Every online business is created on an e-commerce business model which facilitates a fantastic customer experience. But most often e-commerce stores struggle with “getting enough traffic” or “traffic without sales.”
Do you face this problem?? Are you looking forward to driving traffic and enjoy better sales?? Ever keen to know why you fail to achieve the $1 million thresholds?
Curious to know why so and how to face it?
Take a Look,
In 2013 there were more than 191 million online shoppers in the US. And when Cyber Monday carried out a survey they found that over $1.74 billion sales happened through online stores and this figure is witnessing a constant growth over the years. From this statistics, it is understood that there are plenty of wealth in e-commerce and there are a large number of customers who rely on online stores.
Consider this figure and analyze your store’s conversion rate. Does your store drive traffic? What is your conversion rate? Are you Running behind?
Answering these questions and identifying the shortcomings is half the battle. Once you recognize the problem, it is easy to implement a suitable solution. Isn’t it?
It is certain that the primary challenge of the digital world is Information overload. Since the digital world is flooded with information, customers will find it difficult to get the relevant data or information they are looking for. It is proven that an average customer won’t be able to process not more than 100,500 digital words daily. And when taking these facts into account, it is not surprising that you are not finding enough space in the digital world. Right?
Now, If you want to be identified by online customers but doesn’t know how, the answer is simple, “ Be Unique.”
But how?
If you wish to take your store to the next level of business, then your customers should find your name in search engines through organic traffic, and for that, you have to implement best E-commerce SEO practices for your site.
So,
What is SEO?
Search engine Optimization ( SEO ) is the process and method involved in enhancing the visibility of a website on an organic search engine page (SERPs). The art and science of SEO lie in the understanding of the way people search for products and the way Google displays it to users.
The visibility of the unpaid pages can be attained by implementing SEO friendly website design, Internal navigation optimization, link building and content optimization.
SEO brings together a lot of things, and a right SEO expert understands how search engines generate pages to users satisfying their informational, transactional and navigational keyword queries.
Now, let us dive into the techniques and methods of E-commerce SEO for your site,
The best e-commerce SEO strategy includes:
- Schema markup – Product Review Schema
- Social media setup/integration with the website
- Customer review option on the product page
- Setting up conversion funnel in analytics to know about e-commerce conversion and revenue generation
- Finding the type of keywords as per customers search
- Planning site construction as per keyword research
- Strategic keyword optimization in meta tags and content
- Ensure technical SEO for search engines to analyze your site
- Drive additional organic visitors through content marketing
- Improve the authenticity of your website through link building
- Measure your SEO success using tools like Google Analytics
- Explain your ideas using better videos, images, etc
- Build a comfortable user experience through a faster site, interface and better mobile experience.
Let us get into the details!
1. Schema markup- Product Review Schema
Schema markup is the latest development in SEO. This powerful optimization is the least-utilized and most potent SEO method available in the present day. Once you are well-versed with schema markup, you can easily give rise to your website in the search engine result pages (SERPs). If you have used rich snippets, you will understand what exactly schema markup! Schema markup is nothing but a code otherwise called as semantic vocabulary that you install on your website to assist search engines to provide more relevant and informative search results for users. To be descriptive, Schema markup helps Google to format product page listings to display the product ratings as well as reviews of search results. There is an option to paste in an existing schema code.
2. Social Media Setup/Integration with the website
With the emergence of web 2.0, social media is considered as a perfect sales and marketing platform. Most of the online buyers actively follow brands and are attracted to their online advertisements. Considering this consumer behavior, it is recommended to integrate your social media with the website. When you set up social media integration with the website, you should include Visible Social Media Buttons, Integrate Social Where it Makes Sense, Include Up-to-Date Buttons, Include Share Buttons, Use Analytics, Pay Attention to Terms and Conditions, Don’t Over-Do It. Moreover, you should Stay Knowledgeable for better results!
3. Include custom review option on the product page
Product reviews are must for store branding as these customer reviews are essential to create brand loyalty and usually describe what makes the product unique from others. These reviews also play a vital role in increasing the online presence of the store. Since the feedback appears on the product page, it helps search engines to find them using keywords. Another essential feature of product reviews is that with the right push at the right time, a store can be quickly advertised through customer feedbacks!
4. Set up conversion funnel in analytics
There are specific processes involved in converting site visitors to customers. All those who click on ads cannot be your customers, and they have to follow certain steps to make them pay money for your product. That is where funnels become important. It helps you to see the process easily by creating a visual representation of conversion data. Funnels help you to understand the steps that confuse or trouble the customer in addition to providing awareness about technical troubles, browser drawbacks, awareness of bugs, etc
5. E-commerce Keyword Research
The first step in an eCommerce SEO strategy is Keyword research, and this is something you have to be very careful with. If you go wrong here, you will get keywords that are difficult to rank for. This means, You won’t enjoy high ranking or you won’t get a lot of traffic, resulting in no enough sales. Either of these situations is not good, and that is why keyword research is important for eCommerce SEO.
