Quick links
Thinking of the right search term to find a product online can sometimes be tricky especially if you are still slightly unsure what you actually want or perhaps just performing some product research. Using Google’s Keyword Planner tool, it is quite common for users to use the term ‘buy’ before the name of the product they want including ‘pre-order’. This just goes to show the real valuable importance of e-commerce SEO and why you should consider this as part of your online marketing strategy. What is also highly beneficial is to put together and follow an e-commerce checklist to keep you on the right track.
As part of your e-commerce checklist, you will want to follow these steps to help increase your rankings for search engines allowing you to reach your return on investment.
On-Page Optimisation
Content is king in the eyes of SEO which is why you need to get this right. The sooner the better. Using your keywords on your site will help each product page rank for a specific search term. For example, if you have a particular product name, ensure you have a good keyword density throughout the content including a few broad terms.
| ✔ Semantic URLs for each product and Category page | ✔ Image optimisation |
| ✔ Internal links throughout entire site | ✔ Header tags (h1, h2) |
| ✔ Product description with keyword(s) | ✔ Navigation bar leading to each product category page |
| ✔ Search bar | ✔ Customer reviews |
| ✔ Duplicated content | ✔ Page speed |
To help search engines such as Google, you want to also make sure you use whats known as semantic URL (www.yourdomain.com/mens/shirts) throughout each product and category page as this is more SEO friendly. Each product image needs to be optimised to fully represent the product in question as well as having the correct naming convention with the product name for both users and search engines. Often not considered is the overall page speed. A slow to load webpage can use major drop offs in potential consumers leaving your e-commerce. Ensure you have everything optimised and ready at all times.
Keywords
Keyword research is still pretty vital for e-commerce SEO. For those who now believe it is 2015, we don’t need to do any keyword research, those are the ones who are most likely to suffer. Ideally, you need to use a variety of keywords with different competition rates which will help you be found in many searches. Try and find some low hanging keyword terms but don’t be afraid to use some highly competitive ones. Nowadays, more people are using long tail keywords to find products online so make sure you include those such as “buy cheap tv’s online”.
Blogs and Updates
Having a blog on your website no matter what kind is highly beneficial. You can have the ability to add extra keywords to your e-commerce site through individual blog posts. Any key factor of an e-commerce blog is attracting links to your site as it is quite difficult with e-commerce sites. You want to make sure you keep the blog as part of your e-commerce website rather than using an external blog.
Mobile Responsive Site
Now that the Google mobile update has rolled into place, we have already noticed a significant increase of mobile usage which has already passed desktop searches. Just like with the overall page speed, if your e-commerce website doesn’t work on mobile, chances are you will loose your potential consumers. Your e-commerce technology must be up-to-date. Try the Google mobile responsive tool to test your site.
