With an uptick in ecommerce spending comes an increase in competition for online retailers. One slip-up and your competitors are ready to swoop in to take your hard-earned spot in Google’s search results. If your entire ecommerce store isn’t properly optimized for discoverability by potential customers, you’re missing out.  

In this article, we'll share some simple yet powerful techniques our ecommerce agency implements to optimize online stores for SEO. With these strategies, you can increase your visibility on search engine result pages (SERPs), drive more traffic to your site, and ultimately grow your bottom line.

We’ll break down some universal tips in addition to offering you some action items for optimizing your product pages for SEO to capitalize on the greatest pool of keywords possible. 

Is SEO Important for Ecommerce?

Absolutely! While a large part of marketing an ecommerce business relies on ads, social media, and email marketing, being able to appear as an answer to questions your potential customers are asking search engines is extremely valuable for growing a customer base and increasing awareness of your brand. 

One thing to note with search engine optimization, though, is that it's a long-game approach that requires a lot of optimizing and tweaking to see value. 

When following this guide, having patience is key. It's normal to not see results right away. Just keep at it, and don’t stop learning and optimizing. You’ll eventually be rewarded. 

SEO for Ecommerce Websites - Universal Tips

1. Start with Thorough Keyword Research

Before you dive into optimizing your pages, you’ll need to understand the keywords your potential customers are using. Keyword research involves identifying terms that your target audience types into search engines when looking for products like yours. After all, the best SEO strategy for ecommerce websites is to understand what your customers are searching for in the first place! 

This is an obvious first step to most, but it can also seem overwhelming and challenging. Start by brainstorming a list of relevant terms and phrases that potential customers might use to find your products. Then, use a tool like Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush to discover relevant keywords and analyze search volumes and competitiveness. Focus on long-tail keywords that are highly specific and less competitive, making ranking higher in search results easier. 

Sprinkle these keywords and related terms across relevant pages to let search engines know what each page is about so they can display your site to people interested in those terms. 

2. Enhance Page Load Speed

Technical SEO for ecommerce starts with fast-loading web pages. This provides a better user experience and is favored by search engines. Optimize image sizes, leverage browser caching, and minimize the use of heavy scripts to improve your page load speed. 

Also, consider implementing lazy loading for large media assets to improve page load times and user experience across internet connection speeds and devices. Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights can help you identify areas for improvement here. Remember, not everyone has the best internet connection–fast site speed makes navigation enjoyable for everyone. 

3. Ensure Mobile-Friendliness

With a massive chunk of online shopping being done on mobile devices, your store must be mobile-friendly. This means pages should be easily navigable, load quickly, and display correctly on smaller screens. Google’s PageSpeed Insights’ “mobile” tab can help you assess your pages so that you can discover any user-friendly changes to implement for a better mobile shopping experience.

4. Utilize Structured Data 

​​Schema markup is a semantic vocabulary added to HTML code that provides search engines with detailed information about your product pages. This structured data enables rich snippets—enhanced display formats featuring star ratings, pricing, availability, and other details—in search results, increasing your CTR and improving your SEO performance.

Structured data helps search engines better understand the content of your ecommerce site's pages. Implementing product schema can lead to richer search results, making your listings more attractive to people searching for specific keywords and information. 

5. Leverage Blogging and Other Content Marketing Tactics

Content marketing still plays an important and valuable role in ecommerce website SEO. Blog posts, videos, and other rich media content not only give websites opportunities to rank for a variety of topics and keywords, but they also help inform, educate, and entertain potential customers. 

Using content marketing to drive traffic to your website is a great way to keep users on your site, teach them something new, build trust, and eventually, if done well, drive sales. Use your site’s blog to address customer pain points, offer product guides, discuss industry trends, and possibly even offer some behind-the-scenes content to readers who want to learn more about how the proverbial sausage is made at your company. 

6. Internal Linking Strategy

Link to other relevant products or content within your online store. This helps customers discover more products and allows search engine crawlers to navigate and index your site more effectively. 

Many ecommerce services include features to make this easier; for example, Adobe Product Recommendations offers many options for users on the platform to customize how their stores recommend related products to customers browsing the site. Not only is this great for SEO, but also helps ecommerce businesses to implement some easy up/cross-selling tactics onto their product pages. 

Site structure is important. It should be easy and intuitive for your customers to navigate through your website and be nudged toward relevant content, reducing your bounce rate and increasing the likelihood of finding something they’re interested in. 

7. Track, Adjust, and Continually Improve with Analytics

Lastly, use analytics to track the performance of your product pages. Tools like Google Analytics, SEMRush, Moz, and Google Search Console can provide insights into how visitors interact with your pages. Use this data to make informed decisions and continually optimize your SEO strategy.

Test different layouts, design elements, and CTAs to determine which variations resonate best with your target audience. Adjust your strategy accordingly based on the data, and never stop iterating and refining your approach.

SEO for Ecommerce Product Pages - Step-by-Step

If you’re expecting most of your ecommerce store’s visitors to find your products through your home or category pages, you might be missing out on a huge growth opportunity. 

As an ecommerce agency often tasked with helping companies find easy ways to optimize their online stores and increase conversions, we’ve put together a comprehensive list of to-dos and product page SEO best practices for improving your website’s position on the SERP and getting your products in front of as many people as possible. 

1. Craft Compelling Titles and Descriptions

When it comes to on-page SEO for ecommerce, there are two separate categories of title and description you’ll need to write and optimize to increase search engine rankings:

Product Titles and Descriptions

These should be informative and engaging while including your primary keywords. However, avoid keyword stuffing. Your goal here is to provide value to your customers, making it clear what the product is about while also appealing to search engine algorithms

• Titles: Keep titles concise yet descriptive. Your title should focus on a primary keyword and append a category to the name so that it’s clear what the product is at a glance. A title in the “Brand, Product Name, Category” format should work well. For example, if you’re a shoe store, you could list a  “Converse All Stars High-Top Sneaker.”  
• Descriptions: Go beyond basic features. Highlight benefits, use persuasive language, and incorporate secondary keywords naturally. Descriptions shouldn’t be overly long, just to include more keywords. Instead, focus on including your primary keyword/product name in the first 150 characters and then drill down into the rest of the interesting features of the product later on. A good best practice is to start every description with your title. For example, “The Converse All Stars High-Top Sneaker is the preferred sneaker for men and women seeking fashionable comfort…”. Next, use storytelling techniques to describe product features, create emotional connections, and encourage purchases. 

While copy/pasting the product information straight from the manufacturer might seem like a simple way to build your product listings, it’s not very helpful for SEO and may actually hurt your page’s rank. Google may consider it duplicate content if the manufacturer is still also using that same text on their own page, and they’re technically the better source for that content than you. 

Having a well-crafted product title and description with relevant target keywords is not only a ranking factor for organic search. This can also affect your Google Shopping/Performance Max campaigns since people are more likely to click ads with search keywords in the product titles.

Page Titles and Meta Descriptions

Since these are what people see on the SERPs, your page titles and meta descriptions should be compelling and keyword-rich. They should accurately reflect the content of your product and category pages while enticing users to click through to your site. Limit yourself to 50 - 60 characters for titles and 120 - 160 characters for meta descriptions to ensure maximum visibility in search results across devices. 

2. Optimize Your Images/Product Video Content

High-quality images are essential for product pages, but they also need to be optimized for search engines. Product photos should have descriptive, keyword-rich file names and alt texts for each image. This improves SEO and aids in accessibility for users with screen readers, making your website easy to navigate for everyone. 

3. Leverage Customer Reviews and Ratings