Now you might be wondering how to perform e-commerce keyword research. Need not worry;
There are three ways:
- Amazon
- Competitor research
- SEO tools
1. Amazon for keyword research.
For high buyer intent keywords, e-commerce SEO can depend on Amazon because people usually search on Amazon with an intention to buy something. When you type a word in Amazon search, you will get auto spills from Amazon, and all these are keyword ideas which you can enter into your google spreadsheet to use later. If you run a large store and has hundred of products, then this may consume a long time. In that situation, you can use Amazon keyword Tool, where you get autofill suggestion and up to three searches are free!
2. Find keywords through competitor research.
If your competitor rank higher than you then can analyze their site and get keyword ideas. You can choose a competitor and then scan their product and category pages for keywords. But don’t blindly pick their keywords because their ranking can also be a result of higher domain authority.
3. Using SEO tools
Ahrefs and Google keyword planner are SEO tools.
Ahrefs is an amazing all-around SEO Tool which can be used for research, keyword search, link building and many more. On the other hand, Google Keyword plannerensures that you choose the right keywords. The keyword planner will help you to understand the rough search volume and buyer intent keywords. Then you can carry out a competitive PPC analysis to find the better keywords your competitor is using. In addition to that, you can create keyword matrix. This helps you to find better keywords for your website.
You should also give equal importance to Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) keywords. Identifying the relationship between semantic keywords has resulted in making one page which is suitable for both the keywords- main and semantic. Also, you can easily find semantic words by typing your primary keyword into Google search and then look at the autofill suggestions that Google provides. Amazon and Ahrefs can also be used to find LSI keywords.
6. Ecommerce Site Architecture
E-commerce site Architecture is crucial for SEO. The first stage of implementing E-commerce SEO is site’s architecture. The site structure entirely depends on your product pages, category pages, and navigation. In precise, it is all about availing the best and most relevant content for users by reducing the number of clicks.
Look into the “golden rules” for a great site structure:
Simple and Scalable.
The page should be accessible within three clicks
Build sub-directories and highly relevant page URLs using keyword research
Next, an important strategy for E-commerce SEO is;
3. On-Page E-commerce SEO Strategy
This strategy is all about ensuring that your keywords are in the right places. It’s just a way of making sure that Google knows what exactly your page is all about.
On-page E-commerce SEO includes three strategies, and they are;
On-page SEO for eCommerce category pages.
On-page SEO for eCommerce product pages.
On-page SEO for your blog content.
Undoubtedly, Category pages are the most important ones for page ranking. If a customer could find category pages in Google, then they immediately get access to all your products falling under that category.
For category page optimization you should put your target keyword in the following places:
1. URL.
Keeping primary keyword in URL not only the URL readable and friendly but it also improves search rankings.
2. Title tag
The keyword should be included in the title tag as close to the beginning. This is considered as the most important factor influencing your page ranking.
As rightly quoted by Shaun Anderson of Hobo web, “The Page Title Tag (or more accurately the HTML Title Element) is still, however, arguably the most important on-page SEO factor to address on any web page. Keywords in page titles can HELP your pages rank higher in Google results pages (SERPS). The page title is also often used by Google as the title of a search snippet link in search engine results pages. Keywords in page titles often end up as links to your web page.”
3. In body copy.
If you wish to get high ranking in Google, getting straight to the topic with no introduction is not ideal. A 300 word intro about the product including keywords for 2-3 times is important for better search engine results. While including the keywords for SEO E-commerce ensure that you don’t stuff it into the content.
4. In image alt text.
Google can’t read images, and hence it depends on Alt Text to understand the content. Image Alt text is another place where you can include the product name, and this inclusion will mark your presence in Google search results.
5. In the meta data.
Including Keywords in meta-data aka meta description improves your click-through rate because when included with keywords, Google makes it bold for the search results which brings a better ranking.
When performing eCommerce SEO for your site, you should make sure that your homepage links to the major category pages as well as with the best product pages. Proper internal linking, meta description and proper navigation are also important for pages to get credibility and authenticity for your site.
On-Page E-commerce SEO for Product Pages
When a page has a large data or information, Google consider it as a better page with an assumption that it has an answer for what a searcher is looking for. When carrying out On page SEO for Product page, the important things to include are Reviews, long- content and amazing usability. The inclusion of all these in excellent design will undoubtedly drive more traffic to your page. Apart from these, User-generated contents, customers photos from their social media pages (with their consent), videos or reviews are all required elements for product page Ecommerce SEO
In a nutshell, for product page SEO, you can do everything which you have done for category pages but with two necessary differences.
