ECommerce SEO for Product Pages
If you are wondering why your online store does not generate much traffic, it is time you try looking at ecommerce SEO. What have you done to boost your website’s SEO, especially your product pages? Do you think your efforts are enough? Or are you doing SEO the wrong way?
Regardless of your answer, there is something you need to work on to strengthen your SEO rankings to increase website visibility. If you are running an online store, you would expect that your product pages have more site traffic than your other pages. Therefore, it is important that you focus on boosting your product pages’ SEO.
In this article, we will provide you with effective tips to create an excellent SEO structure to your product pages. These tips will ensure you generate more traffic and increase conversions and revenue. So, let us get started!
1. Research for Keywords
Keywords are the major factor in ranking any website on search engines. They are what people use to find answers online. Therefore, you need to supply your product pages with relevant keywords for your items. To come up with the strongest keywords, you need to consider the following:
- Ranking difficulty (competition)
- Search volume
- Relevancy
You will need to use keyword research tools to help you generate keywords with the most value. Some of the popular tools are Google Search Console, Ahrefs, and Google Search Autocomplete. Let us discuss each tool briefly, so you have an idea.
Google Search Console
For Google Search Console, you need to register or create your account. If you have a Gmail account, you can use that to create your Console account. Once you have registered, check your account’s dashboard to get familiar with the tool.
Go to the Performance section to see your website’s performance on search engines through a graph. Under the graph, there are options you can check. Select Queries and then filter the results by Impressions. This will help you see which keywords on your website have the highest search on Google.
Ahrefs
You need to pay for a subscription to Ahrefs to take advantage of its SEO services. For the sake of this tutorial, we will show you how to use the Keywords Explorer feature of the tool. Once you are in the Keywords Explorer section, type the name of your product in the search box and click the find icon.
You will see an overview report of the keyword you entered. To find related keywords, go to All keyword ideas at the left portion of your screen. You will then see a list of the keywords related to your product. You can export an Excel copy of the keywords as well.
Google Search Autocomplete
This is the easiest and quickest hack to look for relevant keywords. What you can do is type the name of your product in the Google search box. You will then see a dropdown of related searches (keywords) that many people are using. The top 5 results are the strongest ones.
2. Create a Catchy Product Name
Your product’s name has a huge contribution to your pages’ rankings on search engines. If you have a well-thought and descriptive product name, it will have a high chance of ranking at the top search. Use the strongest keyword you searched earlier as part of the product title. The title should include necessary descriptors that help customers identify what it is. A good product title is as follows:
iPhone Fast Charger, AUKEY Swift 18W USB C Charger for iPhone 12/12 Mini/12 Pro Max
3. Write a High-Quality and Unique Product Description
High-quality product descriptions are beneficial for SEO. However, it is important to add more value to your product description that your customers can find useful. When you write a product description, consider the following factors:
- Best features and benefits
- Related product keywords
- Informative and unique short description (around 200 words)
4. Create a Keyword-Friendly Page Title
Keyword-friendly titles do not only help boost SEO rankings but also click-through rates (CTRs). CTRs are the number of clicks you get per impression. You will see your page title displayed with big links on search engines. To write a strong page title, you must consider the following:
- Keywords
- Length (65-70 characters including spaces)
- Avoiding keyword stuffing (Keywords can be repeated once.)
- Brand name
5. Write a Unique Meta Description for All Products
Meta descriptions are short descriptive texts you see on search engines. Using keywords in this section can also help with your SEO rankings. However, to make your product more clickable, writing enticing meta descriptions is key. To write your meta description, here are the things to consider:
- Keywords
- Short and unique detailed explanation about the product
- Length (155-165 characters with spaces)
6. Set a Clean and Keyword-Friendly Product URLs
Your products URLs can also impact your SEO performance. Therefore, you still need to create URLs that are clean and keyword friendly. If you are changing URLs, make sure to get it redirected to the new links. Rules for a good product URL are as follows:
- Short
- Keywords
- Clean (You can exclude dates or codes.)
