How to Create an Effective E-commerce Strategy for Your Business?

As an online store, you drive traffic online. This means that when people search for products or services related to what you sell, you want your business to appear in their search results. Enter ecommerce SEO.

Read on to learn about e-commerce SEO, why it’s important, how to create an e-commerce SEO strategy and discover tools to help you with your process.

What is E-commerce SEO?

E-commerce SEO is making your online store visible in search results so that people doing searches related to what you offer are likely to come across your website. An optimized e-commerce site will likely rank highly in SERPs and drive organic traffic.

E-commerce SEO is essential because 60% of people research a brand online before purchasing. When your site is optimized, they can find your product pages in search results and learn about what you offer. When people can find your site and learn about what you offer, they’re more likely to purchase.

This type of SEO is not that different from general SEO. Still, you will focus on optimizing your site to benefit your products, like writing high-quality and keyword-rich product descriptions.

E-commerce SEO Strategy

1. Keyword Research

The first step in your e-commerce SEO strategy is conducting keyword research, particularly for your product pages.

This research will allow you to discover the most frequently used terms by users when searching for products similar to what you offer. After identifying these keywords, it’s essential to incorporate them into your website’s content. This helps Google understand when to rank your site in search results and ensures that searchers know precisely what they will find when they click on your page.

Below is an example of a product page from Supergoop for their Unseen Sunscreen. The short product description features commonly searched keywords related to sunscreens, such as invisible sunscreen, scentless sunscreen, and SPF 40.

2. On-page SEO

On-page SEO elements are essential for helping search engines understand the content on your website, such as the text and HTML elements. These elements typically include your keywords, making keyword research a crucial first step.

1. Meta Titles

   Meta titles are the headings that summarize the content of your page. When creating them, aim to summarize the central theme of your page while incorporating a relevant keyword. For example, the meta title for Shopify, an e-commerce platform, clearly states its purpose: selling online.

2. Meta Descriptions

   Meta descriptions are short snippets in search engine results pages (SERPs) that give users an idea of what the page is about. These descriptions help searchers determine whether the page is relevant to their needs. Ensure you include your target keywords when crafting these descriptions, as they are visible only in search results.

3. URL Structure

   Your URL structure consists of subdirectories and slugs that help organize your website. Best practices include keeping URLs simple, using relevant keywords, and hyphenating slugs for better readability. Ensure your URLs have a clear hierarchy so browsers and search engines can understand your pages’ specificity level.

4. Product Descriptions

   Product and category descriptions provide detailed information about what your products are. When writing these, you must use the keywords you’ve discovered through research. For instance, HubSpot’s Social Media Management product page uses relevant long-tail keywords like “publishing content,” “social media ROI,” and “monitoring social mentions” to attract potential customers.

5. Structured Data

   Structured data is code that helps search engines index your content more effectively. It’s essential to include structured data markups on your product pages to enhance optimization. Google provides a database of product-related structured data, such as shipping information, pricing, and availability. You can easily copy and paste this data into your site’s schema markup, add your details, and verify its validity with the Rich Results Test.

6. Images and Image Alt Text

   High-quality images are vital for e-commerce sites as they play a key role in sales. However, images with descriptive alt text, including relevant keywords, can also improve your chances of appearing in search results and image packs. Optimize your images for SEO by including clear, descriptive alt text.

3. Technical SEO

Technical SEO ensures that your website is running smoothly and easy to navigate. For ecommerce sites, optimizing website speed is particularly crucial.

Since e-commerce websites typically contain a lot of text, product images, and sometimes videos for demonstrations, they can become slow to load. It’s essential to compress all files on your site to ensure fast load times, preventing frustration for visitors. Slow loading times can significantly hurt conversion rates, with a 4.42% drop for every additional second of loading time, making this aspect critical for success.

Additionally, it’s important to keep your site’s code clean, as cluttered or inefficient code can affect load speed. SEO practices work together, and using the right structured data can also help keep your code clean and accessible for search engine bots.

4. Backlinks

Backlinks, a key component of off-page SEO, play a vital role in driving traffic to your ecommerce site. It’s important to seek backlinks from authoritative sources that are relevant to your industry.

Some effective strategies for acquiring backlinks include reclaiming unlinked mentions of your brand, getting featured in listicles, and providing high-quality images that others can use while linking back to your content.

Collaborating with influencers or affiliates can also be a smart way to gain backlinks. They can promote your products to their audience and share links to your site, which helps build credibility and drive traffic.

5. Optimize For Mobile

Optimizing your ecommerce site for mobile is an essential part of your SEO strategy, as mobile devices account for about half of all global web traffic.

Responsive mobile design ensures your site adapts to any device, providing a seamless experience for all visitors. This includes resizing mobile buttons, scaling images and graphics, and adjusting typography and text sizes to fit different screen sizes.

E-commerce SEO Audit

An e-commerce SEO audit helps you track the key elements of your strategy, providing a checklist of improvements that can enhance your rankings. Conducting an audit is beneficial as it gives you a clear roadmap for boosting your SEO performance.

Here are some essential questions to guide your audit:

Keyword Research

• Which keywords are you currently ranking for?
• What new keyword opportunities should you target?

On-Page SEO

• Are your meta descriptions descriptive and optimized?
• Do your meta titles accurately reflect the content on your page?
• Do your product descriptions incorporate target keywords?
• Are your product descriptions clear and informative about what you’re selling?
• Do your images have descriptive, keyword-rich alt text?
• Are you using product-specific structured data?
• Is your structured data compliant with Google’s standards?

Technical SEO

• What is your current page speed?
• Are your images compressed for faster loading?
• Have you compressed your videos for better performance?
• Is your schema markup clean and optimized?
• Has your site been indexed by Google?

Backlinks

• What backlinks do you currently have?
• Are your backlinks coming from authoritative, relevant sources?
• Which websites can you target for acquiring backlinks?
• Do you have unlinked mentions you can claim?

Mobile Optimization

• Are your images scalable for mobile devices?
• Are your graphics and vectors adaptable to various screen sizes?
• Is your text readable and scalable?
• Does your website automatically adjust to different device sizes?
• Does your website pass Google’s mobile optimization test?

E-commerce SEO Tools

• Keyword Planner: A free tool for keyword research to create rich product descriptions.
• Google’s Mobile Optimization Test: Ensures your site adapts well to all screen sizes.
• PageSpeed Insights: Provides current site speed and suggestions to improve performance.
• Rich Result Test: Checks if your structured data is valid for rich results on Google’s SERP features.
• Squoosh: Compresses image files for faster loading times.
• Ahrefs: A paid tool for keyword research, competitor analysis, and site audits. It helps identify opportunities to boost rankings.
• SEMrush: Useful for improving your backlink profile and local SEO optimization.
• SEO Site Checkup: A comprehensive paid tool for testing meta titles, running image tests, previewing your site in Google SERPs, and creating SEO-friendly URLs.

Over to You!

Quality is the cornerstone of SEO success. Ensure that the content you create—whether on your website, directories, or other publications—is top-notch. By following the methods outlined above, your e-commerce site will see substantial improvements in SEO performance.