SEO for eCommerce: Your Guide to Higher Rankings and Sales

Let’s chat about SEO eCommerce and why, in the world of the digital marketplace, it’s more than just a ‘nice to have.’ It’s a ‘must.’ We’ll uncover why SEO for eCommerce is essential if you want to boost your business, drive more traffic, and see a significant increase in your revenue. 

Why SEO? Just imagine boosting your organic traffic without shelling out for boosted advertising budgets to match. All this and more are possible when SEO strategy is applied with the expertise and help from the best eCommerce platform (Core dna).

So, whether it’s to speed up your site, embrace content marketing or optimize your listings, Core dna has the solutions to meet your wish list and then some. With its easy-to-use and seamless integration with other platforms, Core dna will push your site and your products to the top of the search engine results.

Here’s the lowdown…

eCommerce SEO Strategies

SEO for eCommerce isn't just about visibility, it’s putting your product in from of the people that are  are ready to buy it. 

In this case, SEO for eCommerce, when done correctly, ensures that through keyword optimization, you reach the buyers who are already interested. 

After all, the fact that they already have an interest in your product makes them more likely to convert than a random set of eyes.

Shoppers to websites are on a mission—to shop. While advertising can be targeted and gives great results, it is costly and unsustainable for even the biggest businesses. Creating content that converts is the most cost effective strategy you can implement. 

Did you know that the cost per acquisition through organic search tends to be less than the cost of advertising? 

Furthermore, putting in the effort with SEO continues to pay dividends, as it improves over long-term use as you increase rankings. 

And do you know what being in ‘Position 0’ or thereabouts means to a customer? It means you’re trustworthy. In whatever way you’ve got there, the customer perception is that you’ve earned it and are therefore ‘to be trusted/safe/secure’ (a perception worth its weight in gold). 

How to Go about Keyword Research for eCommerce

The heart of effective eCommerce keyword research lies in grasping the 'why' behind the searches. 

For eCommerce, this means aligning your keywords with the various stages of the customer journey. Are they looking to buy, seeking product reviews, or solving a problem your product addresses? 

By focusing on what your customers are truly searching for, you cater to their needs more effectively, whether it's a direct product purchase or informational content that leads them to your products.

In the eCommerce realm, certain keywords signal buyer intent more strongly than others. Phrases like "buy," "discount," "sale," "review," or "best" combined with product names are goldmines. 

These terms indicate that the searcher is further along in the buying process.

For instance, "Where to buy organic cotton t-shirt" suggests someone ready to purchase, while "best organic cotton t-shirts" might be looking for options but is close to deciding.

eCommerce Keyword research tools are invaluable for uncovering these terms. While we won't endorse specific tools, the general approach is to look for keywords with a good balance of search volume and competition.

 Look for 'low-hanging fruit' - keywords that have decent traffic but less competition. 

This can include long-tail keywords that are more specific to your products or niche. 

These tools often provide insights into keyword difficulty, search volume trends, and related terms that can broaden your SEO strategy.

Tracking keywords is not just about finding out which one brings traffic to your site; you're looking at which ones lead to sales. 

It's crucial to distinguish between keywords that merely attract visitors and those that convert them into customers. 

Are there products that perform exceptionally well under certain keyword searches? 

This insight allows you to refine your content, meta tags, and even product descriptions to leverage these high-performing keywords more effectively. 

Remember, the goal isn't just visibility; it's profitability through targeted, intent-driven traffic.

Technical SEO Best Practices

Let’s explore the more technical SEO elements to ensure your site is in shape.

Site Speed

Will we ever slow down? Not in the digital world. A slow site will impact your SEO ranking.

In the fast-paced world of online shopping, every second counts. 

A speedy website not only keeps your users engaged but directly impacts your SEO rankings. Google favors sites that load quickly to provide a better user experience. 

To enhance site speed, focus on optimizing images by compressing them without losing quality, leveraging browser caching, and using a 

Content Delivery Network (CDN) to serve your content from servers closer to the user's geographic location.

Mobile Optimization

With more and more consumers using their smartphones to shop, your ecommerce site must be impeccably mobile-friendly. 

A responsive design ensures your site adapts seamlessly to different screen sizes, providing an intuitive user experience on mobile devices. 

This isn't just about aesthetics; Google uses mobile-first indexing, meaning it predominantly uses the mobile version of content for indexing and ranking, making mobile optimization non-negotiable for SEO.

Structured Data

By implementing schema markup, especially product schema, you're giving search engines additional context about your pages, which can lead to rich snippets in search results. 

These can include price, availability, reviews, and ratings, making your listings stand out and potentially increasing click-through rates. 

Structured data acts like a translator, helping search engines understand your content in a way that can enhance visibility and drive more relevant traffic to your site.