- Lower case
An example of a clean URL looks like this:
innzonehosting.com/responsive-web-design
7. Format Headings Properly
Product content can include reviews, features, and description. SEO looks at headings of your content, and your customers will most likely read your content if you format it correctly. Headings should follow an H2, H3, or H4 format.
8. Combine Similar Products in One Page
If you have multiple products that are similar with individual links, you might have weak pages. For example, one product has different colours, and each colour has its own link. These links are only competing for the same keywords on search engines, making them weak.
What you can do is combine these products in one page, so you will only have one link with the same description, images, and reviews. Set a redirect to your merged links, so it points towards one URL.
9. Apply Internal Links
Links to your other pages are important for SEO as well. They help spread the flow of links across your website properly. This helps search engines identify the most important pages of your website.
Internal links can reinforce page contexts, too. This can help people explore more of your products by clicking the anchor text with a link to a similar item.
10. Get More Product Reviews by Offering Discounts, Raffles, or Giveaways
Customer reviews of your products help boost your SEO rankings and brand image. They are unique and relevant content to your page that SEO considers and other customers are interested to know.
Set a customer review section for your products. It is okay if you do not get 5 stars all the time. Having a little bit of feedback variance makes your websites more legitimate.
However, only a few customers are willing to provide feedback. So, to increase reviews, offer discounts, raffles, or giveaways to them in exchange for their feedback.
11. Add Images to Your Product Pages
Compliment your informative and unique texts with images of your products. This helps attract more customers to your ecommerce site and even increase SEO rankings. For images, use those with high resolution, so they are more attractive to site viewers.
In uploading your images add an alt tag and keyword-friendly file name. Alt tags help visually impaired users understand your image and give better context to search engine crawlers for proper indexing. The file name and alt tag should include keywords.
12. Use Structured Data for Improved CTRs
Structured data are texts that allow search engines to understand their context. This makes search engines provide accurate results for searches. To add this to your product pages, you need to use Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper. Follow this tutorial to properly add structured data.
13. Boost Your CTRs Even Higher
Expected CTRs are there for every rank on search engines, regardless if you are number 1. Check your CTR on Google Console to know how much you should improve. Once you surpass the expected CTR, expect more clicks to your product pages.
14. Enhance Product Page Navigation
Your online store has breadcrumbs to guide customers in navigating your website. These are the tabs you see at the top of your website page. You can use attribute-based breadcrumbs, so it is more user-friendly. Product attributes are helpful for your customers. One good example is this:
Home > Product Category > Gender > Colour
15. Add a Powerful Call-to-Action
Your end goal is to make site viewers buy your products, and this is where a call-to-action takes place. Add a powerful call-to-action that assures your customers that your products are worth the price.
You can simply add a button to let customers add the product to their cart to check out. A simple “Add to Cart” button that is highlighted in colour is enticing. Make sure the button is visible.
16. Design a Mobile-Friendly Website
Many shoppers prefer to use their mobile phones to browse products simply because it is more convenient than using computers. They can shop anytime and anywhere. Therefore, it is important that your online store is responsive to mobile screens. A responsive web design automatically adjusts to the screen resolutions for all types of devices. Hire a web designer to create and apply the design for your website.
17. Increase Page Speed
Website performance is crucial for user experience and SEO rankings. If your online store loads slow, site viewers will most likely leave immediately, reducing your traffic. Achieve a page speed of 0.5 second or lower. You can do this by working with a good web hosting company. They can configure your website to improve page speed.
With Innzone Hosting, we did a case study where we improved one of our clients’ page speed. Before we made the configurations, the client’s website loaded at 408 milliseconds. After we applied the necessary changes, we tested the page speed, and it went down to 158 milliseconds. Our client was extremely impressed!
Conclusion
Improving ecommerce SEO requires many configurations for your online store. It may take some time to apply all these tips, but it is worth the effort, time, and investment. So, start applying any of these SEO best practices now and see impressive results!