Banner image is not required since you have product images.
Write 1000 words Instead of writing 300 words, because top pages in google provide long-form content i.e., up to 3,000 words.
On page E-commerce SEO for a blog post
When you consider your category and product pages, it is evident that Content is the best and simple way to get ranking. It is simply because including keywords and backlinks are way more easy in long content.
Also,
When you write a blog post keeping E-commerce SEO as your goal, you should ensure that;
In the introduction within 50-100 words, you should describe the product details and the audience. Next, you should list the features in bullet points and explain all the points in detail.
Now, dive deep into the product description which includes awards, images, benefits, FAQ and other details.
Last but not least, in 50 words conclude or summarize your product. This has to be the summary of your blog post and should be a call to action.
7. Technical E-commerce SEO Audits
E-commerce SEO is not just keyword researching and arranging it. It has much more to do. The technical side or E-commerce SEO include speed of the site, user experience, mobile- optimization and linking.
In a nutshell E-commerce SEO is nothing but providing the great experience for your customers. The only thing, Google care for!
Well, now let us go through the tips for carrying out an e-commerce SEO audit to enhance your technical SEO.
#Crawl your site
If you Crawl your site, you get an insight into all the things that are bad for SEO like, broken links, missing metadata or alt text, duplicate content, etc.
# Ensure that site has only one browsable version
A user can link or browse your site in multiple ways, but you should make sure that your site is browsable only through one link. You should make sure, that others links are redirected to the canonical version. Also, you should pick the secured, and encrypted HTTPS version for search ranking boost as this version is most preferred by Google too.
#Check SEO of the home page
To carry out this, you should ask yourself.
Whether the page is well- crafted with clickable titles?
Whether the On-page SEO is up-to-date
Does the page have a custom description optimized to increase click-through?
Do the sub-headers adhere to SEO best practices?
Does the content has target keywords?
Do you have answers for these?? If not, you can use E-commerce SEO tools to analyze your SEO status. To name a few;
- Google Analytics.
- Google Search Console.
- Ahrefs
- Copyscape
- Title tag pixel width checker
#Analyze your crawl report.
You can analyze your crawl report to understand three things mainly;
- To understand the quality and current status of your site.
- It simplifies your effort to create a task list of things that have to be completed before you begin with off-page SEO.
- Assures that you get the best possible for least effort.
# Ensure exclusive content
Being unique is the most crucial thing for E-commerce SEO. Use Copyscape account to find duplicate content and ensure that you are free from plagiarism. Google dislike duplicated content and impose penalty too. With a premium account in Copyscape, you can be free from this worry.
#Search yourself on Google.
If you couldn’t find yourself first in google search result, then you should take steps for your store’s E-commerce SEO.
- Create branded links
- Create citations for business directories
- Make sure your site is included in Google business listing
- Ensure social media presence of your site
# Analyze search traffic
Analyze your Google analytics reports to understand where you stand and where you need to improve your e-commerce SEO to avoid penalty.
# Review Google Search Console.
Find errors in Google’s indexing robots, if any when crawling your site. You can redirect these old pages to related product pages, or category pages for better SEO of your e-commerce store.
#Analyze your back link profile.
By analyzing the back links, you make it clear that you are receiving any spam links which can invite penalty for your site. Here you should notice :
Anchor text – In the overview part of the site report
Broken back links must be redirected page to a relevant, existing page
Sleazy links, the spammy links from low-quality site should be avoided
#Enhance site speed.
In E-commerce SEO, site speed and crawl speed are the important factors needed for better ranking and user-friendliness. With plug-in URL and Google’s page speed insight tool, you can improve the speed of your site. With this tool you will understand the score, Google gave you on the desktop as well as mobile. This score will help you to overcome the issues if any.
To summarize,
SEO for e-commerce is important for every store and the primary things to follow for e-commerce SEO are;
- Ensure your store is HTTPS, the most trusted by Google as it safeguards customer information and improves SEO.
- Ensure your page load speed, the critical factor for e-commerce SEO.
- Mobile optimization is important for the site as mobile accounts 50% of e-commerce revenue
- Build quality backlinks and write compelling meta descriptions
- Include ALT tags for images and 301-redirect URL for newer product page
- Ensure Google-friendly and User-friendly URLs
- Ensure category navigation and title tag optimization
- Frequently update calls-to-action and build a strong “About us “ page
- Focus on long-tail keywords and use the canonical tag
- Activate and update SSL certificates
It is certain that E-commerce SEO brings a lot of opportunities for your business.
Feel free to comment your tips to boost SEO strength
Planning to optimize your eCommerce website for better performance and conversion?
