What is SEO and Why Should You Care?

The world of search engine optimization is complex and ever-changing, but you can easily understand the basics, and even a small amount of SEO knowledge can make a big difference. Free SEO education is also widely available on the web, including in guides like this! (Woohoo!)

Combine this information with some practice and you are well on your way to becoming a savvy SEO.

Google’s goal is to rank search results that answer all of the searcher’s questions so well that they don’t need to return to Google for another answer.

So how do you do that?

• Reveal the most thorough answers to the widest range of questions around the topic.
• Use better images, videos, or examples to explain your points.
• Provide a better user experience via a faster site, a better mobile experience, a more intuitive interface, etc.
• Get people talking about (and linking) to you.

For eCommerce, that means writing thorough, vivid product descriptions with beautiful, eye-catching photography and plenty of reviews to help visitors make purchase decisions.

It also means making it easy for visitors to purchase by making the buttons big enough, keeping your site glitch-free, and showing social proof of your best products.

Why does eCommerce SEO matter?

If your website doesn’t appear in the search engine results pages (SERPs), you lose critical access to qualified and interested eCommerce customers. Your products might have a space on the web, but are they findable?

Ecommerce SEO provides you with a way to reach your target audience without paying for ads. Once you get people to your site, you can delight them with your high-quality products, intriguing copy, and motivating calls to action.

The first hurdle to acquiring new customers: getting people to your site.

Ecommerce SEO Checklist: Best Practices for Your Ecommerce SEO Strategy

Let’s look at some of the best tips for eCommerce sites lacking in the SEO space. If you want people to find your products more easily, you need an eCommerce SEO strategy, and checking each item off your list will make your strategy more effective.

Use the Right Keywords

Yes, keywords still matter. You don’t want to overload your product titles and descriptions with these keywords, but they need to be present in the copy.

Mention your primary keyword in your product headline, description, meta description, image alternate attributes, and subheadlines. Sprinkle latent semantic index (LSI) keywords throughout. These are related keywords that help Google understand your page in context.

Before you use a keyword, do some research on it. Know how often people search for it (keyword search volume), how competitive it is in the paid advertising space (cost-per-click, or CPC), and what people are looking for when they use that keyword.

Let’s break it down further.

Search volume tells you how much interest a particular keyword inspires in consumers. A high search volume indicates greater popularity, which means you’ll get more active searches for that keyword.

CPC tells you how much people pay per click when they buy advertising based on a specific keyword. A high CPC indicates increased competition. If your target keyword is extremely competitive, consider finding a long-tail alternative.

Finally, user intent describes what people want to find when they type a specific keyword into Google’s search bar. Let’s say, for instance, that someone types “shower” and hits Enter.

Does that person want information about shower installation, shower repair, baby showers, bridal showers, or something else entirely? If you can’t determine the user intent behind a keyword, add other words to the search string for clarity.

Conduct Competitor Research

If you have no clue where to start with on-site optimization for your ecommerce site, then your competitors are your best bet. Larger competitors, in particular, have probably already put in the legwork for optimizing their websites, and you can learn many of their secrets on their websites themselves.

Keywords are the thing you need to focus on. Particularly, you’ll want to analyze the keywords on their homepages as well as their top product pages.

Don’t stop your research with keywords. Check out your competitors’ landing pages too, so you can see how they use the specified keywords to optimize those pages.

Optimize Product pages

Having an optimized product page for ecommerce has always been important. An optimized product page can not only drive traffic but help convert browsers into buyers.

In order to beat out the competition, you have to ensure your product pages are optimized for maximum exposure.

Here are some clear, actionable SEO guidelines for product pages

Product Name

The name of your product is important. In most cases, it’s also used in the SEO title and URL of your product page. This is why you may want to consider adding a common search term or keyword phrase to your products.

For example, if you are selling T-shirts, be sure to include “T-shirt” or “tee” in the product name. That way, the keyword also ends up in the SEO title and URL.

You should write your product name in less than 70 characters and in a way that is appealing to search visitors, as they will see it in search results.

Image Optimization

Images are an important part of your product page. Stand in your customer’s shoes for a moment. Are you more likely to buy a product from a site that clearly depicts the product from as many angles as possible, from a site that has no image at all, or from one that is small and illegible?

Not only are images important for your customers, but they are important for search optimization.

To properly optimize your images for search, start with the filename. Don’t add images named IMG0010.jpg to your product pages. Instead, use the product name and main keyword, such as eastcoast-skinny-jeans.jpg.

If you have alternative views of your product, include keywords that people would use if they were searching for those images in search.

Also, when you add your images to your product page, include the product name and keyword in the ALT text for the image.

The result? Your images now have a chance of appearing in Google Image Search as shown in the image above, or in the main search results page as a part of the additional media showing.

Product Meta Description

While this is not important as far as keyword rankings, the meta description for your homepage is a 160-character description of your product that will also show up in search beneath the title tag. Write it in a way that encourages people to want to visit your website.

Product Description

The description on your product pages should help visitors learn more about what you are selling in a clear and concise way. Avoid overloading visitors with too much information. 

A Cluttered website can confuse visitors as well as search engines. For instance, maybe you sell products in many different categories. Google will struggle to identify what you sell and who you’re targeting with your products, so get specific about what your site offers.

Simplify Your Site Architecture

As you are adding products and categories to your store, remember that site architecture plays an important role in search optimization. Particularly, you want to have a distinct hierarchy of navigation, from your homepage to product categories to the products listed within them.

Search engine bots will discover your pages and products on your website based on a clear internal linking structure that is easy to follow — and not too deep.

The rule of thumb for search engines and visitors is to make sure people can reach everything within three clicks. From the homepage, they should only have to make a maximum of three clicks to get to any product on your website.

Internal Linking

Internal links serve two main purposes:

• Boosting ecommerce SEO by showing how pages are related to one another
• Increasing time on site by encouraging visitors to further explore your site

Linking to related products or to information-rich blog articles can help improve ecommerce SEO and make your site more tempting for deep dives.

Conclusion

Many ecommerce business owners want to jump straight to increasing conversions. That’s the right mindset, but you’re a step ahead.

You have to get people to your site before you can convert them on your offers. Beginning with ecommerce SEO sets you up for success.