed your business there yet, go to Google.com/Places and list your business. Even if your business is strictly online, your listing includes a backlink to your website, which is always a good thing. Plus, people who search Google Maps in your area will find your listing.

Many metropolitan areas have search engines specific to their areas. Make sure your business is included in them too.

Images and videos

Product images are essential to the success of your ecommerce site. If you can add a video, your conversion rate will likely increase. Photos can tell about your products much faster than copy, and video can do it even better.

When placing images on your website, remember to embed rich ALT text for each image. Describe the image using the same keywords you optimized your copy for. Include those same keywords in image file names, where possible. Finally, make sure that the image caption and all the copy around the image is highly relevant to the image.

Video reduces bounce rate by keeping customers on your site longer. That’s because it’s attractive. Instructional or instructional videos are best. Keep them short (two to three minutes) to increase the audience. Visitors often stop a video or don’t even start it when they see that it’s long. Remember to tag your video with the appropriate keywords that will maximize searchability. In addition to putting your video on your website, also upload it to other popular sites to get more exposure.

If you have the budget and want to reap the rewards of more advanced techniques, it’s better to hire a professional agency rather than waste time trying to learn them yourself. The pros do it every day and they know what will consistently get you a higher search rank.