Ecommerce SEO Strategy

Ecommerce SEO Strategy

Ecommerce SEO

Ecommerce SEO is the process in which businesses make their ecommerce sites more visible in SERP or search engine results pages. The goal is to rank as high as possible in search queries that include the products you sell so that your ecommerce website gains more organic traffic.

We will go over the basics of eCommerce SEO agency goes about search engine optimization to get an eCommerce website to move up the ranks of a search engine results to rank product and category pages.

SEO audit

SEO for ecommerce is a cost-effective way to garner more website visits. While you can increase visibility and traffic from paid searches, ad blockers and users who consciously ignore ads, also known as ad blindness, can make paid searches less effective.

A good ecommerce SEO strategy will allow you to beat out paid ads on search engines

So while paid searches can increase traffic, it’s best to optimize for SEO for your ecommerce website regardless.

An ecommerce SEO strategy will usually involve optimizing your metadata, headlines, product descriptions, navigational structure, and internal links both for search engines, and to better the user experience.

The products that you sell should each have their own dedicated product pages in order to draw traffic from search engines.

It’s important when going through the process of improving your ecommerce SEO that you don’t forget about non-product oriented content that is on your ecommerce site as well. This includes:

  • Blog articles
  • Homepage
  • Contact page
  • FAQ page
  • Help Center page
  • About page

You can use online tools or industry knowledge to create a list of keywords for those pages as well as related keywords to include in this type of content.

Why does on page SEO matter?

When you need a product or service, what is one of the first things you do? For many people, it’s a Google search.

A good ecommerce seo strategy involves on page SEO to increase your ranking in search results

When performing a search on Google, or any of the other search engines, a few things come to mind when it comes to making an informed decision. Options, comparisons, tips, and other info are just some things users are looking at when searching.

If your ecommerce website is not included in the SERP, you’ll lose out on business. While having a presence online is important, and a great start, how are users going to find you?

This is why spending time and perfecting on page SEO is so important. It will provide you with the means to reach your target audience without paying for ad space. And once users reach your site, quality content is important to make them stay.

Having proper on page SEO is the first hurdle you will need to overcome once your ecommerce site is fully set up. A good strategy will help you with this.

Developing a strategy for ecommerce SEO

SEO for ecommerce websites

Ecommerce SEO can seem especially daunting, especially if you have a lot of products, and thus product pages. While it’s true that it will take some time to get your ecommerce SEO right, you can help to speed the process up by having a good ecommerce SEO strategy in place.

  • Prioritize pages – This is the first thing you’ll want to focus on. Which pages on your website tend to get the most traffic? Do you have a specific set of products that you want to focus on? Optimizing for those product pages or the most popular pages should be your first step.
  • Creating workflow: Ecommerce SEO has very specific requirements. Including keywords both in headlines and body, properly named images, adding image alternate attributes, metadata all fall under this category.
  • What is your competition doing?: Knowing what the competition is doing will allow you to take over the top spot. Check out their SEO efforts and identify ways that you can do better.
  • Don’t forget CRO: CRO stands for Conversion Rate Optimization and should follow SEO. We’ll go over this more in detail further on.

Ecommerce SEO Strategy Best Practices

Let’s go over some of the best tips for ecommerce sites to help people find your products more easily.

Using the correct keywords

Keywords are important! While you don’t need to go overboard and use them at every opportunity, they should definitely be present in the copy.

You’ll want to use your primary keyword on your product pages, particularly at the headline, category pages, meta description, subheadline, description, and image alternate attributes.

You’ll want to sprinkle LSI or latent semantic index keywords throughout the text to help give Google some context to the content.

Research and analyze

When deciding what keyword to use, do some keyword research. Get a good idea about how often users search for it (keyword search volume), what people are looking for when they use it in a search, and how competitive it is in advertising (CPC or cost-per-click).

Keyword research will help you decide which keywords to use on your ecommerce site

Looking into search volume will give you good keyword ideas and allow you to find out how much interest there is in a particular keyword. Obviously, a higher search volume will indicate greater popularity, and using that keyword will lead to more active searches where you could be at the top of the SERP.

