Hey guys, what’s up? Today we’re going to talk a bit about SEO strategies for e-commerce. We’ll understand what it is, how it works and how it can help your e-commerce stand out and sell more using simple strategies.
It would be great to have traffic without having to take a dollar out of your pocket, right? That’s what SEO does for you! Your products will appear more frequently in search results and before your competitors.
What is SEO for e-commerce?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is literally translated as “Search Engine Optimization”. The main aim of this practice is to improve the organic ranking and visibility of an online store on search engines such as Google and Bing.
Some of the SEO practices for e-commerce include:
- Improve the structure of the site;
- Create quality content;
- Carry out keyword research;
- Optimize on-page SEO elements;
- Improve the content of your web pages;
- Building backlinks (links from other sites that point to your site).
It may seem like a lot at first glance, but I’ll explain what it all means and you’ll see that it’s much easier than it sounds!
What is it for?
SEO is very important for e-commerces and online stores because it helps them get more traffic and boost sales.
When your online store appears in a higher position in search results, more people see your products. This leads to more sales over time.
Some of the other benefits of using SEO are:
- It’s a cost-effective way to reach your customers without paying for ads;
- This creates trust and credibility for your brand, as people tend to trust organic results more than paid ones.
All this gives you a competitive advantage over other online stores that may not be optimized for SEO.
How to put together a truly effective strategy
Now, let’s take a look at some practices you can adopt to succeed in driving organic traffic to your e-commerce store.
List all the product pages on your site
To begin with, gather a complete list of all the product pages that are active on your site. This will give you a clear overview of the scope of the SEO work to be carried out.
You’ll need to carry out keyword research on a page-by-page basis, so you need to know exactly which pages to target.
Find and map appropriate keywords for each page
Each product page you choose to improve SEO needs to have primary and secondary keywords:
- The primary keyword is the main search term for which you want the page to rank;
- Secondary keywords are variations or subtopics of the primary keyword for which the page can also be classified.
For example, a primary keyword could be ‘DIOR women’s jacket’, and secondary keywords could be ‘elegant women’s jacket’, ‘dior women’s cold weather clothing’, ‘women’s cold weather jacket’, etc. In general, these are words that are related to the context of buying that product.
You can choose as many keywords as you like for each product page. However, they must always be relevant to your content.
So make sure that your keywords match what is actually shown on the page. Otherwise, this could generate a negative user experience and drive users away instead of bringing them closer.
Choose keywords with conversion potential
Keyword data on conversions can help you identify the main keywords that can give your product pages a commercial edge.
That’s why it’s important to look for data on the number of searches, product clicks and keyword requests for the main online retailers.
With this data, you can evaluate the conversion potential of the keywords and:
- Find out the number of clicks, searches and orders on the product page for the most popular keywords;
- Identify seasonal peaks in activity thanks to historical keyword trends and metrics;
- Compare the performance of keywords in various online stores;
- Align the SEO of your product page with keywords known to convert.
You can obtain your site’s traffic data by connecting it to Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
Optimize Meta Title, Description and H1
Once you have defined the primary and secondary keywords for each of your product pages, you need to include them in strategic areas of the pages, such as:
- Title tag: the title text of your product page that can appear on search engine results pages;
- Meta description: the brief summary of the page that can appear on search engine results pages;
- Title tag (H1): the title text of your product page shown on the actual page (formatted as ‘Header 1’).
The HTML tags above help the user and the search engine itself to understand what the page is about. This facilitates interaction if the person is really interested in what you are offering.
By placing your keywords in these elements, you are telling the search engines what to rank for and the content will be more likely to rank for these keywords.
Read also: HTML SEO tags: what are they? What are they for?
Create really useful content
In addition to keywords, you should take the time to create unique, valuable and SEO-optimized content on your pages.
As a basic structure, integrate content such as detailed product descriptions, FAQs and customer reviews into your product pages. This helps other consumers make a purchasing decision and reinforces the quality of your products and service.
Your product pages aren’t just listings, they need to add real value:
- Add frequently asked questions;
- Include reviews from real customers;
- Add detailed product descriptions;
- Add internal links to other related products.
This helps a lot along with other e-commerce marketing strategies!
Use high-quality images
Is a picture worth a thousand words? It’s not just text and links that make up your SEO efforts. The images you use on your product page can be classified to appear in Google Images and the ‘Shopping’ tab in search engines.
Prefer to use high-quality product images, preferably in PNG or WebP format. If you can take the photos yourself, that’s great. Don’t use stock images unless you have no other choice.
You should also optimize the file names of your images, including relevant keywords and descriptions. Each image should have detailed alternative text, so that search engines and assistive technologies can understand the content of the image.
Images should be placed in logical contexts on the page (for example, next to the production description) and, where possible, contain several images of a product, preferably in a traceable and indexable carousel so that the customer has a more complete experience.
Building backlinks
A backlink is a hyperlink from an external site to your site – in this case, to one of your product pages. They serve as a sign of trust and authority for search engines, showing that people and brands recommend you.
Your product pages need reliable backlinks to rank well.
There are several strategies you can adopt to increase your backlinks, check them out by clicking here.
Understand how to analyze your competitors’ links:
Conclusion
In short, adopting effective SEO strategies for e-commerce is fundamental to increasing the visibility and sales of your online store.
Investing in keyword optimization, improving the structure of the site, creating quality content and obtaining reliable backlinks are essential steps to improving your ranking in search engines.
These practices not only attract more organic traffic, but also increase your brand’s trust and credibility with consumers.
In this sense, analyzing keywords with conversion potential and continually adjusting your SEO strategies based on performance data ensures that your online store is always ahead of the competition.
Keeping up to date with SEO best practices and making adjustments as necessary is the key to sustainable success in the world of e-commerce. Now that you know all this, get to work and see the results. See you in the next article! 😉
