Ecommerce SEO consists of a set of techniques that are used to improve your ecommerce website’s search engine rankings. When people search online for products or services like yours, they’ll usually only pay attention to the results that appear on the first page of search engine results. Since you want to get traffic to your website where you can pull out all the stops to make sales, getting that page one ranking will be among your priorities. SEO gets you there. Looking for some ecommerce SEO tips? You’ve come to the right place. Let’s get started!
Ecommerce SEO Best Practices
Use the Right Words
Search engines are very good at finding the things people are looking for, but you can make it easier for them to gauge your website’s relevance by using the terms people might enter in search when looking for products like yours. This makes your products’ names and descriptions extra important.
Minimise Your Bounce Rate
Attracting relevant traffic and offering them all the information they need plus user-friendly navigation helps to keep them on your site for longer. Search engines don’t just look at websites – they also look at how people react to them. If a lot of your visitors take one look and then bounce off elsewhere, that’s going to hurt your search engine rankings.
Bear this in mind: you’re designing your website for customers first. SEO is a secondary consideration that can help you, but it shouldn’t be your only focus. Great design combined with well-presented products that interest your visitors are priorities. Get it right, and you will satisfy both your visitors and the search engine algorithms that determine your ecommerce website’s rankings in search.
Fast Loading Times
There are also a few technical issues to keep in mind, especially those that affect your website’s speed and responsiveness. For example, if your images make your pages slow to load, shoppers may lose interest. Search engines also pick up clunky websites and downgrade their rankings. Once again, satisfying your visitors also boosts your SEO.
Use URLs the Smart Way
Allowing your website to allocate URLs to your product pages probably won’t do you any favours. Be sure to use descriptive URLs that help search engines see what you’re offering. For example, http://www.websiteurl.com/hats/mens-panama-hat-white tells search engines what the page is about. It’s also better for sharing info. If you share the link, people can immediately see what they can expect to find if they follow it.
Use Image File Names and Alt Text to Your Advantage
Images are among the most important elements to be found on an ecommerce website. Make sure the bots and crawlers that allocate your rankings in search can identify your images by giving them relevant file names and alt text. Alt text also helps visually impaired visitors to know what’s on web pages, and if people are struggling with poor connection speeds, they’ll see your alt text instead of the images.
Encourage Reviews From Customers
Apart from offering “social proof” that your business is worth supporting, customer reviews can also contain important keywords that they use naturally. It’s one more signal for search engines to latch onto, and it helps to keep you on your toes too!
Don’t Duplicate Content
If you retail products, it can be tempting to use their manufacturers’ product descriptions to save you time. However, duplicate content is not good for SEO. It’s much better to craft your own product descriptions. The same is true if you have a range of similar products. Don’t just use the same wording with just a phrase or two to distinguish between them.
Keep Blogging
Your blog is a great place to talk about what you have to offer your customers. It’s also a great place to include keywords and add fresh content that tells search engines you’re in business. Develop a content strategy and make sure that you’re publishing content that your customers will be interested in.
How Does Ecommerce SEO Differ From Regular SEO?
The key differences between SEO for Ecommerce and regular SEO are your intentions and those of your customers. Regular SEO is there to generate brand awareness and build up brand authority. That can result in sales, but SEO for an ecommerce website consists of you, as the seller, sending out the right signals to attract people who are ready to buy right now.
How to Create an Ecommerce SEO Strategy
A strong ecommerce SEO strategy ensures that you aren’t just taking a shot in the dark with your approach to SEO. Here are the important elements that you’ll need to master.
Keyword Research
What are people searching for when looking for a business like yours or the products you offer? How strong is the competition for those terms? Where do you stand the best chance of getting a good ranking? These are all questions you’ll answer when you do keyword research.
Site Architecture
Can people find what they’re looking for on your website? You want them to achieve satisfaction with a minimum amount of effort. The fewer things they have to click to find what they want and purchase it, the better!
On-Page SEO
Your images and your product descriptions are the things that people see when they visit pages – and search engines “look” at them too. Are they sending the right signals? Use the keywords you’ve researched here – but make sure they’ll make sense to human readers too!
Technical SEO
Technical SEO refers mainly to the way your site works. Issues like loading speed are among these. Apart from keeping images easily loadable, the hosting you choose will have a role to play.
Local SEO
Ecommerce makes it possible to sell to users from around the world, but most people feel comfortable supporting local companies. Use this to your advantage, even when you’re selling online. Send out signals that show where you’re from and get extra exposure in the market that’s likeliest to support your business.
Content Marketing
We touched on this a little earlier. Your content helps to build brand awareness and it’s also a great way to improve your rankings. Your content strategy should be purposeful and well-researched.
Link Building
Are other people excited enough about what you do to link to your website? It tells algorithms they’re onto a good thing and boosts your rankings. The better the websites that refer to yours, the better it is for you, so partner with related businesses and see if you can get a few popular bloggers on your side.
Measuring Results
You get what you measure, analyse, and act on. This applies to all sorts of things, but it also applies to Ecommerce SEO. Once you’re up and running, you need to check your analytics regularly to see what’s working for you and what isn’t. Use this information to adjust your strategy and achieve better results as you go. If measuring results isn’t on your ecommerce SEO checklist, add it now.
How to Get Ecommerce SEO Results Faster
Learning all the ins and outs of ecommerce SEO can be a job on its own – in fact, some people are so passionate about it that they’ve built careers as SEO specialists. While it’s possible to learn new skills, getting help from experts eliminates a lot of trial and error and fast-tracks your results. And, since good SEO means more sales for your Ecommerce website, it’s an investment worth making. At Yellowball, we’re proud of our reputation as one of London’s top SEO agencies. Talk to us about Ecommerce SEO. Tell us what you want to achieve. We can make it happen!
