Online shopping is more prevalent today than ever before. In 2020, over 2 billion shoppers bought goods and services online, and in the same year, e-retail sales exceeded $4.2 trillion worldwide. In 2022, revenue for eCommerce businesses is expected to reach a whopping $5.4 trillion.
As online shopping continues to expand, people are starting their online shopping experience with a Google search, and ranking at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs) is vital to the success of your eCommerce business. That is why it is essential to implement these five powerful SEO tips to outrank your competitors.
Tip 1: Set a Solid Foundation and Keyword Strategy
Your eCommerce SEO strategy begins with a deep dive into keyword research and competitive analysis. These two steps are critical in understanding your audience and identifying any keyword gaps, which could be missed opportunities in rankings.
Keyword Research
There are multiple keyword tools available, such as KWfinder and SEMrush. These tools offer different methods for pulling related keywords and generating keyword difficulty and volume levels. Keyword tools help you hone in on the searcher’s intent and provide options such as long-tail keywords and LSI keywords (semantically-related phrases).
Building a Keyword Map
After completing keyword research, it is time to begin the process of keyword mapping in order to stay organized. Check for user intent by searching for each keyword on Google. If you are collecting keywords for a category page, ensure they populate with the keyword you are targeting. If you are researching keywords for a blog page, ensure that blog pages populate when you are searching for the keyword. You should apply the same method to every page.
Create a list of keywords ranking for each page based on Google Search Console (GSC) data. Look to filter by impressions rather than clicks because hidden gems could be ranking in lower, striking distance positions. Once you have a list of the keywords that each category page is ranking for, you can utilize it to build a list of target keywords in the map.
Competitive Analysis
A competitive analysis starts by evaluating the keyword gap to see which areas your site is weakest. Once you have determined where your site lacks keywords, it is time to identify your competitors’ ranking strategies. Are they ranking for the keywords you have not touched? There must be a reason they have all decided to target that term.
Next, evaluate which pages generate the most traffic by filtering estimated traffic by page. This will allow you to see which pages are driving traffic to their site and are the most valuable for them from an organic perspective. If it is a particular category page, consider expanding into that category. If it is a blog, write a blog on that same topic.
Lastly, look for keywords your competitors use on each page, especially in page headers, meta titles, and URLs.
Tip 2: Add Ecommerce Schema to Relevant Pages
Before adding schema to your online store, start with the basics. Schema is beneficial to every website. Its structured data, known as “rich snippets,” is an enhanced description of your web page that helps Google identify the quality of a user’s search result compared to the content on your page.
Google uses rich snippets from schema in search results, which is a powerful tool in your overall search engine rankings. If your website has a particular featured snippet, it can help you show up in position 0, which is the top of the page. Below is an example of a review schema found in a search result for “chicken recipes.”
eCommerce SEO and Schema
As an online store, you depend on top-notch search results for the overall success of your business. Schema helps you get there and offers many benefits associated with structured data. From brand authority to increased click-through rates, schema can profoundly impact your business when implemented correctly.
Updated Pricing and Product information
When using schema, you can quickly update product information, such as pricing and availability, increasing brand authority. This data can also be displayed in your search results, which helps users quickly see whether you have the product they need in the price range they desire.
Display Reviews
As shown in the example above, you can use structured data to display reviews that can substantially impact your website’s click-through rate. Ensuring reviews are displayed in your search results makes it more likely a user will choose your product than a competitor that does not show reviews.
Testing Your Schema Markup
Now that you understand schema and why it is essential to your eCommerce website, the next step is to test your structured data using two tools: a rich results test and a schema markup validator.
Rich Results Test: This tool tests your website’s structured data to see which rich results are generated on your page. It also allows you to preview how it will look in Google Search.
Schema Markup Validator: Ensure your structured data is embedded in your web pages without Google feature-specific warnings.
Tip 3: Evaluate and Enhance Page Speed
Did you know with every additional second it takes to load your page, conversion rates decrease by 4.42% on websites with load times between 0 and 5 seconds? The time it takes to load your website can make or break a sale, so enhancing your page speed is vital to your sales and the customer experience. Follow these tips to improve and evaluate your website’s speed.
Utilize Google’s PageSpeed Tool
You can use Google’s PageSpeed tool to evaluate your website’s page speed. It is simple— you insert your URL, and the tool scans your website and shares your results based on mobile and desktop speed.
Check for Imagery-Related Issues
When it comes to SEO, it is not just copy that needs attention but also imagery. Unfortunately, many eCommerce sites suffer from poor page speed to image-related issues that can be avoided in a few simple steps.
- Ensure your images are in WebP or other next-gen image formats.
- Make sure they are correctly compressed.
- Consider utilizing a content delivery network ( CDN) to deliver images.
- For Shopify online stores, you can use these helpful image plugins.
Tip 4: Develop Internal and External Links
Before we dig deeper into the benefits of internal and external linking, let’s look at what they are.
Internal Links: help search engines understand the hierarchy of your content.
External Links: whether you are linking to a particular source or they are linking to you; external links offer credibility. Google reads it as high-quality content that is valuable to searchers.
External Link Tips
External links help your eCommerce website earn credibility. Follow these tips to find linking opportunities to enhance your search engine rankings.
Search for Unlinked Brand Mentions
When your business is mentioned on a website, but there is no link back to your page, it is the easiest method to earn links. To find unlinked brand mentions, simply search the name of your business with quotations around it. This tells Google that you are searching for exact mentions.
Find Backlinking Opportunities
This method is beneficial for both parties involved, and creating unique and valuable content is essential in making it successful. In instances of backlinking, you want to build content that is different than what is available and that your competitors will have difficulty replicating. The best types of content for backlinking are guides and reports.
Internal Link Tips
Linking internally is just as important as external links. These tips will help you get started and guide you through the most effective ways to find internal opportunities to link to your web pages.
Use a Crawler
A crawler discovers all the links that point to a specific page. First, list the top pages on the site (usually all category pages first and then the product pages). Then, using the crawler, like ScreamingFrog, look at which pages are currently pointing to each URL (inlinks).
Find Linked Pages
Once your list is created for all of the top pages, go into each inlinks, find where the page is linked, and ensure relevant anchor text is used. This anchor text should be the target keywords of the page it is pointing to. This list will also help you identify which pages are missing internal links. Lastly, be sure to add internal links through blogs and category pages.
Tip 5: Add Text to Category Pages
Last but not least, adding text to your category pages is an excellent eCommerce SEO tip to implement. Category pages are commonly structured as a collection of relevant products. Typically, this means they are light on relevant content. These pages usually have a suitable H1 that describes the category. Otherwise, it is just a list of products.
Adding text to the bottom of the page can profoundly impact organic search visibility. This text can describe the items offered, address FAQs, or point to helpful articles written on the site. For example, you will see adjustments made to a category page below. This directly impacted the growth of the keyword universe and improvement in position ranking.
Implement These Ecommerce SEO Tips To Elevate Your Site
Like most marketing, eCommerce SEO is a journey, not a destination. It relies on implementing links, managing site speed, and detailed keyword research. Fortunately, Bullseye Strategy is a full-service SEO agency that can help expedite the process. The experts at Bullseye have more than a dozen years of experience building links and boosting rankings for eCommerce websites just like yours. So if you are ready to start eCommerce SEO for your brand, contact Bullseye Strategy today.
