Without strong SEO, online retailing loses its worth. It can transform a virtual store from mere existence to a dynamic trade hub. If you want to unlock the true worth of your online retail business, embrace E-commerce SEO.
As per a study, 46% of retail customer journeys start with a Google search. So, to propel any store to the spotlight, SEO is a must. Keeping this in mind and with an objective to increase sales for any ecommerce website, I am revealing the secrets of enhancing online visibility by making you understand the fundamentals first.
So, to beat your competition and stay at the top in search engine rankings, let’s get started!
What to Expect?
The article will cover every essential step for an effective E-commerce SEO strategy. It has been tried to break down the complex process into simple steps so that even a newbie can understand and conduct them.
Why Trust the Writer?
Hi, I am Navneet Singh, an SEO expert with over 12+ years of experience in the search engine optimization industry. During my journey, I have worked with many Ecommerce stores and helped them rank on search engines. This article is a result of my extensive knowledge combined with SEO experience for ecommerce websites.
Understanding E-Commerce SEO
E-commerce SEO is the art and science of optimizing a digital shop to attract the right visitors. Indeed, it elevates the brand search visibility and drives shoppers to the store.
One can start their ecommerce journey through the listed platforms and you will be delighted to know that SEO works for all.
- BigCommerce
- Adobe Commerce (Magento)
- Commercetools
- Shopify
- Salesforce Commerce Cloud( Demandware)
- PrestaShop
- Shift4Shop
- Big Cartel
- Open Cart
- Volusion
- Squarespace
- Weebly
- WooCommerce
- Wix
- Square
Whether running any platform, my objective is to maximize the full potential of your digital marketplace and get a higher ranking for it on Google and other search engines. You will learn how to integrate the mentioned platforms with SEO in the article.
As per analysis, 14.6% of SEO-generated leads are converted into sales. Then, why don’t you give it a try? There are several reasons to trust SEO for optimizing an e-commerce site. Let’s check them out in the above segment.
Why SEO in Ecommerce Matters (8 Reasons)?
SEO is the major influencing factor for ecommerce platforms or digital marketing. It tells Google or any other search engine the purpose or what a store sells online. If integrated correctly into an ecommerce website, one can get many benefits like:
- Organic traffic to the website
- High generation leads
- Increase brand awareness
- Building trust and authority
- Optimization of your website for mobile users
- Getting you ahead of the competition
- Cost-effective content writing
- Enhances user experience
Hence, to pull people to your website and enjoy other mentioned benefits, develop a comprehensive E-commerce SEO strategy.
Developing a Comprehensive E-Commerce SEO Strategy
E-commerce stores are easily established, but running them successfully is not everyone’s cup of tea. Brands want to grow their revenue but do not work where they must, i.e., better customer journey and understanding Google about the store.
To help all those online sellers who want to progress, we are sharing an easy-to-develop and containing lesser guesswork E-Commerce SEO strategy.
Ecommerce Keyword Research: Unlock the Key to Visibility
The art of keyword research for ecommerce stores is to match terms to understand what customers use to find items sold by e-commerce stores. By using it effectively, the visibility of a digital site can be increased. It would be accurate to state that the success or failure of the store depends on the foundational step of SEO, i.e., keyword research.
In ecommerce, there are primarily two types of keywords:
Product Keywords: These are associated with the products or services the store offers. Brand names, model numbers, color, size, or any other product-specific details are included in it.
For instance, the product keywords are Palaleather Black Vegetable Tanned Goatskin Leather Trench Coat and Palaleather Black Goatskin Wind Jacket with Mink Fur, items a store offers
Category Keywords: These are broader and encompass a range of products or services within a specific category. The overall theme or type of products available are generally described through them.
For instance, “men’s”, “women’s”, and “new arrivals” are the category keywords the store uses.
Both keywords are significant for a store, as they help potential customers find relevant products or explore broader categories of their interests.
Each retailer should know how to find targeted product and category keywords. If you yearn to understand, below are some specific methods.
How to Find Keywords for E-Commerce Products and Category Pages?
Choosing the right focus keywords is crucial to catch people in the buying cycle and display the e-marketing site in search engine suggestions.
Here are some superb tactics:
Analyze in reverse“ Popular Products”: First, identify popular products within the niche and reverse engineer their success. Study customer reviews and online forums to uncover the keywords used by consumers. It will help to learn the language and terminology of the target audience.
For instance, a jacket-selling ecommerce store can take ideas of search terms from the largest and most successful site-Amazon, as shown in the figure.
Scan social media platforms: The best way to discover the well-liked and trendy keywords related to products is by extracting information from social media. Dive into Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest and look for hashtags and discussions about the items to be sold by the store.