URL Structure

Keep URLs simple, keyword-inclusive, and descriptive. This practice not only helps with SEO but also makes sharing and navigating your site easier for users.

Secure Site (HTTPS)

Security is key. An HTTPS site not only protects your users' data but also signals trustworthiness to search engines, which is a ranking factor.

Crawl Errors

Regularly check for crawl errors using tools like Google Search Console. Address these promptly to ensure all valuable content is indexed.

Sitemap Submission

Keep an updated XML sitemap and submit it to Google Search Console. This practice ensures search engines can find and index your complete product catalog efficiently.

Redirect Management

When restructuring your site or discontinuing products, manage 301 redirects meticulously to maintain SEO value and user experience.

Robot.txt Optimization

Use your robots.txt file wisely to guide search engine spiders to your prime content while protecting areas like admin pages from indexing.

Don’t be overwhelmed. Use a clear strategy regarding the technical elements of improving your site. In order of priority, mobile optimization of your site should come top. 

Then, continue to monitor and analyze results and adjust to complement your other SEO efforts. Ultimately, you aim to give your customers a world-class, speedy, secure, and seamless experience, which will translate into higher search engine rankings.

On-Page SEO for eCommerce

When it comes to your product descriptions, you need to go further than just a mere description. This is the time to highlight your products and the multiple customer benefits. How does your product answer the customers’ problem(s)? What benefits will your product give customers? 

Just as you would in person, think carefully about the language you use with your customers; it needs to reflect their language so they feel understood and safe. While keywords should be used, they should be done naturally, with priority given to sales through user-focused content.

Avoid duplicating descriptions, as this hampers SEO and can cause potential duplicate issues. Instead, create unique, thoughtful, and customer-appropriate descriptions.

Title Tags

Title tags might seem like ‘small fry,’ but carry much weight. They are potentially your customers’ first glance at your product, so they need to be keyword-rich and enticing to induce clicks and purchases.

When marking up your product pages, include the name of the product and its key selling points or benefits in the title and use the meta description to highlight unique elements creatively.

Don’t jam-pack tags with keywords. This is the carrot for your customers and your attempt to entice them to your site. A reasonable click-through rate is the key here, as this can affect your rankings.

URL Structure

As mentioned previously, every product is unique and, therefore, needs a unique URL. You want to be strategic, create URLs using relevant keywords, and avoid unnecessary parameters or numbers.

For example, a URL like /retro-record-player-super-sound-turntable is more SEO-friendly and helpful than something like /productID=54321. 

Sensical SEO helps search engines and your customers understand what they are looking at, which is a win for SEO rankings and seamless customer experience.

SEO isn’t a one-and-done situation. It is organic in the way it will develop over time and is in line with your products, user trends, feedback, and more. Regularly update your product descriptions with current keywords, seasonal trends, or new user behaviors. 

SEO in eCommerce Content Marketing

A brand with no content doesn't exist. You can learn that the hard way or just embrace content creation in ecommerce and make it work for your business. SEO is particularly effective when integrated to content marketing. 

A well-crafted SEO content marketing strategy will put your content in front of the people that need to see it. Here are all the content channels you can incorporate your SEO strategy: 

Blogging for SEO

Your blog can be a powerful tool to enhance your eCommerce SEO strategy. Use it to directly address common questions customers have about your products, industry, or related topics. Feature your products in a context that shows their utility or superiority. 

Share industry news to establish your brand as a thought leader. Each blog post is an opportunity to rank for new keywords, especially long-tail queries that might not be directly related to buying but lead customers down the funnel.

 For instance, a post on "How to Choose the Right Running Shoes for Your Foot Type" could indirectly promote your running shoes by providing value.

Long-Form Content

Deep, informative content not only attracts readers but can also earn backlinks from other sites, boosting your SEO. Create detailed guides, how-to articles, or product comparisons that provide genuine value. 

These pieces can become cornerstones of your content strategy, drawing in readers looking for comprehensive information, thus increasing your site's authority and relevance in search engines. 

Topics like "The Ultimate Guide to Setting Up Your Home Office with Ergonomic Furniture" could be both educational and subtly promotional.

User-Generated Content

With one third of consumers finding out about a product or brand for the first time through social media. User generated content is more powerful than ever. 

User generated content such as reviews, testimonials, and customers photos or videos can significantly impact your SEO by providing fresh, keyword-rich content. Search engines and social media love fresh content, and customer reviews often contain natural language queries that people use in searches. 

Plus, they add credibility and can improve click-through rates from search results. Implement a system where customers can easily leave reviews, ensuring these are indexed and appear on product pages.

