A Guide to On-Page SEO for Ecommerce Websites
On-page SEO is your eCommerce website’s path to rank higher than your competitors on Google, drive more traffic to your website, attract more users, and convert more leads.
When a prospective buyer wants to purchase a product after making an informed decision, this is how they usually go about it:
- Begin the product research with a search. Generally, they do this on Google.
- Compare features, benefits, and prices.
- Go through reviews (positive and negative).
- Look for advice and tips.
Now, when a user is looking for the products you sell or similar products, and your website doesn’t appear in the search results, you miss on clicks. It means that you lose potential customers and sales.
Ranking high in the search engines is a top priority for eCommerce stores. You can achieve this with the paid search, but it’s not a durable option in terms of cost. Ecommerce SEO can help you get the number one spot. All you need to know is a few SEO tips and tricks.
To direct you through this process, our SEO team has compiled this guide to on-page SEO for eCommerce websites. It consists of the roadmap to get prominent organic traffic and make your on-page SEO stronger and better than ever.
Using the right words is the first step of on-page SEO. This will allow people to find your website and give your eCommerce website greater visibility in search engines. So, the objective is to optimise your website for both search engines and people.
- Use SEO keyword research tools - You will find various keyword research tools to help you with this. Take Ahrefs Keywords Explorer for example. It offers keyword suggestions for all types of businesses or search engines. Check and handle the metrics that show how related your keywords are to user queries.
There are other free of charge keyword research tools as well such as Keyword Shitter, Google Correlate, Google Trends, Google Search Console, and Wordtracker Scout.
- Check Amazon for keyword research - You can also try using Amazon to find many high buyer intent keywords. In the Amazon search bar, many people look for the product they want to buy. If you have hundreds or thousands of products, we recommend using Amazon Keyword Tool.
- Competitor research - If your competitors have a better ranking than your website, you can visit your competitors’ websites. Go to the category and see their product pages to take reference for keywords. However, do not use the exact keyword because these might not be the best keywords.
This is how you should use the keywords that you find:
- You should put the most influential keywords in headers, sub-headers, page titles, product descriptions, paragraph copy, alt text, and image file names, title and meta description, and URLs. We suggest that you use different forms of keywords.
- Make sure that you are placing all the vital information such as user reviews, shipping costs, and return policy on the product page. Customers do not like to go to a different page for extra details. This increases the chances of them altogether leaving the website.
- Your product description should be informative and descriptive. It should add value to the users’ buying experience. If you forcefully add keywords, Google can notice the pattern.
- Regularly update your seasonal sales.
Content
The content consists of various factors that are equally important for your on-page SEO to work.
Product Pages
Yes, Google is essential in on-page SEO, but so is your audience. Hence, when you are optimizing your ecommerce pages you have to keep in mind your users’ intentions and work on satisfying them.
Thoroughly go through your competitors’ websites and focus on the factors that are working for them. They can include:
- Colour usage in product page designs
- Multilingualism on the website
- Product descriptions and characteristics
- The look and number of calls to action (CTA)
You should take out unavailable products from your index to better your on-page SEO. If these pages are left in indexing for a longer time, they can negatively impact your ranking.
Arrange your work like this:
- With the number of indexed pages from your Sitemap and the number of pages from Google organic, compare the number of indexed pages in Google Search Console.
- Make sure that only pages from your Sitemap are open for Google indexing.
Category Pages
A common mistake made by many eCommerce website companies is that they focus more on their website’s homepage, product pages, and landing pages. In this process, they tend to neglect the category pages that are significantly important for search rankings and directly influencing conversions.
If the look and feel of a category page are not appealing, then the user will not get tempted to open product pages, and this will negate all of your SEO exercises.
To maintain the optimisation of your category pages, keep track of these critical metrics:
- Conversion rate: This is the ratio that compares the total number of sales to the total number of site visitors.
- Engagement: This is the time visitors spend on a website. If they are going through your content and spending more time at it, the chances of them buying something gets higher.
- Click-through rate: This is the movement of users from category pages to product pages.
- Revenue per visitor: This is the ratio between your revenue and your total number of visitors. This metric is more crucial than the conversion rate because your brand could have fewer clients purchasing high-priced items than various customers purchasing low-priced items.
Blog
This is a powerful marketing tool used by many companies.
As an eCommerce site, you can share useful information with prospective and existing customers, build stronger relationships, and earn their loyalty. In terms of online visibility, when you insert popular keywords in your blog posts, you increase your chances of attracting more crowds to your website.
These are some must-have factors for effectively SEO optimized content:
- You should add strong queries that help your pages rank higher in search rankings.
- Your posts should be informative and add value by offering answers to questions that usually buyers have. You can have information on how to use certain products, how to maintain products for a longer life, how to choose among various options, or which products are best for specific conditions.
- Make sure that you include visuals such as infographics and images that help in catching more attention and keep the readers engaged.
- Always hyperlink content to category pages or product pages to make the user experience better and quicker.
- Always edit and proofread your blog posts for errors. Keep the information updated and relevant.
Title and Meta Description
These are consequential elements of the content. When users are browsing various similar sources for products they want to buy, title and Meta description act in your favour by telling the users what the page is about without them having to click on it. This represents your page’s information in the search engine.
