A Checklist for E-Commerce SEO – Basic SEO Tips for Ecommerce Website

Marketing

Whether or not you’ve created your online store, it’s vital to remember that your e-commerce venture can’t be successful without good SEO practices by your side. Online stores need to be engineered to bring in traffic—that means bringing in the right people, ensuring conversions, and keeping them coming in the long-term.

And SEO does all of that.

Search engines like Google are all about affirmative results; so if a person runs a search for exotic spices in Lawrence, they’ll get results for exotic spices. And if your online shop that sells exotic spices doesn’t naile-commerce SEO, you’ll be missing out on a lot of good business.

The problem here is, that for every search for “exotic spices in Lawrence,” a host of results will show up. Ensuring that your page is right up there in top searches is something that e-commerce SEO can help with.

Here’s everything that goes into it.

Optimizing the Title

Not only should your title be interesting and unique, but it should also be optimized properly. It’s best if you’re:

  • Optimizing the brand name in the title
  • Keeping it 60 characters or less
  • Using words such as “buy online” or “buy now” or other action words
  • Mentioning that you offer free shipping/nationwide shipping, especially since this is e-commerce
  • Placing keywords properly

Optimizing Media

When we say that you need to optimize your content, we also mean the videos and images. You need to add alt text (descriptions) with the images to optimize them, for instance. Icons, images, models, screenshots, text boxes should all carry alt (ernative) text.

Here’s what we think you should do:

  • Reduce the size of the media as much as possible
  • Keep the alt text relevant—if possible, use keywords
  • If you’re hosting videos on external sites, embedded code will do without affecting load speed
  • Create meta tags for all the videos, and add relevant descriptions

Page Loading

Page speed matters, especially for mobile devices. Users generally wait for 5–6 seconds before giving up and moving on to another page. Like we’ve said before, there’s no shortage of choices when it comes to online stores;the longer your page will take to load, the greater your bounce rate will be. You need to ensure that prospective customers don’t find your page to be slow, or you’re looking at no customers at all. Ideally, your page should take between 2 and 3 seconds to load.

Here’s how you can boost your page speed:

  • Cut down on redirects
  • Make sure all media is optimized
  • Upload videos on external sources
  • Don’t go overboard with development—think JavaScript, CSS, and HTML deployment
  • Reduce additional plug-ins
  • Get the best hosting option you can find, as well as a great CDN service
  • Browser caching are a good idea

Site Structure

Keep it simple, keep it short. Unless you’re an academic or medical services provider, your target audience won’t be interested in overly complicated websites. They’re looking for easy solutions: everything from the navigation to the checkout process needs to be simple and easy.

Internal linking helps SERPs index your pages properly. Remember, a search engine algorithm won’t be able to index your site if it isn’t structured properly—and if it isn’t indexed, it might not show up in search results.

Structured Data Markup

Structured data or schema markup is essential for online businesses, since these show up on search engine results if your schema markup ticks all the right boxes. With structured data markup, you get:

  • Low bounce rates
  • Better user engagement
  • Greater conversions
  • CTRs

Also known as “rich snippets,” the schema gives your users exactly the information they need—all in one place. It should include the following, in no particular order:

  • Name—this should always come first though
  • Price/currency
  • Shipping options
  • Ratings and reviews
  • Business hours

Use Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool to test before you go ahead with your structured data markup.

HTTPS

If your site isn’t using HTTPs, buyers won’t be too enthused, and neither will SERPs. HTTPS protection and SSL certificates tell your buyers and users that your site is secure and that you’re concerned about their digital safety.

Keep it Mobile-Friendly

Accelerated Mobile Pages were launched by Google specifically for the benefit of e-commerce websites. AMPs operate on an open-source network that aims to make pages load faster.

You’re looking at something that will ensure your online store works just as speedily on mobile devices as it does on a PC—and with the number of digital buyers expected to go up to 2.14 billion and beyond by 2021, AMPs should be one of the biggest optimizations on your plate right now.

Make your pages mobile-friendly and add search options, easy navigation tools, and a quick checkout process for maximum client satisfaction.

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