How Do I Optimize SEO for eCommerce?

Approximately 1.8 billion people all over the world make online purchases. The industry expects to draw up to 4.8 trillion US dollars in projected annual revenue.

Most online shopping sites are built with very little regard to SEO for eCommerce. The sad reality is that if your site doesn’t appear on page one of Google search engine results then you’ll spend the rest of your time playing catch-up with your competition.

SEO eCommerce means that traffic to your website should rely less on paid ads and more on organic searches. After all, you can’t finance a PPC campaign if your website isn’t generating any revenue in the first place.

Ranking on Google is the only way to generate revenue for your site with little to no recurring expenses. If your next question is, “How do I optimize for SEO?” you’re in luck. We’ve put together some SEO strategies you can use.

1. First Things First: Keyword Research

It’s no coincidence that this appears first on our list. If you don’t identify the right keywords to use in your website, don’t expect to rank on page one of search engine results.

You might also end up ranking for keywords that don’t get a lot of traffic. Use Amazon’s auto-fill search suggestions to find buyer-intent keywords that you think you could rank for.

Alternatively, if you have competitors that rank higher than you in search engines, analyze their sites to see what keywords they’re using. Also, use Google Keyword Planner to get an estimate of the search volume of a particular keyword to know which ones you need for SEO eCommerce optimization.

2. SEO for eCommerce Relies on Your Site’s Architecture

Once you figure out which keywords you should incorporate, you need to optimize the way your site is set up. The whole idea behind this is to arrange your pages and navigation to make it easy for visitors on your site to find what they’re looking for with the least amount of clicks.

No page should be more than three clicks away from the other. Since your homepage is the highest authority page on your site, it needs to be able to send out the most internal links to other pages on your site.

These include the category page and the products page. This is just one of the many techniques for eCommerce conversion rate optimization.

3. On-Page SEO Matters

Next, you have to figure out the most optimal places to position your keywords. This is where on-page SEO comes in. It basically tells Google that all the information on any page in your site is worth ranking for.

Implement this strategy for your category pages and product pages. To optimize on-page SEO for your category pages ensure that you put the primary keyword in the URL, in the <H1> title tag and in the body of the main description copy which should be around 300 words.

You also need to include it in the image alt text, as well as, in the metadata. Repeat this process for each of your category pages.

To optimize on-page SEO for your product pages, do the same thing you did for the category pages. The only difference here is that your product description copy should be at least 1000 words, especially for your top selling items.

4. Don’t Forget About Your Technical SEO

The technical spectrum of eCommerce SEO is just as important. You need to take into account what the user experience on your site is. This could help or hurt your website’s SEO.

Google cares about how fast/slow your website is, the presence of broken links and even how mobile-friendly it is. All these factors determine whether or not your eCommerce site will make it to number one on search engines.

Some useful tools you can use to do a site audit include Google Analytics and Google Search Console. To begin, “crawl” your site to reveal if there are any broken links or missing metadata or alt text.

Next, ensure there aren’t multiple versions of your site that are browsable. For instance, https://yourcompany.com and http://yourcompany.com should not both be browsable. “301-redirect” one of them to your main website.

Also, check that there’s only one <H1> tag on your website. All other headers should be sub-headers.

Finally, ensure that you have unique product description content. Google penalizes websites that plagiarize content.

5. Link Building: The Most Effective Strategy Yet

Link building is considered off-page SEO. Building links for your eCommerce website plays a major role in search engine ranking.

It’s a complex time-consuming process but it’s one of the most effective ways to improve your site’s rank. Getting a backlink from a high domain authority website is a powerful strategy and Google recognizes this fact.

It tells search engines that if your content is good enough for the high-domain authority website’s audience, it deserves some recognition. So your site’s rank improves.

Other link building techniques you can use include linking to external resource sites in your industry and also getting into a partnership with influencers in your niche audience. Getting influencers to link back to your website is a brilliant eCommerce marketing tactic that’ll work wonders for your site’s rank.

The Bottom Line

There are four main ways to get traffic for your eCommerce website. You can do it through PPC campaigns, social media, and email marketing or get organic searches.

Ideally, you want a method that is free, reliable and sustainable in the long run. SEO for eCommerce delivers on all three aspects and that’s why it’s important to get right from the get-go.

Use the tips we’ve shared in this article to harness the full potential of your website. You’ll certainly feel the difference in your bank account.

Are you still on the fence about why your business needs digital marketing for growth? Read our blog to find out why!