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The eCommerce industry has seen a meteoric rise post-pandemic. People have gotten used to shopping online, even their daily needs. Both small-scale and large-scale businesses have benefited from these testing times. Indeed, the opportunities are endless, and the authority builders are few. When we say “authority,” we claim to speak about those businesses that have organically established themselves in the good books of search engines.
Recent data indicates that in 2022 alone, eCommerce sales in the US have crossed the $1 trillion mark. A wise man doesn’t have to be good at Mathematics to take note of such astounding numbers. But what is the key to this remarkable growth? Search Engine Optimization, as we call it. Before anything, let’s devise an eCommerce SEO strategy that jots down all our requirements.
But if you are wondering how a top eCommerce SEO development company does it, Let’s dive in to find out the best SEO practices for optimizing your eCommerce website.
What is eCommerce SEO?
eCommerce SEO is similar to traditional SEO, except that we optimize product pages instead of blog articles to rank on top of search engine results. When a user searches for “best running shoes online,” they expect products to come on top of the search results instead of blogs and articles defining what best running shoes should look like and be like. Are you getting the crux? eCommerce SEO helps you to be in the good books of search engines and drive organic traffic directly to your product pages without having to depend on advertisements too much.
Importance of Keyword Research in eCommerce SEO
Assume you are an internet retailer of specialty coffee. Should someone be looking for the “best small-batch coffee,” you want to be visible in the search results.
Once you learn the importance of the search intent of your users – people actually wanting to buy instead of simply droll over the products you offer – you devise a foolproof eCommerce strategy the way experts from top eCommerce SEO development companies do it. It will have all the stakes of organically ranking your product/service pages. For that to happen, you need tools like SEMrush or Google’s Keyword Planner to find the keywords people are typing in the search box to find products/services similar to yours. These tools will also help you learn what keywords your competitors are using and how much traffic they get from those keywords.
Let’s talk about the readability aspect of your pages.
What are the On-Page SEO practices for an eCommerce website?
Practices are the same, only the methods change. For normal SEO practices, your strategy revolves around sharing descriptive and informative content to make your readers stay with you for longer and learn about the products/services you are offering. But in eCommerce SEO, every product/service page serves as a checkpoint – an entry into your online world. So, in order to make it count, you have to carefully optimize every aspect of your pages. Title, description, features, suggested, recommended, etc., you will have to optimize them all.
Your online store’s homepage serves as its main entrance. Here are the checklists you need to follow straightaway.
- Your URLs should be clutter-free and have the product categories in them to offer a proper structure for a user to move from one product to another and back to the previous one.
- Your product titles should be clear and concise, and you must ensure that you use the relevant keywords in them as well.
- Your product descriptions should have a more comprehensive approach to talk about all the details about the product/service a user should know. Keep it brief.
- Keep your meta title and meta description tags intact and include the keywords to optimize them optimally.
Now, come to the visuals.
Significance of High-Quality Images for eCommerce SEO
Don’t underestimate the importance of images in eCommerce. High-quality, well-optimized images can enhance your product pages. Here’s how to do it:
You can never do away without high-quality images. HQ doesn’t mean those with mighty file sizes. You can always optimize your images to maintain the quality while loading them quickly for your audience. You just have to know the how-to.
- Use your keywords in the file names, and tell your users what is in there.
- Use compression tools to optimize your images without reducing the quality.
- Most importantly, don’t forget to add ALT text, as Google prioritizes images, including Alt text, over those that do not have them. Alt text helps users with visual impairments, and it’s a healthy SEO practice as well.
Now, let’s turn our heads towards the technical SEO of our eCommerce website.
Best Technical SEO Practices for an eCommerce Website
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Site Structure and Navigation
The way your eCommerce store is designed tells a lot about your optimization mechanisms. Your categories, tags, menus, placement of social media icons, etc., all play a major role in optimizing your product/service pages. You need to offer a seamless navigation to show your users exactly what they are looking for.
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Mobile Optimization
The majority of people shopping online use smartphones. So, if you want to drive traffic to your eCommerce store, optimize your website for mobile devices as well. Keep your design responsive and adjustable to all screens and sizes. You will also
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Site Speed and Performance
Your website loading speed is the key to making people stay and take a first look. With the attention span on a new low, you know you have very little time to make an impact. So, optimize your content and images accordingly. You can also use web development in a way that your first half of the page loads faster, and as people scroll through, the further content downloads. This will shrink the website loading time.
What are the Content Marketing Practices for eCommerce SEO?
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Blogging
Blogging and guest blogging are very effective content marketing practices. You can share your ideas with your audiences about the new products/ services you are planning to launch, as well as customer feedback and their experience. You can also create articles around your products/services to promote them internally and externally.
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User-Generated Content
User-generated content is a treasure, and with the new creator tools already defining the way we progress in social media, everything has changed. From promotions to endorsements, all brands turn to content creators to reach audiences on a micro level. They develop the authenticity of your brand and bring your marketing campaigns to life. You can include testimonials and reviews along with those and create particular hashtags to motivate and encourage you.
Key Takeaways
As you approach the optimization of your eCommerce website, you need to constantly monitor and analyze your campaigns. Keep auditing your pages to learn where you need to improve. Once you tick off all the boxes, your pages will organically grow high in the search engines.
