If you’ve started an ecommerce data business in order to capitalize on the growing data monetization market, you know that one of the most important steps in selling your data products is making your data products discoverable to buyers. In the ecommerce world, one of the best ways to greatly increase the probability that your products will be organically found by the right buyers is to implement good search engine optimization (SEO) practices.

An ecommerce data business requires the same strategic attention and execution as an ecommerce clothing store. In order to build a good SEO strategy around the ecommerce data products you want your customers to find, you’ll need to know the basics.

What are SEO best practices?

SEO best practices are guidelines designed to help improve search engine rankings. You can’t monetize your data products if they aren’t being found. You want your data to be easily discoverable by the people who are actively searching for the data you have to offer, and SEO will help get your data products in front of those buyers. There are many different strategies that you can implement in order to get higher Google rankings, but there are a few universal basics that will never steer you wrong.

1. Identify and include keywords

One of the most important parts of SEO is the use of strategic keywords. These are words or phrases that your audience will be typing into search engines in order to find and buy whatever types of data they are looking for.

For instance, if one of your data products contains medical data on men with heart disease, you might want to include keywords like “heart disease data” or “medical data” on your product page. Think about who will be searching for your particular types of data and what they might punch into Google in order to find the data they need.

You’ll want to use your selected keywords a handful of times, but not to the point that they feel spammy. Include them naturally in your product titles and descriptions as best as you can. Google favors pages that include a keyword or keyword phrase multiple times. However, Google will punish a page for overdoing it.

2. Be descriptive, clear, and unique

The more detail you provide for your data products, the easier it will be for Google to index your products, for customers to find your products, and for buyers to understand what they're purchasing. It’s important to be clear, descriptive, and specific in order to give your data products the best shot at being discovered and purchased.

The title of your data products should describe exactly what type of data is packaged within. Instead of simply “Medical Data,” a better title would be: “Heart Disease Data on Men Aged 60-70 in Canada.”

Your data product’s description should offer any information you think will further explain your product and entice someone to buy it. This is your opportunity to tell your buyers a story about your data. Tell them why they care about your data product, what data is included in your product, how the data was collected, who it was collected from, and any other information that makes your data product unique and valuable.

It’s also important that each product has its own unique title and description. Google doesn’t want to see duplicate content, so copying and pasting a similar description for every product won’t do your ecommerce data business any favors.

3. Include and optimize images

Even if you don’t think your data product needs to be accompanied by an image, including a positive or exciting image alongside your data product can only help your SEO, and also makes your product look more professional and visually pleasing. For example, a data product containing information on cat food could be accompanied by an adorable picture of a cat.

Properly-optimized images can help your pages rank higher in Google web search. Ecommerce product pages that include optimized images are both more searchable and more visually exciting.

So how do you optimize that cat picture next to your cat food data product? The best way is to give your image a descriptive filename and a descriptive alt text that lets search engines know what your image is all about. Don’t name your image something like “image3788” or allow your alt text to be a confused jumble of characters. Google can’t technically “see” images and won’t understand what the image is. Instead, name your image “orange-cat-waiting-for-food,” or something along those lines, and make sure your image alt text also describes the image in a similar way.

4. Use internal linking to direct your customers to more products

On your data product pages, it helps to link to other products that your buyers might also be interested in. For instance, you might have multiple medical data products within your ecommerce data shop, but have a distinct group of data products that focus on heart disease. For each individual heart disease data product, you might want to include a link or two in the description that will take your buyers to other relevant heart disease products or even a page that lists several heart disease data products for them to browse and choose from.

Be sure to only include internal linking if it makes sense and is helpful for your customers. You don’t want to link to pages your buyers will be confused or annoyed by when they are redirected. Use your best judgement to determine where your buyers might want to be taken within your ecommerce data store.

5. List your data products on a data collaboration platform

A data collaboration platform simplifies the buying and selling of data products, connects a network of buyers and sellers, and provides the tools, automations, and workflows to make data transactions transparent, fast, and cost-effective. With Narrative’s Data Marketplace, you get access to global demand for your data products from the moment you list them on the platform and also gain access to built-in SEO tools that help get your products in front of the buyers who are interested and searching for ecommerce data products just like yours.

These built-in SEO tools are included in Narrative’s Data Shops, a suite of applications that make ingesting, packaging, and marketing data simpler than ever before. Using the tools provided, you’ll be able to categorize and tag your data products to increase visibility on search engines. You’ll also be able to build an attractive ecommerce storefront, complete with optimized titles, descriptions, and images that will greatly improve your chances of discoverability.

Want to learn more about making your data products discoverable to interested buyers? Connect with one of our experts today!