As the name suggests, SEO, aka Search Engine Optimization is the most effective way to get better rankings for your website. With effective eCommerce SEO tactics, your page will have a higher ranking along with increased traffic. SEO can also help you build trust with your audience as it is also said to improve your consumers’ experience. With an effective SEO, you can stay ahead in the game. It not just increases traffic but brings in quality traffic. So, how can you implement SEO for your benefits?
Top 75 eCommerce SEO Best Practices to Implement
1) Switch to HTTPS
Being on HTTPS protects your information as a customer. Being trusted by Google is said to improve SEO.
2) Higher Consideration for Mobile Sites
Over time, mobile phones account for nearly half of the digital revenue. Therefore, it is important to optimize your site for mobile compatibility at the earliest and improve eCommerce SEO.
3) Building Backlinks
High-quality backlinks are built usually before the peak season for your site arrives. It helps boost traffic and rankings.
4) Writing meta-descriptions
Compelling meta-descriptions are not linked to impact your site’s rankings but increase the CTR for organic searches.
5) Adding ALT Tags
For every image you use, add an ALT tag. It lets the bots scan the text and thus improve SEO simultaneously. Even visually impaired people can understand the images you are using.
6) Use eCommerce Breadcrumbs
The site structure and internal linking improve with the use of these breadcrumbs.
7) Redirecting the URL
If you discontinue any product, you can 301-redirect the URL, which will take the customer to the new or updated page. The SEO value of the previous pages will also transfer to your new page.
8) Compressing the Images
The speed of your page plays a huge role in page ranking. So, to have a better SEO, you need to have a faster page. Compressing your images does the trick here.
9) Add Live Chat
One way to kickstart and boost your page’s conversion rates is to add the option for live chat to the site. It is said to double the rates by 50%.
10) Providing Internal Links
Giving relevant links for the suggested products improve the site structure and better sales.
11) Having an Understandable Content
Optimizing the experience for your users is an important step. Now, SEO is optimizing for the people in real life and not only the search engines. Your content needs to be comprehended easily.
12) Including Relevant Phrases
Customer-friendly phrases like “on-sale” are likely to boost the CTR of the page.
13) Avoiding Duplicate Content
Having tens and thousands of products and writing a description for each can get exhausting at a point. It can also affect the search rankings at a point.
14) Believing in Paid Search
Paid search can contribute to brand awareness and ultimately lead to organic purchases.
15) Dealing with the Right Site
Amazon accounts for over 35% of the product searches on e-commerce products. Get your product listed on the site and also link your site.
16) Stay Clear of the Broken Links
Page 404 Not Found is not a desired experience for the consumers. Therefore, routine maintenance to fix the broken links should be put to use. Therefore, you can use certain tools to get rid of this problem. The options are:
17) Bidding on Terms
Branded PPC terms tend to dominate the organic results which work in favor of your website. All the organic searches would lead to your site.
18) Invest in Review Sites
Getting your company listed on applications and sites like Yelp increases local sales. You can also increase organic traffic from the search.
19) Make Consumers Feel Heard
Make it a habit to encourage the users to leave comments, reviews, and share their experiences, just like Shrushti can always make their customers feel right at home.
20) Switch to Google Shopping
Google Shopping is said to have a much higher conversion rate than other forms of PPC out there. It also has a lower cost per click.
21) Audio-visual aids
You can make use of tools like Biteable to make video-based content. You can provide free product demos to your consumers and audience for free.
22) Make Use of Quora
You can use Quora to answer your consumers’ queries related to the products they are interested in.
23) Creating a Network
Get your products reviewed by contacting bloggers who match the product niche. This will help you in getting links faster on posts.
24) Be Consistent with Branding
Consistency will help you increase the organic CTR, which in turn affects the SEO rankings positively.
25) Making Use of Strategic Keywords
The anchor text can be used efficiently to boost SEO. Anchor text can maximize the potential of your page. Therefore, use natural but strategic keywords. Companies like Shrushti give you SEO specialists to help your business grow.
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26) Following the Content Structure
For each product, stick to a sorted and well-balanced structure. It should somewhat look like:
- Header with Name of the Product and Secondary Keywords
- Introduction
- Features in Bulleted Form
- Concluding paragraph
- Product demo video (if any)
27) Starting Affiliate Program
These programs involve bloggers who write about your products and promote the same on your site. This is among the eCommerce SEO best practices as it generates more and more sales for you besides giving a better ranking and authority to your site.
28) Sponsoring Local Events
Funding events or conferences will help you in having recognition for your site. Greater the brand recognition, more the sales. You can do this by simply looking up local events and get in touch with them offering to sponsor.
29) Category Based Pages
Make individual pages for each category of products and provide each with its separate content and keywords.
30) Navigation for the Store
Make sure to have navigation of category level, which ensures ease of shopping for the consumers.
31) Calls to Action
Including and updating ‘calls to action’ frequently is important. You should get them optimized for promotion, specific holidays, and sales.
32) Preparing Meta Titles
You should make it a habit to use the product name in the meta titles. The search results will be exactly what the consumers would be looking for.
33) Long Tail Keywords
These keywords can drive up to 20,000 more organic monthly searches to your eCommerce website.