Take advantage of user-generated content: Pay attention to the language and keywords used by customers while sharing their experiences with any products. Use those keywords in the selling item’s descriptions and category pages to enhance SEO. Also, it has been found that for 93% of shoppers, online reviews are consulted before making a purchase.
Make the most of visual search: One can find unique keywords using visual search tools like Google Lens or Pinterest Lens. These tools can discover associated keywords that are hard to find through traditional text-based keyword research methods.
Monitor voice search trends: Voice search is popular these days. People like to take the assistance of Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant to search trends. So, focus on conversational phrases and user questions about your store’s products.
Thus, to find keywords for e-commerce products and category pages, one has to think beyond the ordinary. Use these most effective ways and tap into unique and target phrases.
In short, the key lies ultimately in understanding the target audience and optimizing the store accordingly.
On-Page SEO for Ecommerce Sites: Crafting Impeccable Web Presence
On-page optimization encompasses various elements directly related to the content and structure of a website. It involves optimizing text, keywords, images, links, and HTML source code to enhance the user experience and search engine visibility. By implementing on-page SEO techniques, you can create a compelling web presence and improve the overall quality of your website.
So, let’s begin with optimizing product pages, as it plays a great role in generating traffic and sales for all ecommerce websites.
How to Create Perfectly Optimized Product Pages?
It is the product page that catches every user’s attention. So, when practicing on-page SEO, one must cover product titles and descriptions and include high-quality images.
Optimize title tags: Titles attract users, so let’s start with it first. One can add modifiers like “Cheap” or “Buy” to get traffic. Using magnet words like “X% off” and “Lowest price” would be a clever strategy to boost CTRs.
Compelling product descriptions: One should create unique, informative, and impressive product descriptions that highlight the benefits and features of products. Remember, using keywords naturally to attract potential customers and captivate search engines.
Add a call-to-action button and user reviews in the product description also.
Clear Product Information: To highlight the key details of products, like their specifications, dimensions, and any other relevant information, one can use bullet points or subheadings. It will make it easy for visitors to find the information they need.
Architecting Site Structure and Internal Linking Strategies
An e-commerce site has many pages. If organized and arranged, it becomes easy for users and search engines to find them. A well-structured site structure serves as the blueprint, ensuring easy navigation and logical flow for shoppers.
So, a well-advised course of action would be to have clear categories and sub-categories to guide visitors to their desired products efficiently. It will let them not get lost and explore different online store sections effortlessly.
Furthermore, internal linking strategically links related product pages and relevant content inside the store. Create a cohesive trap that can lead shoppers from one item to another. It should be like encouraging them to discover additional products aligned with their interests and preferences.
Let’s explore how to craft site structure and internal linking for ecommerce sites and engage shoppers with the brand.
Divide the store into distinct product categories or collections. It will help customers to immerse themselves in a focused shopping experience.
Have a clear and intuitive navigation menu for the store. Add breadcrumb trails or search bars to ensure visitors can easily explore and find the desired products
Make sure the site is simple and scalable. Also, no page should be more than three clicks from any other page.
Key attractions can be highlighted to draw customers deeper into the store. Feature them prominently on the homepage or category page.
Implement cross-linking strategies to connect complementary items. This can allow consumers to navigate from one product to another seamlessly.
One can add informational hubs in the store. Feature engaging content like blogs or buying guides, and strategically add relevant product pages through internal linking.
Enhance the shopping journey of purchasers by suggesting complementary products, like giving them the opportunity of upselling and cross-selling.
Streamline the checkout process and ensure a frictionless experience for buyers. Simplify form fields and offer secure payment options for them.
Accelerating Page Load Speed and Constructing SEO-Friendly URLs
Page load speed is one of the deciding factors of Google algorithms. Also, research by Radware found that 18% of shoppers will abandon the cart if pages are too slow. Make sure that a customer deserves the best experience at each touch-point in the store.
If you are facing the issue of low page speed and want to avoid it in the future, I will help. You can improve it by compressing images, minimizing code, and leveraging browser caching.
Let’s discuss the strategies in detail:
Set up browser caching to store certain website elements like images and CSS files. This will save the data, and the page will load faster the next time.
To distribute the static content across multiple servers worldwide, use CDNs (Content Delivery Networks). It helps improve load times by reducing the distance data needs to travel.
Compress and resize product images to reduce file size without compromising quality.
Make sure the store is designed to be mobile-friendly and responsive. It should load on different devices properly.
Construct descriptive, concise, and keyword-rich URLs. To separate words in the structure, one can use hyphens.
Implement canonical tags to prevent duplicate content issues in an ecommerce site. Canonical URLs can avoid content dilution.
Lastly, ensure the website’s code is clean and optimized. If there is unnecessary code or plugins, remove them and consider using an efficient ecommerce platform.
