- According to a report by eMarketer, the eCommerce industry is set to exceed $2 trillion in sales in 2017. In another report, Economic Times reveals that the worldwide market worth is $22 trillion. That’s good news for web store owners.
But, for eCommerce sites, conversions are critical. And for that to happen, you must first focus on getting your site to show up high on search rankings so people can easily find you.
This is where e-commerce SEO proves to be a powerful channel for traffic acquisitions. In fact, it’s totally possible to increase your sales by double — or even triple — using the right eCommerce SEO tactics to drive more organic search traffic to your site.
Here are some eCommerce SEO tips by which you can do that. -
Use Google Analytics for eCommerce SEO
The most successful eCommerce businesses are those that offer their customers with exactly what they are looking for. To make this happen you need to research about your customers, the customer journeys, their online behaviors and so on. This is where analytics helps.
By using tools such as Google Analytics, SEMrush, etc., you will get comprehensive data about your customers’ behavior.Google analytics gives you an amazing data about your customer and the most important element is bounce rate because ultimately the main aim of your e-commerce business is products sales, and if the visitors does not stay for a long time and take the necessary action on this mission critical page, then your immediate job is to lower the bounce rate of your page.
- You can read this amazing guide from Moz about the most important metrics which you must not overlook if you want to utilize the full power Google analytics for e-commerce SEO.
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Switch to HTTPS to Boost Seo Ranking
One of the key benefits of moving your entire domain from HTTP to HTTPS is security. Because your eCommerce site is likely to request users to fill out several forms to collect their personal information, it’s best to make sure all data they share is encrypted.
Plus, google has also indicated a slight preference for websites that are on HTTPS. When switching over, remember to update your canonical tags from HTTP to HTTPS. This SEO tip will help you to achieve better eCommerce SEO results. -
eCommerce SEO Optimization Tips for Product and Category Pages
Category pages are the lifelines of your web store. Because people generally use phrases like “birthday flowers”, “striped shirts”, or “black dress” etc. rather than specific product names, using popular keywords to optimize category pages can attract a good deal of traffic. Here is list of SEO tips for eCommerce product pages:
a. Create simple category title tags.
b.Include purchase intent keywords such as “buy now”, “get (product name) online”, “on sale”, etc.
c. Same should be done for product title tags.
d. Make sure to add category descriptions/introductions above products.
e. Create a unique description for each category so that Google has some. content to index. This is to avoid thin content penalties.
f. Tag the images with ALT.
g. Url must contain the important keyword.
h. Make proper use of rel canonical tag to avoid duplication of the same product to appear multiple times with different product variants.
i. Write a unique product description of the product.
j. Find out what customers are saying in reviews on other e-commerce platforms for a similar product which you are selling, and take those keywords to use in the product description.
k. Use the exact match keyword, semantic keyword at least 4 to 5 times in 400-word product description.
l. Focus on User-generated content, where you can ask happy customers to give ratings to a product they have purchased. This will give mileage to sales conversion of the product pages. Look how Quadbikes R us have gathered lots of product review on their on eBay store.
m. Maintain the information hierarchy with proper URL structure, so that they are easy to understand and easy to navigate.- Category Page: Website.com/category/
- Sub-category page: Website.com/category/sub-category/
- Product page: website.com/category-sub-category/product-name/
n. Add product demo video or product images from different angles (make sure you use different alt tags)
o. Keep every product pages 3 pages away from home page.
p. Use breadcrumbs that will not only boost internal linking structure but also improve the user experience.
q. Make the URL structure readable.
u. Block the unimportant pages via robots.txt, to stop the link juice flowing out from the homepage.
r. Showcase most important products or revenue generated product on the homepage.
s. Create a lot of information content related to your products in form of a blog and interlinked from the product page.
t. Build your e-commerce website using AMP. Read this definitive guide from search engine land.
u. Regularly check 404 data and HTML improvement data in google webmaster tool and fix duplicate title tags, meta description, and 404 pages. -
Make Your e-Commerce Store Mobile Responsive
Make sure your product page is mobile optimized. Optimizing e-Commerce websites for mobile is very important as researchers have shown that mobile penetration has increased to a rapid rate. Internet usage engagement has touched to 51% compared to desktop user engagement by 42%. So if you are not making your e-commerce store mobile responsive then you are killing your business by yourself.
Google analytics gives you the actual measurement for those pages whose loading time to be optimized. To optimize the page speed of the page use Gtmetrix or google page speed insight to get the best result in your e-commerce SEO campaign.
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User experience
See how amazon has well optimized their product pages from user experience perspective so that when a visitor land up on their product page, they get all the information, stays for a long time and make the buying decision.
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Featured Snippet
Featured snippet will be one the most dominant factor for 2017 e-Commerce Seo. It is the way how you mark up the information and thus helping Google to show the relevant results to a user’s search query when the customer is in the buying cycle for products. To structure the data markup for e-commerce product page here are following which you need to follow
This is how your product pages will be shown on Google, thus increasing higher CTR rate. Note: Structure data is not a Google ranking factor.
This may not be a complete eCommerce SEO checklist of everything you need to do in order to boost your eCommerce site’s rankings, but this set of eCommerce SEO tips are a great place to start a successful SEO journey for eCommerce websites.
- A recent study from Forrester research indicates that eCommerce industry is growing at a rapid rate in India which may hit near to $1 trillion within 2020.
If are planning to set up your own eCommerce store and need a complete eCommerce web solutions, right from eCommerce web development to eCommerce conversion optimization and eCommerce SEO service, contact us to discuss your need.