It\u2019s not a surprise if most online stores have started investing more in SEO. It\u2019s a non-negotiable these days.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve put together the simplest eCommerce SEO guide so you can start optimizing your store pronto.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s just a matter of time before you see your sales ramp up organically.<\/p>\n
What is eCommerce SEO?<\/h2>\n
eCommerce SEO (or Search Engine Optimization) is a free way of getting more traffic to your online store or retail website. The strategy helps you boost your store\u2019s online visibility, helping you rank on Google.<\/p>\n
Ranking on Google means your prospective customers will find your store when they search for a product they plan to buy online.<\/p>\n
For example, when someone searches for \u201cwomen\u2019s shoes\u201d in Google, here are the top results:<\/p>\n
![\"women\u2019s](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/womens-shoes-Google-search-results.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n
The top searches show links to women\u2019s shoes from online marketplaces and stores like Shopee, Nike, Lacoste, and Nordstrom.<\/p>\n
These stores didn\u2019t have to pay thousands of dollars to get here. They get free exposure because they\u2019ve worked on their SEO.<\/p>\n
Now if this isn\u2019t a good enough reason for you to roll up your sleeves and get to work, read on.<\/p>\n
Is SEO really important for eCommerce?<\/h2>\n
Now if you\u2019re still on the fence about working on your SEO, take a hard look at these numbers. After all, numbers never lie.<\/p>\n
Increasing competition (this is good news!)<\/h3>\n
There are currently up to 24 million eCommerce sites<\/a> worldwide, with more and more sprouting every single day. Yes, there is competition, but there\u2019s still more room for growth.<\/p>\n You\u2019d be surprised at what people would buy online. If these Bacon Bandages<\/a> can get almost 3,000 ratings on Amazon (people love it, by the way), then you can certainly sell what you want to sell<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just pure luck, you can find 39 other weird things people buy and like here<\/a>.<\/p>\n There’s been a surge in purchasing products online since the pandemic across the globe. Plus, a good portion of the consumers have rarely or have never shopped online before.<\/p>\n Sure, there are more sellers. But there are more consumers too. Plus, they\u2019re buying more frequently too.<\/p>\n Not all eCommerce online stores are doing SEO and they\u2019re leaving a lot of money on the table.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s an example of a men\u2019s sweatpant listing that\u2019s totally lacking product description.<\/p>\n And guess what.<\/p>\n Most of the time, it\u2019s more than just the product listings that most eCommerce stores mess up today.<\/p>\n Here are some of the SEO problems that are plaguing eCommerce websites:<\/p>\n This is a mistake on their part, but a win for you\u2014if you\u2019ll start working on your SEO today.<\/p>\n More often than not, the littlest SEO tweak could bring you the biggest revenue wins.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t believe it? I\u2019ve got 2 real-world case studies to convince ya!<\/p>\n Almost seems like magic, right?<\/p>\n But it\u2019s all eCommerce SEO strategies\u2014something which you can also do. And we\u2019re going to dive into that right now.<\/p>\n SEO isn’t just about keywords.<\/p>\n SEO for eCommerce involves 2 major bulk of efforts: on-page SEO optimization and off-page SEO optimization.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s talk about onsite SEO first. These are the tactics that you do on the actual website or online store (i.e., optimizing the product listings, structuring the entire website, and writing blogs.)<\/p>\n The second one is off-page or off-site SEO. Off-page SEO involves building your brand\u2019s authority through backlinks (or exposure) on relevant websites where your target market is hanging out. Examples include influencer websites, community pages or websites, and even Google My Business.<\/p>\n As promised, we\u2019re not going to do boring, technical SEO lectures here. Let\u2019s break it off into actionable steps.<\/p>\n eCommerce Keyword Research is the first foundational step.<\/p>\n Keyword research means finding the keywords used by prospective buyers to find your and your competitors\u2019 products online.<\/p>\n Getting the terminology right would mean more traffic (and success) for your website. Not getting this right means you\u2019re going to waste all your efforts.<\/p>\n So how are you going to find all those keywords?<\/p>\n You can use the following tools.<\/p>\n Finding the RIGHT keywords for your eCommerce products<\/strong><\/p>\n When finding keywords, you should look at these 3 factors:<\/p>\n The volume of searches<\/strong> shows how many people are searching for that keyword. Keyword difficulty<\/strong> tells you how easy or hard your eCommerce website can rank for that keyword. Keyword intent<\/strong> is the intention of the searcher for that keyword. This could highly affect your conversion rates.