Top 3 SEO strategy tips for ecommerce sites

Ecommerce SEO can be confusing to many however, connecting your online products to potential customers pivots on how ‘searchable’ your website pages are. If internet users can’t find you, you simply won’t sell enough! We explore three ways eCommerce businesses can maximise their SEO.

Ecommerce websites need effective Search Engine Optimisation to put products right in front of their potential customers. Otherwise, it’s like trying to sell from a shop that’s down a dark alleyway in the back of beyond!

It’s worth just providing a quick reminder of what Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is and why it’s so important before we provide three key ecommerce SEO tips for online retailers.

Google handles 40,000 searches every single second! If you look at this live search monitor it shows that there are around 3.5 billion online searches carried out every day.

This is internet users looking for purchases, as well as general information, places to visit and signposts to entertainment sites for example. It’s highly likely that they will never get passed the first page of their search results. They will select and click from the sites with the highest ‘rankings’.

SEO techniques ensure that your products or services are as high as possible on the first page of search results, consistently.

You may already be familiar with the main ways to improve your page ranking on Google and make sure customers land on your pages. They include designing websites to be easy to ‘scan’, making them keyword-rich with constantly updated content, using appropriate images and building inbound links. It’s also vital to have a responsive website design, optimised to work equally effectively on all device or browser.

Keep in mind though, that Google frequently updates how websites are measured and ranked (via its complex algorithms) making ecommerce SEO an ongoing priority for.

Here are three less obvious SEO techniques that don’t always get the attention they deserve.

Create unique product profiles

Much of SEO rests on the quality of your website content and the way you position and promote your brand and individual products. Content that is fresh, exclusive to you and constantly updated is vital!

It is important to assign an individual and unique description to every item you sell. This may seem time-consuming. However, copying and pasting the manufacturer’s blurb or duplicating your own product entries detracts from your SEO. While copying content is not technically a penalty, this can still affect your rankings.

There are 3 main issues google receives when you duplicate content on your own site…

• Google doesn’t know which copy to use or not use for their indices
• Google won’t know whether to direct link metrics to one page or seperate thiem between the duplicate content
• Google won’t know which version to rank for query results.

Google Console has a great tool to help you avoid creating duplicate content,If your site contains multiple pages of duplicate content then follow the guide to help you start ranking higher.

If each product profile is distinct and well worded, it all helps to increase your page’s ‘worth’ to Google’s algorithms.

Keep out-of-stock and discontinued product pages up and running

This ecommerce SEO tip for websites needs to be weighed against another important priorities.

Having too many images or massive amounts of text sitting on your site can slow download times and navigation. That’s a definite no-no.

However, that doesn’t mean you have to be brutal in deleting pages containing out-of-stock or discontinued items. If the Content is well written, it can still increase your ‘searchability’ and drive traffic to current products.

Having more permanent pages makes your website easier for Google to index as it means you have more copy to insert key terms that you want your site to get found for. Plus, more content means you can increase the number of internal links you have, and this is also an SEO bonus.

Word of caution though, manage customer expectations and clearly show these products are no longer available or that shoppers can back order. Otherwise, the user experience your shoppers have will take a hit..

Create seasonal categories to maximize seasonal attention

This is another ecommerce SEO tip that sometimes gets overlooked.

For short windows of time, internet users will use seasonal terms in their online searches. If you group products together using seasonal keywords it improves their relevance and ability to be found.

For example, if you sell houseplants, they become ‘Halloween decorations’ by grouping together any that are in orange or black pots. Your online clothes store could group ‘Dresses for Christmas parties’ together, or ‘Suits for 2021’ for instance.

If you have a good website search function, that too can benefit from grouping and categorising products in this way. It can also make them easier to find and to cross-sell via email campaigns to existing clients.

For example, ‘Father’s Day unique gifts’ becomes a searchable term for SEO purposes, but also a destination on a drop-down menu or search field and a clickable link in an email.

First step to better ecommerce seo

Of course, there is a much simpler way to improve your product search ability as an online retailer, that unlocks all these secrets to eCommerce success and many more!

Reaching out to digital marketers and SEO specialists can help your business vastly improve however there are several online courses you can enroll to give yourself a better understanding of SEO and how you can make the first steps to help your site get ranked higher in google.

Our top 3 tips on ecommerce SEO will give you a great head start into optimising your site.