Search engine optimization for online stores is known as ecommerce SEO. An example of optimization is writing lengthy descriptions with pertinent keywords on each product page. Getting backlinks from pertinent websites can help your online store rank better.

The goal of ecommerce SEO is to increase organic (i.e., unpaid or free) traffic to your online store from search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

For instance, when you perform a search on Google, you are directed to the search engine results page (SERP).

A collection of optimization methods known as e-commerce search engine optimization help your website rank higher in search results. With the help of SEO for e-commerce, you can appear in more relevant search results, which will help you increase the traffic, leads, and sales to your online business.

Importance of SEO in Ecommerce

It’s simple to believe that SEO has little to no effect on your bottom line because there is so much debate and confusion about the terminology and technical concepts around SEO and its application. But the truth is completely different. One of the best ways to boost your sales and earnings is through SEO.

The continual flow of new consumers and a core of devoted repeat customers are the lifeblood of e-commerce businesses. It’s tougher for your store to expand if there aren’t any new customers to generate new sales.

SEO helps attract new customers who are more inclined to purchase from you. Gaining the trust and confidence of online customers with SEO enhances their lifetime worth to your company.

Also Read: What Is SEO – Search Engine Optimization?

Why does SEO matter for Ecommerce?

After learning the definition of SEO for e-commerce, you may wonder why it matters. Why should you spend money on ecommerce SEO?

Here are four explanations for why SEO is important for e-commerce, including local SEO:

You assist customers in finding your brand:

Ecommerce SEO is a terrific approach to introduce someone to your business if they are unfamiliar with it. You appear in more search results, encouraging more people to learn about your company.

You facilitate more people discovering your goods:

People look for the goods your e-commerce company sells regularly. You may improve brand recognition and product visibility by investing in ecommerce SEO.

You give your viewers a better experience:

You can give your audience a better user experience by investing in ecommerce SEO. To give your audience a better experience, you must optimize your site to appear higher in search results. Increased sales and positive brand associations result from improved user experiences.

You boost sales:

When prospects come across your products via search, they take the time to investigate them and determine if they are a good fit. You can attract leads more likely to become customers for your company by appearing in relevant search results.

Best Practices for Your Ecommerce SEO Strategy

Let’s examine some of the top recommendations for e-commerce sites that are missing in SEO. You need an ecommerce SEO strategy if you want customers to be able to locate your products more easily, and as you cross each thing off your list, your approach will become more effective.

Any e-commerce store must have a product page that is properly optimized. It attracts targeted, particular customers who are prepared to convert and are bottom-of-funnel traffic!

Just be discoverable enough to convince them you are the greatest choice since they already know exactly what they want, here you will get Ecommerce SEO best practices!

Use the Right Keywords

Yes, keywords are still important. Although you don’t want to overuse these keywords in your product titles and descriptions, they must be in the material.

Include your main keyword in the heading, body, Meta description, alternate attributes, and sub headlines for your product. Latent semantic index (LSI) keywords should be liberally used. These are associated keywords that assist Google in contextual understanding your page.

Analyze the Keyword Search Volume, CPC, and User Intent

Please do some research on a keyword before using it? Know the keyword’s search volume (the number of times it is typed into search engines), the cost per click (CPC), the level of competition in paid advertising, and the searchers’ intent.

Let’s dissect it in more detail.

The number of searches for a certain keyword indicates the level of customer interest it has generated. You’ll see more frequent searches for a keyword if it has a high search volume, which reflects its greater popularity.

The cost per click (CPC) reveals how much money consumers spend each time they click an ad based on a particular search. A high CPC indicates increased competitiveness. If your goal keyword is very competitive, consider looking for a long-tail substitute.

Last, user intent explains what users try to locate when entering a certain keyword into Google’s search field. Say someone writes “shower” and presses Enter, for example.

Does that individual need details on shower installation, maintenance, baby showers, bridal showers, or something different? If a keyword’s user purpose is unclear, add more words to the search string to improve clarity.

Conduct Competitor Research

Your competitors are your best bet if you have no idea where, to begin with, on-site optimization for your e-commerce website SEO. Larger competitors, in particular, have invested time and effort in optimizing their websites, and you can learn a lot about their strategies directly from their websites.