<\/p>\n In most tools, you can readily see the volume of searches and keyword or search difficulty.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s an example using Google Keyword Planner when you search for the keyword \u201ccoffee grinder\u201d.<\/p>\n The \u201cAvg. monthly searches\u201d is the monthly volume of the search, while \u201cCompetition\u201d is the keyword difficulty.<\/p>\n Now let\u2019s go-to keyword intent. There are 2 main types of keyword intent that we see most often: (1) informational keyword intent and (2) commercial keyword intent.<\/p>\n Informational keywords are used by people who just want to gain knowledge or information about a certain topic. These searches usually look for how-to content.<\/p>\n Commercial intent, on the other hand, is what people are looking for before they make a purchase. They\u2019re product searches<\/strong> at a stage where they\u2019re finding what they need and they want to do it fast.<\/p>\n You\u2019d know this because they search for things that help them know how, where, and the best ways to make the purchase. Specific searches that sound like \u201cbuy coffee grinder\u201d or \u201cfind best coffee grinder deals\u201d are examples.<\/p>\n So how can you tell if the keyword is the right one to target?<\/strong><\/p>\n The best keywords to target for eCommerce have:<\/p>\n Tools that will help you find your next eCommerce keyword<\/p>\n Ubersuggest<\/strong><\/p>\n Ubersuggest is a free online SEO tool that can help you find keywords (even long-tail ones) and related terms.<\/p>\n It displays the trend, volume, search difficulty and even paid difficulty (if you\u2019re planning to do Facebook, YouTube, or Google ads<\/a>).<\/p>\n SEMRush<\/strong><\/p>\n SEMRush is a more advanced tool that shows you what you can do to beat the competition.<\/p>\n \u201cVolume\u201d is the volume of searches and \u201cKD\u201d is the keyword difficulty. It has other suggestions on the number of referring domains that you can use, but let\u2019s reserve this discussion for later.<\/p>\n Here is a detailed review of SEMrush<\/a>.<\/p>\n Now that you know how to find keywords that prospective customers are searching for, that have little competition, AND are likely to convert, let\u2019s move on to the next step\u2014optimizing your eCommerce website architecture.<\/p>\n Your eCommerce store\u2019s architecture, a.k.a. The way you arrange, set up, and organize your entire site, has a LOT to do with your SEO success.<\/p>\n Why? It\u2019s because your site architecture helps your visitors go to the product pages they want to go to.<\/p>\n Your architecture refers to your site navigation (the menu on the top of your website), the category pages, and the product pages. Getting all these pages right will glue your visitors\u2019 attention.<\/p>\n Just follow these rules and you\u2019re good.<\/p>\n The \u201cGolden Rules\u201d of a great eCommerce website structure:<\/strong><\/p>\n That said, here is the recommended structure for eCommerce web stores:<\/p>\n This arrangement is not only good for SEO as Google, but it\u2019s also best for humans. This flat architecture allows Google to index all your pages while making browsing easier for your web visitors.<\/p>\n If your current web structure looks one or two level-deeper or more complicated than the one above, then consider re-arranging it right now.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re wondering how it looks on an actual website, here\u2019s an example from American Apparel<\/a>.<\/p>\n To get to this product, you just have to go to \u201cWoman\u201d (Category), then \u201cTops\u201d (Sub Category), and voila! You see the product. Just 2 levels deep.<\/p>\n That\u2019s it. Simple, right?<\/p>\n Next up is optimizing your online store, particularly your category pages, product pages, and of course, your blog.<\/p>\n This is what most people think of when they hear SEO.<\/p>\n This involves using your targeted keywords (see Part 1.1) in the right places so Google lets you appear in the Search Engine Results Page (commonly called SERP).<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what a well-optimized eCommerce product page looks like.<\/p>\n It has an optimized URL, a product description that uses both product and branded keywords, and links to reviews.<\/p>\n SEO spans beyond the product page.<\/p>\n Before a customer gets to this particular Macy\u2019s product page, they could have searched for keywords like this \u201ccharter club cozy plush throw\u201d on Google.<\/p>\n Because the page is optimized, Macy\u2019s product shows up as the first result. Not only that, it has all the elements that a prospective buyer would want\u2026<\/p>\n The exact keyword searched as the title, branded keywords (since Macy is a big brand already), and 200+ 4-star reviews.<\/p>\n Pretty smooth, right?<\/p>\n You can do it for your own online store. Here\u2019s how.<\/p>\n When optimizing your eCommerce category and product pages, your keywords should be present in all these 6 elements.<\/p>\n It\u2019s one of the eCommerce SEO best practices for on-page optimization. Make sure to integrate your keywords in the following…<\/p>\n Your URL<\/strong><\/p>\n Add your keyword in the URL. It\u2019s the group of words that you can find on your browsers\u2019 search bar at the top of the page.