What is SEO for e-commerce?
When we talk about SEO for e-commerce, we mean the set of actions that aim to make an online shop more visible in the results pages (SERP) of Google or Bing.
To influence the visibility of an e-commerce site is primarily the position within the SERP. If your site or your products appear at the top of the results page, it is much easier for users to buy from you.
Why is it essential to take care of the SEO of your e-commerce?
SEO is essential for your online store because, as we said, it makes your site visible to users who are looking for products like the ones you sell. In other words: you can have the best e-commerce in the world, but if no one knows you exist, it won’t be easy to do business!
Working on the SEO of your e-commerce has other benefits as well. Thinking about your website in terms of SEO can help you make it more transparent, provide complete information, and simplify the process of choice and purchase for your users.
If the store is easy to navigate, if users have no doubts about using the products, if you can answer all the questions that could stop people before the fateful moment of payment, users will be more likely to trust you and buy to the joy of your turnover 😁
How can you improve the SEO of your e-commerce?
To get more organic traffic to your shop, you can work on two fronts:
- On-page SEO
- Off-page SEO
On-page SEO includes all those actions that you can implement directly within your website. Central will be the choice and use of keywords in titles, meta titles, meta description and in all the textual content of your pages (including product pages). On-page SEO is the crucial difference between you and your competitors, and it is from here, you must start to get noticed by users.
On the other hand, Off-page SEO is about those activities you go to show the search engine that others rated your store positively. This is why the ultimate off-page activity is link building. When search engines detect a link to your shop within other authoritative websites with a good reputation, part of that authority is transferred to you. Let’s say it’s a bit like getting a good recommendation!
Similarly, if you receive links from dubious and suspect websites, some of that bad reputation will fall back on you, leading to a decrease in your authority and visibility.
Social media also plays a significant role in off-page SEO, despite not being a direct ranking factor. Links to your site shared via social can be judged as authoritative inbound links, with all the benefits we just discussed.
In addition, social profiles can position themselves on the Google or Bing results page and become entry points on a path that leads users to your shop.
Finally, we must consider that more and more people search for the products they need directly within social platforms. So we can say that social media are turning into real search engines!
How to improve the SEO of product pages
Optimizing your product pages is essential for your products to appear in a good position in SERPs. Several factors can affect the ranking of a product page on the store. Here we try to summarize the principal elements and give you some valuable tips to increase your ranking.
1) Write an exhaustive title and description of the product.
Considering the search intent of your users, you provide all the information needed to get people to complete the buying process.
2) Optimize images and videos.
Make clever use of the headline and ALT text at your disposal.
3) Include customer reviews.
Testimonials from previous buyers can convince potential customers and will make them trust you more.
4) Add related products.
A section with suggested products can guide people to discover items that are similar or related to those they’ve already targeted and thus increase the value of the cart.
5) Add the FAQ section.
Adding a section with Frequently Asked Questions can solve the most common doubts that stop users before purchasing.
SEO for e-commerce: advanced tools
Now it’s time for the real pro tips. Do you know what is better for the organic visibility of your online store? Structured data. You may have heard them referred to as schema markup as well.
Structured data allows you to communicate with Google by “speaking its language”. If you use this metalanguage, you can ensure that Google accurately categorizes all the information about your products and content.
Adding structured data to your e-commerce means getting an immediate boost in organic visibility, as well as much more exciting and magnetic previews in SERPs for users, such as rich snippets.
To learn how structured data can make your shop pop in the SERPs, we recommend this article.
And if you want to understand how to use schema markup for your e-commerce, you can talk to our experts!