As daunting as it can be to tackle, search engine optimization (SEO) is a crucial part of running a successful ecommerce business. Making sure you have the basics in order from your site’s inception will set you up for success in the long run. Below is an overview of SEO fundamentals and easy wins that will help you optimize your site.
Keyword Research
The first step in your process should be conducting keyword research. Finding the right keywords is essential to making sure that your site shows up for relevant customer searches. Use a keyword tool such as Semrush’s Keyword Magic to determine search volume for your keywords and hone in on which keywords are the most relevant.
Site Architecture
Site architecture refers to how a page is structured. The organization and structure of a page not only affect your search engine rankings but also impact your user experience (UX). In general, you want to make it as easy as possible for visitors and search engines to find products in your store.
When developing your site architecture, simplicity is key. Product pages should be as few clicks away from the homepage as possible so that users can easily find what they’re looking for and aren’t running circles around your site trying to find a product. Consider adding breadcrumbs to your product pages. Breadcrumbs indicate where you are on a site and improve navigation for both visitors and Google.
As you create your site structure, consider which levels are worth indexing and optimizing for. When it comes to ecommerce sites, there are many thin content pages as well as duplicate content pages. That said, not all pages need to be optimized or indexed. Be strategic when deciding which pages to prioritize and ask yourself, “does this page fulfill an actual audience demand?”
Technical SEO
Technical SEO involves the “behind the scenes” work that shoppers won’t see, but it can significantly improve site engagement and drive more organic traffic. Technical SEO includes tactics like optimizing your site for crawlers, optimizing for mobile devices, and ensuring optimal site speed. Common improvements include optimizing images to load quickly, creating logical internal linking with menus, or submitting a sitemap to Google Search Console to determine any site errors that exist. To learn more about improving Technical SEO, check out this step-by-step guide from Shopify.
On-Site SEO
On-site SEO refers to the optimization of different pages on your site. For ecommerce sites, you’ll want to make sure that your product category pages and product pages are properly optimized. This is another opportunity to fold in keywords and boost your chances of showing in the search engine results page (SERP).
Your pages should include a meta title and a meta description. Meta titles should be short and convey brand value. It can be helpful for ecommerce pages to include an action word, such as “buy,” “click,” or “shop” in your meta title. Meta descriptions should be kept to 155 words and utilize keywords to form a description of the page.
Another easy win is to add alt text to your images. Image alt text should be a straightforward description of the image itself. While this is largely for accessibility purposes, image alt text may also show on a web page when the image fails to load.
Finally, you’ll want to make sure that your URLs are clean and optimized. A URL should be keyword-rich, but should also be easy to read and unique. If you need to add different parameters, make sure they’re all lowercase, and hyphens (-) separate the words rather than underscores. Remove any special characters.
Search engine optimization is an ongoing process that takes time to implement and see results. Start with these basics and get your ecommerce sites headed on the right path.
For more information about SEO for ecommerce sites, check out the helpful resources below. You can also contact us. We’re always happy to help!
The Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Ecommerce SEO - Shopify
SEO for Ecommerce Websites: A Step-By-Step Guide - Search Engine Journal
Photo: ©AndreyPopov