Your title and Meta description should be an attractive summary of the page that entices the users to click on it and visit it.
Header Tags
Reviews
What you say about your products versus what the consumers speak about them are two different things. You will highlight all the positives about the product and how it can add value to customers’ lives, but someone who is already using the product might have different things to say.
Users treat online reviews as personal recommendations from friends and family. Having more positive reviews will always work in your favour, and negative comments (which are unavoidable) will have a smaller impact if they are less in numbers. Reviews are informative, genuine and fresh content that is good for both, search engines and potential customers.
These reviews also have relevant keywords that work for your on-page SEO.
Motivating consumers to share their experience through reviews can be classified as a marketing goal. You can make this process convenient for them by using strategic email campaigns.
Content Audit
The content you share with your audience is immensely crucial for your sales. For it to stay useful and valuable, you need to check it regularly.
We suggest you decide specific times (could be monthly, quarterly, or annually) when you analyse, revise and update the outdated information.
Tracking how your target audience is behaving with browsing, clicking, and commenting among other factors will help you in evaluating the content. If you notice that you’re regularly receiving specific queries for products, you can use that as topics for blog posts.
If your competitors are using specific content strategies that are working for them, you might want to implement something similar for your eCommerce website.
Images
For the user experience to be on point, one of the critical actions to take is to invest in image optimisation. It plays a significant role in making your page speed faster.
You should follow these tips when using images for your eCommerce website:
- Format: Use .jpg for photos, and .png and .gif for bigger spaces of solid colours
- Compression: With the help of many free or paid tools and digital services, compress your images.
- Elegance: The product images that you use should be beautiful, have a positive vibe, and drive the users to make a purchase. You can take assistance from a professional photographer to highlight the best features of your products.
- SEO: Use keywords in the alt text, mainly text around images.
Video
With videos for on-page SEO, keep the following in mind:
- Keep it short whenever possible.
- Use MP4 format because it keeps the file size smaller.
- Compress all video files.
- Select a standard file size that goes with users’ screen size.
- Do not upload the video on your local server instead upload them on YouTube or Vimeo, or other resources.
User Experience
For SEO purposes, you should be regularly checking and enhancing usability.
The following factors are essential for an accurate analysis:
- What is the bounce rate?
- How much average time users spend on the page?
- How is CTAs functioning?
- Which pages are most visited by users?
Your analysis will show results that need to collectively handle by your development and marketing team. These usability issues could be technical or non-technical and can lead to a poor user experience. The problems could be related to lousy copy, poor visual, irregular font size, too many ads, or inoperative buttons.
When you figure out the weak factors, you need to find the right people within the team to fix them.
Mentioned below are the most significant elements responsible for user experience:
Navigation
One of the most simple features, a user wants from an eCommerce website is to find the information for products they are looking for. Your website’s menu should be intuitive, easy to navigate and have the shortest pathways to various sections. If users can easily visit internal pages, and find the information they need, they would stay for longer.
Internal Linking
Internal linking is essential and should be well-planned for eCommerce websites.
These are the three critical reasons to use internal linking:
- Make it easier for search engines to crawl your website and find the themes of your content.
- Refine on-site navigation for users while providing them with appealing content related to the information they need.
- With more information and product pages, motivate the users to stay on your website for longer.
Here’s how to go about proper internal linking strategy:
- Add links only when it’s necessary and appropriate.
- Do not add lots of links with similar anchors.
- Use breadcrumbs to help users recognize your website’s multi-level hierarchy for superior navigation.
- Users click more on links with aesthetic images so use high-quality visuals.
Related Products
Users like it when they get assistance from eCommerce websites making their experience better and giving them all that they need.
When users are ready to purchase on the website or are browsing through various product pages, showing them, related products will make their experience better and increase your revenue.
Contact Pages/About Us/FAQs
On your Contact page, make it extremely simple for users to contact you. Mention all the possible ways to reach out to you, include phone and FAX numbers, email addresses, website contact forms, live chat, Skype ID, WhatsApp number, and links to social media pages.
Your About Us page will speak about your story and help in building your reputation. With engaging storytelling, share your history, corporate values, and your company’s actual merits. This page will also helpinvestors know about your business and reputation.
Your FAQ page is as important as any product page. People will visit it often if they are looking for specific answers that they cannot find elsewhere on the website. Your products/services pages might mention all information, but still, users will want to know more.
An informative FAQ page is a must for all eCommerce websites. It must have all the necessary information that is important when users are making purchases such as shipping options and costs, return policies, and your website’s security measures. This information helps in building trust and can have an immense impact on your sales.
Comparisons
Product Videos
Videos showing how to use products, or how to maintain them is always beneficial for the users. A product video resembles the first-hand experience to the product and is vital in building trust. These videos also boost conversions.
Site Search
Nobody has time to go through your website to find what they are looking for. They want to use the search box and immediately land on the relevant product page. Offering this to users saves their time, and creates convenience.
On-page SEO can be a major contributing factor for your business growth and brand building in the digital space. Implementing it correctly in your digital strategy would boost online presence and help you rank higher in search results.
The best solution would be to hire an eCommerce SEO agencies who can provide you excellent ecommerce SEO services.
