9 SEO Tactics for E-commerce Sites

SEO / December 11, 2019

Why SEO matters for e-commerce websites?

You are probably already driving traffic to your e-commerce site from many channels: social media, email marketing, paid search, display ads, etc. But, what about SEO? This digital marketing tactic is often set aside, especially for e-commerce clients, because the return on investment isn’t immediate. Optimizing your website to rank higher on search engines is a long term process, but, in our opinion, completely necessary. 

If your brand isn’t ranking on search engines when customers are actively looking to buy the product you sell, you are losing major opportunities to your competitors. Considering 81% of users research online before buying a product, setting SEO aside is hurting your business. 

So, what can you do to optimize your e-commerce store in order to rank higher on search engines? Here are 9 SEO strategies to get you started. 

How to Optimize your E-commerce Store for SEO?

There are three main pillars to Search Engine Optimization: Technical SEO, online authority and content marketing. For optimal results, your SEO strategy should rely on these three topics.

Technical SEO for E-commerce

Technical SEO is all about implementing on-page optimizations to offer better user experience and attract more traffic to your website. 

1. Improve your Site Speed

Online shoppers are incredibly impatient when it comes to slow pages. Time delays can greatly impact your bottom line. A fast site improves user experience, and a satisfied user leads to more sales. It’s as simple as that. In retail, Google notes that a one-second delay in mobile load times can impact conversion rates by up to 20%.

How Fast Should A Website Load in 2019?

According to Google, for optimal results, a page should show content to the user under 3 seconds. In 2018, a retail site loaded, on average, in 6.3 seconds. Test your website’s loading time here.

How Can You Decrease Page Load Time?

• Reduce the size of your images
• Compress your CSS, HTML and Javascript files
• Minimize page redirects
• Improve caching and hosting solutions
• Use a Content Delivery Network

2. Implement a Clear Website Structure

Your site’s structure is the foundation of your search engine optimizations. Your site structure refers to how your content is grouped, linked and presented to visitors. A well-organized site will make it easier for users to find what they are looking for and it lets Google index your site more easily. If Google quickly understands what your site is about, chances are, you’ll rank higher on a search engine result page. 

As an SEO agency, we’ve seen scary site structures over the year. We would recommend a simple URL structure including categories and product pages. Your product pages should look something like this: domainname.com/category/product. Also, make sure your site includes a sitemap and identify which pages aren’t indexed by Google. Non-indexed pages will not appear on search engines. All this information can be found in Google Search Console or, an SEO specialist can easily figure these things out for you.  

3. Think Mobile-first, always.

Mobile commerce or m-commerce has been changing the way Internet users shop by simplifying the buying cycle. Users can now add items to their cart and purchase goods from anywhere, at any time. And, mobile commerce is here to stay. According to eMarketer, mobile commerce will account for 53.3% of all retail e-commerce sales in the US by 2021. 

Since 2016, Google shifted to mobile-first which means Google prioritizes the content that appears when someone views your website on a smartphone. Prioritizing a mobile-first design, will not only facilitate purchases for your users but will also increase your chances of getting noticed on search engines. 

4. Check your page regularly for errors

E-commerce stores frequently make changes to their site based on their changing inventory. Pages are removed, others are redirected to other pages. 404 pages and bad redirects will negatively impact user experience and create frustration for your potential buyers.

In a perfect world, there would be no 404 pages on your website… but that’s almost impossible, especially for e-commerce stores with hundreds of pages. So what can you do? Create a custom 404 page with helpful information to your users to prevent them from completely leaving your site. Add links to your home page or a search bar to help them find what they were looking for. 

5. Take Advantage of Templates and Automation

Some e-commerce stores have thousands of pages to optimize on their site. It would be counter-intuitive and extremely time-consuming for marketers to optimize each page title, URL and description one by one. Work with templates and automation to scale your SEO optimizations quickly and efficiently.

Online Authority and E-commerce

Managing your online reputation through link building and client reviews reinforce the idea that your site will meet your customers’ expectations. And, Google loves credible, relevant and trustworthy websites.

6. Get More Reviews

93% of consumers say online reviews impact their purchasing decisions. More than ever, potential clients are looking at your brand’s online review to assess the trustworthiness of your business. Leverage the power of word-of-mouth through reviews on directories and social media platforms (Google, Yelp, Facebook, etc.) and directly on your website. E-commerce stores should use email marketing or in-store incentives to ramp up the number of reviews available about their business. 

Increasing your number of reviews online will positively impact your bottom line, your search engine ranking and your user experience. We wrote an entire blog post on the subject, check it out here. 

7. Use Link Building

Link Building is a common SEO practice used to increase a website’s authority and, therefore, its ranking on search engines. Link Building is the process of acquiring hyperlinks from other websites. When many high-authority websites link to your site, it shows Google how credible and trustworthy your website is. The search engine is then more likely to show your site in search results.

Partnerships, press releases, influencers, and blogging, are great tactics to increase the number of links pointing to your e-commerce store. 

Content Marketing for an E-commerce Store

Content marketing is all about constantly rolling out new content to gives search engines a better understanding of what you do and how you’ll answer a clients’ needs. 

8. Create Content on a Blog

Blogging is known as being a cost-effective way to increase your online presence, your search engine ranking, and your brand reputation. Here’s why: 

1. Blogging is a great way to constantly create new content on your website, which lets Google know that your brand is still active and live.
2. Blog articles let you insert highly relevant long-tail keywords on your website in order to rank higher when a potential client looks for a specific query.
3. A relevant and up-to-date blog sets you up as an expert in your industry
4. Blogging engages your client and helps build a strong relationship with your customers

SEO experts can help you identify valuable and unique content that’ll please your target audience and, in the end, drive more traffic to your website. 

9. Optimize Product Descriptions

Optimizing product pages is key for all e-commerce stores in order to increase their SEO performance and also to help their clients through their buying process. Here are a few best practices we recommend to optimize product pages:

1. Make sure your content enlightens users and helps them in the purchasing decisions
2. Focus on the benefits of your products and what sets them apart from your competitors
3. Strategically insert product keywords (in your page URL, product title, product description, image alt text).
4. Create a unique description for every product to avoid duplicate content

You’ll want to test out what works best for your website. Make sure you monitor your product pages once you’ve made your optimization. Are your pages getting more organic traffic? Are the pages ranking higher on search engines? Are visitors spending more time on your pages or bouncing immediately? These metrics will give you some insights into what is working or not. 

Also, why not install a heat map software like Hotjar to get a better understanding of what your users are interested in? You’ll get to see where your users are clicking and how far they’re scrolling. These insights will help you shape your product pages to the needs of your target market. 

Our SEO team can help your e-commerce store attract more organic traffic. Get a custom proposal here.