User intent will tell you what people are looking to find when they use a certain keyword in a query on a search engine. If you can figure out the user intent for a keyword, you’ll be able to better set yourself up to show up in the SERP.

Checking out the average CPC will tell you how much advertisers pay per click when they buy advertising that uses a specific keyword. If the CPC is high, that will tell you that there is a lot of competition. If there is a lot of competition for a keyword you are wanting to use, you may want to consider using a similar keyword with a lower CPC.

Check out the competition

If you are just starting off on your journey with ecommerce SEO, a great place to start off is by looking at the competition.

Larger competitors in particular have more than likely already put in a lot of work when it comes to optimizing their websites, and you can learn a lot by taking a look at what they’ve done.

Analyze your competitor's ecommerce websites with tools like Serpstat

Keywords are going to be the main focus here. In particular, you’ll want to focus on the keywords used on their homepages as well as their top product pages.

Also, check out your competitors’ landing pages and category pages as well to see they use specific keywords to optimize those pages.

There are several tools to help you out with this. Serpstat is one of our favorites and is also available as a Chrome browser extension.

Homepage SEO

Most businesses typically focus their ecommerce SEO budget and energy on their ecommerce site homepage. And while we absolutely recommend doing the same, don’t forget other parts of your ecommerce site that also need to be set up for SEO.

However, as far as homepage SEO goes, here are the things you’ll want to focus on:

Homepage title tag

The SEO title tag is one of the most important elements when it comes to on-site optimization.

The title tag should include the name of your business along with the main keyword phrase that your business is targeting.

It should be less than 70 characters and appealing enough for users to want to click on it.

Meta Description

The meta description of your homepage is the brief description that shows up under the title tag in search results.

This is an important element of SEO because it’s one of the main reasons people will choose to click on your website.

Homepage Content

Your homepage’s content should allow visitors to learn more about your products as well as your business.

Your ecommerce site should have a homepage that speaks to customers

Be sure this information comes across in a clear and direct way, to avoid overloading them with information. You may also want to feature a few of your top products on your homepage.

When your homepage is cluttered, it looks unprofessional and low quality. This can give the impression that your products or services are also low quality.

Even more, having a cluttered homepage can confuse search engines. This is especially true if you sell products that are in different categories. Google will have a hard time identifying what it is you sell, and who your target consumer is, making it difficult to rank your site in a query.

Keep it simple

As you add category pages and products for each category page to your store, keep in mind that site architecture plays a very important role in ecommerce SEO.

In particular, you will want a distinct hierarchy of navigation, from your website’s homepage to category pages, to the products listed in those category pages.

A simple site architecture will help search engines rank your ecommerce website

Search engines will be able to discover your product pages on your website based on an easy-to-follow internal linking structure.

A good rule of thumb to keep in mind for both search engines and for website visitors is to make sure that everything can be reached within 3 clicks. This journey from your homepage to any product page on your website should be 3 clicks at most.

Internal Links

Link building is an important part of ecommerce SEO

There are two main purposes for internal links.

  • Encouraging visitors to keep exploring your website, thereby increasing the time spent on your site
  • Showing how pages are related to one another thereby boosting ecommerce SEO.

For example, you can link related products to each other, or link products to relevant blog posts in order to improve ecommerce SEO.

Product Page Optimization

Be sure you are focusing a lot of your energy on the products pages themselves. After all, these are what your business is all about at the heart. Here are a few things you’ll want to focus on:

Product Name

What you decide to name your product is important.

product pages are easier to rank in Google searches when proper keywords are used

In many cases, it will also be used in the SEO title of your product’s page. For this reason, you will most likely want to consider adding a common search term or keyword to the products you are selling.

As an added bonus, if your products are shared on Facebook for example, the keyword will be used in the title of the post.

Optimizing Images

It should come as no surprise that images play a vital role in your product pages.

Think about when you are shopping online on other ecommerce websites. Are you likely to buy a product when the image for that product is low quality? Or even worse has no image at all?

