9 eCommerce SEO Tips

10 eCommerce SEO Tips


Consumers spend more than $1.1 trillion on eCommerce websites every year. With eCommerce growing exponentially, it’s no wonder that so many brands, businesses, and individuals are now offering their products online.

When setting up an online store, one way to maximize your return on investment is to implement proper eCommerce Search Engine Optimization (SEO). 

In this blog, we’re exploring the best eCommerce SEO tips you can apply on your website and business immediately!

What Is eCommerce SEO and Why Is It Important?

When a user searches online, they’ll usually ignore results that aren’t on the first page. Whether they sell products or not, all websites need to focus on SEO to increase traffic, but for eCommerce sites, SEO can be the difference between success and failure.

Unlike blogs and promotional websites, eCommerce sites function with a direct link between website traffic and sales. A high ranking in search results creates more traffic, which results in more sales and increased revenue.

The SEO tactics used to promote an eCommerce site are different from those used to promote a blog, for example, which may simply require descriptive meta tags. To boost your eCommerce store’s visibility, familiarizing yourself with eCommerce SEO tactics and techniques is essential.

Tips for eCommerce SEO

It’s a two-step process: first, improve your site’s rankings on Google and other search engines, then see sales increase. SEO best practices are a crucial element in eCommerce success, and here are nine ways you can improve your online store’s placement in search results.

1. Focus on the Website’s Structure 

It’s a two-step process: first, improve your site’s rankings on Google and other search engines, then see sales increase. SEO best practices are a crucial element in eCommerce success, and here are ten ways you can improve your online store’s placement in search results.

It’s advisable to plan your eCommerce SEO strategy early in the development process to avoid any potential downtime or errors after launching your business. This principle also applies to other websites.

1. Focus on the Website’s Structure 

Optimizing your website’s structure is key to increasing traffic and boosting your eCommerce store’s visibility on search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. The website’s structure is important for people, but it’s also vital for search engine crawlers. A good website structure will make it easier for bots to find the content on your website.

Your website should be structured in a way that prioritizes easy navigation. A simple navigation structure helps search engines and shoppers find your product pages.

First, create a list of all the products you’ll sell on the website. If you don’t have many, simply listing them on your site will be sufficient, but a large collection of products will have to be divided into multiple category pages.

Next, create web pages for your products, one page each. If you divide your products into categories, each category should have a web page, too. The site’s menu bar should include links to all your products (or categories).

Then, pay attention to the product descriptions, as they drive more significant conversion rates. The same applies to meta descriptions as well.

Your website for mobile browsers first
Image Credit: Website Designer

2. Design for Mobile

With mobile eCommerce transactions on par with desktops and laptops, it’s critical to have a mobile-friendly website. As mobile browsing has become increasingly popular over traditional browsing with a desktop computer, consider designing your website for mobile browsers first.

As such, the mobile-first design approach has been created as a best practice for new websites that want to rank well on search engines.

Viewing the site on a mobile device impacts how users interact with elements on the site. Design factors like paragraph structure, icons, and menus must be approached with smaller screens in mind. Doing so will make your site easier to use and prevent visitors from leaving out of frustration.

If you’re feeling challenged by all these options, consider leaving the design process to the web design professionals of Do-It-For-Me.

3. Use Tags and Product Categories

When creating your eCommerce storefront, if you have more than a few products, it’s essential to categorize and organize all of those you intend to offer. Using tags and categories will help you keep track of your inventory and boost your website’s SEO.

When defining product categories, use relevant keywords commonly in the search engine results. An excellent way to identify them is by checking out your competitors’ websites. 

4. Keep URLs Short and Sweet

Always choose a clean URL structure using WordPress with WooCommerce or a third-party host. Selecting the proper permalink structure can help users find your website and boost its SEO within search engines.

Avoid using URLs that include a combination of mixed letters, numbers, and various symbols. A short, simple URL is also more likely to be shared on social media, resulting in more traffic.