It would help if you concentrated your attention on keywords. In particular, you should examine the keywords on their home sites and best-selling product pages.

What are some ways to identify whether a website is optimized for a specific keyword? Use the Moz browser extension to see the SEO title and description your rivals use in their title tags as a starting point.

Don’t let keywords be the end of your study. Examine your rivals’ landing pages to observe how they optimize them using the given keywords.

Focus on Homepage SEO

Most companies usually concentrate their SEO resources on their homepage. While it is unquestionably one of the most important pages of your E-commerce website SEO strategy to optimize, you should not only concentrate on this one.

You have stated that you should optimize your homepage effectively. The following are the main components you should enhance.

Homepage Title Tag

The SEO title tag is one of the most crucial components of on-site search optimization. Along with the primary keyword phrase you aim for, it should also include your company’s name. Since searchers will see this title tag as it appears in search results, you should keep it to less than 70 characters and make it engaging to them.

Homepage Meta Description

The Meta description for your homepage is a 160-character summary of your company that will also appear in search results below the title tag, albeit it is not crucial in terms of keyword rankings. It should be written to make readers want to go to your website.

Homepage Content

Your homepage’s content should give visitors clear and simple information about your company and your products. Don’t provide too much information to visitors. Think about emphasizing your top few products and your USP on the homepage.

Messy homepages can be confusing to both users and search engines. Consider the possibility that you sell goods in numerous categories. Get explicit about what your website offers because Google will find it difficult to understand what you sell and your product targeting.

Simplify Your Site Architecture

Remember that site layout is crucial for search optimization as you continue to add products and categories to your store. It would help if you had a clear navigation hierarchy, starting with your homepage and working your way down to the product categories and the items contained within them.

Search engine bots will find your website’s pages and items based on an internal linking structure that is easy to understand, not too deep, and clear.

The general rule for visitors and search engines is to make everything accessible in no more than three clicks. They should only need to click three times from the homepage to any product on your website.

Internal Linking

Internal links have two primary functions:

• Improving ecommerce SEO by displaying the connections between pages
• Increasing time spent on site by enticing visitors to explore it more
  Linking to relevant items or blog posts with lots of useful information can help with ecommerce SEO services and make your site more alluring for extended visits.

Optimize Product Pages

Your company’s product pages are its lifeblood, so you should put much effort into optimizing them. Many e-commerce site owners just post an image or a video with a few lines of text about each product.

For Google to find your SEO for E-commerce product pages, you need more details. The specific things you want to work on are listed below.

Product Name

Your product’s name is crucial. It’s also frequently used in the SEO title and URL of your product page. Due to this, you might want to consider using a popular search term or keyword phrase in your product descriptions.

For instance, if you sell T-shirts, ensure the product name contains “T-shirt” or “tee.” The keyword will then appear in both the SEO title and URL.

Additionally, that term will appear in the title of posts published of your goods on Facebook or Pinterest.

Image Optimization

The images on your product page are crucial. Consider yourself your customer for a second. Which website—one with an image that clearly shows the product from as many perspectives as possible, one with no image, one with a small, illegible image—will you be more inclined to purchase from?

Images are crucial for search engine optimization as well as for your customers. Start with the filename to appropriately optimize your photographs for search. Do not include IMG0010.jpg photos on your product pages. Use the item’s name and the primary keyword instead, like east coast-skinny-jeans.jpg.

Include keywords that consumers might use if they were searching for those photographs in search if you had alternative angles of your goods.

Please include the product name and keyword in the image’s ALT text when you add it to your product page.
The outcome? As seen in the image above, your images can now appear in Google Image Search or as part of the supplementary media on the main search results page.

Video

Add a video to your product page to assure customers of their purchases. The video could contain introductory material about your product (like a commercial), a how-to guide on how to use the product to produce results, or customer reviews.

Off-site video distribution on platforms like YouTube can be a fantastic method to draw in and inform prospective buyers about your items.

DIY instructional movies, for instance, can demonstrate how to use your items to make beautiful things. They’ll be more likely to purchase your connected products once they get excited about working on that project.