Content Writing: Fostering User Engagement
81% of shoppers conduct online research before buying a product. This is where the power of content comes into play. For example, if a housewife needs to buy an electronic appliance, then she will search on Google first like:
Hence, it will be a nice tactic if the ecommerce selling store provides a guide or informative content related to the electronic device and links to the product. This way, the customer will have information and consider purchasing from the store.
Let’s talk about using content writing to grow any e-commerce business.
Create High-Quality and Informative Content
Maybe the topic you want to write for the store’s product will be covered already by someone, which implies that Google has the information regarding that. But, if your content is of high quality, written keeping the target audience in mind, and free from plagiarism, only then the search engine will give it a place on the top pages.
Hence, focus on writing informative content while watching old customers’ feedback.
Optimized Content with Relevant Keywords
It’s not easy to understand the chaos of using the right keywords, links, and other rules of search rankings. But do not fret; by following the above-mentioned strategies for keyword research, you can find relevant keywords and incorporate them into the content piece.
Give visitors a perfect picture of your product through the guide so they do not jump off your page and move on to the competitor’s.
Technical SEO: Strengthening the Foundation
Running an ecommerce store is something very different from understanding its technicalities. That is why there is a need for expert advice that can make things clearer and easier, even for an ordinary online business owner.
Technical Search Engine Optimization improves the site for search engine crawlers and indexing. Just like, one establishes and strengthens the foundation of a building, technical SEO does the same for an ecommerce site.
Let’s break down the step-by-step guide on how to improve an ecommerce store’s online standing technically.
Constructing a Crawlable Site Free from Technical Glitches
If the site is free from technical glitches and crawlable only then it qualifies for ranking in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). Here are some tactics:
Ensure each product has a title and meta description, as its absence can limit the search engine’s ability to accurately interpret and display the product information in search results.
Longer content tended to rank above thin content. Thus, to enjoy a high user engagement and conversion rate, focus on providing more information to the shoppers.
There should not be broken links as these can disturb the store’s hierarchy. Also, these effects the site’s SEO and provide a bad user experience to would-be shoppers.
Implementation of Structured Data Markup
To enhance the search engine’s understanding of product pages, structured data markup in an ecommerce store can be implemented. First, identify the appropriate structured data or schema.
For ecommerce sites, it could be “Review,” “Offer,” “Product,” and “Rating.” Choose the relevant schema type depending on the data to be marked up
Security Measures
People want to keep their details private. So, as a digital business owner, it’s your duty to protect their data during transmission. Here are some safety measures. Check them out:
- Implement Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption to secure login credentials, payment information, and other consumers’ details. It will ensure the data exchanged between the user’s browser and the server remains encrypted and safe.
- One can use two-factor authentication for users’ logins. It will act as an extra layer of security and a one-time code is sent to their mobile devices.
- Using reputable and secure payment gateways for shoppers to process online transactions is very important.
Along with the above-mentioned measures, one should conduct regular security audits to identify and fix potential security weaknesses.
Link Building Strategies: Building Bridges to Success
Backlinks from other websites with high domain authority can improve its ranking and direct more traffic to an ecommerce store. To acquire those links, one needs to collaborate with other retailers.
The below-mentioned methods are the most effective and easiest to conduct:
- Guest Blogging
- Social media engagement
- Creating visual content (Shareable)
- Collaboration with influencers
Remember, content and links can be good ranking factors to consider getting a position with the top result pages.
11 UX and Conversion Optimization Tips for Ecommerce Website – Transform Visitors into Customers
Now, you have all the necessary information. But, to excel in the field, there is a need to do something different from usual. Conversions demand optimization and a good user experience, and for that, there is a need for some helpful tips. Follow them and transform visitors into customers in your store.
- Put real, high-quality images and videos of products in the store. Authentic visuals can increase credibility and trustworthiness among potential customers.
- Social media is a great way to connect with the audience. Engage in conversations with them and share the amazing benefits of purchasing the products from your store.
- Use shopping cart abandonment software to retrieve the customers who were just about to purchase.
- Tweak and test the checkout process. Always try to streamline it and make it easy to understand.
- Offer limited-time coupon codes for shoppers. This will give them a timeline, and they will think about buying the product before the deadline.
- Free shipping can be an enticing offer for consumers. The absence of such proposals can force them to look somewhere else.
- Let users checkout as guests. This will allow them to explore the store and create an opportunity for the growth of customers.
- Make the “add to cart” and “checkout” buttons prevalent. Also, use CTAs prominently on the page.
- Ensure customers can take advantage of the product return policy and shop without hesitation.
- Live chatbots can help customers in getting answers to their queries quickly, and customers will think of purchasing from your site.
- Email marketing can be integrated to see great results for the store. Send personalized messages, and shoppers will think to take an interest in your store.