Pictures taken by customers increase confidence in the brand. it's real, unfiltered, unplanned and relatable. 

Actionable Tip: To keep your content strategy aligned with SEO goals, Plan out a content calendar. This calendar should be designed around seasonal trends, upcoming holidays, or peak shopping periods, but also around the questions and concerns your customers express through support channels or social media.

Schedule posts that anticipate these trends or answer these queries. For example, before summer, you might plan content around "Best Outdoor Furniture for Small Spaces" or "Top 10 Sunscreens for Sensitive Skin." By doing so, you ensure your content remains relevant, potentially capturing traffic from seasonal searches. 

Monitor the performance of these posts through analytics to refine your approach, learning which types of content resonate best with your audience and drive SEO results. 

Remember, content marketing in eCommerce isn't just about selling; it's about educating, engaging, and building a community around your brand, which in turn, supports your SEO efforts. 

How does SEO and User Experience Work Hand in Hand

No SEO is successful if it is not part of a holistic approach to user experience and how visitors interact with your digital content. When working on your SEO don't get tunnel vision and make sure you are thinking about the entire buyers' journey. 

Let's take a look at the top things to optimize for a good eCommerce user experience. 

Navigation

Nobody likes a mess, which also appeals to search engines. A logical, structured, and navigable site means that search engines can clearly understand your site’s hierarchy and how content is linked from one page to another.

Help yourself by organizing your site with menus, categories, and breadcrumb trails. Your customers will love you for it, and so will your SEO strategy.

Side note: funny enough 63% of brands don't offer a link to inspirational picture in their homepage, personally we find that horrifying. Gain trust from the first moment someone lends on your side by offering what you promised. 

Room & Board is a good student when it comes to user experience and their user journey online is perfection.  

Core Web Vitals

The introduction of Core Web Vitals cements Google’s mission in favoring sites that offer excellent user experience. Core Web Vitals will consider a site’s loading speed (Largest Contentful Paint), interactivity (First Input Delay), and visual stability (Cumulative Layout Shift).

If you need to and can, we suggest you improve these areas, thereby decreasing bounce rates and creating ranking potential.

Checkout Process

Your customers have gotten so far down the funnel only to be let down by a clunky checkout. Don’t be that site. A bad experience can create poor user behavior signals that negatively impact your SEO and increase your cart abandonment. 

Your checkout process if your closing argument. Make it easy to purchase from your site by minimizing the number of steps, creating guest checkout options, and displaying your payment/customer details security efforts. 

While this might seem like a considerable effort, SEO results show that each improvement will lead to better conversions that support your SEO efforts.

TOP TIP: Plot how your customers use your site. Where do they interact, where do they dwell, and where are they leaving your site?

Carry out A/B testing to test any improvements. Measure user satisfaction and SEO performance to get background information on their behaviors. Like many SEO efforts, several factors work in tandem. In this case, when user experience is optimized, SEO performance can be boosted.

Voice Search Optimization for eCommerce

With 149 million people in the US using voice search, it would be a shame to not cater to them. It's not just a trend, it is a shift in behavior that will only continue growing and becoming more natural. In this holistic approach to SEO, optimizing for voice search and natural language is more important than ever. Let's see how: 

Conversational Queries

As voice search becomes more prevalent, optimizing for it involves understanding how peopale speak naturally. Users tend to use longer, more conversational phrases when using voice assistants.

 Instead of "best running shoes," they might say, "What are the best running shoes for flat feet?" Craft your content to answer these types of questions by including them in your page titles, headings, and within the content itself. 

This approach not only improves your chances of appearing in voice search results but also enhances the user experience for all visitors.

FAQ Pages

Dedicated FAQ pages can serve as a goldmine for voice search optimization. These pages should address common queries about your products, usage, returns, or even industry-specific questions. 

Structure these pages with clear, question-based headings that align with how people might ask these questions verbally. By doing this, you're directly targeting voice search queries, making it more likely for your site to be featured in voice search results.

Local Queries

For ecommerce businesses with physical storefronts, local SEO through voice search optimization is crucial. Voice queries often include phrases like "near me" or location-specific terms. 

Ensure your site, especially your location pages or contact information, are optimized for these queries. Use structured data to highlight your address, operating hours, and contact details, making it easier for voice search algorithms to pull this information. 

If you use Core dna ecommerce platform, ensure your store locator or local pages are robustly optimized for these local voice searches.

Actionable Tip: Start integrating natural language questions into your product descriptions, FAQ sections, and even blog posts. For example, instead of just listing features, you could include lines like, "What makes this mattress ideal for side sleepers?" or "How do I care for this silk blouse?" 

This not only caters to voice search but also improves the readability and engagement of your content. Track which questions or phrases drive the most engagement or conversions, refining your approach over time. 