Customer Reviews

Allowing reviews is another approach to increasing consumer confidence in your goods, so do it if it’s a quality item.
Even negative ratings can have their benefits. If you have a higher-cost item with excellent ratings and a lower-priced one with average reviews, it stands to reason that customers will prefer the higher-priced item, which will increase your company’s sales.

FAQ Content

Do customers have inquiries regarding your products? Naturally, they do. Conversions can be increased by including product-specific FAQ content on your product pages.

If customers have queries you cannot address, they will look elsewhere for information and are likely to purchase from that source. Another smart move is to provide a general FAQ page on your website. Increased customer confidence can result in more purchases by answering simple inquiries about your website’s security, shipping, and return policies.

Use Responsive Design

Nowadays, a lot of people purchase on their mobile devices. Your e-commerce website’s responsive design can result in higher search results and a better user experience. Mobile friendliness is used as a ranking indication in Google’s mobile-first index.

Reduce Page Load Speed

Additionally, page load time affects rankings on both desktop and mobile devices. Google will give you a higher ranking the quicker your pages load.

How can page load time be slowed down? Concentrate on removing as many extraneous items from your page as you can. For instance, using a large background image largely hidden by a white body column might not be essential. Remove any plugins or add-ons that don’t improve the bottom line of your e-commerce business.

Image Size and Dimension

The longer it takes for a browser to load your photographs, the larger they are. You can cut an image’s “weight” in half by shrinking it from 1,000 by 1,000 pixels to 500 by 500 pixels. You can save your photographs as lower-quality JPG (JPEG) files with a program like Adobe Photoshop.

Simply select “File” and “Save as…”

You can save your photo as a JPG (JPEG) with a quality level ranging from 0 to 12. Changing the arrow’s value from 12 to 8 can significantly reduce the file size. The image, in this instance, decreased from 125K to 82.4K.

Create Backlinks for Ecommerce SEO

Backlinks are another ranking factor Google considers when deciding where to place your pages in the SERPs. Your site becomes more authoritative the more backlinks it receives from top-notch websites.

E-commerce backlink building doesn’t have to be challenging. One simple, white-hat method to build links is to guest post on blogs in your niche. Email three or more suggestions for future guest posts to the proprietors of the blogs you’re interested in.

On-Page SEO for Ecommerce Websites

Your e-commerce website can benefit from on-page SEO E-commerce by ranking better, attracting traffic, and converting leads.

Most people use a search engine to begin their product investigation. (Usually on Google). To make an informed purchase, people typically:

• Read reviews
• compare features and costs
• Lookup advice and recommendations.

You’re losing out on potential clients and revenue if your website isn’t found when people search for the goods you sell.

Here are some key ideas for enhancing on-page SEO and obtaining worthwhile organic traffic.

Keyword Research & Optimization

You must choose the appropriate words if you want people to find you. You must utilize the appropriate keywords to appear more prominently in search results.

See any trends there?

Both for individuals and search engines, you must optimize. There are several helpful keyword research tools available.

Content Product Pages

It’s important to remember that people, not Google, purchase your services and goods, so optimizing your e-commerce pages to meet consumers’ needs is crucial.

Start by analyzing the websites of your rivals. Your analysis might help clarify which elements need to be taken into consideration.

Search for:

• Multilingual Sites.
• The specific colors are utilized in the layout of product pages.
• Features of the goods/services.
• The quantity and design of calls to action (CTAs).

Consider deleting unavailable products from your index to boost your on-page SEO. These pages can eventually lower your ranking if they are kept in indexing for a long time.

You can set up your job in the manner shown below:

• Compare the number of pages from Google organic searches with the number of pages from your Sitemap and the number of pages indexed in Google Search Console.
• Ensure that only the pages from your Sitemap are accessible to Google.

Category Pages

E-commerce website owners frequently neglect the category pages in their catalogs because they directly impact conversions and search rankings. Instead, they focus more on their website’s homepage, landing pages, and product pages.

Your SEO efforts will be for naught if website visitors choose not to open product pages because they dislike how a category page looks.

Blog

Blogging was primarily seen as a fun addition a decade ago, but e-commerce companies now aggressively embrace this potent tool.

Your e-commerce business can benefit from a blog by providing customers with useful information, earning loyalty, and fostering long-lasting relationships. Additionally, by including well-known keywords in your blog posts, search engines will send more visitors.

