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Shopping online has become part of everyday life. The simplicity of logging on to the internet and buying what you need instead of making a trip to the shops means that more and more shops are going online.
If you sell products online, getting the SEO right on your ecommerce site has never been more important.
Ecommerce sites by their very nature don’t usually contain a lot of content, which means site owners need to ensure they address other elements to give their sites a competitive edge.
In this blog I have put together a comprehensive guide to eCommerce SEO as well as the other factors that should also be looked at to give you a competitive edge.
Keyword research
As with any SEO campaign, it all starts with keyword research.
Without extensive research, you won’t really get the full picture of what people are looking for (in relation to your products).
Do your research. Find what people are looking for and make your decisions.
Product names are product names and a majority of people will know what they are looking for. In these cases, there is not much room for movement away from working with exactly what it is. However, researching terminology and variations can be the difference between targeting your audience and just missing out.
On Page
Title labels – Each page must have a unique title tag. Your keyword research will provide you with valuable information about how it should be structured, what terminology to use and what keywords to focus on.
For product pages, always include the product name. Don’t try to be clever by using a variation to attract more visitors. More often than not, if someone is looking for a product, they know what it’s called.
Meta Description Tags – They may have no impact on rankings, but these descriptions are valuable snippets that can make the difference between someone clicking through to your site or going to your competitors.
As with your title tags, these should ideally all be individual.
Product Description – If you are a reseller or include 3rd party products within your range, avoid using the manufacturer’s description. Rewrite it. You want this content to be unique. You do not want to duplicate information that may be included on other sites.
You also want to avoid including links that lead to another website; for example a “for more information check their official website” style links. The second you lead them away from your website, you’ve lost the sale.
Product Prices – Nothing will annoy a potential customer more than not knowing how much the product is. Make sure the price is visible.
Add to cart – Make it easy for customers to buy your products. It starts adding products to their cart. If this move is extremely difficult or doesn’t work, they will be your competitors in seconds.
You should also make sure that the price of the product is next to the “buy” button.
Be sure to regularly check important buttons like “add to cart” or “buy now”.
Images – Your product images must be clear. Don’t use images that you had to expand. This will affect the quality of the image.
If your images are not of top quality, it can give the site an amateurish feel.
Telephone number – Make sure you include a contact phone number on all pages. Even if no one ever calls it, having it right there will create a trust between you and your customer. Knowing that they can be contacted if needed will add confidence.
Social buttons – Make sure you have social buttons on your pages. Help your visitors share your content. This is the online version of “word of mouth”. The easier you make it for them to bookmark and share your products and pages, the further your reach will be.
It also helps natural link building.
Technical SEO
With your on page elements in place, it’s just as important to make sure the technical aspects of the website are also up to date.
Google Search Console
Any website that is serious about getting results online needs performance data.
Google Search Console is free and gives you essential data about how Google sees your site and how it performs.
E-commerce websites are by nature large with hundreds, sometimes thousands of pages. You need to stay on top of all possible problems. Google Search Console will help report back on such key areas as site speed, broken links and crawl errors. For more information on this, please visit us eCommerce SEO Checklist?
Website speed
The speed of a website is an important factor. If you have a slow website while someone is trying to buy something and you are going to lose sales.
So from both a search engine and a usability standpoint, you need to make sure your site is fast.
As mentioned before, Google Search Console will give you strong indications about your websites current speed.
Search Engine Friendly URLs
Using search engine friendly URLs is usually one of the areas that is thought about once a site is up and running or once all other SEO work is done.
E-commerce sites, due to their multi-page nature, will have URLs consisting of long product number-related strings, for example: “https://www.example.com/shop/white-productid=37827white/ ”
It would be much more beneficial to use keyword related URLs: “https://www.example.com/shop/white-widgets-for-cans”
A descriptive URL is more search engine friendly.
The setup required will depend on the CMS you’re using, but it should be considered during the setup phase, otherwise you’ll have a world of 301s to set up.
Canonization
Due to the nature of large e-commerce sites, duplicate pages can naturally be created. If a product is relevant to more than one category, you may create duplicate pages.
Google recommends implementing canonical tags. This helps inform the search engines that you want them to recognize only one version of the page. The tag directs the search engine to the version you want indexed.
Site Navigation/Bread Crumbs
- The site navigation must be correct.
- The website should be easy to navigate. Don’t let your customers get lost.
- Using breadcrumb trails helps you add key terms (which will also add relevance) and helps usability.
- Giving your customers this route will also help them on the website. It can also be tracked by Google.
Beyond your website
If you sell products online, you need to think about platforms outside of your own website. Online marketing is evolving all the time with potential customers using more and more online platforms to search for what they are looking for.
If you don’t use it, you won’t just be missing out, you’ll also miss out on natural link building opportunities and social shares.
Be social
Social is big. More and more people are now using social platforms to find out information and make their decisions. If you are nowhere to be seen, you will be missing out.
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