When customers search for products online, SEO gets the relevant pages to show up on Google. The higher you rank, the more visitors you attract. And, that means more sales.
Despite this, many ecommerce websites are failing to cash in on the opportunity. There are understandable reasons for this — first and foremost, a lack of knowledge about SEO. There’s also the undeniable fact that Google Ads delivers results faster than slow burning SEO.
Is organic SEO for ecommerce websites worth the time and effort?
Yes, because once your website is properly set up for search engines, it continues generating traffic and sales without the ongoing costs of paid ads… or relying on Amazon.
We’ve put together a simple guide to SEO for ecommerce websites, starting with the most common issues.
Common problems with ecommerce SEO
With ecommerce websites, the most common ranking obstacles we come across are these:
- The website pages contain the wrong keywords, or no keywords at all
- The content is too sparse and skinny
- Keywords are incorrectly placed within the content
- Duplicate content is diluting ranking ability
- The site structure is confusing users, and Google’s ranking bots
- There are technical issues, for example, slow page speeds
So, those are the common problems. How do you solve them? Let’s go through these issues step by step.
The right keywords for ecommerce
Customers put keywords into search engines when they’re looking for your products. Therefore, your first step is to work out which keywords they’re using, and which offer the most value.
The perfect high-value keyword is one which has the following:
- Clear buying intent by the person searching
- High search volumes
- Low competition
Buying intent: Generally, you can work out if the searcher intends to buy through common sense. Phrases which include “buy”, “order”, “coupon”, “deal”, “free shipping” and “best price” are obvious examples. It’s also wise to target words which signal an intent to learn about a product — “best moisturiser for dry skin”, for instance.
Search volumes and competition: To find this out, you’ll need a keyword research tool. There are lots out there. Some are free for the basics — Google Keyword Planner and Ahrefs, for example — but if you want all the bells and whistles, you’ll need to pay for these.
Choose long-tail keywords
Long-tail keywords are longer, more precise phrases with 3 or more words. They have lower search volumes than single words, but less competition and higher buying intent. In short, they’re more likely to bring in sales.
Taking the word “moisturiser” as an example, there’s virtually no chance of ranking for this as a seed keyword. Search volumes are massively high, but so is the competition.
Narrowing it down to “moisturiser for acne prone skin” reduces the competition. Importantly, it also makes a sale more likely because this is exactly what the buyer is looking for.
Useful tips for ecommerce keywords
Try using Google autocomplete. Going back to the seed keyword “moisturiser”, start typing this into Google and you’ll see that autocomplete provides helpful suggestions.
These suggestions offer a wealth of ideas on keywords. What’s more, further down the results page you’ll find a box called “People also ask” (PAA). Don’t forget to look at this. When it comes to supporting content ideas for your product pages, PAA can be a gold mine.
You can also use Amazon. We’re aware that some ecommerce business owners have a love-hate relationship with this online shopping behemoth — but with keywords for organic SEO, Amazon can be your best friend. Like Google, it provides suggestions as you type in a keyword.
Even better, you can check how Amazon structures its content for SEO. Look up the relevant menu to find keyword category ideas and use Amazon as inspiration for how to organise your own products within that category.
Fatten up your website content
Sparse, skinny content is one of the biggest obstacles to organic SEO. Google uses content to decide which keywords to rank a website page for, and how high to rank it.
If product pages contain only brief descriptions, you’re missing a trick. Firstly, search engines won’t have enough to go on. Secondly, Google favours content that’s informative and useful for people. Skinny content isn’t helpful enough.
Fatten up your website content with unique, well-written, persuasive product descriptions which provide plenty of details for a potential customer. If you’d like some helpful tips on this, check out How to write product descriptions: A comprehensive guide [provide a link]
Put keywords in the right place
In order to help Google work out what each product page is about, it’s important to put keywords in the right place. Where should you put keywords?
- In the URL — the individual web address of the page
- At the front of the page title, the H1 heading
- In the description itself, although no more than twice to avoid keyword stuffing
- At the front of the SEO title tag — the blue title which appears on results pages
- Within the meta-description, which persuades customers to click through to the page
Also, bear in mind that search engines can’t see images. Use the alt tag to label the main image with your chosen keyword.
