When it comes to eCommerce SEO, it’s simple, right? Just optimise your product pages and then organic traffic will come in and that traffic turns into sales.
Wrong.
The truth is that eCommerce SEO isn’t quite as simple as optimising your product pages and waiting for the sales to come in (annoyingly)
Instead, you need to focus on different key areas on your product pages themselves, as well as driving organic traffic from other sources.
So, let’s dive into how we can do that:
Best Practices For Optimising Product Page SEO
First, let’s get into the product pages themselves.
1. Optimise Product Titles and Descriptions
This is the foundation of eCommerce SEO. Make sure your product meta titles are keyword-rich, well-structured and descriptive.
When creating your keyword plan, research in detail the focused keywords that match your customers’ search terms. And, be sure to research each keyword to determine its intent. Many people make the mistake of choosing any old keyword without checking whether it is transactional or information-focused. Aka, a rookie mistake that annoys me a LOT.
2. Now It’s Content Time
Now that you have your keywords found and meta-optimised, it’s now time to work on your headings and on-page content.
Make sure you use your keywords within the headings and content, but be careful not to stuff your copy with keywords. Search engines and customers will not like that.
3. Don’t Forget Your Visuals
Product visuals are the quickest and easiest way to grab a customer’s attention, so make sure you have high-quality images/videos throughout.
This is also important for SEO itself as it can create better engagement with users which can help increase dwell time and overall conversions.
4. And, Don’t Forget To Optimise Them Too…
While you’re at it don’t forget to optimise your product images with keyword-rich alt tags/descriptions as well.
Make sure you’re using descriptive file names and alt text for your product images. This can help search engines crawl and index your images, giving you an extra boost in the SERPs.
This is a simple yet often overlooked step in eCommerce SEO that can make a big difference.
5. Ensure Your URLs Are Optimised
Your product page URLs should include your targeted keywords as part of the URL string.
For example: www.exampleeCommerceStore.com/mens-shoes-running
This ensures that search bots can easily crawl through your site and understand the content, allowing them to return relevant results, plus no one wants to be manually typing a URL all day, do they?
6. Include Internal Links
Including internal links from other related pages can help boost your SEO rankings for those pages as well. This also makes it easier for customers to find related products or information they are looking for quickly and easily.
7. Leverage Reviews
Adding customer reviews and ratings to product pages can be a great way to increase conversions and boost SEO.
Not only do customers value hearing about other people’s experiences, but search engines also take into account customer reviews when determining rankings.
8. Use Structured Data Markup
Using structured data markup can help search engines understand your page better and increase the chances of it appearing in relevant searches.
By adding Schema markup to your product pages, you’re telling the search engine exactly what type of content it is and how it should be displayed in the SERPs (search engine results page)
This can help improve click-through rate for organic traffic which will again lead to more conversions.
9. Include Rich Snippets With Structured Data
Including structured data (also known as rich snippets) helps search engines understand what is on your page and how it should be displayed in the SERP (search engine results page)
This also helps to make sure customers get all the information they need upfront when searching for a product online. This includes ratings, prices and availability of items.
10. Get Your Technical SEO in Order
We are almost at the finish line for this section, but before we jump in there let’s make sure that we have all the technical SEO elements in check.
Make sure your site is indexable and crawlable, page speed is fast, site structure is logical and internal links are used properly. All of these elements will help search engines understand your web pages better and ultimately rank them higher in the SERPs.
(Credit: yoast.com)
Ways Of Driving Organic Traffic From Other Sources
Improving the look and optimization of your website pages is great, but you also need to find other strategies to bring in traffic in order to maintain the momentum and keep visitors rolling in:
1. Create Quality Content
Humans speak like humans, so speak to your potential customers like one.
When you provide different kinds of content like blog articles and infographics, it lets your audience pick what they want to read. This way, you can still include information about your product in a less obvious way, even if it’s not the main topic of the content.
If you create content that is genuinely helpful to people, without it being a sales pitch, they will eventually take a look at your products and see how they can improve their lives. This is why blogs and content should not always focus on selling to people. But, do plug them in from time to time.
2. Leverage Social Media
Social media is a great way to get your content out there and engage with potential customers. It gives you the ability to communicate directly with them, build relationships with them and even promote new products or services that may interest them.
It can also help you reach an entirely new audience who might not have heard of your brand before. Try to focus on social channels where your target audience is most active.
Plus, if you feel it fits with your brand, look into avenues of Instagram, Facebook & TikTok shops. This lets you link out directly to your product pages in a dedicated shopping space, making it easier for customers to find what they’re looking for and convert.
3. Get Hot Off The Press
If you have news about your company and information the world needs to hear, tell some editors about it.
It may not be the simplest task on this list, but pitching stories to journalists and reporters can be a great way to get attention for your brand. If you have something that’s truly newsworthy, there’s no better platform than the press to share it to.
4. Utilise Influencers & UGC Content
People buy from people. Or, in this case, from people they think are interesting.
Influencer marketing has become increasingly popular over the past few years as a great way to get more eyes on your product or service. Look for influencers who fit within your brand’s values and reach out to them with an offer that works for both parties.
User-generated content is another great way to get organic traffic. By encouraging your existing customer base to share their experiences with you, it gives potential customers an idea of what it’s like to use your products or services. Plus, it helps build trust in the brand and adds a personal touch that connects with others.
Make sure to read my blog where you can learn about how to build authenticity and trust through user-generated content on social media, here.
5. Monitor SEO Competitors
How can you see how well you’re performing, without a good ol’ nosy of the competition?
(Credit: semrush.com)
Monitoring your competitors’ SEO activities can be a great way to stay ahead of the competition and drive organic traffic from other sources.
Keep an eye on what other sites in your niche are doing and come up with creative strategies to differentiate your content. This will help you stay ahead of the competition and get the organic traffic your website needs.
Using a tool like SEMrush is worth its weight in gold when it comes to SEO monitoring, tracking and competitor analysis.
And, just like that, we are at the end of this blog.
eCommerce SEO can be tricky, but with the right strategy, it can help you generate organic traffic and increase conversions.
Make sure to try out some of these eCommerce SEO tactics, or even better, reach out to us directly and we can handle all of the above for you!