8 E-Commerce SEO Mistakes to Avoid
It is obvious to Err is human. But learning from mistakes can be advantageous. That’s why let me also share insights on common mistakes in ecommerce SEO and how to avoid them.
- Not paying attention to local SEO can cost you, i.e. loss of nearby customers for your stores. According to Google, 46% of all searches have local intent. Make sure to include your business Name, Address, and Phone Number on all platforms. This way, you won’t miss out on valuable local business opportunities.
- Do not go for unnatural stuffing of meta tags, URLs, product descriptions, and other content. It will just lead to a drop in the ranking and a bad user experience.
- Not optimizing product pages based on the search demand can lead to lower visibility and search traffic.
- Allowing third-party hosting of an e-commerce site’s reviews can be a mistake because Google may not consider those reviews as part of your website. It’s better to keep reviews on your site for better recognition and trust by search engines.
- Presence of multiple H1 tags on the Homepage or product page titles can confuse search engines and disturb the focus of the primary keyword for that page.
- Forgetting the addition of social sharing buttons on an ecommerce blog can be a mistake. Better include it so that people who find it interesting can share the informative content with their friends on social media platforms.
- Users prefer searching long tail keywords. Also, 91.8% of all search queries are long-tail keywords. So, do not lose sales opportunities, just optimize your site for them.
- Having no SEO strategy beforehand can be a blunder. Hence, if you are inexperienced in crafting a data-backed plan, contact an SEO expert. They will help in the optimization of the website and content effectively.
How to Measure E-Commerce SEO Results?
Just like the saying goes, “You reap what you sow.” When there are efforts from your side, it is obvious that the website will climb to the top. However, SEO takes time, but one can see results with patience. The question is how to measure them.
Although, an increase in revenue is itself proof. Still, this does not mean there is no other way to access them.
Here, I am presenting a list of incredible and effective SEO tools that can present a clear status of any e-commerce website and also helps in conducting the process.
Let’s start evaluating:
Tools for Keyword Research
When doing keyword research for ecommerce store, these can help discover valuable keywords, search volume, and competitor insights. Start the procedure by using:
- Google Keyword Planner
- Ubersuggest
- Moz Keyword Explorer
- Keyword Sheeter
- KeywordTool.io
Personally, I suggest you use a combination of tools to get a complete view of keyword opportunities and trends. However, to monitor their performance, one can trust Moz, SEMrush, or Ahrefs.
Keep track of website analytics
One can rely on Google Analytics and Google Search Console to track the website’s performance. Connect the site and these tools and measure:
- Website traffic
- Organic traffic
- Conversions
- User engagement
- Session Duration
Monitor a website’s backlink profile
One can analyze both the quantity and quality of backlinks with these tools.
- Ahrefs
- Moz
- Majestic
Tools for technical SEO
To identify technical SEO issues like broken links, duplicate content, and missing meta tags, one can use:
- Screaming Frog
- Google Page Speed Insights
- GTmetrix
Thus, with all these tools, one can learn things that are engaging for the audience and also their SEO efforts are getting successful or not.
Don’t Have Time? Hire a Reputed Ecommerce SEO Agency
Ecommerce SEO is approachable, provided you need to invest ample time in learning and execution. Plus, the process is experimental, and there are no hard and fast rules to achieve guaranteed results.
Hence, if you want to save time and leave SEO for your ecommerce site with some experienced SEO professionals, consider hiring an eommerce seo agency who has been working in this industry for many years or we’ve a list of best ecommerce seo companies as well. In case you have a shopify store, then we have compiled a list of shopify seo companies You can check and hire the best suited one for your store.
FAQs
How much does SEO cost for ecommerce if I hire an Agency for my ecommerce store?
Ans. The cost of SEO services differs from agency to agency. Rest, it all depends on the support you require. Generally, it starts from $1500 to $25,000 per month. Also, your geographical location is a deciding factor in determining the total charges for SEO solutions offered by any SEO expert agency.
Why invest in SEO Services for ecommerce?
Ans. To stand out from the crowd, an ecommerce entrepreneur has to invest in SEO services. It enables them to boost organic traffic, increase sales and improve user experience. Precisely, one can reach the right target audience and reap long-term benefits through it.
What are the different SEO tools for ecommerce sites?
Ans. To complete the objective of getting good ranking and increasing organic traffic, one can use tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, SEMrush, Ahrefs, Moz Pro, Yoast SEO(a WordPress plugin), Ubersuggest, Screaming Frog, Bing Webmaster Tools, and Spyfu.
Does SEO for all ecommerce platforms done in the same way?
Ans. The fundamental principles of SEO remain the same for all e-commerce platforms. The core strategies like keyword research, on-page and off-page optimization, technical SEO and creation of content apply universally. However, the way these are executed differs depending on the platform you are using.
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