Images are important, not only for your customers but also for SEO.

High quality images play a vital roll in an ecommerce SEO campaign

To begin to properly optimize your images for search, you’ll want to start at the file name itself. Make sure the name of the file has something to do with the product, such as black-basic-tee.jpg

The name of your photo file plays a roll in SEO for product pages

If you have alternate views of your products, be sure to include the keywords that people would use if they are searching for the images in a Google search.

Also, be sure that when you are adding your images to the product page that you are including the product name and the keyword in the ALT text for the image.

This will increase the chances of your image appearing in a Google Image Search, or in the main SERP.

Video

Another great way to entice people to purchase your product, and to make them feel more confident about their choice is to add a video to your product pages.

Adding video to your product pages increases interest

The video can be a simple testimonial, maybe a video review that you’ve gotten from social media, or a how-to video on ways you can use the product, or style it, or even information about the product itself, especially if your brand is sustainable, made locally, organic, supports a cause, etc.

You can also publish these videos off-site on networks such as YouTube to attract potential customers.

Reviews from Customers

Reviews are a fantastic way to increase confidence in your product, so make sure you have a space for them and promote them where possible.

Customer reviews are an essential part of ecommerce sites

Even bad reviews can have their place to help your business.

Think about it this way, if you have a product that is higher priced and has rave reviews, and another product that is lower priced but has mixed reviews, people are more likely to choose the higher-priced item, which will lead to more revenue for your business.

How Do You Track and Measure Success in E-commerce SEO?

In the fast-paced world of e-commerce, staying ahead of the competition and ensuring your online store’s success is a constant challenge. One of the key strategies to achieve this is through effective search engine optimization (SEO). However, implementing SEO strategies is just the beginning. To truly gauge your success and refine your approach, you need to track and measure your e-commerce SEO efforts. In this article, we will explore how to set up e-commerce SEO key performance indicators (KPIs), utilize essential tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console, conduct regular SEO audits and adjustments, and leverage case studies and success stories to drive your e-commerce business forward.

Setting up e-commerce SEO KPIs

Key Performance Indicators, or KPIs, are crucial for measuring the success of any e-commerce SEO campaign. They provide valuable insights into the performance of your website and help you make data-driven decisions to improve your SEO strategy. Here are some essential e-commerce SEO KPIs to consider:

1. Organic Traffic

Organic traffic refers to the number of visitors who find your website through search engines like Google. Monitoring this KPI helps you assess the effectiveness of your SEO efforts in attracting relevant visitors. You can track organic traffic using tools like Google Analytics.

2. Keyword Rankings

Keep an eye on the rankings of your target keywords. Are you moving up or down in search engine results pages (SERPs)? Tracking keyword rankings helps you understand which keywords are performing well and which ones need more attention.

3. Conversion Rate

Conversion rate is a critical KPI that measures the percentage of visitors who take a desired action on your website, such as making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter. It’s not enough to drive traffic; you need to convert that traffic into customers.

4. Bounce Rate

A high bounce rate indicates that visitors are leaving your website shortly after arriving, which can be a sign of poor user experience or irrelevant content. Monitoring bounce rates can help you identify and fix issues on your site.

5. Click-Through Rate (CTR)

CTR measures the percentage of users who click on your website’s link in search results. Improving your CTR can lead to more organic traffic, making it an essential KPI to track.

6. Revenue from Organic Search

Ultimately, your e-commerce business’s success relies on revenue. Track how much revenue is generated from organic search traffic to understand the direct impact of SEO on your bottom line.

7. Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate

For e-commerce websites, cart abandonment is a common challenge. High abandonment rates can signify issues in the checkout process or with the pricing of products. Reducing cart abandonment can lead to increased sales.

8. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

Understanding the long-term value of your customers is crucial. Calculate the CLV to determine how much revenue a customer is likely to generate over their lifetime as a customer of your e-commerce store.

9. Return on Investment (ROI)

Calculate the ROI of your SEO efforts by comparing the costs of your SEO activities to the revenue generated. A positive ROI indicates that your SEO strategy is profitable.

