Doing SEO for an e-commerce site is crucial, as for any other site, and the basic best practices to be respected are the same regardless of the format and sector.
This is why we are not going to retrace all the steps of an SEO Strategy but only those that are the differentiating elements, to which particular attention should be paid in the case of online shops.
The main objectives of SEO for eCommerce are:
- increase organic traffic
- reduce costs related to online advertising
- enhance brand awareness
- cover long tail keywords
- improve the user experience
- and of course, increase conversions
To obtain these results it is good to:
- Make sure the product pages contain the following information:
- ID (or SKU): alphanumeric identification code
- Title: product name
- Description: in-depth description of the product
- Image: High resolution image of the product
- Availability: product availability
- Condition: if the product is new or used and in this case what its condition is
- Ensure that the site is optimized for mobile devices
- Ensure an optimal user experience by minimizing page loading speed. This is because 1 in 4 visitors is led to leave a website that takes over 4 seconds to load, so you must comply with the guidelines of Google’s Core Web Vitals
- Making the domain understandable for Google Spiders
- Use URLs that are simplified as much as possible, to prevent your address from having ambiguous or parametric characters
- Consider users’ search intent (navigational, transactional, informational, investigative)
- Expanding contents that are too synthetic; if a product page does not have a detailed description, it risks not being indexed by Google because it does not satisfy the search intent, especially since Google Bert was introduced. The latter is an update of the Google algorithm that allows the search engine to better understand user searches, thanks to the automatic learning of Artificial Intelligence. With Bert, Google interprets the context in which words are inserted
- Optimize images and videos so that they are of quality and at the same time that their weight does not affect the page loading speed
- Use Structured Data; codes that provide information on: product, brand, reviews, images, frequently asked questions etc., bridging the gap between product pages and editorial content
- Plan an adequate Link Strategy both internal to the site and external
The Link Building for online shops
Implementing a Link Building strategy for eCommerce helps improve your domain ranking and potentially increase organic traffic and transactions. Often, however, Link Building is left to chance; an adequate action plan is not developed but an attempt is made to increase the sales of certain articles by inserting links here and there, not understanding the real purpose of a high-quality Link Building is not the economic gain but the boost of authority that can give the your site, thus supporting visibility in the SERP.
The link must be useful to the user not the seller and must be consistent with the context in which it is inserted. In fact, a very common mistake is to link to product pages; the products change, while the categories remain, this should already give an idea of why it is preferable not to link directly to a single object or promotion.
In addition, the categories allow us to position ourselves on keywords with a higher search volume. It must be said that the categories still push the products and therefore there will also be benefits from an economic point of view.
Conclusions
Developing an SEO strategy for an eCommerce requires attention, time and careful planning. Nothing should be overlooked. Some still believe that opening an online store is enough to start selling but it is clear that this is not the case.
Two years have now passed since the start of the pandemic and the consequential boom of eCommerce sites, yet some common mistakes are still made, such as:
- copy product descriptions from manufacturers’ sites without adding originality or personality to the content, essentially generating duplicate content
- not to enhance or even delete user reviews
- add additional or shipping costs only at checkout
- do not go into the sections of the site “About us” or “Contacts”, essential for being transparent and reliable
- not having a blog that allows users to obtain useful information on products, raw materials, the supply chain or simply on the philosophy of those behind the brand or the online store.
Today, close to Black Friday, it is still possible to take some precautions to improve the user experience and the characteristics of your ecommerce, also thanks to the use of technological tools and AI, here a discussion.
