SEO
10
min read

Best Practices for E-Commerce Sites in Google Search

Discover the best practices for e-commerce sites in Google search. Learn about SEO techniques, keyword research, on-page and off-page optimization, meta tags, site speed, mobile optimization, user experience, and more.
Written by
Josselin Liebe
Published on
June 26, 2023
Updated on
November 13, 2023
Readers rating
17
votes

With every e-commerce organization, being found in search is a significant barrier. Gaining new clients and cultivating relationships with them is a key factor in business expansion, and Google can assist buyers in finding your website at every stage of the purchasing process. These instructions are for web developers who are creating websites and who want to make sure that the site complies with SEO best practices and works effectively with Google. Although the emphasis is on websites for online commerce (e-commerce), many of the concepts apply just as well to websites that list goods that are only sold in physical storefronts.

A search engine that is incorporated or built into your online store is known as an e-commerce site search solution. By matching the customer's search phrases with the products in your store, it seeks to find the things the user is looking for. In addition to the search box, site search also relates to faceted search, product rating, as well as synonyms control.

It uses user queries to filter your products. Whether it's a product name, color, size, or product code, all input is matched with specific suggestions. Search engines for online stores resemble Google searches in several ways. As opposed to e-commerce search, which uses structured attribute search with selecting and grouping as significant characteristics, Google conducts content, and text searches.

Best Practices for E-Commerce SEO

  • Display the search field
  • Expand the search field to accommodate common questions.
  • Use machine learning to personalize search suggestions.
  • High error tolerance for a seamless user experience
  • Auto-completion of search terms
  • Using natural language processing to improve outcomes
  • Detailed search analytics for simple reporting and enhancement

1. Do Keyword Research Correctly

Conducting a thorough keyword research for your store is something that every owner of an e-commerce business should undertake.

You should have two objectives:

  • Find the most relevant and well-liked keywords in your niche first. The customer intent underlying each search is something you must second-guess.
  • A search query is written with keyword intent in mind. You may spot it by observing the keywords individuals use when conducting online searches for products, as well as the Google search results.

There are primarily two kinds of keyword intent that you'll encounter :

Knowledge-based Keyword Intent:

Users with informational keyword intent look for clarification on a subject or an answer to a specific inquiry. They aren't quite ready to start shopping yet. Alternatively, they could want more information about your specialty or a response to a non-product-related question. An educational term, for instance, may be something like "great hikes around San Francisco" if you run an outdoor gear business.

Commercial Keyword Intent:

Those that are looking for information to aid in making a purchase have commercial keyword intent. Customers frequently utilize commercial keyword intents when they are certain of what they want but are unsure of where to look. Such as "purchase a digital camera" or "find new laptop deals," you can see this when you type certain terms into Google. When people are unsure of the thing they wish to buy, however, they might also utilize commercial intent keywords. Commercial keywords include questions like "What is the best digital camera?" that are review-based.

Finding the Keyword Intent:

Although determining the keyword purpose of consumers may seem difficult, you may simplify the process for yourself. Consider following AgencyAnalytics' guidance, which divides it into phases.

  • Analyzing SERPs: While analyzing SERPs, give paid adverts, knowledge graph results, and organic listings particular consideration.
  • Analyze Google ads for marketing purposes: It is possible to gauge how strong a keyword is by looking at bid prices.
  • Analyze your data: If a piece of material has a high bounce rate, it may not be relevant to the search query.

However, you'll require assistance if you want to choose the best keyword combination for your website. Let's discuss a few resources that will assist you to find SEO e-commerce keywords.

For SEO E-Commerce Research, use Ubersuggest and AnswerThePublic

Although Google's keyword planner is a good place to start, you might need more information or specialized assistance to develop your keyword goals. As you develop your target keywords for your SEO e-commerce strategy, consider the following multiple features:

Ubersuggest

An internet tool called Ubersuggest makes keyword research simple. You can use Ubersuggest to get hundreds of relevant keywords by just searching for a seed term (such as "outdoor jackets"). This will provide you with all the information you need to decide which keywords to concentrate on.

