A Comprehensive Guide To E-Commerce SEO

e-commerce seo

If you run an e-commerce business, it’s important to have an in-depth understanding of SEO, or search engine optimization, to get your business on the first page of Google’s search results and drive more traffic to your site. While SEO can seem like an intimidating field, if you start with the basics, you’ll be able to fully optimize your site in no time. This comprehensive guide will cover everything from keyword research to technical SEO to link building and more so that you can make sure your e-commerce site gets as much attention as possible from potential customers and buyers.

Keyword Research

When it comes to online SEO, your focus is keywords. Successful e-commerce sites always start with a thorough analysis of what terms and phrases their target audience is typing into search engines like Google and Bing. If you sell both online and in-person, look at local keyword searches as well. What are people searching for? What questions do they have about your product or service? This will help you determine which keywords you should be targeting on your site. As you find keywords that match what you’re selling, research how competitive those keywords are. Use resources like SEMrush or even Alexa (which can help determine if an e-commerce company gets traffic from external sources) to gauge just how competitive certain words are. Although some SEO agencies prefer Yahoo Site Explorer (YSE), We prefer SEMrush because it allows me to see related terms, top traffic sites, and general competition information all on one screen. Once we have our key terms chosen (with a mix of broad ones and long-tail), we make sure our chosen URLs contain these key phrases throughout the site content so that each page has its own unique focus keyword.

Technical SEO

Let’s start with something simple—the nuts and bolts of setting up your e-commerce site. Technical SEO refers to everything you need to do within your site, from creating a mobile version that converts well to ensure you have rel=canonical tags in place. It is a big part of technical SEO, but it’s just one aspect. The other is all about optimising for user experience, which isn’t as straightforward as it sounds. First things first: Do not ignore UX. We know what you’re thinking—Is my checkout page fast enough? Does it have social sharing options? Do users hate it when I pop them over to a different page for shipping details? You should be asking yourself these questions. And more. But how exactly do you make sure your checkout page feels good? Fortunately, there are tons of resources out there on UX design if you don’t feel like tackling those questions alone. Other aspects of technical SEO include sorting out your duplicate and thin content, fixing site load speeds and tweaking aspects to give your website a smooth feel.

On-Page Optimization

You can’t do much about your ranking without on-page optimization. To be honest, most e-commerce SEO is done during on-page optimization because that’s where you’ll find all of your keyword opportunities. Keyword research, planning, and implementation are all part of on-page SEO. Since most e-commerce platforms have a huge amount of built-in data for keyword research (whereas regular blogs will have none), taking advantage of that could be essential for your business success. Don’t just write it off as something you can live without! When you optimize your site with keywords (and use appropriate keywords within your content), search engines will see what products are relevant to those words or phrases and give those products a higher ranking in their search results.

Link Building

To optimize your site for search engines, you’ll need plenty of links. Why? Search engines like Google judge relevancy by analyzing backlinks. Backlinks are simply links from other sites that are in some way associated with yours. While most business owners and executives will not have time or even want to perform link building on their own, an SEO agency can provide invaluable services that you might not be able to provide yourself. For example, these services could include writing guest posts on other blogs, performing outreach via email campaigns and even using paid advertisements like AdWords (Google Adwords) or Facebook Ads. Remember: no matter how strong your SEO efforts are on your own website—your effort will be multiplied if someone else is doing their best work on your behalf!

Website Architecture

When it comes to SEO, we’re not talking about a simple Google search that you have complete control over. We’re talking about a complex algorithm that weighs several factors when determining which sites rank at what positions. As part of that ranking process, search engines look at user experience. This means, among other things, that search engines like Google are paying attention to things like website load time and conversion rates. And because these are all important factors for shoppers deciding where they’re going to buy products online (or whether they’ll buy anything at all), site architecture has become more important than ever. To help your e-commerce SEO agency properly architect your site so it ranks higher in SERPs (search engine results pages), follow our tips below. 

1. Keep Page Load Times Short:

Your aim should be to keep page load times under two seconds – the ideal is under one second – or risk seeing an exodus of visitors from your site; 79% of people expect web pages to load in two seconds or less now. That doesn’t mean using overly complicated flash animations, either. It’s just as much about creating clean code on your own server as optimizing images on your page with tools like Adobe Fireworks—which can reduce file sizes by up to 75%. All told, fixing problems on Flash or HTML5 is a great way to cut 500Kb off your total page size. 

2. Maximize Conversions With Calls-to-Action:

Optimizing your calls-to-action (CTAs) is another big factor in increasing conversions. According to Shopify, 80 per cent of website traffic leaves within 60 seconds. So get their attention right away by offering compelling CTAs such as sales, discounts or free shipping—the three main triggers identified by ConversionXL —and do your best to stand out from competitors via CTA colour contrast and placement. Oh, and make sure those CTAs aren’t super tiny. 

3. Remove Distractions From Product Pages:

While the good design makes product pages engaging, bad design can break them down completely.

Content Marketing

There’s a reason why content marketing has been one of the fastest growing online trends for years: It works. Content marketing can help you build and strengthen your brand while also growing traffic. To help with e-commerce SEO, ensure that your site is packed with interesting and helpful content that readers will want to consume. You should write about how you can help shoppers with their problems or share stories about what it’s like to run an e-commerce business. People love reading about other people—sharing your own story helps show who you are as a company and what makes you unique. Write product reviews or informational pieces on topics relating to your industry; when possible, include links back to specific pages on your site within these posts so that readers get in-depth information related to items they might be looking at purchasing. Another great way to create valuable content related to SEO? Keep an eye out for news articles or breaking news in any aspect of commerce or e-commerce and use them as opportunities to link back up (once appropriate) with others in that space. The more visitors reach out for additional information beyond just searching for products, and links are even more important if they point consumers in different directions via solid information hubs.

Conclusion

Optimizing your e-commerce site for search is just like optimizing any other website—but there are a few key differences. When optimizing an e-commerce site, you should first take inventory of what competitors have done with their links and technical SEO. If you want to make sure you’re on track with your SEO, it’s a good idea to seek out and hire an SEO agency.

Authors Bio 

Hardik Mody is a Digital Marketing Manager. He plans and coordinates marketing activities of ValueHits, a full-service Digital Marketing Agency in Mumbai, India. With his experience and Expert knowledge in the field, he identifies potential customers and develops marketing campaigns. Also, he is efficient enough to meet the client’s requirements and well-organized in handling Multiple tasks.