It goes without saying that e-commerce is on the rise. If you’re anything like me, you won’t remember the last time you went on a full-blown shopping spree. Instead, Amazon Prime makes a hefty dent in the bank balance each month. But if you own a business selling products online, how can you compete with the likes of Amazon and Ebay?
Well, to boost the flow of visitors to your site, an absolute must is SEO strategy. Optimising your e-commerce website will see you reaching your widest audience possible, without having to spend a hefty sum.
With Christmas soon approaching, it’s a crucial time to raise your SEO game. This guide will take you through how exactly SEO differs for e-commerce and some key focus areas to get you started.
What is SEO for E-commerce?
E-commerce SEO is a marketing technique used to increase a site’s visibility on search engines, and drive more traffic as a result. It comes down to fine-tuning your website to reflect user intent and meet search engine guidelines.
Does search engine ranking really matter? Yes! Backlinko found that the first result on a Google SERP gets 27.6% of clicks. Similarly, Semrush’s study of 20,000 websites found the site in position 10 to get only 10% of position 1;s traffic.
Source: Semrush
The benefits of SEO for e-commerce business owners are endless. You’ll not only see increased visitors to your site, but also improved brand awareness, and sales, all for practically no cost.
But, with search engines updating their algorithms like they’re going out of fashion, it can be daunting to know where to start. Plus, you’ll be aware that e-commerce SEO is different to optimisation for a traditional website. Let’s take a look at where these distinctions lie…
How is E-commerce SEO different?
SEO for e-commerce is not quite a walk in the park.. E-commerce sites require more work than your average content-focused website. This is primarily because you need a more thorough understanding of user intent. There are two different types that should be on your radar:
Informational keyword intent = this is users looking for an answer to a question (e.g. you sell dress-up costumes, and people are searching ‘Halloween events in my city’ and ‘Halloween costume ideas from films’)
Transactional keyword intent = these keywords show the strongest intent to buy, and you’ll want to target these terms in product pages or landing pages. Examples include words like ‘buy’ and ‘for sale’. Transactional keywords also refers to users looking for a specific product (e.g. if you sell candles, it would help to know that users are looking for ‘soy wax’ or ‘Christmas scented’ in their searches).
Other types of intent include:
Navigational: This is the name for when someone types a website or brand name into the search engine, e.g. ‘Wikipedia’ or ‘Cedarwood Digital’. You should naturally rank well for your brand name keywords.
Commercial: These searches are along the same vein as Transactional Keywords and are used by people researching specific brands or products. These terms indicate that the user is in the market to buy, but might not be ready to make the purchase yet. An example would be ‘reviews for…’ or ‘compare…’
Essentially, e-commerce SEO requires a far deeper level of keyword research. You’ll need to really analyse buyer intent and understand the particular products, product categories, and content that they’re searching for.
There are a few other ways that E-commerce SEO differs:
📌Images and reviews are important because users can’t pick up or try on a product in real life
📌Page-load time can also be more critical than a content-based site because your customers will likely want to browse through lots of products to make their decision
📌Your URLs will need more attention because on an e-commerce site there are lots of pages your customers will never be searching for. It’s vital to sort through and prioritise your URLs so that new visitors aren’t directed to a bank details or shopping cart page.
*Tip: a robots.txt file can be installed to block certain URLs from being crawled*
It’s not just about the customers though! You’ll also want to develop a good knowledge of how the search engines work and what they reward.
This might all be sounding like a big ask but don’t panic, we’re here to make an e-commerce strategy nice and simple. Here’s our 4 fundamentals to give you a head start.
How to optimise your E-commerce pages for SEO
- Keyword research
If you’re looking to optimise an e-commerce website, your first step should always be keyword identification. You need to determine the high-value search terms your target customers are using.
As said, it’s slightly different for e-commerce – you’ll want to pick out a mix of commercial and informational keywords. And…it’s a good idea to consider multiple factors when choosing the words to target. Volume, competition, relevancy and intent are all equally important here.
But where to find these all-important keywords? AlsoAsked and Amazon autocomplete predictions are a good starting point for keyword ideas. Then, we recommend Ahrefs for more advanced research – this software will give you detailed metrics for each keyword.
For example, here are the results for ‘dog beds’:
This is a goldmine. Information on rank position and search volume are vital to consider when choosing the right keywords to target.
