SEO for e-commerce: best practices

If you are wondering why and how to do SEO for e-commerce , then you have come to the right place. Yes, even online shops must be optimized so that the products offered appear in search results and are found, viewed and sometimes purchased by users who search the Web.

Fresh from the Web Marketing Festival (you know, we like to stay super up to date on the subject) , today we are going to delve into this very important topic.

A correct SEO strategy It represents an important activity in the medium-long term to have free organic traffic and with high conversion rates on e-commerce.

Having made this necessary premise, we can begin.

SEO for e-commerce: why is it important?

Choosing the right keywords

How to optimize product sheets

Conclusion

SEO for eCommerce: Why is it important?

The main advantage is undoubtedly the greater visibility of your brand and your products on search engines.

Optimizing your content, your products, your product sheets, means correctly responding to the user's question , to what they are looking for at that exact moment.

In technical jargon, Search Intent. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I suggest you read this in-depth article I wrote.

Applying this definition to e-commerce, it means showing your product to users who have consciously expressed an intention to purchase.

Going into detail, the " Organic " part represents the second source that generates the most traffic, after " Direct ".

SEO is important, and can really help an e-commerce make a difference and sell more. Although it requires a lot of time, it is an investment that will pay off over time.

Choosing the right keywords

Without a doubt, the keyword research phase, in technical jargon Keyword Research , represents a crucial step for the SEO strategy of an e-commerce and now let's understand why.

One of the main advantages is the creation of a clear and optimized information architecture on your website for both Google and users.

In an online shop this factor is crucial.

Asking yourself questions about the circumstances of use of the product, its features, and its models allows you to make strategic considerations.

In this way, other useful branches can be developed for the creation of filters, tags and categories, in order to further simplify the User Experience of the user browsing the site.

Now I'll list some of the best practices for choosing keywords for your e-commerce:

• Do you have in mind some Keywords that may be related to your product or business? Before starting with the operational phase, focus on the strategic one, it is essential to know how to do keyword research .

• Check by searching on Google the Keywords you have identified, to which results they lead . Did you end up reading an in-depth article or on a product sheet?

• Based on the result of the previous point, you need to optimize the keyword (and synonyms) to respond to the user's search intent.

• Check the search volume of the keywords you have chosen using the various tools available on the Web (Pearl of the day: use the Google Ads Keyword Planner Tool, it's free 💡 ).

• Competitiveness : how many results does that keyword return and which sites rank for it.

• Use “long tail” keywords . What does it mean? Using keywords composed of at least 2/3 terms means intercepting a market niche. Consequently, these keywords are easier to position because they usually enjoy less “competition”. Long Tail Keywords intercept more precise information searches made by users who are potentially more interested and more “ready to convert” compared to users who use more generic terms.

How to optimize product sheets

With this in mind, it is a good idea to understand how and where to get your hands dirty to optimize your product sheets and content.

Let's go into detail.

The structure of e-commerce

As anticipated in the previous lines, it is essential to dedicate time to creating the structure of your online shop. A simple, orderly and intuitive tree structure will help increase e-commerce sales. If the site is not structured in a simple way, the user will not be able to navigate it and even less the Google Crawler, which will have difficulty scanning it.

Take care of the contents

It is important to remember that our content, our descriptions, are read by people and not just by the Google Bot.

This means that we need to work, in addition to the use of the keyword and related ones, also on uniqueness and creativity, bringing an effective benefit to the user , answering his questions, his doubts.

Product descriptions must be:

• Unique and original : do not use copied or duplicate content, Google may penalize you for this reason.

• SEO Friendly : As anticipated, they must contain the keywords related to the product and the product name with variations and synonyms.

• Readable : divide your text into paragraphs and use bold, italics and all the markers in general.

Generally speaking, treat each piece of content as if it were answering a specific need: each page of your website must be optimized for a keyword and its synonyms.

The Importance of Title Tags

The Title Tag, as the word itself says, is the code that specifies the title of a

specific web page.

It is shown in the search results, with a blue color. For simplicity I give you an example here on the side.

The Title is undoubtedly one of the elements to optimize on-page , influencing the relevance of your content. For this reason, it is necessary to work on its improvement. How?

• Insert the most important keywords at the beginning

• Do not exceed approximately 70 characters

The URLs: Don't Neglect Them!

Well yes, URLs are also a factor to take into consideration if you want to try to position your content.

Specifically, you need a speaking and easily compressible URL that communicates to both Google and the user the content of the page. The ideal is a URL that contains the reference Keyword.

Increase Click-Through Rate with Meta Description

You understood correctly.

Through an accurate, relevant and creative Meta Description, it is possible to increase the click-through rate, effectively involving the user in just a few lines.

If you don't understand where the Meta Description is, I'll show it here on the side. It is actually a preview of what will be shown to the user, so it's a good idea to optimize it.

Internal Links

In light of a correct structure, it is essential to use Internal Links (In short, link other content on your own site) to distribute the value of the pages within your e-commerce.

Be careful not to overdo it, though.

Optimize images

In addition to being very useful for the user, to get a further idea of the product itself, for a product sheet it is important to also use and optimize the images present in the e-commerce.

Here are the elements to consider:

• Limit the weight of images (you can use tools like jpeg compressor, for example) : remember that loading speed directly affects positioning on search engines.

• Use a meaningful file name: it must be descriptive of the image and optimized. Remember that it must be written like this: nike-football-shoes

• Use Alt Text: this is what Google's spider reads to understand what the image represents. It is also of fundamental importance for blind people who, through an accurate description, can understand and comprehend the content of the image.

• Insert the Title Tag of the image, using the Keyword.

The Tag Heads

Here we talk about a fundamental aspect within the page. It is about giving a well-defined hierarchy to the content, using these tags. They go from H1 to H6 and in ascending order they reflect the importance that you want to give to the single paragraph.

Here are some basic rules that can be taken into consideration when inserting these elements:

• Tag H1: is the title of the content. It is necessary to include the main keyword on which you intend to position yourself and it must be used only once per page and never duplicated on other pages.

• H2 Tag : It is used to highlight the paragraphs that divide the text by topics and/or thematic areas. They also have the function of dividing the text to help the user better understand the topic. Here too, it is recommended to include keywords, but be careful not to overdo it, otherwise Google gets angry, and that is never a good thing.

• H3 tag : to be used to highlight the sub-paragraphs useful for further exploring the topic.

Mobile Friendly

Last but not least, mobile optimization. Yes, Google has decided to give more importance to "Mobile Friendly" websites, penalizing sites that are poorly navigated from mobile.

In conclusion

As you may have noticed, SEO for e-commerce opens many doors to improve the performance of your Shop. By exploiting each of these you will be able to obtain real concrete benefits for the online sale of your products.

If you liked this short insight, share it, if you have doubts on how to optimize your product sheets you can ask your questions below or in our closed Facebook group .