10. Mobile Performance

As mobile usage continues to rise, it’s essential to track how your website performs on mobile devices. Monitor metrics like mobile traffic, mobile conversion rate, and mobile-friendliness to ensure you’re catering to mobile users effectively.

Utilizing Tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console

To effectively track and measure your e-commerce SEO KPIs, you’ll need the right tools. Google Analytics and Google Search Console are two powerful tools that provide invaluable insights into your website’s performance.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a robust web analytics platform that offers a wide range of features to help you understand your website’s traffic and user behavior. Here’s how to utilize Google Analytics for e-commerce SEO:

1. Track Organic Traffic:

Set up Google Analytics to monitor your website’s organic traffic. You can create custom reports and segments to focus specifically on SEO-related data.

2. Analyze Keyword Data:

Use Google Analytics to identify which keywords are driving traffic to your site and track their performance over time.

3. Conversion Tracking:

Set up conversion goals and e-commerce tracking to measure the success of your SEO efforts in terms of conversions and revenue.

4. Bounce Rate Analysis:

Investigate high bounce rates and identify the pages or keywords responsible for them. This can help you improve user experience and content relevance.

5. User Flow Analysis:

Understand how users navigate through your site. Analyze the flow of users from landing pages to conversion points to identify potential bottlenecks.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a tool specifically designed to help you monitor and manage your website’s presence in Google search results. Here’s how to make the most of Google Search Console for e-commerce SEO:

1. Submit Sitemaps: Ensure that your website’s sitemap is submitted and regularly updated in Google Search Console. This helps Google index your pages more efficiently.

2. Check for Errors: Monitor the “Coverage” report for any indexing errors or issues with your pages. Resolve these issues promptly to improve your site’s visibility in search results.

3. Keyword Performance: Review the “Performance” report to see which keywords are driving impressions, clicks, and click-through rates. This data can guide your SEO strategy.

4. Mobile Usability: Google Search Console provides insights into your website’s mobile usability. Ensure your site is mobile-friendly to maintain or improve rankings.

5. Structured Data Markup: Check for structured data errors and ensure that your e-commerce products are correctly marked up with schema.org markup. This can enhance your search results with rich snippets.

Regular SEO Audits and Adjustments

E-commerce SEO is not a one-and-done task; it requires ongoing monitoring and adjustments to stay competitive. Regular SEO audits are essential to identify areas that need improvement and ensure your e-commerce site is optimized for search engines. Here’s how to conduct effective SEO audits:

1. Technical SEO: Check for technical seo issues such as broken links, slow page load times, and mobile responsiveness. Resolve these issues to improve user experience and SEO rankings.

2. Content Audit: Review your website’s content for relevance, quality, and keyword optimization. Update or expand content as needed to address user intent and keep it fresh.

3. Backlink Analysis: Monitor your backlink profile and disavow spammy or irrelevant backlinks that could harm your SEO efforts. Building high-quality backlinks remains crucial.

4. Competitor Analysis: Regularly assess your competitors’ SEO strategies and rankings. Identify opportunities to outperform them and gain a competitive edge.

5. Algorithm Updates: Stay informed about search engine algorithm updates, as they can impact your rankings. Adjust your strategy accordingly to adapt to algorithm changes.

6. Local SEO: If you have physical store locations, optimize for local SEO by managing your Google My Business listings and gathering reviews from satisfied customers.

7. E-commerce Platform Optimization: Ensure that your e-commerce platform is optimized for SEO, including clean URL structures, product schema markup, and effective categorization.

8. User Experience: Continuously improve the user experience on your website. Optimize navigation, reduce friction in the checkout process, and enhance mobile usability.

Case Studies and Success Stories

Case studies and success stories are powerful tools for not only tracking success but also inspiring confidence in your e-commerce SEO

 

FAQ

You’ll always receive questions about a product you are selling. To make it a little easier for both you and your customers, it’s best to have some FAQ content, not only on your page but also on your product pages.

