If you’re selling products or online services, it’s critical that your customers can find you. Even if you have a well-designed website with competitive prices, there will be a huge issue if your customers are struggling to find what they’re looking for. That’s where SEO comes in.
Search engine optimisation will ensure that your website is ranking well and high on the rankings, utilising features such as keywords to help specific landing pages, products and content rank above competitors and improve click-through rates throughout the site.
10 ways to improve your ecommerce SEO strategy
Here are some tips and tricks to take on board when implementing or improving your ecommerce SEO strategy.
Keyword research and buyers’ intent
Although the most popular keywords within your industry are still important, for ecommerce marketing you will need to also focus on buyer intent which is related to the intention behind a query. This means looking at wider queries and phrases that are being searched for in line with the main keyword in order to answer relevant questions or cover a certain location. The two main types of keyword intent include:
Informational keyword intent: contains questions such as “How do I “ and covers searches which are looking for more detail and information.
Commercial keyword intent: these searches appear when a customer knows what they want but are not sure how to find it. For example, they may search for a specific geographic location or search for a more in-depth phrase.
Optimise product pages
On-page optimisation techniques are used to attract and acquire new customers and gain conversions and engagement. For ecommerce, product optimisation will include features such as product descriptions, images and content and reviews.
Product description optimisation:
- Adding high-quality unique images
- Include keywords and phrases
- Write keyword-rich descriptions
- Adding CTA’s and forms
- Testimonials and case studies
Images and video:
- Choose appropriate images that are properly scaled
- Include captions and ALT tags
- Use the correct keywords to file names
Designing a user-friendly site
User experience is a critical part of any website, but especially when customers are trying to buy something and complete conversions. Good web design and development will not only make your website more aesthetically pleasing but will also create a more enjoyable shopping experience that ultimately impacts traffic and sales.
No matter how much stock your store has, it’s important to ensure that they can find what they’re looking for quickly and easily through the use of fast loading, mobile-friendly design, clutter-free layouts, navigation, CTAs and accessible styling.
Avoid duplicate content
From product descriptions to blog articles, you must ensure to avoid duplicate content and even imagery across the site. Duplicate content can be avoided by using a CMS for features such as redirects and tags, using different product images and adding unique keywords that are specific to your landing pages or service.
Improving page speed
With so many competitors and alternative options online, customers won’t wait around while a site loads, instead, they will opt for one which is fast-loading and reliable. The ideal page speed is about two seconds which can be tested using softwares such as Cloudflare or Google’s own PageSpeed Insights tool.
Page speed can be impacted by a number of different factors, however, there are also a number of different ways in which you can improve it:
- Use fewer images
- Compress files
- Optimise images and videos
- Avoiding clutter and excessive content
- Limiting redirects
- Limited HTTP requests
- Upgrading your hosting
Use a simple URL structure
When your e-commerce site has a simple URL structure, it enhances the UX of your site by providing more relevant data for search engines. It also makes it easier to share products on social media and other websites in order to help other customers find your products and services easily and through different formats.
When focusing on your URLs, you will also want to include keywords and meta tags which communicate to search engines about the page content.
Content and long-form copy
Although the primary purpose of an ecommerce store is to sell, there is still a huge need for high-quality content when it comes to SEO. Written content can contribute a lot to a website and always opens doors in terms of collaboration, partnerships, backlinks and social media mentions. The content might include articles, FAQs, product launches, UGC, case studies and galleries. If you run an ecommerce business, here are some reasons why having a content strategy can help boost your SEO:
- Attracts organic traffic
- Building trust with customers
- Boosts your website rank
- Enhances your reputation
Link building
By obtaining high-quality links, your website will gain credibility and authority online. Backlinks can also help your site rank higher for keywords that are relevant to your services.
To create quality backlinks, you can do things such as write guest posts, use social media ads, share social posts, issue press releases, create graphics and publish case studies. There is also the option to buy links however this isn’t always recommended as some of these can be low quality and impact your site’s reputation. When buying links for your site, make sure to check their content is of high quality and they get a good amount of traffic and engagement.
Add a sitemap
A sitemap is a visual representation of your website and is used to detail all the pages on your site as well as features such as subcategories, products and other forms of content. Sitemaps can be developed manually or using an automated tool using XML and HTML. In terms of SEO, sitemaps can be more helpful for visitors and will keep the website structured and organised.
Use schema markups to help Google and users understand content
Schema markups can be used to improve SEO by using HTML tags that provide additional information about the content on your web pages. Search engines use these to show more information about specific items in search results and can help users find what they are looking for. In ecommerce, you will mostly use the below schemas:
- Product schema
- Review schema
- Product availability schema
- Video
- Price schema