34) Keyword Dense URLs
Google loves this kind as it’s short, clear, and concise. Ditch the use of parameters and start including the targeted keywords. Shorter URLs rank higher.
35) SSL Certificate Activation
By activating this certificate, your site gets a higher authority from Google as the security is better.
36) Using Header Tags
The product pages must have a header tag. These tags can be added easily, and the HTML structure is improved.
37) Using Terms to Guide the Consumer
Terms like “Buy Online” give a clear idea of your product’s availability to the consumer looking for it. It also increases the organic CTR.
38) Comparison of Products
Creating posts with “versus”, i.e. posts, where you compare products, is the trend at the moment.
39) Increase Blog Posts
HubSpot states that writing and publishing more than 16 blogs in a month brings more inbound traffic.
40) Creating Gift Guides
Sites that create gift guides for holidays have a high amount of organic traffic. It is, in fact, the number one traffic driver, according to a study.
41) Funnel Based Content
For the buying cycle, create customized content for each stage to guide the consumers.
42) Use of Natural Links
Tie up with a non-profit organization as a part of a local charity and get your link published on their site.
43) Redoing Keyword Research
This step needs to be done for every page of your e-commerce website. The search trends and the keywords keep changing over time. You can make use of Google Trends for the analysis.
44) ECommerce Tracking
Setting up Analytics tracking helps you collect data for JavaScript and HTML, which increases the site’s speed and scanning.
45) Conducting Competitor Research
This research will help you in understanding how your competitors can get their backlinks. You can make use of Moz’s Open Site Explorer.
46) Checking for Duplicate Content
Regular scanning of your website for any duplicate content can be done using Siteliner.
47) Making Use of Pinterest
Pinterest is said to increase the site’s organic traffic by 67.55% in 10 minutes.
48) Scraping of Keywords
Keyword Tool Dominator helps in scraping keywords from Google, Amazon, YouTube, allowing fast research of keywords.
49) Make Your Blogs Informational
Your blogs should be full of content and should be crafted to stand out from the rest. Interactive blogs have the best traffic.
50) Knowing the Peak Time
Take complete advantage of trends that are seasonal and accordingly produce your content for your marketing.
51) Submit a Sitemap
A sitemap and Robots.txt helps in scanning and having more indexed pages.
52) Having a Compelling Home Page
The homepage should be able to sell. It should contain products that the consumers are most interested in.
53) Collecting leads on pages
In case of the product’s unavailability, make the consumer share their email so that they get notified of the stock.
54) Optimized Images for Mobile
Make sure that the images are less than 70KB for the mobile versions ensuring faster load time.
55) Creating an Urgency
This should be done with the product pages and within the meta descriptions for the organic searches. Kickstarter campaigns prove to be effective.
56) Word Count for Content
A minimum of 1000 words should be there for the product pages with keywords used 3-5 times.
57) Rich Product Descriptions
Use in-depth descriptions to have a high ranking and organic traffic.
58) Using Trigger Words
This will drive action and sales for your product pages. Use specific language.
59) Producing Free Content
Even free, short-form content will generate traffic on your website.
60) Getting Aggregate Reviews
Use Schema for star-based reviews right next to the product in the search results.
61) Links and Contents
These two are highly responsible for organic rankings.
62) Get Consumer Reviews
Consumer reviews are one of the easiest and legitimate ways to increase content on the product pages.
63) Non-Promotional Reviews
Unbiased reviews will always generate traffic. It is also one of the most recommended ecommerce SEO tips.
64) Using Reddit Forums
Participating in these forums will help you drive sales for your company.
65) Track How Users Respond to the Site
Make use of tools like Crazy Egg to know how consumers on your site navigation. You can use this data to optimize it further.
66) Targeting the Keywords
Use Search Console to find the popular keywords.
67) Use Purchase-based Keywords
Use AdWords Keyword Planner for high-intent keywords and increase sales.
68) Use SEO Plugin
To catch up on any SEO tasks that were missed, you can install Yoast SEO Plugin.
69) Be Aware of Brand Mentions
Keep track of all the mentions you get with Mention. You can get your link added to sites that forget to do so.
70) Title Tag Ideas
Search for generic keywords and also use related search tabs by Google.
71) Link-bait Content
Industry-related content is a visual aid or an infographic.
72) Double Checking
Make sure your content is well structured. Cross-check it using Readable.
73) Analyze On-Page SEO
Use Quick Sprout and make improvements accordingly, leading to an increase in traffic.
74) Optimizing the Site and Improving
Use Google’s Mobile Testing Tool and check if the site works well for mobiles.
75) Auditing SEO Issues
Last but not least, SEO is an ongoing process. Make sure that you are keeping track of the results from time to time.
Wrapping Up
Increasing organic traffic can be tricky but not impossible. Targeting the right audience, boosting sales, traffic requires strategies that work right. Here, digital marketing companies like Shrushti can come in handy and deliver just the right solutions for you. The above SEO tips for eCommerce sites will guide you in taking your business to the next level.
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About the Author
My name’s Semil Shah, and I pride myself on being the last digital marketer that you’ll ever need. Having worked internationally across agile and disruptive teams from San Fransico to London, I can help you take what you are doing in digital to a whole next level.