Online shopping/E-commerce in Nepal
Online Shopping
The growth of Internet users in Nepal and the amount of time they spend online has changed the business’s marketing game.
The business has been running behind the consumers for a long time, and they are trying to grow their presence on the internet.
Online shopping in Nepal is becoming the new trend; some businesses have built their storefront online, while others use social media platforms. Either way, companies have already forecast the Internet as the future of the business market in Nepal.
Internet users in Nepal
Figures
63% of Nepalese have access to the internet. (11% in 2011)
95% access the Internet through mobile phones.
50 ISP (Internet Service Provider) is registered in Nepal.
40k+ registered commercial websites in Nepal.
Source: NTA’s MIS, export.gov
The above figure presents a fascinating opportunity and excuses for business to grow their online presence and online business.
In 2000, Munchahouse.com was started by a department store, Muncha House, which was probably the first online shopping site in the History of Nepal. Since then, there have been a lot of e-commerce websites in Nepal, like Nepbay, SastoDeal, and Foodmandu.
In 2009 the first payment Gateway E-sewa was established and later licensed by Nepal Rastra Bank as a payment service provider within Nepal. Since then, other payment services have been like Khalti, iPay, IME Pay and ePay.
All these have contributed to the growth of online shopping in Nepal.
#14 REASON PEOPLE SHOP ONLINE
TIME:
Time is money; No one wants to waste their valuable time. Going to the physical market is time-consuming. Getting a bus/vehicle, walking around the market and to the home can have a fruitful time of the day.
ANY TIME:
Online Shopping is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. You don’t have to worry about the Mall being closed.
ANY PLACE :
You can even order while in the commode! You can be anywhere with an internet connection and buy the product online.
WEAR:
You can wear anything or nothing! You don’t have to worry about what dress to wear.
WEATHER:
You don’t have to carry an Umbrella or worry about getting a sunburn. Stay warm and safe inside the home.
DELIVERY:
The product is delivered right to the doorstep. You don’t have to carry all those shopping bags with you.
MULTITASK:
One can scroll through items on his phone while having lunch. You can place an order in the middle of anything.
COMPARE:
No need to walk from store to store. Open as many tabs and online stores as possible to find the same products and compare their prices and specifications.
VARIETY/SELECTION:
A lot of choices to select from. Select your category, size, and colour, and choose from many options available.
EASY TO SEARCH:
Just Google and choose; nothing is hard to find if you want to buy something. You will quickly locate the items on the Web.
IGNORE THREAT:
There is always an outside chance of pickpocketing or losing your money/wallet. Even your card can be mishandled.
AVOID CROWDS:
Best for People who don’t like the crowd or public places. Some people only hate shopping because of the group and rush they face. No more!
CHEAP:
Online goods are usually less expensive than the physical market, and They don’t have to pay expensive rent for their showrooms.
INTROVERT:
Introverted people can shop like an extrovert. You don’t have to worry about bargaining the high prices in the physical market.
KIDS:
Kids won’t get bored or endlessly angle for a toy or pack of gum at the checkout counter.
The list goes on, and there are many reasons why people prefer buying online rather than leaving their homes to the physical market. This shows how important it is for businesses to build online stores and adapt to the trend.
0 notes
Ecommerce SEO in Nepal - Why It Is Important For Ecommerce Business in Nepal?
Before we dive straight into eCommerce SEO, let’s get familiar with the term SEO. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. In general, the term SEO refers to the process of optimizing your website to increase visibility when some people search for products or services related to your business in search engines like Google, Bing, and others. Moreover, it is a series of tasks to bring organic traffic to the website. With the increase in digitization and most businesses getting online, the trend of SEO in Nepal has reached a new benchmark. As of 2022, all small growing businesses to well-established organizations are trying to make their online presence better.
With digital marketing services, you can make your online presence better. Among different digital marketing services, SEO has become one of the distinguished aspects of digital marketing in Nepal. Every brand is well aware of the importance of SEO and how SEO will help to get featured on top of search engines.
History of Ecommerce Business in Nepal
In this digital world, people can now get what they want by sitting in a room with a flick of fingers. Modern technologies have made our life much easier. But, did you ever wonder how the eCommerce business came into existence in Nepal?