Reviews

Even if you conduct an excellent advertising campaign and promote your business through all available information channels, potential customers may still view your brand with skepticism because they believe you are exaggerating the benefits of your items to drive up sales.

Best Ecommerce SEO Tools

It would help if you had the appropriate tools to succeed in your best ecommerce SEO campaign. The websites listed below are some of the best resources for learning how to enhance your website’s on-page and off-page SEO for better exposure in search results.

SEO Ant SEO & Image Optimizer

You can use the free all-in-one SEO tool SEO Ant SEO & Image Optimizer to perform SEO checkup reports, monitor SEO health, correct broken links and redirects, and increase traffic from Google. Additionally, you may quickly edit metadata.

Google Analytics

You’ll utilize Google Analytics if you own a website. With the help of this free SEO tool, which watches and reports website traffic, you can better understand your consumers’ needs and improve your store’s SEO and marketing return on investment.

Ahrefs

Ahrefs was demonstrated in the tutorial, but it’s worthwhile to delve deeper into some of its most important aspects. E-commerce marketing experts employ many capabilities to build SEO strategies and achieve better Google rankings.

When looking at SEO tools, you may see Ahrefs as a rival to Moz and Semrush, two prominent SEO software providers.
Analyze a website’s link profile, keyword rankings, and general SEO effectiveness with Ahrefs. It can also be used to find YouTube, Amazon, and Google keywords. Ahrefs provides useful capabilities, such as:

• SEO audits
• Competitor research
• PPC features
• Top content analysis

MOZ

The best tool for tracking and locating keywords, identifying link-building opportunities, and examining competitor page data is MOZ. You can choose how much strength you need to power your ecommerce SEO campaign because free and paid versions are available.

Benefits of Ecommerce SEO

The advantages of implementing an ecommerce SEO strategy are endless. The following are the top 3 advantages of ecommerce SEO:

Improving your user experience

Giving users a positive user experience is one of Google’s primary ranking considerations. Google will view your website as providing a good user experience if it targets the appropriate keywords for your target demographic and responds to visitors’ questions. As a result, your ranking will rise.

However, if visitors to your site click on it and leave immediately, Google will interpret it as a bad user experience and lower your rating.

Expanding your reach

E-commerce your web store receives more traffic thanks to SEO, which broadens the audience for your business. You can later employ paid retargeting efforts to reengage users who have visited your website organically. Remarketing with SEO is a very successful strategy.

Increasing brand awareness

Your online store can be optimized without spending money on marketing or advertising. Why not try to get your site on Google’s response box if you’re optimizing your SEO rankings? Listed in Google’s response box can enhance website traffic, clicks, and brand recognition.

Also Read: 8 Key Benefits of SEO for Businesses in 2023

Conclusion

Many e-commerce business owners want to start boosting conversions right now. Although you are one step ahead, that is the correct attitude.

Before converting them to your offerings, you must attract website visitors. You are setting yourself up for success by starting with ecommerce SEO.

Let’s look at our ecommerce SEO tips checklist:

• Pick the right keywords
• Conduct competitor research
• Focus on homepage SEO
• Simplify your site architecture
• Optimize product pages
• Use responsive design
• Reduce page load speed
• Create backlinks

Your e-commerce site will rank higher in search results and attract more prospects if you adhere to those recommendations.

Frequently Ask Questions

How to do SEO for an E-commerce website

Pay attention to the following three components while creating a blog for ecommerce SEO:

• Discover the terms you want to rank for. Publish material focusing on terms consumers are prone to look up when resolving issues or making purchases.
• Make blog entries SEO-friendly.
• Promote your offerings as a fix for the issue.

Why is SEO important for e-commerce?

It is one of the main things driving traffic to your website, and SEO is significant. It controls how something ranks on search engines. It examines how customers interact with your website. The greatest, most well-liked, and most useful websites for clients to visit based on their search keywords have high SEO rankings.

How much does ecommerce SEO cost?

E-commerce search engine optimization (SEO) costs vary depending on what is covered. Depending on the size of the project, most small and midsize firms will pay between $700 and $5,000 per month in 2020. A one-time job will cost between $100 to $30,000, while consultants’ hourly rates are between $100 and $300.