18 SEO Optimization Strategies for Ecommerce

SEO for ecommerce.

Aaaaaaaay (sigh)

No one said managing the SEO of an ecommerce site would be easy. And no one has said it because, of course, it isn't.

Any web positioning strategy is not valid for an online store because, in addition to the theme and competition, several problems usually arise:

• The owner of the ecommerce does not want to spend too much budget on online marketing campaigns.
• Content ideas are limited, and blogs often publish articles focused on ranking longtail keywords related to the business, but with no real interest for the target audience of the product or service.
• Linking product pages is costly. Natural links are non-existent here, unless the store has an affiliate system.
• Product sheets are often unreadable, lacking relevant information, and boring. Few ecommerce owners in Spain trust the power of copywriting to transform their product sheets into persuasive texts that encourage sales or at least are original for potential customers who reach them.

Do these problems sound familiar? They are not the only ones because positioning an online store is not easy, but it is not impossible either. So, let's take it step by step.

Relax.

If you agree, let's look at some SEO optimization tips for ecommerce that you can start applying to your online store today to avoid them:

On-Page SEO Optimization for Ecommerce

User Comments and Reviews

The activity of other users generates increased interest from visitors in the product, and even in the store in general. Additionally, Google views interaction favorably, so getting comments on your product pages should be one of your goals.

You can send product samples to influencers in your sector in exchange for a review or a short quote evaluating it. You can even email your buyers to encourage them to rate the product, just like the friends at Pc Componentes do:

Update the Homepage

Google prefers websites with dynamic content, and in an ecommerce, this might pose a problem.

But no worries, I have the solution: you can place a widget with the latest blog articles, the latest Twitter updates, or even a widget with the latest products added to the store (the new arrivals).

This last option works very well and generates a good number of clicks to those products, so you will be killing two birds with one stone: an updated homepage and clicks that can turn into sales.

Optimize Product Descriptions and Images

The use of keywords in the description of each product and in elements like the Alt attribute of images is essential for having optimized product sheets. If we add persuasive writing that encourages sales, we will have the perfect product description, optimized for SEO and for generating conversions.

Here we recommend checking out these two articles by two women who know very well what they are talking about:

How to Write a Product Sheet that Stimulates Sales

SEO Tips for Product Sheets

And this article by Omar on SEO optimization for images:

How to Apply (Properly) SEO to Images in Your WordPress

Optimize Product Categories

Including text in categories with related keywords and then considering them when doing the link building for your ecommerce is more than advisable. This type of text is usually placed at the bottom of the category, just below the product list.

URL Optimization

This is the part where the most errors are generated by far. It is important to include the keyword in each URL, but also to keep them clean, friendly, and short.

A very common mistake is not placing the rel="canonical" tag to the original page when dealing with URLs generated from user search parameters. Additionally, at the indexing level, it doesn't hurt to check Search Console and in the URL parameters section, mark which parameters should be ignored when indexing pages on your website. This way, you will avoid duplicate content issues.

Example of a URL that I do NOT recommend:

https://locosporregalos.com/producto/mascota-perro-red-focuspet-mascotas-coche-vehiculo-van-asiento-trasero-de-malla-red-de-seguridad-viajes-aislamiento-coche-universal-perro-barrera-de-malla-%EF%BC%88115cm-x-62cm%EF%BC%89/

I recommend reading these articles related to this topic:

The Best Friends of SEO: the rel="canonical" Tag

5 Common Mistakes with rel="canonical"

Rel= canonical – The Definitive Guide

Include a Blog

Most ecommerce owners are not in favor of investing in content from the start, and the truth is that it is a very good way to position terms related to your ecommerce and attract qualified traffic from Google and social networks.

Moreover, the articles you publish can improve the internal linking of your site, as well as conversions when it comes to guides on using a specific product, for example.

Create Linkable Blog Articles

Have you ever heard the phrase “think outside the box”?

Well, it works great to apply it in your ecommerce blog.

At least once a month, you can create some content like: the best blogs in your sector, a resources page, the best of the year, an infographic, and even a free download of a guide or e-book that could be useful for your product's target audience.

If you want to take your ecommerce to another level, we recommend visiting the super directory of ecommerce tools by Jordi Ordoñez, ecommerce consultant.

Search Function

The magnifying glass, the search box, search function... call it what you want, but it is tremendously useful for any user who arrives at your store and wants a specific product.

It is an element that improves the usability of your website and therefore should be present in a visible place. Additionally, you can extract very valuable information from the searches that occur on your page, so take advantage of it.

Site Speed

We know. An ecommerce is full of images, and that negatively affects the loading speed of the website.