<\/p>\n Make sure that it\u2019s readable and simple. Here\u2019s an example from Macy\u2019s.<\/p>\n Google loves shorter URLs so only include what\u2019s important.<\/p>\n Product Title (Also used as the Title Tag or H1 in SEO)<\/strong><\/p>\n The best practice for this is to use your keyword in the beginning. If you can\u2019t, then make sure that it\u2019s close to the beginning.<\/p>\n As you can see in Macy\u2019s Product Title, they used the product keyword \u201ccozy plush throw\u201d in the title. \u201cCharter Club\u201d is actually the brand of the plush throw.<\/p>\n Product Description<\/strong><\/p>\n You should also sprinkle your target keywords along with relevant keywords in the product descriptions.<\/p>\n In our example, they\u2019ve started with another keyword \u201csoft plush fabric\u201d in the intro to break off the redundancy.<\/p>\n Remember, your keyword is already in the product title, you have to be creative on how to start your product description.<\/p>\n Macy\u2019s has shorter product descriptions since they\u2019re already a big brand and they\u2019re more well-known.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s take a look at a different product description of a similar item. This one has ~240 words with lots of keywords in it\u2014fleece blanket, warm flannel fleece throw blanket, fleece blanket, etc.<\/p>\n Ideally, your product description<\/a> should be around 300 words with your main keyword mentioned 2-3 times.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t overdo it though. Keyword stuffing would make your description sound unnatural and would destroy the overall flow.<\/p>\n Product Image (Img alt text in SEO)<\/strong><\/p>\n See, Google doesn\u2019t \u201csee\u201d images so it relies on what we call \u201calt text\u201d in knowing what an image on the internet looks like.<\/p>\n Alt text or alternative text is the text that is displayed in case the image fails to load on your eCommerce store. So make sure it makes sense.<\/p>\n Macy\u2019s alt text is \u201cCharter Club Cozy Plush Throw\u201d.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t worry about how to implement this. You can always ask your web developer to code it for you.<\/p>\n eCommerce Video information<\/strong><\/p>\n Videos are underrated in eCommerce.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s a bummer because 44% of consumers<\/a> purchase more products on sites with product videos.<\/p>\n Macy\u2019s doesn\u2019t even have 1 for that so this is what came up with this video search.<\/p>\n If you have product videos on your eCommerce website, don\u2019t forget to optimize them. Use what you\u2019ve learned in optimizing images when optimizing your video\u2019s title and product description.<\/p>\n The best ones show up on the first page of Google and they could potentially improve your Click-Through Rate.<\/p>\n Meta Title and Meta Description<\/strong><\/p>\n Next up, is the Meta Title and Description. These metadata are the ones that would show up in the search results when soon-to-be buyers search.<\/p>\n It looks like this on the search results.<\/p>\n Like the image alt text, you can ask your developer to code it for you.<\/p>\n Internal Links<\/strong><\/p>\n Before we learn how to optimize this, let\u2019s define what they are.<\/p>\n Your eCommerce internal links are the links found on your navigation. They\u2019re like breadcrumbs that guide your users if they want to go back to your category pages or back to your homepage.<\/p>\n Consider your website structure and study how you can do your internal links such that you link to high-priority category and product pages.<\/p>\n Phew, that\u2019s all for on-page SEO.<\/p>\n Now you can go apply all the things that you\u2019ve learned about it on your category pages\u2014and even your blog posts\u2014too. Optimize the titles, images used, and metadata.<\/p>\n There\u2019s just a whole lot of specific SEO principles applied to your blog or content marketing and it deserves a separate post.<\/p>\n For now, let\u2019s go back to the Category Pages.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s an example from Asos. It still uses the same optimizations as with the eCommerce product pages.<\/p>\n Now, let\u2019s move to the harder bit. We\u2019re going to go a bit technical so bear with this. As promised, we\u2019ll keep it as simple as possible.<\/p>\n Pro tip, you can also share this section and have your website developer work on the optimizations for you.<\/p>\n The technical SEO involves improving things like:<\/p>\n It\u2019s just making sure that the experience your web visitor has on your website\u2014whether on desktop or mobile\u2014is seamless.<\/p>\n That way, they\u2019d stay. If they\u2019d stay on your website, Google will know that your page is great and worth ranking for.<\/p>\n To know what technical SEO activities to do, you\u2019d need SEO tools like Ahrefs, SEMRush, DeepCrawl, Screaming Frog, or Raven Tools.<\/p>\n In our case, let\u2019s use Ubersuggest. It\u2019s simpler and easier to understand.<\/p>\n To run a technical SEO audit on your eCommerce website, scroll down your Ubersuggest Dashboard to the \u201cTop SEO Issues Section\u201d. It\u2019s all the way to the bottom.