Additional attributes of Ubersuggest include:

Address the Audience

Address the Audience is a search listening tool that uses Google's completed data to deliver hundreds of questions for each keyword you input. NP Digital has since bought Address the Audience. This is one of the better resources for finding long-tail keywords if you're looking for them. It's logical to use Answer the Public. On the home page, simply type in your keyword, and the search engine will list questions that are connected under several sections (where, when, how, what, etc.) You can download the questions as an a.csv file and view them in an alphabetical list. Although you can upgrade to a premium subscription for more features, it is free to use.

2. Enhance Product Pages for Ranking

The on-page components of a website need to be optimized by every business owner who wants to increase search traffic and attract new clients. Your website's structure, Meta descriptions, and heading tags are all covered by on-page SEO. In this section, we'll concentrate on the on-page components of your e-commerce site that matter most to online merchants: product descriptions, photos, and reviews. It's not necessary to optimize each of these parts.

Make Your Product Descriptions Better

There are several reasons why descriptions on product pages are crucial. The first benefit is that they offer essential, keyword-rich material that Google will utilize to improve the ranking of your site. Second, once users arrive on the page, they persuade them to purchase your goods.

Three crucial considerations must be addressed when you start optimizing your e-commerce product pages:

  • What are the page's most important elements?
  • How can you use these components to their greatest visibility and impact?
  • How can you use this knowledge to increase the impact of your product description

Start now by considering how you may increase the impact of your product descriptions. This may include items like:

  • Introducing numerous, distinctive, high-quality photos with captions that are keyword-rich
  • Calls to Action (CTAs) with testimonies added

Many of these recommendations, as you'll see, don't exactly fit the mold of a typical product description.

Image Enhancement

Images are a frequently overlooked component of on-page SEO for e-commerce. Pictures are a fantastic way to communicate ideas and draw in visitors. But, they can also detract from the argument you're attempting to make, so take care, not to overuse photographs or overcrowd your product pages. There is more to it than just using high-quality photographs to showcase your products. Higher search engine ranks, increased traffic from prospective clients, and perhaps even traffic from social media outlets are all benefits of image SEO optimization.

The following advice can help you enhance your images:

  • Include alt tags in captions.
  • As little compression as feasible without sacrificing image quality should be used.
  • Employ keywords while naming files.

Features Reviews

Reviews offer crucial information that aids consumers in weighing the benefits and drawbacks of a product before deciding whether to buy it. They also increase conversion rates while assisting you in establishing trust with potential clients. Sending automatic messages to customers after each purchase will encourage them to post reviews. Once they have submitted a review on your site, you can also build up email campaigns to give those alerts or discounts.

3. Ensure That Your Website Is Accessible

User experience, or UX, is crucial for e-commerce stores to have a positive one. UX can be improved by effective design, improved site architecture, and more visually attractive aesthetics. Yet creating a functional website is just as important as having one that looks attractive. Navigation, usability, and the general "feel" of the website are all included in the user experience. Making sure users can find what they're searching for, keeping them interested throughout browsing, and providing the optimal user experience are all part of UX. You might not assume that user experience (UX) has an impact on search engine optimization (SEO), but it does.

Core Web Vitals, a set of criteria that Google employs to rank a page's user experience, are included in this. Google evaluates your website's user experience across three key dimensions:

  • Initial input delay
  • Cumulative layout shift
  • Largest contently paint (FID)

4. Remember to Use Long-Tail Keywords

A lengthier and more precise search term is referred to as a long-tail keyword. It usually has a modest volume and at least three words, sometimes more. But for e-commerce shops, can be tremendously useful. Because they are so particular, such keywords have a substantially higher conversion rate. So, even though they receive fewer visitors, they produce an extremely large volume of sales. Any firm can benefit from long-tail keywords, but if you are in a highly competitive industry, they are extremely beneficial.

5. Implement a Basic URL Structure

A straightforward URL structure increases user experience and your SEO for online stores. Also, sharing products on social media and other websites is simpler when your e-commerce site has a straightforward URL structure. Also, some strategies might aid in enhancing your URL structure. Observe what follows:

Employ keywords:

The content of your URLs can be scanned by search engines, and they'll use it to determine where you rank. Because of this, you must consider your keywords carefully before choosing a URL structure. If your category page includes the keyword phrase “ladies footwear " in its URL, for instance, it may perform better in search engine results.

