9 Top SEO tips for eCommerce websites
What are your top SEO tips for eCommerce websites?
There are several SEO tips and tricks that SEOs swear by, from technical to mobile optimizations. To give you actionable, easy-to-implement steps that you can accomplish today, we asked eight eCommerce business owners and SEO professionals for their best tips.
Here are our tips to improve SEO for eCommerce websites:
Optimize Product And Category Pages
- Use Google Keyword Planner
- Take Care of Everything Meta
- Create Content That Meets Search Intent
- Utilize Your Blog For FAQs
- Optimize UX Based On User Behavior Data
- Properly Tag Shopping Cart Pages
- Write For People Too
- Find The Right Keywords
Optimize Product And Category Pages
The SEO foundation of any eCommerce site should be optimized product and category pages. These landing pages are where you make your sales and will attract customers with high purchase intent. Identify keywords that best describe your products and that also align with what your customers are searching. Keep in mind that not all customers may be familiar with your brand or product names when browsing on a search engine, so take the time to understand how to best communicate to them what it is you sell.
Raquel Thoesen, Markitors
Use Google Keyword Planner
Use Google’s Keyword Planner and other tools to determine what search terms your customers use to search for the products you sell. You’ll get data on monthly search volumes, competition, and what it would cost per click if you paid for Google Ads. Select which terms make sense to optimize each product page based on total volume and low competition. Include these keywords in the page title, headings, main content, image ALT tags, and the page URL. Regularly revisit this keyword research to find out if different search terms are gaining traction or if the terms you are trying to rank for have become overly competitive. SEO is fluid and will often be impacted by algorithm changes, competitors, website changes, and more.
Colton De Vos, Resolute TS
Take Care Of Everything Meta
Titles, descriptions, URLs (slugs), structure, etc. A lot of people focus on high-level stuff but forget about optimizing their eCommerce website for what robots will see and interpret. You can use various plugins and tools to make the whole process of optimizing on-site SEO for eCommerce easier.
Jakub Kliszczak, Channels
Create Content That Meets Search Intent
While SEOs generally suggest you create pieces of content related to your niche, I believe you need to focus much more on meeting search intent. Yes, topical relevance is critical. But, if you’re creating content that doesn’t match what Google is rewarding for a specific query at that moment in time, you’re likely going to fall flat on your face somewhere on page five—AKA where no one is looking. To meet search intent, open a window in incognito (as long as you’re in the target geo—otherwise, also use a VPN).
Next, search the query you wish to rank for and check out the first page of results—this is the kind of content Google wants to see. It’s telling you by showing you it’s on page one for that query. In short, you need to check out what’s ranking right now and use that information to create your own unique content, which is structured in a similar way.
Ahmed Mir, Sip Coffee House
Utilize Your Blog For FAQs
A lot of smaller eCommerce businesses, especially when they’re in the early growth phase where the owner wears all the hats, tend not to put the time into blogging. This is understandable given the pressure to run every aspect of your business! What I often see is people prioritizing social media as their main channel; don’t get me wrong, this is great for short-term traffic. But the blog is where long-term growth happens. Evergreen content will continue to dump new, curious shoppers into the top of your funnel for years to come. You don’t have to write a ton of blog posts to have a successful SEO outcome; you just need to update your blog regularly to make sure that the information you share isn’t wrong or out of date.
Jake Rheude, Red Stag Fulfillment
Optimize UX Based On User Behavior Data
Optimizing your content is the best approach to collecting and using user behavior data to improve your search engine rankings. Focus more on making content interesting and valuable for the user rather than stuffing with keywords. Google now puts more value on users/visitors’ behavior and experience onsite.
Hannah Byrd, Absolute Web
Properly Tag Shopping Cart Pages
Most CMS systems use URL structures that are descriptive to the shopping cart experience when users add products to their cart on an eCommerce website and view their cart. Within these shopping cart URLs, the unique identifier could be “cart,” “basket,” or another word. It’s important to remember that these aren’t the types of pages that search engines want to index, so identifying them and setting them to “noindex, nofollow” via a meta robots tag or X-robots tag (along with disallowing crawling via the /robots.txt file) will encourage search engines to avoid indexing this low-quality content.
Altay Gursel, Metriculum
Write For People Too
When you are working on eCommerce SEO, it can be easy to focus on the technical aspects. You may do great keyword research, perfect anchor text, plentiful link building and more, but still not make it to page one. Google and other search engines measure a visitor’s experience on your website, and if you only write for the robots, this experience won’t be as good as it can be. Instead, write for people, and then optimize after that.
Melissa Kelly, Virtual Team Building
Find The Right Keywords
Running an eCommerce website myself, I have learned that SEO can make or break your business. There is so much power in organic marketing. Even with countless competitors, strategic SEO practices can cause your eCommerce business to stand out and rank in a Google search. The best practice is to find the right keywords that your potential customers are searching for and are relevant to your business. Begin to incorporate these keywords into your website’s pages, product descriptions, and blog.
Peter Babichenko, SaharaCase
Increase Your eCommerce Rankings Today
Get in touch with Agile Digital Strategy today to increase your online sales through SEO. Check out our 9 benefits of eCommerce SEO. Agile Digital Strategy is a Shannon based Digital Marketing agency specialising in SEO with clients all over Ireland & UK.
We hope you found these 9 top SEO tips for eCommerce websites useful!. Start your SEO process today! Simple FREE SEO Audit of your website.