To try to speed it up, you can use GZIP compression on the pages with larger html, css, and js, manage the cache with tools like PHP accelerator, cache HTTP content internally to make fewer requests to the server, optimize RAM so that MySQL databases do not have excessive load, disable unnecessary modules, and clean up files from time to time, and forget about Apache on servers (Nginx forever, although this last part depends on your needs)

The best thing for this topic is to contact a programmer to reduce code or, even better, a sysadmin to help you with some fixes on your server.

Rich Snippets

Recently, they have become popular to boost CTR. The more visual and well-crafted your meta titles and meta descriptions are, the more clicks and traffic you will receive. If you manage to keep that traffic in your store for a few minutes, Google will take good note and help you rank for the keyword they arrived for.

Look at this search example "gifts for men":

Doesn't your gaze go to the result with the stars that looks more visual? Sometimes it is possible to get more clicks than the top three results. You just need a little imagination and a few symbols or icons to catch users' attention.

It seems easy, but it isn't, so I leave you with the person I have learned the most about this topic from: Mr. Romuald Fons and his post with a video included about featured snippets.

Trust Indicators

Many people jump into ecommerce with dropshipping and create totally impersonal pages, without any contact email or phone number to help the user resolve doubts. If you really want to sell like a store, whether or not you have products in stock, you must appear to be a store, and for that, I recommend including the following elements in your ecommerce:

• Visible contact page with all options to contact: email, phone, chat, contact form, etc.
• Complete privacy policy that includes the return policy and everything related to the sale, payment, return, and shipping of the product. Transparency builds trust.
• Properly installed https certificate.
• Team or “about us” page with a real photo of the person behind the ecommerce.

Related Products

Including a section with similar products is a good idea to encourage user navigation through the store. Additionally, it is part of the internal linking strategy because it is a good on-page SEO technique to link products with each other.

Be careful not to place this section in a location that distracts the user from the product they are really interested in.

A good place is just below the product description and the purchase button on the product page they are currently on.

Off-Page SEO Optimization

Press Releases

You will not only obtain high-quality links to your ecommerce, but press releases are also a perfect way to announce the news of your store, launches, new physical store openings (if any), upcoming events, economic data of the store... In the end, you gain online visibility and improve your brand image.

If you want to know more, I recommend talking to your manager at Unancor (you will find their contact in the right section of your panel) and reading our article on how to make a successful press release.

Video Reviews or Product Unboxings

This is the new trend and users love it. Additionally, Youtube is a perfect social network to position videos for longtail keywords related to your business, so SEO on Youtube must be part of your link building strategy. And they rank super well on Google!

Moreover, video platforms are an ideal option to obtain traffic and interactions from users interested in your product.

That said, make quality videos or instead of being the perfect strategy, it will become your biggest concern (death to low-quality videos, please)

Competitor Link Building Analysis

We already discussed this tactic in our link building guide 2018 and we are mentioning it again when talking about link building for ecommerce. Spying on the competition works and works very well because the vast majority of links can be replicated.

Additionally, passing the websites of the top 5-10 competitors through tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, or Open Site Explorer helps understand how and why they are ranking for certain keywords better than you. And that is where the importance of thoroughly analyzing the competition lies to then apply their web positioning methods or even improve them.

Build Relationships with Bloggers and Influencers in the Industry

It is common to do this through social media or comments on their blogs. In any case, these relationships can lead to very varied collaborations, so it is a strategy that should not be missing if you want to promote your ecommerce and have reputable people in the industry mention you in one of their posts or social networks.

Remember not to reach out asking for things right away because it never works.

Create Community

Hire a Social Media Manager to manage your online store's social networks as they deserve. Posting once every 15 days will not work, and having 10 different outdated social networks won't either. You need a strategy that lasts over time and has predefined objectives.

Post fun gifs, share blog content, new product launches, guides, news, and articles related to your sector. Make it visual and without a clear commercial intention, and you will see how people belonging to your target audience start to become addicted to your posts.

Brand Monitoring

With Google Alerts you can create a daily monitoring email from which you will receive any new publication on the web that mentions your brand or the keyword you have decided to monitor. You can also place the name of your best product to see what is being said on social networks or whatever you think of.

We also recommend reading our article on brand positioning with social wheel so you can learn how to position your social networks above negative results that harm your image.

Is everything clear so far?

Now you just need to read the SEO book for ecommerce by Jordi that you can get for less than €20 and watch some interesting videos from the Luis Villanueva channel (We love you, Luis!). For example, this one:

There is a lot of work to do, starting with choosing the best ecommerce platform if you haven't created your online store yet. If you have already done it, tell us, what other SEO optimization tricks for ecommerce do you use?