According to an article published inOnline Khabar, the journey of eCommerce started in Nepal intending to let Nepalese people residing abroad send gifts to their friends and family members. Co-founder of Thamel.com, Mr. Bal Krishna Joshi claims his company to be the first-ever eCommerce company in Nepal. During the late 1990s, he was living in the US and at the same time, he also saw the growth of eCommerce companies like Amazon and eBay. Thus, to execute the same idea, he started Thamel.com, as a business-listing website in 1998. At first, he started his website as a business listing website, to globalize the business shops located at Thamel. In 2000, he converted his company from a business listing to eCommerce. However, the company was only registered in the United States.
Later, Munchahouse.com, which is now changed to Muncha.com was launched in 2000 as the first-ever online departmental store in Nepal. People living in the USA, UK, and Australia used this website to buy and send gifts to their close ones in Nepal. With the development in technology, many e-commerce companies started to come into operation. Similarly, companies like NepBay.com, now changed into Thulo Market launched in 2007. Additionally, other major companies like Sastodeal, Urban Girl, and Daraz also came into existence in the early 2010s.
As of now, there are more than 40k+ registered commercial websites in Nepal. With the development of digital payment services like eSewa, Khalti, IME Pay, etc, eCommerce in Nepal has grown massively. Even after two decades after its launch, eCommerce in Nepal still has a lot of room for its growth.
Ecommerce Business in Nepal
Ecommerce refers to the sale or purchase of goods or services over a computer network, primarily the internet. The business transaction can occur either as B2B, B2C, or C2C. Moving a few years back, the eCommerce business in Nepal was not that popular. After the COVID pandemic, many eCommerce business companies came into existence in Nepal. As the eCommerce business is getting widely popular, the number of eCommerce websites is also increasing alongside. Thus, the competition to stay at the top of a search result is very high. Thus, to stay at the top of search results, SEO for the eCommerce website is very much needed. Here are some of the top eCommerce websites in world.
Ecommerce SEO is the process of generating organic traffic from search engines like Google, Bing, etc. to your online store. For example, if you use a certain keyword or phrase on a search engine, it displays the top 10 organic results alongside paid ads and Google Shopping ads results. Ecommerce SEO is all about ensuring your product pages appear among those top ten organic search results.
As the competition is high, the importance of SEO for an eCommerce website is inevitable. The various strategy and techniques deployed in eCommerce SEO yield numerous benefits. With the well-planned eCommerce SEO strategy, you can appear at the top of Google’s search results whichincreases brand awareness. In addition to this, the SEO-optimized website brings a better user experience compared to a non-SEO optimized.
Now that we are familiar with the needs and benefits of SEO for eCommerce websites, let’s look at some infographics to visualize more about the needs of eCommerce SEO in Nepal.
According toBacklinko.com, 44% of people begin their online shopping journey with a query in Google.
According to the reports fromSEMRUSH, 37.5% of all traffic to eCommerce websites comes from search engines.
For example, taking a look at Nepal’s largest eCommerce website, Daraz.com.np, 35.6% of traffic on the website comes from the organic search result.
In this article, we will provide an in-depth guide for ecommerce SEO in Nepal. After reading this comprehensive guide, you’ll learn everything about optimizing your eCommerce site, performing proper keyword research to technical SEO to link building process. If you are looking to get more targeted traffic from a search, make time to read this article. We have divided the process into five sections.
Keyword Research for Ecommerce Website
Ecommerce Website Architecture
On-Page SEO for Ecommerce Website
Technical SEO for Ecommerce Website
Link-Building Technique for Ecommerce Website
1. Keyword Research for Ecommerce Website
Keyword research is the first step in defining your SEO goals. Additionally, it is the foundation of every SEO campaign. Keyword research is the process by which you research popular search terms or phrases which people use on search engines like Google, Bing, Baidu Yahoo, etc. The researched keywords are included strategically in the content so that your webpage appears higher on a search engine result page.
You cannot optimize your product and category pages until you have done proper keyword research. For example, every time someone searches by using a keyword or phrase, the search engines must decide which handful of results to display from hundreds of thousands of possible pages. Each search engine has its algorithm which determines the relevant match for every single search. Thus, it is very important to choose the right keyword, so that search engines can match and display your site at top of the search result. Likewise, for eCommerce site keyword research is a very big deal to display your product page on top of search engine page results.
How To Do Keyword Research for Ecommerce Product and Category Pages
Each keyword has different search intent. The search intent can be classified into informational, navigational, commercial, and transactional. Most of the keyword research primarily focuses on informational intent. Although informational keywords have their place in eCommerce sites, you must do keyword research around product searches.