Make sure you keep your website secure

5. Secure Your Website

With data breaches and malicious hackers becoming more commonplace worldwide, it’s imperative to secure your eCommerce site, regardless of your platform or host.

Implementing an SSL certificate (Secure Sockets Layer) can help encrypt user data better when customers shop and checkout. Encrypting users’ data is crucial in preventing vulnerabilities and risks to their information.

By adding an SSL certificate to your website, you’ll improve your SEO, plus you’ll be sure search engines like Google don’t identify your website as unsafe.

If you need help with how to purchase an SSL or whether your website is already secured, be sure to contact your current web host directly.

6. Do Your Keyword Research

Defining the search terms for your eCommerce store is essential, especially if you face heavy competition. With eCommerce keyword research, you can specifically focus on boosting specific sections of your site, like product and category pages.

Long-tail keywords can help you quickly establish your eCommerce store in competitive areas, even if your website is relatively new. Long-tail keywords may include specific phrases or descriptors of products that can help them stand out amongst competing or similar products. 

Keyword difficulty is another point of interest. Long-tail keywords generally have lower difficulty than short-tail keywords and are considered easy to rank for and gain precious search traffic.

Digital marketing wizard Neil Patel has some great keyword ideas on how to find the right ones for an eCommerce website. For one thing, you should use specific search terms targeted at the products you’re selling. Google Keyword Planner or a tool like Übersuggest can be instrumental in keyword research.

Choosing the right terms to target can prompt users to visit your website, learn more about your business, or make a purchase.

By adding and SSL certificate to your website you will improve your seo

7. Create Unique and Engaging Category-Level Pages

One way to boost your eCommerce website’s SEO is to create unique, engaging, and original content for each category-level page.

For example, if you had an online clothing store offering accessories and makeup, you could create a unique category page for each of the three product lines. That would help customers find what they’re looking for and help boost your website’s SEO.

8. Ensure Product Descriptions Are Unique

Directly imported default or copy-pasted product descriptions are not considered unique by search engines, as they have likely been duplicated and used across hundreds of web pages.

Ensure your product descriptions are unique and true to your business or brand’s overall message and image. Your SEO results will make it all worthwhile.

9. Have a Redirect Plan for Discontinued Products

If you intend to retire products over a period of time, it’s crucial to have a web page redirect plan in place.

Before you begin archiving products or pulling them from your eCommerce store, 301 redirects visitors to the most similar product or create a custom 404 page on your website that lets the user choose where to go next.

If you don’t have a redirect plan, you run the risk of the visitor landing on an error page, which could scare them away. 

10. Start a Blog!

A blog post isn’t something only travellers and writers do; it’s a powerful content marketing strategy for many businesses.

Writing about some of the products you sell is a common tactic of on-page SEO. Find a target keyword, do your research and start writing compelling articles about it on the blog page of your eCommerce website.

Having a team of writers or writing the content yourself is an incredible opportunity to insert internal links to your product and category pages and help search engines better understand your content.

While link building and on-page SEO sound too technical for some eCommerce site owners, the reality is that you’re doing most of it already.

Start Small and Grow Big

Having a robust eCommerce SEO strategy is crucial for your website’s success, as even the slightest issue could hurt your rankings and push you down the search engine result pages (SERPs).

Slow loading times, unoptimized elements, absence of meta description on posts and other technical issues can significantly impact your website’s visibility and ultimately affect your sales.

It’s essential to stay on top of your SEO game, use all the eCommerce SEO tools we mentioned and ensure that your website is optimized for search engines, providing your customers with a seamless and enjoyable shopping experience.

Launching and managing a successful eCommerce website is much easier once you have a proper eCommerce SEO plan. A strong SEO campaign makes long-term success achievable in any market or industry.

María is an enthusiast of cinema, literature and digital communication. As Content Coordinator at HostPapa, she focuses on the publication of content for the blog and social networks, organizing the translations, as well as writing and editing articles for the KB.

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