by e-commerce SEO is the process of making your online store more visible in the search engine results pages (SERPs). When people search for products that you sell, you want to rank as highly as possible so you get more traffic.
You can get traffic from paid search, but SEO costs much less. Plus, ad blockers and ad blindness can reduce the effectiveness of paid search, so you’ll want to optimize for search regardless.
e-commerce SEO usually involves optimizing your headlines, product descriptions, meta data, internal link structure, and navigational structure for search and user experience. Each product you sell should have a dedicated page designed to draw traffic from search engines.
However, you don’t want to forget about static, non-product-oriented pages on your site, such as the following:
- Homepage
- About page
- A.Q. page
- Blog articles
- Help center answers
- Contact page
The best ecommerce SEO strategy includes:
- Keyword research to find the types of keywords customers are searching.
- Site architecture based on your keyword research.
- On-Page SEO through strategic keyword optimization in meta tags and content.
- Technical SEO to help ensure search engines can crawl your site efficiently.
- Local SEO to help drive local organic traffic (if you have a brick and mortar).
- Content marketing to drive additional organic visitors.
- Link Building to help improve the authority of your website.
- Measuring SEO Success with tools like Google Analytics and Ahrefs.
Strategy
- Prioritize pages: Which pages on your site get the most traffic? Start with them. Additionally, if you want people to focus on a specific or flagship product, optimize for that product first.
- Create a workflow: SEO requires you to meet lots of specific requirements. Choosing keywords, adding meta data, naming your images correctly, adding image alternate attributes, and incorporating related keywords all fall under this category.
- Check out the competition: Your ecommerce SEO strategy should be designed to outwit the competition. Look at your top competitors’ sites and check out their SEO efforts. Identify ways to make yours better.
- Follow through with CRO: Conversion rate optimization (CRO) should follow SEO. We’ll talk about that more later on.
Analyze the Keyword Search Volume, CPC, and User Intent
Before you use a keyword, do some research on it. Know how often people search for it (keyword search volume), how competitive it is in the paid advertising space (cost-per-click, or CPC), and what people are looking for when they use that keyword.
Search volume tells you how much interest a particular keyword inspires in consumers. A high search volume indicates greater popularity, which means you’ll get more active searches for that keyword.
CPC tells you how much people pay per click when they buy advertising based on a specific keyword. A high CPC indicates increased competition. If your target keyword is extremely competitive, consider finding a long-tail alternative.
Finally, user intent describes what people want to find when they type a specific keyword into Google’s search bar. Let’s say, for instance, that someone types “shower” and hits Enter.
Focus on Homepage SEO
The homepage is typically where most businesses focus their SEO budget and energy. While it is definitely one of the top pages of your website to optimize, it is by no means the only one you should focus on.
That said, you do want to optimize your homepage well. The key things you want to add and optimize are include the following.
Homepage Title Tag
The SEO title tag is one of the most important element of on-site search optimization. It should include your business name along with the main keyword phrase you are targeting. You should write this title tag in less than 70 characters and in a way that is appealing to search visitors, as they will see it in search results.
Homepage Meta Description
While this is not important as far as keyword rankings, the meta description for your homepage is a 160-character description of your business that will also show up in search beneath the title tag. Write it in a way that encourages people to want to visit your website.
Homepage Content
The content on your homepage should help visitors learn more about your business and the products you have to offer in a clear and concise way. Avoid overloading visitors with too much information. Consider featuring your top few products on the homepage and your unique selling proposition.
Cluttered homepages can confuse visitors as well as search engines. For instances, maybe you sell products in many different categories. Google will struggle to identify what you sell and who you’re targeting with your products, so get specific about what your site offers.
Simplify Your Site Architecture
As you are adding products and categories to your store, remember that site architecture plays an important role in search optimization. Particularly, you want to have a distinct hierarchy of navigation, from your homepage to product categories to the products listed within them.
Search engine bots will discover your pages and products on your website based on a clear internal linking structure that is easy to follow and not too deep.
The rule of thumb for search engines and visitors is to make sure people can reach everything within three clicks. From the homepage, they should only have to make a maximum of three clicks to get to any product on your website.
Internal Linking
Internal links serve two main purposes:
- Boosting e-commerce SEO by showing how pages are related to one another
- Increasing time on site by encouraging visitors to further explore your site
Linking to related products or to information-rich blog articles can help improve ecommerce SEO and make your site more tempting for deep dives.
Optimize Product Pages
Product pages are the lifeblood of your business, so you will want to focus a lot of your energy on optimizing them. Many ecommerce store owners simply write a few lines of text about each product and throw up an image or video.
You need more information on your product pages so Google can find them. Here are the specific things you want to work on.
Product Name
The name of your product is important. In most cases, it’s also used in the SEO title and URL of your product page. This is why you may want to consider adding a common search term or keyword phrase to your products.
For example, if you are selling T-shirts, be sure to include “T-shirt” or “tee” in the product name. That way, the keyword also ends up in the SEO title and URL.
Image Optimization
Images are an important part of your product page. Stand in your customer’s shoes for a moment. Are you more likely to buy a product from a site that clearly depicts the product from as many angles as possible, from a site that has no image at all, or from one that is small and illegible?
Not only are images important for your customers, but they are important for search optimization.
Video
Help your customer feel more confident about their purchases by also adding video to your product page. The video can be basic information about your product (like a commercial), a how-to video on ways to use the product to get results, or testimonials from people who have used the product.
Publishing videos offsite on networks like YouTube can be a great way to attract and educate potential customers about your products.
Customer Reviews
Reviews are another way to boost customer confidence in your product, so if you have a good product, be sure to allow them.
Bad reviews aren’t always a bad thing either. Think about it – if you have a higher priced item that has great reviews, and a lower priced item with so-so reviews, then people will be more likely to choose the higher priced item, resulting in greater sales for your business.
FAQ Content
Do people ask questions about your products? Of course they do. Having product-specific FAQ content on your product pages is a key to conversions.
If customers have questions that you don’t answer, they’ll go somewhere else to find those answers and likely buy from the source that answers the questions.
Having a general FAQ page on your website is also a good idea. Answering basic questions about your website’s security, shipping, and return policies can increase buyer confidence, leading to more sales.
Use Responsive Design
Reduce Page Load Speed
Page load speed is also a ranking signal, both for desktop and mobile. The faster your pages load, the better Google will rank you.
Create Backlinks for e-commerce SEO
Backlinks are another ranking signal Google uses to determine where your pages belong in the SERPs. The more backlinks you have from high-quality sites, the more authoritative your site becomes.
Building backlinks for ecommerce sites doesn’t have to be difficult. Guest posting on blogs related to your niche is one easy, white-hat way to build links. Simply email the owners of the blogs you’re interested in and offer them three or more ideas for potential guest posts.
