Driving traffic to your ecommerce store and the right kind of traffic is an essential aspect of ecommerce SEO. As we know, Google wants to give its users the best results for their queries. And that’s what your ecommerce brand needs to focus on from day one.
With such a huge number of ecommerce sites selling similar products and services, you need to take some steps to be visible in the SERPs.
There are hundreds of such strategies (some work and some don’t), which is why we’ll discuss only the top 9 ecommerce SEO tips that will help you stay ahead of your competitors in organic search results in 2022 and beyond.
Tip #1: Optimize Your Site Speed
Your site loading time matters a lot. It is more important than you can ever imagine. A slow website means lower customer satisfaction, more bounce rates and lower conversions.
Therefore, always select a reliable web hosting provider who ensures superior uptime and fast page-loading speeds for your ecommerce website.
Research shows that 47% of online shoppers expect a web page to load in less than 2 seconds. If your site loading speed is more than 3-4 seconds, you should start optimizing it immediately.
Tip #2: Create Good Product Descriptions
It’s always important to describe your products well so that users can understand what they are buying. Product descriptions should have the following elements:
Headline – Use a compelling headline that tells customers what is being offered.
Introduction – Describe your product’s unique features and benefits first. Also, include a list of bullet points highlighting key attributes.
Technical specifications – Give detailed information about hardware configurations, software, and protocols.
User reviews – Highlight the pros and cons of the product. Include video and photo galleries for a better understanding of your products or services.
Guarantee – You can also include a guarantee to win customer trust and confidence.
Using these elements, you should write useful content that clearly explains what your offer is all about. In ecommerce SEO, product descriptions play a vital role as it directly influences the SERPs.
Tip #3: Put your focus keyword in URL slugs
It is not necessary that you must have a focus keyword for each page of your website, but you should always put it in the URL slug. It gives a clear idea to Google about what your page is about. Remember, Google can’t see images or videos, so it won’t have any clue about the content on the other pages of your site.
For example, if you create an article that talks about “how to lose weight”, consider using a URL structure like this- how-to-lose-weight.html.
When you use a long URL structure, it is called keyword cannibalization and it might hurt your ecommerce website’s SERP rankings because of duplicate content issues.
You should also avoid using special characters in the URLs as it can create problems with search engine bots crawling your site.
Tip #4: Optimize Product Titles for SEO
For ecommerce SEO, it is essential to optimize product titles as they are the most-clicked on page elements. The length of your product title should be between 7-10 words because users don’t like to waste time by reading too much information.
You can use your focus keyword in your product title but make sure you repeat it only once.
For example if you are selling a necktie, then avoid using necktie in the product title as it sounds irrelevant to search engine bots.
Tip #5: Optimize Product Descriptions
While optimizing your ecommerce website for SEO, you should always optimize your product descriptions. It is one of the most important on-page SEO factors because it directly influences CTR (Click Through Rates).
Google uses CTR to determine the relevancy of your website, so it is always better to keep things simple. You should try your best to include a full description of your product in its description section with prices, discounts and call-to-action elements.
For example:
“Xerox Office Products & Supplies manufactures and sells office supplies. Xerox offers a full range of products and services, including toner and inkjet printers, copiers, MFPs (multi-functional products), software solutions and related supplies and accessories.”
This product description is too long and it doesn’t include the name of the company or its focus keyword i.e. Xerox Office Products & Supplies.
But if you remove the unnecessary information and optimize it for ecommerce SEO, then it might look something like this:
“Xerox Offers a full range of products and services, including toner and inkjet printers, copiers, MFPs (multi-functional products), software solutions and related supplies and accessories.”
You can also use bullet points in your product descriptions to highlight the key features of the product. Use subheadings to separate paragraphs throughout the product description so that users can scan it easily.
You should always include your brand name, phone number and physical address at the bottom of each page of your website.
Tip #6: Optimize Target Keywords
A target keyword is a word or phrase that is directly related to your product. If you want to rank for “boston red sox tickets”, then the related target keywords could be:
- buy boston red sox tickets
- where can i get boston red sox tickets
- discount boston red sox tickets
- purchase boston red sox tickets
You should try your best to use target keywords that are relevant to your business, product or service.
You should also avoid using generic words like “shoes”, “glasses” etc if you are selling specific brands of shoes and glasses.
For instance, if you’re selling Marc Jacobs shoes, then you should use the target keywords like:
- buy marc jacobs shoes
- marc jacobs woman shoes
- where to buy marc jacobs shoes
- discount marc jacobs shoes
Tip #7: Link Out to Relevant Websites
It is not a secret that Google loves information and links. That’s why you should link out to relevant websites whenever it is relevant to your product.
If you are selling a book on Hawaii travel guides, then you should include links to Wikipedia.
By linking out to Wikipedia, you are not only providing your users with more information but also making Google happy because it can understand which website has real information about Hawaii.
This will rank you higher for the term Hawaii travel guides simply because Google trusts Wikipedia.
Tip #8: Optimize for People and Not Search Engines
It is always better to optimize your ecommerce website for the end users than search engines because it’s more natural and relevant.
Here are some points you should keep in mind while optimizing your website for people-
• Tell a Story – If you want to rank for unique product names, then it is always better to tell a story about the product. For example – “A hip new fabric that can change its pattern depending on your mood.”
• Use People’s Names – If you are selling Michael Kors bags, then it is always better to use his name in the title of your article because it sounds more natural and people trust such brands.
• Use Descriptive Titles – It is always better to use descriptive titles because they both tell your audience as well as search engines what the article is about.
• Write in a Conversational Tone – Always try to write in a conversational tone so that you give your users a human experience.
Linking out to other websites is beneficial in multiple ways. For one, it helps you build high-quality backlinks that can help your website rank higher for competitive keywords. It also makes your website look more natural because people love reading articles with interlinked content.
Linking out to relevant content can also make your users stay longer on your website. If your website is all about hipster fashion, then linking out to another article on the same topic will provide users with more relevant information which can be beneficial for you in multiple ways.
Tip #9: Find Broken Links on Your Website
The easiest way to get higher rankings in Google is by having a lot of quality links. If you want to get quality links, then you need to make sure that your website is linked out to other websites. One of the most effective ways to do this is by finding broken links on your website.
To find broken links on a page, paste the URL of a web page into the Google search box and add a link: before it in order to find all the pages that link to it.
For example, if you are looking for broken links on Amazon’s website, then use this formula.
This will give you a list of all the websites that are linking out to Amazon’s website. You can now go through each of these websites and check if they have any broken links. If they do, you can contact the webmasters and ask them to remove the broken link and add your website’s link in its place.
BONUS TIP #10: Use WordPress
WordPress is one of the best web platforms for SEO.
There are many benefits of using WordPress from an SEO perspective. It can help automate some tedious and resource-intensive tasks, and it’s also built for good SEO performance out of the box.
You can learn more about the WordPress SEO benefits here.
9 eCommerce SEO tips that Work in 2022 – Conclusion
There are many ways through which you can improve your ecommerce website’s SEO. However, it is important that you optimize your website for both people as well as search engines because this will provide users with a much better user experience and search engines with more relevant information.
How Clio Can Help
We have been building eCommerce websites for years using WordPress and WooCommerce. We love helping clients by launching well-performing websites that will outwork and outrank your competition.
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