Here is how you can do proper keyword research for your eCommerce site in Nepal.
Yes, it is Daraz which is your top competitor and probably the biggest eCommerce site in Nepal.
Here is how you can perform keyword research from Daraz.com.np
First of all, head over to Daraz and enter a keyword or phrase that describes one of your products in its search bar. When you do, Daraz will provide a list of suggestions around the product’s keyword.
The keyword Daraz suggests tends to be very targeted. It even makes your keyword research task easier as it also suggests long-tail keywords. Additionally, the long tail keyword performs better than the short tail keyword while making a comparison in conversion rate. Not only that, they’re usually less competitive too.
Rinse and repeat the process for the most important product on your site. Apart from Daraz, you can also use Amazon.com, the biggest eCommerce website in the world. Repeat the same process as you do in Daraz.com.np
Likewise, you can also use free Keyword Research tools like WordSteam. To use this free tool, you just enter your keyword related to the product into the tool, then it will provide a list of generic keywords alongside search volume. Similarly, another free keyword research tool that will make your work handy is Keyword Tool Dominator. This free tool is very handy to use and provides both long-tail keywords and short-tail keywords.
For example, when we used the keyword “running shoes” in both Daraz and Amazon, it only gave 8-10 keyword ideas. By using this free handy keyword research tool, you can get up to 50+ keyword ideas.
These are some free keyword research tools that will help you to get a hefty list of keyword ideas. Another important tool that will make your keyword research even easier is SEMrush. However, this tool is a paid tool and it is a little bit different. SEMrush doesn’t generate new keyword ideas for your seed keyword, instead, it shows you the list of competitors that are ranked for the particular keyword.
Selection of Keywords for Ecommerce Product and Category Pages
Now that you have a list of researched keywords, you’re probably wondering which keyword to choose. Here is the simple guide to selecting the best keywords for your eCommerce website.
Before you choose your keyword, the most important metric you should be evaluating is search volume. If the keyword you have selected isn’t searched by anyone, then it doesn’t really matter how well it converts or how competitive Google’s first page happens to be. Having said that, there is no specific search volume recommendation for keywords. The keyword search volume varies from industry to industry. While some industries' keyword has 100 search per month which is also a lot and in other, it might have 10k monthly searches.
To find the average monthly search volume of a specific keyword, you can use tools like Google Keyword Planner or WordStream.
Once you have found a keyword search volume, the next step is to check the competition for the keyword. So, before you decide on a keyword, take a second to see if people using that keyword are ballers or not. To check the competition for any keyword, you can use the Google Keyword Planner. Competition on Google Keyword Planner reflects how many people bid on that keyword in Google Ads. Thus, when it comes to SEO for eCommerce websites, we always suggest sticking with medium to high competition keywords. Likewise, you can also take a reference from Moz’s Keyword Research tool. Put your ideal keyword in the search bar and it will generate the difficulty level for a specific keyword. The higher the difficulty level, the harder it gets to rank in Google.
2. Ecommerce Website Architecture
Website Architecture refers to how information is organized and prioritized on your website. The search engines check navigation, breadcrumbs, URLs, and sitemap to understand the website architecture. Website Architecture is one of the important SEO considerations for any website. Without a doubt, it is also important for an eCommerce website. That’s because an eCommerce site significantly has more pages than an average blogging website. With many pages in an eCommerce website, your website architecture must be properly optimized for both users and search engines to find all your pages.
To maintain the structure of your eCommerce website, you need to follow these two simple guidelines.
No 1 Rule: Keep things simple and scalable
No 2 Rule: Keep every product page three or fewer clicks from your homepage
The infographic below represents things to avoid while setting up your eCommerce website. In this website architecture, the link authority is concentrated on the site’s product and category pages. The website structure should alway be simple. If it is complex and it takes more than five clicks to reach the first product page, then there is huge chance the user changes their mind. According to our rule, all the product pages should be three clicks or fewer from the homepage. Here is an example of proper website structure and user-friend eCommerce website architecture.
3. On-Page SEO for Ecommerce Website
Now that you are familiar with the eCommerce website architecture, we will now move on to the optimization of the website. For an eCommerce website, you need to optimize each category and product page for a better user experience.
Let’s take an example of a perfectly optimized eCommerce page.
Now, let’s break down each segment of On-Page SEO for eCommerce websites.
Title Tag
The first step towards the optimization of your product page is adding a targeted keyword to the page’s title tag. If you are doing this then don’t stop there. Moreover, you can also add modifiers to your title tag which will help you show up for long tail searches.