- On-page SEO
When it comes to e-commerce websites, there are two types of pages you’ll want to devote the most attention to: product category pages and product pages.
Title Tags and Meta Descriptions
When optimising your title tags and meta descriptions, keep two things in mind. You want to rank on page one of the SERPS, but you also need to appeal to the users so they actually want to click through! Edit your title tags and meta descriptions to include your keywords, but keep them user friendly.
The right long-tail keywords in your meta description can really work in your favour. Try modifiers like Free Shipping, Wide Selection, 25% off for an extra push.
Product Descriptions
Here, it’s important to avoid creating duplicate content. I know it takes time, but work on making every piece of content unique. Don’t use the same descriptions across pages on your site, and try to make your description different from the manufacturer’s website. If you’re a bit strapped for time or resources, focus initially on products ranking on the bottom of Google’s page 1.
Click on any of the highest-ranking search results for your product type, and you’re guaranteed to see product pages with longer, comprehensive descriptions. Make sure to include lots of important details about your item, but keep it snappy enough to capture a user’s attention and might even persuade a customer to press buy!
Latent semantic indexing keywords
These long words aren’t as scary as they look – LSI keywords are simply those closely related to your main keyword. You can find them in Google Keyword Planner, or simply by typing a keyword into a Google or Amazon search box.
Here’s an example of Hayes Garden World using LSI terms effectively for their parasols. ‘Tilting’, ‘Aluminium’, and different heights (2.5, 2.7) are all common elements of search terms so have been included in the meta descriptions:
3. Blogging
Blogging is a form of content marketing that can effectively increase your ecommerce site’s search visibility. Blog posts have the potential to:
>Build your reputation as a credible source
>Improve your site’s authority
>Increase visibility in organic search
To reap the benefits, blogging needs to be done right. You can’t just randomly upload a post each month and hope for an increase of traffic. There’s no doubt that it takes time and effort, but done correctly, it can send powerful signals to Google (and provide your customers with genuinely helpful content!). Blogging can be done in the format of buying guides, related articles or general insight blogs.
Here’s an example of an ecommerce business using blogging effectively:
This music shop is using blogs to demonstrate that they’re an expert on the products they’re selling, and to help them rank for specific keywords. They’re positioned as a source of information with an in-depth knowledge on the history of each instrument model.
Here’s a couple of top tips for your e-commerce blog:
✔️Optimise each blog for SEO – include your researched keywords etc.
✔️Use blogs to present your products as a solution to a problem, remember to link out to product pages where appropriate.
✔️But… every post doesn’t have to be about your specific products or services. Sometimes the most interesting content might lie in a broader area related to your niche that can internally link back to the main category/product page.
4. Link Building
Links back to your e-commerce site act as votes of confidence that Google uses when weighing up a page’s trustworthiness. If your domain is relatively new, building quality backlinks is a failsafe way to help Google recognise your authority faster.
Backlinks aren’t only gold dust in the eyes of Google, they’ll also boost traffic to your website, increasing sales! You’ll want to aim for sites with a high Domain Rating score. Large, respected websites, ideally operating within your sphere, will be the most rewarding.
As an e-commerce site, press mentions and product placements are your best bet to build links and get the product out in front of your target audience. This is something we’ve leveraged for a natural deodorant client.
We gained solid product placements through:
➡️Undertaking a lot of audience research to identify who and where our audience was (using a combination of paid and meta data)
➡️Profiling our audience and user interests, in addition to understanding the types of websites they were using.
➡️Then pulling together targeted website lists – a mixture of daily newspapers, regionals and bloggers
How Cedarwood Digital can help optimise your e-commerce website
SEO for e-commerce is a long-term, continuous process. It’s never really ‘finished’, but the steps in this guide should give you a good idea of where to start.
In summary:
–Start with rigorous keyword research of both commercial, and informational keywords (and don’t forget your LSI terms)
–Explore blogging as a lucrative element of content marketing to provide helpful content to your consumers
–Keep those product descriptions unique and in-depth
–Stay on the look-out for new keywords relevant for your products
–Backlinks through product placements are a simple way to reap backlinks and authority
Looking for a helping hand with your e-commerce SEO? The SEO experts at Cedarwood Digital have heaps of experience boosting traffic and sales for e-commerce businesses.
You can check out our client case studies and testimonials on this website. If you think we might be a good fit, how about getting in touch today to find out more about our services?