Prevent Stop Words: 

Stop words can make your URL harder to read and could hurt your SEO rankings. Simply said, they are unnecessary inside. As a result, rather than having a blog post with the URL.

Utilizing Breadcrumbs:

A navigational aid is breadcrumbs. They enable website users to go back and forth between prior actions. Breadcrumbs have SEO advantages in addition to being a usability tactic. The breadcrumb for that post would be "Home > Blog > This Post," for instance, if you visited it from your primary homepage. Several web design tools provide breadcrumbs, and you may add them by using JavaScript or markup tags.

6. Google And Users Can Best Explain Your Content By Using Schema Markups

HTML tags known as schema markups give search engine robots more details about the content of online pages. Your SEO for e-commerce activities can be improved by applying these markups. Schema markup can result in rich snippets when used. They give search engines a means to display more details about particular queries right at the top of search results. By displaying several forms of information, they also assist users in finding what they are seeking more quickly and easily.

There are numerous varieties of rich snippets, including:

  • Fragments of product markup
  • Fragments of music
  • Excerpts for review

Several e-commerce schema types include:

  • Schema for products
  • Reviewing the product availability schema schema
  • Schema for videos
  • Cost structure
  • FAQ structure

7. Don't Use Duplicate Content or Pages

Have you ever seen something on a website and thought, "I've read this elsewhere before," or something similar? Identical product catalogs and images are a common issue with production descriptions and category descriptions whenever online stores use them. It makes sense why online retailers simply repeat the same information. Generally, it's only that they lack the means to create new content on their own. Even if you don't have time to completely redo anything, you can still cut down on repetition in product descriptions and other places on your website.

8. Avoid Letting Page Speed Destroy Your Rating

The amount of time it takes for a web page to load is known as page loading time.

Consumers aren't ready to wait around while a website loads, according to poll after survey, hence page speed is a ranking issue. According to a recent survey, 19% of customers will leave a website if it takes more than two to three seconds to load. Users of the internet claim that two seconds is the ideal webpage loading time, but the quicker the preferable.

If your website is loading too slowly, what should you do? You must first identify the cause. It might be:

  • Simply said, your server cannot handle the amount of content on your site.
  • The number of scripts is slowing down page loads.
  • The loading time of images is very long.
  • Your web host is having difficulty.

Even though not all operators of e-commerce websites can promise a flawless score of 100 on Google's PageSpeed Insights, you can try to shorten load times by:

  • Reducing the number of photos on the pages, file compression, and the use of social media widgets
  • Enhancing your image
  • Minimizing redirection and HTTP requests, using lots of white space, and minimizing clutter will speed up your server's response time.

9. E-Commerce Requires Content

E-commerce seems to be more complex though than images as well as keywords. You should incorporate written content into your SEO for your e-commerce plan as well. Regular content posting also increases organic traffic. This could assist you in gaining customers, enhancing your website's visibility, as well as establishing your influence in your industry.

10. Link Development for E-Commerce

One essential SEO ranking factor is link building. Google is informed that your site has credibility via quality links. Backlinks have an impact on your website's keyword rankings as well. Here are a few techniques for doing this:

  • Establishing an internal link
  • Utilizing social media ads when creating guest posts
  • Publishing on social media and releasing press releases
  • Making forum posts and blog comments (if allowed)
  • Publishing infographics online, producing white papers and case studies.

TO SUM UP

In conclusion, effective SEO practices are integral to the success of e-commerce sites. From optimizing site searches to implementing SEO on product pages, these practices improve online visibility and user experience. Writing compelling product descriptions, using high-quality images and encouraging customer feedback builds trust and guides potential customers' purchasing decisions. Prioritizing website speed and accessibility and adopting a simple URL structure contribute to a positive user journey. Adopting strategies such as tagging schemes and strategic link building enables e-commerce sites not only to meet search engine criteria, but also to stand out in the competitive online landscape.

Best practices for E-Commerce Sites SEO
Best practices for E-Commerce Sites SEO
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