For example, let’s say your target keyword is, “Nike running shoe”
Instead of adding just your targeted keyword, you should also include common modifiers like best, free, cheap, free shipping, online, etc., that most people use while searching for a product in search engines.
So, your title tag could be something like best Nike running shoes, or best free shipping Nike running shoes.
Likewise, you can also use click magnet words in the title for eCommerce product and category pages. For example, free shipping, sale, X% off, lowest price, etc.
Here is an example of what a title page should look like for a higher click-through rate.
30% Off and Free Shipping Nike Running Shoes
Description Tag
One of the important tasks of On-Page SEO for every website is using a description tag. Unlike title tags, adding click magnet words in the description tags is very important to increase CTR. The only difference is that, with a description tag, you can have more space to include longer phrases.
Here’s an example of how a well-optimized description tag might look
Save 30% on the best Nike running shoes. Get free shipping on all orders. Click here to see all exclusive deals with the guaranteed lowest price.
Keyword Usage in Content
The most important thing about eCommerce SEO is optimizing product and category pages. While the title and description tags boost ranking, the content inside each product and category page is the ideal component for getting ranked at the top of the search engine result page.
There is not exactly the rule set up by Google that your product and category page should contain more than 1000+ words. However, the research found out that the average word count of the top 10 pages has above 1000+ word count. The fact is this, Google wants to know what your page is all about. Thus, the deeper the content you provide, the better Google can understand your page.
While writing an in-depth product description, make sure to add your targeted keyword up to 3-5 times in the content. However, stuffing keywords forcefully in the content won’t do better. Just add the keywords naturally a handful of times to help Google understand what your page is all about.
Keyword-Rich Short URLs
According to an analysis fromBacklinko, there is a clear correlation between URL length and rankings. While analyzing 11 million Google search results, it is found that short URLs tend to rank higher on Google’s first page than long URLs.
Here is what the URL of your product page should look like,
SEO-friendly URL also refers to making the URL keyword-rich.
For example,
For sub-categories, follow the same process. Here’s how your website URL should look like
Then for the product page, you should add your target keyword for the product separated by dashes.
Here’s what the final URL of your product page looks like,
While this may be the best process for optimizing URLs, some eCommerce websites don’t use categories and subcategories in their URLs.
Internal Linking
Internal linking is one of the best practices of On-page SEO. For example, let’s say you have published a blog that has generated a lot of backlinks. Thus, adding a keyword-rich anchor text link from that blog to your product page distributes the authority to the particular product page.
4. Technical SEO for Ecommerce Website
Technical SEO is one of those things that’s important for ALL sites. However, it is twice important for an eCommerce website as it contains a lot of pages compared to another blogging website. Due to a large number of pages, an eCommerce website has a high possibility of facing technical SEO issues.
The important aspects of technical SEO include crawling, indexing, broken link, XML sitemaps, duplicate content, thin content, and site architecture.
How to Perform Technical SEO of Ecommerce Website
To perform a technical SEO audit of an eCommerce website, we suggest using ScreamingFrog. From our point of view, this tool is the handiest and easy-to-understand tool with a lot of audit features.
You can also use other tools likeRaven Tools,SEMrush, andDeepCrawl.
To useScreamingFrogfor your eCommerce website SEO audit, insert the website URL and click start.
Then, it will start scanning all the available pages and report issues that crop up. ScreamingFrog tool will show all the missing details.
5. Link-Building Technique for Ecommerce Website
Link building is the process of acquiring links to your website from other websites. In the context of SEO, these links are called backlinks. It is one of the difficult tasks in the process of SEO. Achieving backlinks from a high-quality website will pass authority to your website which will ultimately help you to rank higher in the search engine results pages.
Link buildingis one of the major tasks in SEO. For example, if you have just started your website and published a great piece of content, it will not earn much authority. Getting backlinks from another trustworthy website will let Google see your site as more authoritative. Moreover, backlinks are essentially votes of confidence for your site. The more backlink you generate the higher chance you get ranked in Google. However, this doesn’t mean that gaining thousands of links from low-quality websites will help you rank on Google.
Furthermore, the backlink can be classified into two types, dofollow and nofollow.
The are many ways to acquire a backlink. Below are some of the major methods to earn backlinks.
