Even after all its changes in algorithms, SEO is still seen as something as an after-thought for many industries. For the ecommerce industry, SEO can often be seen as something that is secondary to sales. In reality, SEO and sales go hand in hand — especially in an industry such as online shopping.
Done
right, ecommerce SEO has the power to drive more traffic, and
ultimately, more sales. Rather than trying to treat your online store
as a website catering to B2B marketplaces, it is essential to
understand that ecommerce sites have their own rules and requirements
to get ahead in the SERPs. Product searches are done in a very
different way to information or even service services, with user
intent further changing the way that people search for products
online.
Someone
looking for something like where to buy green interior paint is very
likely closer to a purchasing decision compared to someone searching
for green living room wall ideas, for example. Then there are the on
and off-site factors that further influence the way that people find
products and make purchases online. When your store is optimised,
functional and responsive, your SEO will fall into place, and you’ll
also start seeing an impact on your conversion, too.
How
do you make sure that your online store is SEO-ready? For starters,
here are some tips to keep in mind.
Make sure that your store is secure
This
sounds obvious, but many stores have either been set up many years
back and never updated or set up more recently without taking any
security measures into account. Stores need to be certified with SSL
certificates or avoid getting pushed back in rankings when Google
starts to penalise those without. Then there are other security
features that need to be in place as well. Security seals from
trusted payment gateways and anything else that lets shoppers know
that they can safely use credit cards on the site will all help to
establish trust. This, in turn, is always good for SEO.
Focus on your most important pages first
Trying
to rank for every single product page will only work if you have a
very small store that sells a small number of products. If you are a
medium or larger store with multiple departments, you will end up
wasting time and effort trying to rank every page. Instead, do a site
audit and identify the pages that have the highest performance and
even the highest potential value. Start with the pages, then begin
making your way through the less important pages.
Optimise your category pages
Then
there are your category pages. These are all too often overlooked and
treated as non-important content pages as they do not typically sell
products. In reality, category pages play a highly important role in
both SEO and sales. Many searchers will land on these pages when
doing searches online. When you waste these pages by failing to add
content and keywords and on-site data, you are losing out on an
opportunity to drive more traffic towards key categories and even key
products.
Use purchase intent keywords
Purchase
intent is often overlooked in ecommerce and in SEO. This applies to
the way that people search for information online. These include
transactional phrases that prompt some sort of action (do something
keywords), informational keywords that are searching for information
(know something keywords) and navigational keywords that are looking
for places (go somewhere). For ecommerce, transactional and
informational are the most commonly used type of purchase intent
keywords. Including these in your strategy can help you harness the
typical actions taken online.
Optimise dead pages wisely
What
about dead pages on your store? You may have sold out products that
are no longer in stock, promotions that are no longer being run,
outdated pages that were used for once-off events or holidays or any
other type of page that is no longer around. Do you remove the dead
page from the website? You can do that or you can rather use the dead
page wisely to avoid missing out on any potential traffic
coming to the page. You could share similar products, redirect
carefully to relevant pages or consider other strategies that make
use of dead space.
Avoid duplicate product pages
Duplicate
product pages are a nightmare from an SEO point of view. As a store
owner, you might think it is easier to copy over the same content
from similar items. You may copy the manufacturer’s description. If
you have a large store, it may seem like the quickest and simplest
route to copy over the content rather than write unique product
descriptions. The trouble with this is that Google quickly sees your
content as being duplicate, penalising you in the process. That
causes your site to lose rankings, and your store to lose potential
sales along the way. Product descriptions that are not just unique
but also genuinely interesting and informative will also help your
SEO drastically. Think about why people purchase this product, what
makes it different, how it makes people feel, and don’t forget the
emotive factor that makes people choose one brand or product over
another.
Leverage user-generated content
User-generated
content can greatly help your SEO if leveraged correctly. Reviews can
help in ways beyond SEO as well, helping to build trust and even
reputation. A great example of user reviews done correctly is the
local website Faithful to Nature, who offer points to users for every
review submitted after purchase. Reviews are honest and authentic,
adding value to shoppers. But they also help to establish the site’s
authority. Along with reviews, you can also use Google
recommendations, social media mentions and even user-generated videos
and blog posts to further help to build authority and trust, boosting
your rankings in the process.
Use site search properly
This
is not only useful from a usability point of view – it helps SEO,
too. Using features such as autocomplete and also paying attention to
the typical searches that are used by shoppers to find products on
your site will help you make better use of this feature. The easier
it is for shoppers to find products, the more likely they will be to
complete the sale. You could use landing pages to display search
results, or you could have a drop down menu that displays items
clearly. Remember to integrate site search within your keyword
research so that you have a dedicated strategy for your searches done
on the site.
Don’t forget about images and videos
Using
images and other rich content is essential in ecommerce. But don’t
assume that you can just add in anything without optimising these as
well. Google Image Search has become just as important as text based
page search. Video searches on YouTube and other platforms also make
use of optimisation. When your images and videos are optimised, they
can easily be found online. Google and other search engines can also
easily trawl your store, helping you rank more easily.
Remember, it’s not a sprint but a marathon. Just like anything else in SEO, true results never happen overnight. Once you begin getting betting best practices into place, it gets far easier to start seeing results, however. Try integrating these strategies into your overall ecommerce plan and you should start to see an impact on your SEO. If not right away, then certainly over time.
Feature image: stevepb via Pixabay
