Acing your rankings with search engines is essential for any ecommerce website. This means getting to the top of the search results page. And with search engines constantly changing their algorithms for what works and what doesn’t, it can be hard to nail all of the ecommerce SEO details down in pursuit of increased search volume.
Why Boost Your Ecommerce SEO?
Search engine optimization (on-page SEO) isn’t a one-and-done deal and, if anyone tries to tell you that it is, RUN! It is a daily pursuit for every website—and especially so for an ecommerce site. You need to be found by consumers ready to purchase; toward that, SEO should be a key factor in your ecommerce marketing strategy. However, SEO in and of itself can be overwhelming, so here’s how to start strong—and stay strong—with your ecommerce SEO plan.
Unlock Search Engines with Ecommerce Keyword Research
When a customer runs a Google search, they’re going to type something in the search field; this may be in the form of a question, subject matter, or topic. In order to rank on search engine results pages (SERPs), your ecommerce website must contain relevant keywords to drive customers (known as “search traffic”) to your site.
The first step in your SEO ecommerce strategy is to list all of the pages on your ecommerce store. Break them down into two sets: category pages and product pages. Each of these specific pages will need individual attention to ensure they are fully optimized for targeted traffic.
How to Optimize Ecommerce Product and Category Pages
A category page is one of the most important parts of your ecommerce website. This is where you will provide images of your products and detailed descriptions of said products—as well as calls to action. In order to rank for specific products and offerings, you will want to make certain your product descriptions are clear and contain relevant, informational keywords. So how do you know what is relevant? How do you know what keywords to use? The best way to find out the answers to these key questions is to perform extensive target keyword research for each product.
One of the best ways to ace Google searches with your product pages is to use ecommerce SEO tools provided by Google itself: GoogleAds Keyword.
Planner is a great first step. You will want to choose your primary keyword (or keywords), while also focusing on long-tail keywords.
Going for the target customer means using the right target keyword(s) on each page. This is especially helpful inside the meta titles (more on that later). Bringing in specific, ready-to-buy customers is what you’re after as an ecommerce site. This is why page-specific SEO matters so much.
Technical SEO Tips for Your Ecommerce Website
It’s also important to pay attention to the architecture and structure of your ecommerce web pages. The user experience, or UX, is vital to a positive consumer experience on your ecommerce site. This means it should be easy for consumers to navigate your site, there shouldn’t be any outdated or broken links, your site should load quickly, and be mobile friendly. You can use Google Search Console as a tool to audit your site and see if there are any UX areas you can improve on.
Just as important, the most critical keywords for each page should be baked into the meta description, meta tags, the title tag, and the meta title naturally. These elements are crucial to having a consumer’s search engine of choice index and display your pages on SERPs.
One final note here: Consider adding schema markup to your pages. This rich-text markup uses structured data words on your pages that can help a search engine quickly (and efficiently) understand how to index your pages based on page relationships. You can use Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper to work out the best markups.
Claim Your Google My Business Listing
Claim, and accurately fill out, your Google My Business listing with your business name, contact information, and compelling photos to help with local SEO, as well as search engine rankings. And be sure to keep this GMB updated with new photos or any changes in hours of operation.
Link Building for Ecommerce Sites
Success for ecommerce sites largely depends on high-quality content that sports ethical, high-quality internal links between your own website pages (internal linking) and external links to authoritative, relevant websites.
When a search engine sees these links on your website, it ticks the boxes of the algorithm, which leads to increase ranking in SERPs.
So…What Do I Do First?
Utilize these tips and you will increase your chances of noticing results on SERPs. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, don’t hesitate to contact our in-house SEO experts. Give us a call today!
