The dynamics of SEO has changed A LOT in the past 4-5 years, ever since Google released its RankBrain, a machine learning system that helps its algorithm show results based on UX and relevancy, among other factors.
Today, at its core, SEO for ecommerce works just as it works for any other site in any other industry.
If you want to rank your ecommerce site higher on Google, you’ve got to provide relevancy and good experience to the target audience/visitors.
Now, of course, that’s a vanilla statement – quite vague.
In reality, what it means is very simple:
• Optimize your ecommerce site with relevant keywords. If you’re selling duffel bags, do not plug in unrelatedkeywords like “shoe bag” and “backpack” just for the sake to rank higher. If visitors land on your site through these keywords/queries, they would find it non-relevant because they are looking for backpacks and shoe bags while you offer duffel bags. Makes sense? You’ve got to provide relevant result to the target audience.
(Courtesy: Solostream)• Optimize your ecommerce site to provide good User Experience. If your site doesn’t load fast, if it lags in scrolling, if its non-responsive to small screens, if the navigation bar is all messed up, if the colors are ugly, if different elements overlap each other that makes clicking difficult – if your site has all these problems, it would deliver a bad experience to the visitors. And search engines only want to rank those websites that perform well and have an attractive design – a website that visitors enjoy browsing. Makes sense?
These two are the most fundamental components of SEO today. If you want to do SEO for ecommerce site, you’ve got to create a strategy around these two core components. But that would be a strategy.
(Courtesy: BigCommerce)Coming to the tactics…
What steps you can take to optimize your ecommerce sitethat it ranks higher on SERP?
There’s plenty you can do.
1. Have a blog. Publish long-form posts there. Create content around specific topics that target individual categories – if not individual products – on your ecommerce site. Then use keyword-rich anchor text to link to the pages of those individual categories or products.
2. On each category page (pages where there’s a cluster of products), publish keyword-rich content of about 500-700 words.
3. Increase the length of product descriptions to around 100-150. More if it makes sense. And include relevant keywords.
4. Include relevant keywords in the URLs/Permalinks.(www.yoursitename.com/duffel-bags-online/ > www.yoursitename.com/buy-duffel-bags-online-at-low-price/)
5. Avoid long multi-level, complex hierarchy in the URLs/permalinks. (www.yoursitename.com/duffel-bags-online/ > www.yoursitename.com/category-1/sub-category-
7/duffel-bags-online/)
6. Increase the speed of the site. Make it as fast as you possibly can.
7. Try to increase the amount of time people spend on the site (session duration). On each product page, have recommended/related product carousel. In the footer, include various categories and options where people can navigate to.
8. On your important landing pages, include relevant product videos. They can boost your conversion significantly.
9. Make your site perform like a champion on small devices.Aside from its responsiveness, focus on how its navigation looks, how clustered or free the site looks and how smooth the site scrolls.
These are a few things you can do to optimize your ecommerce site.
Remember, SEO for ecommerce site isn’t rocket science. As mentioned, if you focus on the fundamentals – relevancy, and UX – you can rank good on Google, Bing and other search engines.
