You’ve built your eCommerce store and you couldn’t be more excited. You have visions of products flying off the digital shelves.
There’s just one problem: how do you actually get people to come to your website?
You could spend money on paid advertising, but that adds up quick. You could post incessantly on social media, but Facebook is making it harder and harder for businesses to gain any traction without paying for it.
The solution? Search Engine Optimization (SEO). By optimizing your eCommerce site for search, you can attract significant amounts of organic traffic, which then translates into more sales.
In this post, we’re going to give you 7 proven methods of SEO for eCommerce product pages.
Let’s dive in.
Step #1: Secure Your Website
This is absolutely critical. Because people are giving you personal information through your site (credit card #, address, etc.), you absolutely must use HTTPS across your entire site. Not only is this essential for protecting the data of your customers, but it also matters a lot to Google in terms of page rankings.
Numerous studies have shown that there is a correlation between sites that implement HTTPS and being on the first page of Google. If you want your eCommerce product pages to rank, you absolutely must use HTTPS protocol.
Step #2: Improve The Speed of Your Site
For some time now, Google has been saying that page speed is an important factor in terms of where a page ranks. This makes sense on an intuitive level. Google is in the business of serving up the best possible results, and they certainly don’t want to present their users with slow, clunky pages.
The longer it takes your product pages to load, the greater the odds that a person will quickly bounce from it. As Google themselves recently noted:
[We] found that as page load time goes from one second to seven seconds, the probability of a mobile site visitor bouncing increases 113%. Similarly, as the number of elements—text, titles, images—on a page goes from 400 to 6,000, the probability of conversion drops 95%
In other words, make sure your product pages load quickly.
One of the simplest ways to improve the speed of your product pages is to optimize all images. There are several simple ways you can optimize your images to load quickly.
- Upload smaller photos sizes
- Utilize a WordPress optimizing plugin such as ShortPixel (if you’re using WordPress or WooCommerce)
- Use JPEG files over PNG or GIF files
- Make your thumbnail sizes as small as possible while still maintaining quality
- Beware of images that only decorate a page and aren’t product related
- Use a content delivery network (CDN)
Step #3: Write Compelling, Clickable Meta Descriptions For Every Page
The meta description is what shows up under the headline on the search results.
When writing your meta descriptions, seek to make them as compelling and clickable as possible. While the meta descriptions themselves won’t directly affect SEO results, they can increase the overall Clickthrough Rate, which does affect SEO.
Step #4: Optimize Your Pages With Buyer Intent Keywords
Buyer intent keywords are, to state the semi-obvious, keywords in which the searcher is actively looking to buy something. For example, the keywords “best running shoes” suggest that the searcher is in the research phase more than the buying phase. However, the keywords “Nike Air Max shoes” indicate that the buyer is actively looking to buy Nike Air Max shoes.
Be sure to use buyer intent keywords throughout your pages, including:
- In the title tags
- Inside the headings
- In the meta descriptions
- Within the product descriptions
You can use the Google Ads Keyword Planner to find keywords that have a high search volume and suggest buyer intent.
Step #5: Use Keyword Dense URLs
With eCommerce stores, it’s common for URLs to look something like this: www.store.com/productID=99A54BZ. Google actually prefers short URLs that have the keywords directly in them. So, for example, if you’re selling Nike Air Max running shoes, a much better URL would be www.store.com/Nike-Air-Max.
Using short, keyword-rich URLs makes it much easier for Google to understand the overall content of the page. If possible, avoid using things like underscores or odd characters. Keep the URLs as clean and straightforward as possible.
Step #6: Aim For 1,000 Words Of On-Page Content
Yes, we realize that this is a lot of words, especially if you have hundreds or thousands of products. But it’s been demonstrated again and again that long-form content tends to rank higher in searches than short-form content.
Why is this? The primary reason is that longer content allows you to include more related keywords, which then helps Google understand what the page is about. The easier it is for Google to understand the content of a page, the greater the odds of them ranking it higher.
To reach 1,000 words, write rich, in-depth product descriptions that clearly spell out the benefits of the product your selling. Include all the necessary specifications and include an FAQ section. The more information you can include, the better you’ll do in the search rankings.
Ahrefs recommends the following structure for product pages:
By following this structure, you can create a significant amount of copy and strategically weave keywords in throughout your product pages.
Step #6: Build Links Back To Your Product Pages
Google has stated again and again that the number of backlinks to a page has a significant impact on where it ranks. Therefore, the more links you can get back to your product pages, the greater the SEO benefit.
How can you get links back to your product pages? The simplest way is to give away samples in exchange for reviews and backlinks. In other words, you find influencers and reviewers in your niche, give them one of your products, and ask if they would write a review with a link in exchange. This simple technique can generate hundreds of backlinks, which can give your SEO a serious boost.
Final Thoughts
There’s no doubt that SEO for eCommerce product pages takes significant work. Yes, you have to put in the time to do keyword research and implement rich product descriptions and build links back to your pages. You need to use proper URL structures and work to improve your overall site speed.
But it’s well worth the effort. When you see the surge of organic traffic and the increase in sales, you’ll be glad you invested the time.
Don’t wait any longer. Implement SEO for your eCommerce product pages today.
If you’re feeling lost when it comes to marketing your ecommerce business, contact the team at Pacific54. We can put our SEO experience to work immediately.