Shelter-in-place orders and also the unprecedented number of physical stores shutting down during the Covid-19 pandemic have led to skyrocketing online sales, particularly within the food and beverage market.
The online grocery market is one of the fastest-growing in e-commerce. Almost 1/2 of grocery shopping in America is completed online, consistent with data from the Food Industry Association.
It’s not just the young generation that communicates screens for his or her daily necessities. Recent statistics show that baby boomers have increased their online grocery purchases yet – even before the pandemic.
The food and beverage e-commerce market is quickly expanding, which implies this is often the best time to take a position in a very practice that will get your brand before of latest audiences: Search Engine Optimization (SEO). In this article, we’ll show you the way to use some simple and effective SEO strategies that job best for food and beverage brands.
1. Create a keyword strategy that’s specific to your industry
Choosing keywords for a corporation that sells wine is incredibly different than selecting keywords for a brand that produces custom-made t-shirts.
From landing pages to product descriptions, here are some tips for writing keyword-optimized content:
Branded words. It would sound sort of a no-brainer, but many food brands don’t rank for their own company and merchandise name because they don’t include branded keywords in relevant sections on their website.
Non-branded words for your product categories. “Spicy sauce,” “olive oil,” and “pesto” are all samples of generic names for your product categories. While it’s difficult to rank for these words, you’ll be able to still get discovered by an inexpensive number of latest shoppers.
“Where to buy” words. Optimizing your store locator page helps customers land on your website. If you’ve got both physical locations and an e-commerce store, confirm to specify that online shopping is an option.
“Ways to use” words. Maximize your blog (if you’ve got one) by creating content that inspires customers to cook more together with your products.
Nutrition facts are another underused source of traffic. Nearly 90% of shoppers read food labels, so help customers make informed decisions by optimizing your content with nutritional details.
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2. target earning quality backlinks
Whenever authoritative websites link to your online store, search engines like Google offer you a bump in rankings. It’s less about the amount of these backlinks (although that wont to be a requirement), and more about their quality.
Aside from hiring professional link builders to do the job for you, partnerships with influencers are one of the most effective ways to begin accumulating backlinks. Ask them if they might be willing to say your brand in an editorial or an Instagram post in exchange for freebies and merchandise samples. Blue Apron, as an example, became a well-oiled backlink-building marketing machine by partnering with mommy bloggers and Instagram influencers.
3. Optimize your images for search engines
Updating the pictures on your website can provide you with an SEO advantage. The likelihood is you’ve got a minimum of one image on each page of your website, not only of your products, but also of your team, partner logos, and stock images. To urge promoted by search engines, make sure that those images are properly named and sized, and have an optimal alt text format.
For optimizing web images, here are some best practices:
- Choose JPEG for big photos or illustrations and SVG for logos and icons.
- Keep your image file size under 200 KB. To shrink JPEG and PNG images without sacrificing quality, use a free online image compressor.
- Place photos near the related written content to signal relevancy to Google.
- Write captions, but don’t overstuff them with keywords so as to avoid being penalized by search engines.
- Add keyword-rich, descriptive alt text to each image to rank higher on Google Image Search.
Image optimization goes beyond keywords. Invite buyers to click on your photos by getting creative together with your presentation and lighting. Brewdog, a multinational brewery and pub chain, does an excellent job of enticing its audience with unique pictures of the brewing and tasting processes. To create your product stand out, show a close-up of the merchandise in use, in the maximum amount of detail possible.