Remember, voice search optimization is about anticipating the conversational nature of voice queries and providing direct, clear answers that match this style of interaction.

 This not only boosts your SEO but also enhances user satisfaction, potentially increasing your site's voice search visibility and organic traffic.

The Role of AI in Ecommerce SEO

If you are using AI and you should, let's use it to put the cherry on the cake and help our eCommerce SEO strategy shine. He are a few way AI can help: 

Predictive Analytics

AI's ability to analyze vast datasets can revolutionize your ecommerce SEO strategy. By forecasting demand based on historical sales data, search trends, and even external factors like weather or economic indicators, AI can guide inventory management and content creation. 

This foresight allows for the optimization of SEO strategies by targeting keywords and creating content that aligns with predicted consumer behavior or seasonal changes.

For instance, AI can predict when searches for "winter jackets" will surge, enabling you to prepare content and inventory accordingly to rank higher during those times.

Dynamic Content

Personalization is key in modern eCommerce, and AI plays a significant role here by enabling dynamic content delivery. Through analyzing user behavior, purchase history, and even real-time interaction data, AI can tailor content to individual users. 

This personalization can lead to higher engagement rates, longer session times, and more conversions, all of which are positive signals for SEO. 

Dynamic content could include personalized product recommendations, customized landing pages based on user location or previous searches, or even adaptive search results that learn from user preferences.

SEO Automation

The automation of repetitive SEO tasks is another area where AI excels. Tools powered by AI can automate keyword research by identifying not just popular but also emerging keywords or long-tail variations that offer less competition. 

AI can also assist in content optimization by suggesting improvements to on-page elements like titles, meta descriptions, and even content structure for better readability and SEO performance. 

Backlink analysis can be streamlined with AI tools that monitor your backlink profile, alert you to toxic links, or suggest new linking opportunities based on content relevance and domain authority.

Actionable Tip: To leverage the power of AI for SEO, integrating AI tools that can help with predictive analytics for your inventory and content strategies, or automate aspects of your SEO work. 

Look into how AI can be used to personalize content for your visitors, perhaps through dynamic product descriptions or tailored homepage experiences.

Investigate automation tools for keyword research or content optimization. By using these AI capabilities, you can not only enhance your SEO efforts but also gain insights into customer behavior that can inform broader business strategies. 

Remember, the integration of AI into SEO for ecommerce is about making your site more relevant, engaging, and efficient, ultimately leading to better search engine rankings and a superior customer experience.

SEO Tools for eCommerce

Tracking Conversions

Google Analytics: Set up ecommerce tracking to monitor sales from organic search. Use conversion goals to track specific actions like purchases or newsletter sign-ups.

Analytics Dashboard: If available, use this to track how SEO directly contributes to sales, offering insights into conversion paths from organic traffic.

User Behavior Analysis

Google Analytics: Look at bounce rates, time on page, and user flow to understand where engagement drops off.

Hotjar or Crazy Egg: These tools provide heatmaps and session recordings to visually identify where users interact or leave your site.

Utilize any user behavior tracking features to see where customers engage or disengage, helping to pinpoint SEO optimization areas.

Competitor Analysis

SEMrush or Ahrefs: These tools allow you to analyze competitors' keyword rankings, backlink profiles, and content strategies. They offer features like keyword gap analysis to find opportunities.

SimilarWeb: Provides insights into competitors' overall web traffic, sources, and engagement, helping to benchmark your performance.

Moz: With tools like MozBar for on-page analysis or their full suite for broader SEO insights, you can compare your site's performance against competitors.

Actionable Tip:Leverage analytics dashboard to make data-driven SEO decisions. Here's how you can maximize these tools:

Custom Reports: Create reports that focus on SEO metrics like organic traffic, conversion rates from SEO, and user behavior on key pages.

Actionable Insights: Use the data to identify trends or issues, like which products or categories are gaining organic interest or where your site might be losing potential customers. From this, you can adjust your SEO tactics, focusing on refining keyword strategies, improving page content, or enhancing user experience based on real data.

Remember, while these tools offer valuable insights, the key is to use them to inform and adjust your SEO strategy continuously, ensuring your ecommerce site remains competitive and relevant in search results. 

As you have learnt, there’s more to SEO than optimization. And, far from one and done, SEO is an evolving journey that gives you a real-time understanding of your customers and how and why they engage.

We strongly recommend monitoring SEO eCommerce trends concerning user privacy and customer experience. Your SEO goals must extend beyond ranking and encompass the best in ecommerce shopping.

Apply all these findings to your ecommerce strategy and use SEO to work alongside your other strategies. As you experiment with different tools and tips, include Core dna’s ecommerce platform.