So, you want to start building more organic traffic to your store, and you’ve just come across eCommerce SEO; the problem is you don’t really know what that means.

But don’t worry, you’re in the right place!

What Is Ecommerce SEO?

In the simplest terms possible, eCommerce SEO is the process of making your online store noticeable in the SERPs (search engine ranking pages)

The idea is to use several SEO strategies to increase your search engine rankings (more on these later.) 

Here’s the thing:

You could have the best products in the world, but unless you’re getting the traffic, none of that counts. The higher you rank in the SERPs, the more traffic you get; it’s as simple as that.

The best performing eCommerce stores are the ones that can drive thousands of people to their site. If you still want to have your business in the next 18 months, you better start bringing in customers.

But how?

Ecommerce SEO step by step guide
Image by https://diggitymarketing.com/top-10-most-common-seo-problems/

Ecommerce SEO Step By Step…

Unlike popular belief, eCommerce SEO isn’t hard, especially if you follow this guide by Matthew Woodward.  

It might not be that hard, but it will take you time to get it perfect. To get you on your way, here’s a guide to eCommerce SEO:

Onsite Auditing

Ecommerce SEO how to audit your website

The very first step for completing eCommerce SEO effectively is to run a site audit on your store. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking link building is going to solve your problems; it won’t…

At least not yet.

Site audits are about making sure all the foundations of your store are strong. A broken foundation can be pretty costly to your rankings.

Performing a site audit will reveal any onsite issues like:

  • Thin content
  • Duplicate content
  • Hard to crawl pages
  • Technical issues (404 pages etc.)

At one point in time, performing a site audit required a lot of technical knowledge and even more guesswork. But, that all changed with SEO tools like:

If you’re on a budget, your best option is Screaming Frog; it lets you audit up to 500 URLs for free. 

Auditing your store with any of the tools is super easy; all you have to do is:

  • Enter your URL into the audit tools search bar
  • Let the tool crawl the store
The home page of Screaming Frog SEO analyzer

Once the tools have crawled your store, you can start getting to work fixing the problems.

Screaming Frog provides a more comprehensive site audit, but it can be pretty tricky to navigate. 

SEMrush on the other hand makes things a lot easier to identify and gives you tips on how to fix the problems.

When you’ve completed all the fixes suggested in the audit, it’s time to think about site speed:

Here’s the deal:

Slow sites make people want to turn away from the store, which can have dire consequences; check it out:

Speeding up your website can be done with the online tool GTMetrix. The website will analyze your website speed and can give you the tips you need to make it faster.

GTmetrix to measure website speed
Test your website speed with GTmetrix

Keyword Research

You need to do extensive keyword research if you wish to perform well. Keywords play a significant role in any website’s success. They are the bridge between the search engine and your website.

The key to avoid is picking your keywords based solely on the traffic it generates. This is a sure fire way to fail in your SEO efforts.

The perfect keyword needs to have four things:

1. Relevance – One of the most important parts of picking a keyword is making sure it’s relevant to the product you’re selling. 

Relevant keywords help you increase your conversion rate and lower the bounce rate. 

2. Intent – One of the biggest mistakes newbie eCommerce stores make is not picking a keyword with the right intent. 

Here’s the deal:

Some keywords will only attract people at a particular stage of the sales funnel. The best keywords can bring people in at all stages, which will help you increase your revenue.

3. Competition – Another widespread mistake people make is not thinking about the competition a keyword has. 

Let’s explain:

Some keywords are only rankable if your DA (Domain Authority) is high enough to compete with the competition.

For this reason, you need to start with keywords that have low competition. This way, you can build up your domain authority and have the chance of ranking in the number one spot.

4. Search Volume – You need to make sure the keyword you choose has a decent amount of search volume.

Think about it, you could have the perfect keyword that hits all of the above points, but if no one searches for it… what’s the point of using it?

What determines high search volume does vary between niches, so make sure you check out what counts as high for your niche.

On-Page SEO

Ecommerce SEO onpage and offpage

For your eCommerce store to thrive, you need perfect on-page SEO. If you’re already working on the internet, you’ve probably heard of on-page SEO.

The thing is:

On-page SEO for eCommerce stores works slightly differently than it does for your average affiliate site.

Here are some on-page factors you need to consider that differ from traditional on-page SEO:

Use High-Quality Pictures – The problem with shopping online is you can only see the product. There’s no way for the customer to touch or try on the product, which isn’t ideal for many customers.

How many times have you or one of your friends ordered something online for it to turn up looking nothing like what they ordered?

It’s a problem that’s all too common:

This has made people wary about buying products without seeing quality pictures of the item.

Here are some other things you should consider:

  • Use testimonials/reviews 
  • Unique product description 
  • Add internal links
  • Use Schema data

Building Links

When link building is used correctly, it can push your store to the next level, but only if you complete the tasks above first.

One of the most common mistakes people make is jumping straight into link building without making sure their foundations are solid.

When it comes to link building strategies, you have so many to choose from; the problem is which ones should you use.

If you check out this site, you can find 12 actionable link building strategies for you to take advantage of.

Round-Up

If you keep the above steps in mind when building your eCommerce store, you can pave your way to success. 

Remember, the very first thing you need to do is to audit your store. If you jump straight into the other stages, it is unlikely the changes will take effect.

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