<\/p>\n There you\u2019ll see the SEO issues that you can fix to rank more on Google. You can prioritize the issues by looking at the Difficulty and SEO Impact. Focus more on the easier things that will have the most impact.<\/p>\n When you click on the \u201cWhat is this and how do I fix it\u201d (link in orange above), you\u2019ll see the steps on how to address that SEO issue.<\/p>\n Here are the most common SEO Issues and how to fix them.<\/p>\n Low word count<\/strong><\/p>\n One of the most common mistakes is not having enough content on the product descriptions. Like this one.<\/p>\n You can make your online store pretty to get more sales<\/a> and all, but without enough text on your product or category page, Google will have trouble understanding what the page is all about.<\/p>\n If Google doesn\u2019t know what the content is, it will not rank that page.<\/p>\n Give your pages the best chance to rank. Take time to write compelling product descriptions for your items. You can also hire content writers\u2014and even AI content creation tools<\/a>\u2014to do these for you.<\/p>\n Follow this quick guide on writing product descriptions:<\/p>\n Duplicate content<\/strong><\/p>\n Google dislikes copied content. This mistake can easily be made on product descriptions or categories, especially for items that are almost alike. It happens when you don\u2019t have time to write fresh content.<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t have the resource to write new ones, you can at least minimize the duplication on your pages by:<\/p>\n Slow speed<\/strong><\/p>\n The ideal site speed is under 2 seconds. If your website is slow to load, your visitors will bounce off early. 70% of consumers<\/a> say that page speed influences their likelihood to buy.<\/p>\n You can check your page speed here.<\/a><\/p>\n Apart from page speed, it can also get recommendations on how to speed up your site. You can share these with your developers and they\u2019ll know what to do.<\/p>\n The first 3 parts were all about onsite optimization or the things that you can do on your eCommerce website.<\/p>\n In the last part, we\u2019ll talk about off-page SEO optimization for your eCommerce store. These are the SEO-boosting things that you can do outside your website.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s start with the most common one.<\/p>\n Building backlinks means having relevant sites link back to your eCommerce website URL. This doesn\u2019t only help increase your search rankings, but it also builds trust and confidence from your customers.<\/p>\n When you\u2019re featured or mentioned in places where your target market is also hanging out, this gives your eCommerce brand major plus points in the trust and credibility departments.<\/p>\n The eCommerce player, Florist, for example, has 4k backlinks according to Ubersuggest.<\/p>\n When Learning Resources upped their backlinking game<\/a>, they were able to generate a 115% boost in revenue, 53% more transactions, and 41% increase in average order value.<\/p>\n Now there are lots of ways on how to get quality backlinks, but here are the 5 easiest things that you can do to get backlinks for your eCommerce site right away:<\/p>\n Reach out to influencers<\/strong><\/p>\n If you have the budget, you can go ahead, connect with influencers<\/a> in the market you\u2019re in, and find ways to collaborate.<\/p>\n You can share free products (or pay a certain sum of money) to get your products featured in their blog posts, YouTube video links, and social media posts.<\/p>\n Or you can start a scalable influencer marketing campaign<\/a> and ask if you could do a guest post on their blog once the relationships warm up.<\/p>\n HARO publications<\/strong><\/p>\n HARO<\/a> (or Help a Reporter Out) is a great way for you to get traction. Journalists from media publications\u2014even the large ones\u2014are constantly looking for examples and fresh ideas from business owners.<\/p>\n They may be looking for holiday products to round up. And maybe this is your chance to have your product featured and score a backlink to your domain. Here\u2019s one:<\/p>\n Here\u2019s another good opportunity if you have a tea store.<\/p>\n It\u2019ll take some time to watch out for relevant opportunities via HARO emails, but there\u2019s almost always eCommerce opportunities every day.<\/p>\n The last strategy is something that most eCommerce businesses overlook\u2014investing in local SEO.<\/p>\n Local SEO is the process of optimizing your online presence so you can capture more local searches. It\u2019s best if you have a local store and have a strong community in your area. It\u2019s a great way to have loyal customers rally behind your brand.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how to do it:<\/p>\n Claim your \u201cGoogle My Business\u201d Listing<\/strong><\/p>\n Google My Business<\/a> is a free listing that you can get so you get a share of its search engine market share. This listing will appear whenever a user searches for your business name, location, or any other information that\u2019s relevant to the local keywords.<\/p>\n Another bonus? It appears on Google Maps and it features customer reviews!