E-commerce search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of optimising your website to help search engines like Google understand the topic of your content, thereby improving your website’s visibility and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Optimising your e-commerce website using SEO best practices will increase brand awareness, sales and organic website traffic. Knowing the best way to optimise your e-commerce website can be difficult, and with the constantly evolving search engine algorithm updates it can be a struggle to ensure your website performs in search results.
Carla, our founder and director at Fandango, is here to provide expert tips and advice on how to optimise an e-commerce site for search engines and the benefits e-commerce SEO brings to businesses.
How Does it Differ from Basic SEO?
E-commerce SEO differs from basic search engine optimisation (SEO) by focusing on attracting organic traffic to a website to buy a product online. Unlike basic SEO practices, e-commerce SEO aims to make a website more visible in search results, targeting potential customers and encouraging them to purchase your product. According to Forbes, e-commerce sales are forecasted to grow by 8.8% in 2024 making it more important than ever to ensure your website is SEO friendly to stay competitive in SERPs (search engine results).
The Importance of SEO for E-commerce Websites
SEO is important for e-commerce websites as it directly impacts conversions by attracting targeted organic traffic. By optimising for relevant keywords and enhancing user experience, SEO helps elevate search engine rankings, ultimately building trust and credibility. This increased visibility in search results and trust positively influences purchase decisions, boosting conversions and sales.
There are many other benefits to optimising your website for search engines, such as:
- Increasing brand awareness
- Capturing long-tail keywords
- Improving user experience
- Building authority and trust
- Higher conversion rates
- Adaptability to algorithm changes
- Insight into customer behaviour
E-commerce SEO Checklist
Optimising an e-commerce website is not a straightforward process. With Google regularly releasing core updates and algorithm changes that affect the way websites rank in search results, SEO best practices can shift, requiring continuous monitoring, testing, and refining of strategies.
Yet, while it is important for marketers like ourselves to stay up-to-date with Google’s ranking factors, there is a basic e-commerce SEO checklist that we suggest if you are looking to improve the visibility of your site in search results.
1. Optimise Category Pages
To get your e-commerce website ranking for specific products you sell, optimising your category pages will help search engines understand the relevance and product range, increasing the likelihood of your site appearing in search results when users search for those products.
For example, if you have a website that sells bicycles and you are looking to upsell your red bicycles, creating a category page for the search term ‘red bicycles’ and writing the content to support these products will help this page rank well in search results. When creating the content for this page, make sure to display all of the relevant products that the user would be searching for.
While this may seem straightforward, it is crucial to ensure your category pages are optimised efficiently by implementing best practices such as an optimised H1 that contains your target keyword, natural non-ai generated language, clear CTAs (calls-to-actions), internal links, etc, etc, the list goes on.
2. Optimise URLs
Clear, concise, and descriptive URLs not only make it easier for search engines to understand the content of a page but also help users to navigate your site more effectively. To optimise URLs, focus on including relevant keywords, keeping them short and readable, avoiding unnecessary parameters or symbols, and using hyphens to separate words. Also, ensure that URLs are static and stable, as dynamic URLs with session IDs or query strings can cause indexing issues.
3. Ensure Your Website is Mobile Friendly
With nearly 80% of online visits and over 70% of orders being made via mobile phones for e-commerce websites in the United Kingdom, optimising your e-commerce website ensures you are catering to the majority of website users. A mobile-friendly website enhances user experience, reduces bounce rates, and ultimately leads to higher conversions. To make your website mobile-friendly, focus on responsive design principles, increase the loading speed of your website, simplify navigation, and ensure all content is easily accessible and readable on smaller screens.
4. Optimise Your Images
When images are properly optimised, they load faster. This is crucial when enhancing user experience since it improves page speed and reduces bounce rate. There are some great tools available to assist with image optimisation, such as Bulk Resize and Squoosh. Optimised images with descriptive filenames, relevant alt text, and appropriate file sizes will improve the search engine rankings of your e-commerce website, making your products more discoverable.
We also recommend using JPEGs for images and PNGs for logos or simple graphics; this helps strike a balance between image quality and file size efficiency.
5. Add Internal Links
Strategically linking relevant pages within your category and product pages helps improve user experience by guiding visitors to explore more products or services. This not only increases session duration but also enhances the likelihood of conversions. When linking between pages on your site, conduct keyword research to identify relevant anchor text and prioritise linking to high-priority pages.
Website: Total Wardrobe Care
6. Generate an XML Sitemap
Generating an XML sitemap will enhance the visibility of your e-commerce website and assist in indexing the website’s pages by search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo. This ensures that no valuable content is missed during the indexing process, ultimately improving your site’s ranking potential in search engine results. To create an XML sitemap, list all URLs of a website in a structured format conforming to XML standards. For more assistance with this, feel free to get in touch with one of us, and we will be happy to help.
Website: ASOS
7. Optimise Your Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions provide users with a short, relevant summary of what a particular page is about in search results. Optimising these snippets will improve the click-through rate and enhance the search visibility of your products. A well-optimised meta description will provide a concise summary of your page’s content, encouraging users to click through to your e-commerce site.
When optimising your meta descriptions be sure to focus on including relevant keywords and craft a compelling copy that encourages clicks, and keeping the length within the recommended character limit. Here is an example of a good meta description for an e-commerce website.
8. Fix Any Technical Issues
Any technical errors present on an e-commerce website directly impacts user experience, conversion rates, and search engine rankings. Broken links, slow loading times, security vulnerabilities, or checkout process glitches can deter customers and result in lost sales.
To ensure your e-commerce website is in good health, regularly check and monitor these issues to maintain a seamless online shopping experience for your users. Technical SEO e-commerce tools that can help with this include Google Search Console, Screaming Frog, or SEMRush. If you face any difficulties in fixing these technical issues, don’t hesitate to reach out to us for assistance.
Source: Screaming Frog
Is E-commerce SEO Worth It?
So is e-commerce SEO worth it? If you are an e-commerce store looking to get more visibility and increase your website’s rankings in search results then investing in e-commerce SEO is a cost-effective way to expand your reach and ultimately make more sales! With a 30% increase in the use of product-related research keywords, implementing an effective SEO strategy can significantly enhance your online presence, drive targeted traffic to your site, and boost your conversion rates, leading to sustained growth and higher revenue.
Why Trust Our Expertise?
This article was written by Carla Forder, our founder and director of Fandango Digital, who has over 20 years of agency experience covering all aspects of e-commerce SEO. Having worked with various e-commerce clients and led numerous projects, Carla understands the importance of implementing an effective e-commerce SEO strategy for businesses aiming to increase sales and revenue. Having attended many SEO events such as Brighton SEO, along with participation in online courses and training opportunities, Carla is an expert in e-commerce SEO and can provide the best advice on search engine optimisation for online stores.
Our boutique agency at Fandango specialises in crafting successful e-commerce SEO campaigns. If you’re struggling to boost your online store’s visibility, reach out to our friendly team. We’re here to guide you through the process and develop an effective strategy tailored to businesses your needs.