Create supporting blog content
Each month, pick a product you want to promote and write a blog about it. This shouldn’t be a sales pitch. Blog readers aren’t ready for that. They want an engaging article which answers common pre-purchase questions and helps them make a buying decision.
There are several reasons why this type of supporting content is great for SEO:
- Every post provides a new landing page for your website
- Blogs can include keyword-based links to product pages
- Informative blogs build your reputation as a credible, knowledgeable source
- Over time, supporting content increases your website authority
The more people who discover the content, the more your website domain authority rises. Once Google trusts you as a reliable information source, newly published content is often ranked faster and appears higher up on the results pages.
Beware of duplicate content
Duplicate content is the silent assassin of ecommerce websites. It confuses search engines, dilutes SEO and weakens a website’s authority.
It’s a common problem with ecommerce. When you have multiple products in different colours and sizes, it’s easy to end up with hundreds, or even thousands of URLs which look identical in content and structure. Google can’t work out which page to rank, so it ranks none of them.
There are several ways round this. We’ll focus on three of them:
- Canonical tags which tell Google which page is the primary version
- Noindex tags to prevent specific pages from appearing in search results
- Creating unique content for each page
Canonical tags can be effective, but it’s crucial that they’re implemented correctly and consistently. Otherwise, search engines will remain confused, and your most important pages could disappear from the results pages.
Noindex tags tell Google to avoid ranking specific URLs. They can be useful for poorly performing pages — those with content which is outdated, low quality or irrelevant. Prioritise pages which meet the needs of the website user, and cull any which no longer serve a useful purpose.
Creating unique content for each page is hard work. There’s no getting around it. We suggest you start with pages which are doing OK, but could perform better — those currently at the bottom of page 1, for instance.
Website structure
When it comes to SEO for any ecommerce website, how the site is structured and organised has a big impact on search engine rankings.
You want to make it easy for search engines to navigate the content and, equally, for humans to find their way around your store. But what does this mean in practice?
The hierarchical structure of your site should be no more than 3 levels deep. Your home page sits at the top, level 1 is for categories, level 2 is subcategories, level 3 is for your product pages.
Neil and Sonya, can you create a version of this picture? Alternatively, credit and link to Backlinko.
Simplicity is key. If products are more than 3 clicks away from the home page, they’re unlikely to be ranked by search engines or found by visitors.
Remember to optimise your category and subcategory pages for keywords. They’re nearer the home page and, with the right search terms, more visible to search engine bots.
Again, it’s worth checking how Amazon has organised categories and subcategories in your product niche. You’ll find some valuable keyword ideas.
Fix technical SEO issues
Ecommerce websites have a lot of moving parts under the bonnet. Website visitors can’t see them, but search engines can. If your website has technical SEO issues, Google will struggle to crawl, understand and index the page content.
The most common technical SEO issues we see are these:
- Slow page speeds. If pages don’t load quickly — under 3 seconds — Google notices, and website visitors won’t hang around waiting.
- Incorrect or missing XML sitemaps. Sitemaps help the search engines rank website pages efficiently. If your sitemap is inaccurate, or missing altogether, ranking bots won’t know which pages to crawl.
- Broken links (404 errors) are frustrating for website users, and damaging for SEO. Google sees 404 errors as an indicator of poor-quality content, so do watch out for them, especially when you’re adding or replacing content.
- Incorrectly placed noindex tags are a massive problem. Pages will disappear from results pages, and this can completely destroy SEO.
- Canonical tags in the wrong place. When there’s duplicate or similar content, canonical tags tell Google which page takes priority. If they’re placed incorrectly, search engines become confused. They won’t rank your most important pages.
- Missing or incorrect meta-data. Each website page needs its own keyword-rich SEO title and meta-description. The SEO title is crucial for page ranking, and should contain a maximum of 60 characters. The meta-description helps people decide whether to click through, and should contain no more than 154 characters.
When you’re busy running an ecommerce business, and frequently adding new products, these kinds of issues can easily fly under the radar.
If you’d like a website healthcheck, and some plain-English advice about ecommerce SEO in general, please feel free to ask. Get in touch with Neil and Sonya at Pumpkin on 01489 590 092 or fill in the contact form. We’d be happy to help.
