Put that megaphone away — there’s an easier way to get the word out. The right eCommerce product SEO strategy can give your web store a much-needed visibility boost and help you turn those clicks into satisfied customers. Join Galactic Fed as we show you how to connect with your target market and rise above the competition.

What Is eCommerce Product SEO?

eCommerce search engine optimization (SEO) is a process to ensure that your online store is visible on the results pages of today’s top search engines. The end goal is simple: when people search for products such as yours, your eCommerce page will rise to the top of the search engine results pages.

According to Statista, two out of every five product searches (40%) start with a search engine such as Google. For online retailers, it’s imperative to get a handle on SEO for eCommerce websites. Sure, you can rely on paid advertising, but SEO techniques are free.

Additionally, according to the Search Engine Journal, 49% of marketers insist that eCommerce website SEO has the best return on investment of any technique. This reality means that your SEO strategy should be the first tool to focus on when seeking to connect with your target audience.

Hootsuite, the social media strategy company, provides an eye-opening view of online shopping trends:

Source: Hootsuite

How to Develop an eCommerce Search Engine Optimization Strategy

The good news is that SEO isn’t rocket science. You can develop an effective strategy simply by following a few best practices. Here are some ways that you can improve your eCommerce website SEO:

1. Pick the Right Pages (or Products)

First, you need to start with what pages you want your potential customers to focus on. For instance, do you want to drive people to your eCommerce store? Or are you trying to focus on a specific product?

Making this decision in advance can help you prioritize which pages or products receive the most attention. If you’ve dabbled in eCommerce product SEO in the past, now’s a good time to review what’s working and what’s not so you can refine your strategy moving forward.

2. Choose the Right Keywords

eCommerce search engine optimization relies heavily on keywords. The keywords you choose reflect what your page or product is about. They are what will connect your unique products and services to the searches customers type into their search bars.

Be as specific as possible. Remember, your goal isn’t just to gain a large volume of web traffic but to get visitors who are looking for your distinctive services or products.

Where should you include your keywords? Place your keywords in:

• Your product headlines
• Any subheadlines
• Your product descriptions
• Image alt tags
• Meta descriptions

Additionally, make sure to choose latent semantic index (LSI) keywords as well. These are keywords that are related to your primary keyword(s) and help Google better understand what your page is about.

3. Write Unique Product Descriptions

If you really want your products to stand out, you’ll have to optimize the page for each one. It’s okay if you end up with similar keywords, but you definitely don’t want to repeat the same product description or meta description for every item you sell.

Having a unique description for every item boosts your odds of ranking highly in web searches and increases the diversity of products that customers will discover from their search.

Again, if you have a flagship product you’re really trying to push, you might start there. But you’ll also want to spend some time ensuring that you’ve crafted unique product descriptions and pages that help you stand out in customer search results.

4. Rely on Structured Data

Structured data should be an integral part of your eCommerce website SEO strategy. What is structured data? It’s actually a form of “metadata,” which isn’t visible to your web visitors but will be seen (and used) by search engines.

As the name suggests, structured data simply arranges your eCommerce page data so that search engines understand what each field represents. For example, a product page might include such data as:

• Product name
• Product description
• Product reviews
• Frequently asked questions
• Pictures

This type of structured data tells search engines when something is a product image or when certain words are part of a product review. 

5. Learn from the Competition

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Take a look at what your competitors are doing. In particular, look at larger online competitors who have already done the work to optimize their eCommerce platforms and product pages.

Pay particular attention to keywords. What keywords do they use on their homepage? On their eCommerce landing page? Their product pages? Sometimes the keyword will stand out, but you can also use a browser extension to see what SEO title and description a particular webpage is using.

6. Focus on Your Content

Keywords alone aren’t enough to rank highly in today’s search engine results pages. Adding quality content can help your search engine performance and provide something valuable to encourage your visitors to stick around and buy something.

Consider adding content such as:

• A FAQ section
• User reviews
• Images, videos, and tutorials

User reviews can be especially helpful since they mean you’re always adding unique content to your product pages. This frequency of updates gives sites like Google more to work with, and offering quality content can also keep your visitors engaged. 

As a bonus, using quality images can also improve click rates when you share items on social media platforms.

7. Build Your Backlinks

One of the ways you can improve your eCommerce product SEO is by building backlinks. These are links that appear on other websites that point back to your product pages or homepage. Google relies on these backlinks to determine your overall ranking, so it helps to build backlinks from high-quality websites and blogs.

Try reaching out to some bloggers in your industry with some ideas for guest posts you could write. This approach might give you a chance to talk about your business and build some backlinks in the process.

8. Optimize Your Website Itself

How’s the performance of your actual website? When it comes to SEO for eCommerce websites, speed is king. According to research from Google, 53% of mobile visitors will abandon a webpage altogether if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. 

Having the right technical infrastructure will ensure that your visitors land on the right page and quickly get the information they need.

What can you do to speed up your page load times? First, disable any plugins or add-ons that slow your website across the board. Then, focus on each page. Remove as many elements as you can from the page. For example, a product image is important, but a huge decorative background image is not.

Consider some of the findings from Statistica on what customers expect from a website:

Source: Statista

Relevance Yields Results

eCommerce product SEO can help you improve your visibility on the world wide web, and it can help you connect to your core audience. 

Remember, it’s not about the number of visitors you receive but whether you connect to the most relevant guests. The more you focus on the strategies listed above, the more you can expect to increase your online presence and sales.