A well thought out FAQ section is important for any eccomerce web page

Making sure that your FAQ page has basic answers to questions such as shipping, return policies, and website security can help to increase confidence in your brand, which leads to more sales.

Responsive Design

Many purchases are made on a mobile device these days. Making sure your website is set up to be mobile friendly ensures that people who visit your site not only have a better experience but also makes it easier for your site to show up on Google search results. This is because Google uses mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal.

Page Load Speed

Another ranking signal that Google uses is how page load speed. Google will rank your page higher or lower depending on how long your website takes to load.

To improve your site speed, focus on eliminating as many unnecessary portions of your page as possible. Any plugins or add-ons that don’t contribute to your business in a meaningful way should be removed.

Image Size and Dimension

When you have large images, your site will take longer to load.

To ensure your load times are not weighed down by image size, try to make sure all of your images range from a size of 1000×1000 pixels to 500×500 pixels.

Another option that may work in some scenarios is to change the file type to a lower-quality JPEG file by using a product like Adobe Photoshop.

Creating Backlinks for Ecommerce SEO

Another important ranking signal that Google uses to decide where your website places in the SERPs are backlinks. When you practice link building by having backlinks from high-quality sites, your site becomes more authoritative. link building is a must when it comes SEO for ecommerce

While you may be left scratching your head as to how to be featured on other sites, it’s really pretty simple. One great way to build backlinks on your ecommerce site is to guest blog post that is related to your niche. To do this, you’ll want to email the owners of the blogs that you are interested in being a part of, and offer them at least 3 ideas for guest posts that you’d love to write about.

Tools for Ecommerce SEO

As with any job that needs to be done, you need the right tools. Below are some of our favorite tools that will help you improve your on-page and off-page SEO to increase visibility.

MOZ

MOZ is great for keyword research. It can be used for both tracking and finding keywords, as well as finding link-building opportunities, and analyzing your competitors’ page metrics. There are both free, and paid versions available!

Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is a great tool for finding the right keywords for you to target on your ecommerce site, as well as finding related keywords in order to boost your search rankings.

And it’s super easy to use! Just type in a keyword that is related to your product, and Ubersuggest will comb the web for related keywords, as well as information about those keywords such as search volume, CPC, etc.

Ahrefs

Ahrefs can help you to track and optimize your eccommerce SEO strategy. It’s a fantastic tool for finding backlinks to your site as well as to your competitors’ sites. This is useful because it will help you find others in your industry that you can work with. Say for example that you see a competitor is backlinked on a site, you can try to get a link from that site as well by emailing the business and establishing a rapport. Offer to link to their site on your own, then suggest a high-quality post on your site that their audience may be interested in.

Combining CRO with SEO

While CRO and SEO are two completely different things, but they are tied together.

They’re two stages that the consumer may go through to purchase your products. For this reason, CRO is definitely worth visiting.

If people aren’t able to find your site, they won’t convert. This is where ecommerce web design becomes a factor. If you haven’t optimized for conversions, you won’t make a meaningful number of sales no matter how many visitors you get.

When you combine SEO with CRO, your strategy elevates to the next level. Ecommerce has become extremely competitive in recent years, and it’s not slowing down anytime soon.

Finding ways to get more eyes on your site, as well as shipments out the door is vital.

Start by using analytics tools to see how people have engaged with your site so you can find areas that may need strengthening. As long as you are optimized for SEO as well as CRO, you’ll be able to generate a consistent flow of conversions.

Wrapping it Up

The goal of any business owner is to try to increase conversions. However, in order to even attempt to do that you’ll need people to visit your site. That’s why SEO for eCommerce is so important for a successful business.

Here’s a little SEO checklist as a reminder:

  • Optimize your homepage for SEO
  • Use the right keywords for your niche
  • Research the competition
  • Simplify site architecture
  • Optimize your product pages
  • Use responsive design
  • Do what you can to reduce page load speed
  • Create backlinks

By following these steps, your ecommerce site will rank higher in search engine results, thus increasing clicks and conversions.

SEO