SEO for e-commerce websites is a vital element and whilst paid search can catapult your products, a healthy SEO’d e-commerce site will consistently perform and deliver sales.
Making your online store more visible on search engine results pages (SERPs) and ranking higher than your competitors, will give you a massively strong advantage.
When people search for the products you sell, you want to rank as highly as possible to get more traffic. Did you know that 75% of people never scroll past the first page of search engines, that’s a lot of traffic lost if your products are on page 2.
The growth of eCommerce is absolutely astounding, and recent events have undoubtedly contributed to the fact it’s not going to slow down any time soon. Having an e-commerce SEO strategy will help you optimise your site effectively, drive more traffic and convert into sales.
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What are the benefits of e-commerce SEO?
Let’s start with the budget aspect; SEO for e-commerce sites costs a lot less than paid search and unlike advertising, the value of SEO doesn’t stop when the campaign ends. Having said that, e-commerce SEO is an ongoing project focusing on the content, design and technology, but will likely have long-term value for months or years.
Making your online store more visible in the search results is only part of the equation, a strong user experience drives conversions. Keyword data provides a window into shoppers’ ‘wants’, so by finding out what they want and why you can fulfil those desires and you’re more likely to make a sale.
Consumers are savvier than ever, and many recognise that organic results are perceived to be more trustworthy than paid ads. Therefore, a higher ranking can also result in boosting your credibility and of course brand awareness.
How to do SEO for e-commerce sites in 2021?
SEO is constantly evolving and to rank higher and maintain your rankings, you need to modify your e-commerce SEO strategy.
While many of the SEO basics remain the same, there are new trends that have emerged which change how to do SEO for eCommerce websites. By utilising both, you can impact and influence your e-commerce success.
- Optimise for intent – Google’s BERT update at the end of 2019 was an algorithm update using machine learning and natural language processing to better understand searches and interpret the intent of the searcher. In other words, the ‘why’ not just the ‘what’. It’s important to make sure your e-commerce product content and the keyword intent match. Keyword density is less important as Google better understands the context of the content.
- Keyword research and capturing the long-tail search queries can pay off, whilst they may drive fewer searches, they tend to convert at a higher rate than other keywords. By their nature, e-commerce sites are typically structured to target those long-tail searches as they’re built hierarchically on increasing levels of detail. Finding keywords that can easily rank and generate revenue for you is one SEO e-commerce strategy that can pay off.
- Original content is liked by Google to help rankings, it also benefits your potential customers with a better user experience. Taking the time to ensure your content is authentic and adds value will help with converting browsers to buyers. Use your own brand voice and style of language to differentiate you from others.
- Voice search optimisation is still growing and expected to continue to do so in 2021. Users look for specific answers to their queries when they use voice search, so tailoring content to solve a problem or answer a question is more likely to convert.
- Influencer SEO can help with link building and getting quality backlinks, but ‘buyer beware’ applies here, not all influencers are created equal. If you go down the e-commerce SEO influencer route, choose the ones who have the right audience and focus on those who create content for authoritative websites.
Top e-commerce SEO tips for 2021
Here are some e-commerce SEO examples to help take your online shop to the top of the rankings.
- Core Web Vitals are a set of factors that Google feel are important in a webpage for the user experience. They are made up of three specific page speed and user interaction measurements: largest contentful paint, first input delay, and cumulative layout shift. Check out your site’s Core Web Vitals Report in the ‘enhancements’ section of your Google Search Console It’s a good idea to do this as part of an e-commerce SEO audit on your site.
- Add customer reviews or case studies to product pages to add extra unique content to your web pages. This also helps conversion rates by demonstrating customers like the products and trust you as a company.
- Always search a keyword on Google to help you understand the intent and check it will succeed before creating the content.
- The E-commerce marketing funnel benefits from SEO at all stages from creating the initial awareness through a blog for example to appealing to buyers’ interest by answering their questions. Then SEO helps to seal the deal when customers buy the product, persuaded by the informative product content and customer reviews. The intent revealed in their keyword choices changes from wanting information to transaction. The key is to target the correct intent at the right points on your site to influence buyers to convert.
If you need further help with how to do e-commerce SEO, our friendly team are happy to have a chat, why not reach out today.