<\/p>\n When optimized, your listing can show up on the first page of Google. Like this.<\/p>\n Get listed on local directories<\/strong><\/p>\n Take advantage of free business listings and get your eCommerce business visible there. A business listing is an online list of businesses within a particular niche and location.<\/p>\n Start with these 5 online directories for local businesses:<\/p>\n See, eCommerce SEO isn\u2019t that hard, right?<\/p>\n We\u2019ve kept this guide as simple as it can be so you can start implementing the strategies that we\u2019ve added here.<\/p>\n You don\u2019t have to do everything at once, but you can start with one part at a time. Start with researching your keywords.<\/p>\n![\"Bacon](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Bacon-Strips-Bandages-293x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\nGrowing customer base<\/h3>\n
![\"e-commerce](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/e-commerce-usage-to-purchase-products.png\" "\\"\\"")
\nSource: Statista<\/a><\/p>\nNot every eComm store cares<\/h3>\n
![\"Lacking](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Lacking-product-description.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n\n
\n
The complete eCommerce SEO strategy<\/h2>\n
Part 1: Planning your store\u2019s SEO<\/h3>\n
1.1. eCommerce Keyword Research<\/h4>\n
\n
![\"Google](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Google-Keyword-Planner.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n\n
![\"Ubersuggest\"](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Ubersuggest-1024x338.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"SEMRush\"](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/SEMRush-1024x720.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n1.2. eCommerce Website Architecture<\/h4>\n
\n
![\"eCommerce](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/eCommerce-website-structure-1024x720.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"Well](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Well-structured-eCommerce-web-store-1024x604.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\nPart 2: Optimizing your online store<\/h3>\n
![\"well-optimized](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/well-optimized-eCommerce-product-page-1024x646.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"charter](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/charter-club-cozy-plush-throw-Google-search-1024x469.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n2.1. On-page SEO for product and category pages<\/h4>\n
![\"structured](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/structured-URL-1024x52.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"Product](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Product-Title.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"Product](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Product-Description-1024x382.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"product](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/product-description-example-1024x738.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"Image](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Image-alt-text-1024x102.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"eCommerce](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/eCommerce-Video-information-1024x885.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"Meta](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Meta-Title-and-Description-1024x142.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"Internal](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Internal-Linking-example-1024x159.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"Optimize](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Optimize-product-page-1024x707.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\nPart 3: Fixing your technical SEO<\/h3>\n
3.1 Technical SEO<\/h4>\n
\n
![\"Top](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Top-SEO-Issues-Section-in-Ubersuggest.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"How](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/How-to-fix-SEO-issue.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"short](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/short-product-descriptions-example.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n\n
\n
Part 4: Boosting SEO with off-site activities<\/h3>\n
4.1. Building backlinks<\/h4>\n
![\"backlinks](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/backlinks-report-in-Ubersuggest.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"Outreach](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Outreach-for-guest-post.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"HARO](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/HARO-link-building-outreach.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"HARO](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/HARO-link-building-example-2.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n4.2. Boost local SEO<\/h4>\n
![\"Google](\"https:\/\/mydukaan.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Google-My-Business.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n\n
Ready to up your SEO?<\/h2>\n