Guest Blogging
Manual Outreach
Pursuing Competitors’ backlinks
Reach Out to Event Organizers
Start Your Ecommerce SEO Journey With Feat International
Although Nepal is moving toward digitization, there is still a lot of room to grow digitally. In the context of Nepal, Daraz.com.np is considered the largest eCommerce website. However, there is always fierce competition to stay at the top of Google. Ecommerce SEO in Nepal is really important if you want your business to thrive in this competitive market. It doesn’t matter whether your competitors have already taken abetter positionthan you in the market. With a proper eCommerce SEO strategy, you can make a viable presence on the internet. When you’re visible on search results, more customers get to know your business.
Whether your business is just a small start-up or a well-established company, with strategic eCommerce SEO you can maximize your website visibility and increase sales of the product. The success of every eCommerce website depends on how much sales you are making. Likewise, you can make sales of your brand or product if they can be easily found by the searchers on the internet. With help of eCommerce SEO, it will help online businesses to drive more organic and quality visitors to a website by optimizing them according to their search intent.
Thus, if you are looking for aneCommerce SEO service in Nepal, Feat International is the one-stop solution for all your needs. Being a leadingdigital marketing agency in Nepal, Feat International has a dedicated team to implement various tactics and strategies to get on top of Google. Reach out to us through a contact page, we will help you maximize your business ROI and increase growth.
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Online shopping/E-commerce in Nepal
Online Shopping
The growth of Internet users in Nepal and the amount of time they spend online has changed the business’s marketing game.
The business has been running behind the consumers for a long time, and they are trying to grow their presence on the internet.
Online shopping in Nepal is becoming the new trend; some businesses have built their storefront online, while others use social media platforms. Either way, companies have already forecast the Internet as the future of the business market in Nepal.
Internet users in Nepal
Figures
63% of Nepalese have access to the internet. (11% in 2011)
95% access the Internet through mobile phones.
50 ISP (Internet Service Provider) is registered in Nepal.
40k+ registered commercial websites in Nepal.
Source: NTA’s MIS, export.gov
The above figure presents a fascinating opportunity and excuses for business to grow their online presence and online business.
In 2000, Munchahouse.com was started by a department store, Muncha House, which was probably the first online shopping site in the History of Nepal. Since then, there have been a lot of e-commerce websites in Nepal, like Nepbay, SastoDeal, and Foodmandu.
In 2009 the first payment Gateway E-sewa was established and later licensed by Nepal Rastra Bank as a payment service provider within Nepal. Since then, other payment services have been like Khalti, iPay, IME Pay and ePay.
All these have contributed to the growth of online shopping in Nepal.
#14 REASON PEOPLE SHOP ONLINE
TIME:
Time is money; No one wants to waste their valuable time. Going to the physical market is time-consuming. Getting a bus/vehicle, walking around the market and to the home can have a fruitful time of the day.
ANY TIME:
Online Shopping is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. You don’t have to worry about the Mall being closed.
ANY PLACE :
You can even order while in the commode! You can be anywhere with an internet connection and buy the product online.
WEAR:
You can wear anything or nothing! You don’t have to worry about what dress to wear.
WEATHER:
You don’t have to carry an Umbrella or worry about getting a sunburn. Stay warm and safe inside the home.
DELIVERY:
The product is delivered right to the doorstep. You don’t have to carry all those shopping bags with you.
MULTITASK:
One can scroll through items on his phone while having lunch. You can place an order in the middle of anything.
COMPARE:
No need to walk from store to store. Open as many tabs and online stores as possible to find the same products and compare their prices and specifications.
VARIETY/SELECTION:
A lot of choices to select from. Select your category, size, and colour, and choose from many options available.
EASY TO SEARCH:
Just Google and choose; nothing is hard to find if you want to buy something. You will quickly locate the items on the Web.
IGNORE THREAT:
There is always an outside chance of pickpocketing or losing your money/wallet. Even your card can be mishandled.
AVOID CROWDS:
Best for People who don’t like the crowd or public places. Some people only hate shopping because of the group and rush they face. No more!
CHEAP:
Online goods are usually less expensive than the physical market, and They don’t have to pay expensive rent for their showrooms.
INTROVERT:
Introverted people can shop like an extrovert. You don’t have to worry about bargaining the high prices in the physical market.
KIDS:
Kids won’t get bored or endlessly angle for a toy or pack of gum at the checkout counter.
The list goes on, and there are many reasons why people prefer buying online rather than leaving their homes to the physical market. This shows how important it is for businesses to build online stores and adapt to the trend.
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