Having a great-looking website with awesome products won’t just help you win. To win, your products need to be seen by your target audience and that’s where SEO, (Search Engine Optimization), comes in. When done right, SEO helps your product pages rank higher in search engines to ensure better visibility and drive more sales.
SEO for e-commerce sites is complex with several numbers of product pages holding unique descriptions, images, and pricing. This is why technical SEO must hold strategic thinking. But don’t worry, in this blog, we are going to learn solid technical SEO checklist that can make the task both manageable and effective.
1. Optimize Page Load Speed
Page speed ranks as one of the most critical elements in eCommerce SEO. Not only does Google consider page load speed for ranking websites, but it also exasperates users and increases bounce rates due to slow loading. Fast sites reward users with smooth browsing experiences that increase both engagement and conversion.
How to Improve Page Speed
- Compress images: Do the compression without losing any of the image quality by using tools like TinyPNG or ShortPixel.
- Enable browser caching: Caching helps browsers store resources for faster visits in the future.
- Minify CSS and JavaScript: Remove unnecessary characters and spaces in your code.
- Use a CDN: A content delivery network is a system of distributed servers that delivers pages and other web content to a user based on the geographic location of the user’s device, reducing page load times for users far away from your content’s central point.
2. Use Descriptive, Keyword-Rich URLs
URLs are some of the foundational elements of SEO. In e-commerce, each product page should keep a clean, descriptive keyword-rich URL structure. Avoid auto-generated URLs made of numbers and special characters that don’t make any sense.
Example:
– Bad: www.example.com/product/098765
– Good: www.example.com/mens-leather-jacket
Why it matters:
This will make the search engines get a better idea about what the page is, which aids with indexing and positioning. They’re also more user-friendly and clickable.
3. Optimize Title Tags and Meta Descriptions
Title tags and meta descriptions are both important for SEO and click-through rates. It is the first thing a user sees when your result pops up, so making them exciting and informative is important.
Tips:
– Title tags: Include the main product keyword in your title tag. Make sure to keep it under 60 characters to avoid truncation in search results.
– Meta descriptions: These should be roughly 150-160 characters. This is an opportunity to describe the product as well as include a CTA encouraging clicks.
Example:
- Title: “Men’s Woolen Jacket – Stylish & Durable – Free Shipping”
- Meta description: “Are you looking for a premium quality men’s leather jacket? Browse our range of stylish, durable options with free shipping. Buy now!”
4. Apply Structured Data – Schema Markup
Structured data helps search engines understand the context of your pages by adding tags to your content. Well, product schema markup can be particularly helpful for e-commerce, which may also make your product pages eligible for rich snippets of additional pieces of information, like price, availability, and reviews that show up directly within search results.
Why it’s important:
Rich snippets improve the attractiveness of your search results and make it more informative. If users can glance at ratings, prices, and availability, they’re more likely to click on your page.
5. Use Canonical Tags to Avoid Duplicate Content Problems
In the case of e-commerce sites, duplicate content can occur really easily when you have similar products or different versions of the same product, such as colour variants. It might even damage the website’s ranking because search engines will find and possibly penalize duplicate content for doing so.
Solution: Here’s where canonical tags come in, to help the search engines understand which one is original or preferred. In other words, if you have a product with several URLs due to filters, sorting options, or product variations, canonical tags combine them in one for search engine optimization reasons.
6. Mobile Optimization is Non-Negotiable
In today’s e-commerce landscape, more people shop on mobile devices than on desktops. For that reason, mobile optimization is crucial in terms of user experience and SEO. Google has flipped the switch to mobile-first indexing, meaning it now takes the mobile version of your site mainly for ranking purposes.
Tips for mobile optimization:
- Responsive design: Make sure your website becomes responsive, which means automatically adjusting to any screen size of a device.
- Check mobile functionality: You also can use tools such as Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test and see if your site has issues regarding mobile functionality.
7. Optimize Internal Linking
Internal links help search engines understand the structure of your site and spread link equity to other pages. They are important in guiding the users through the website and helping them find more products. Internal linking will also make it easier for search engines to crawl and index your pages; which increases the chances of your product pages ranking better.
Best practices:
- Use descriptive anchor text to link related products to each other.
- Employ breadcrumbs to lighten the burden of navigation, particularly on product categories.
8. Use High-Quality, Optimized Images
Images on ecommerce product pages are essential but they can ruin SEO if done incorrectly. Optimizing images relates to finding a balance between high-quality display and speed of loading. Optimized images will go a long way in improving page load speed and also help in ensuring your site ranks well in Google Image search.
To optimize images:
- Use descriptive, keyword-heavy alt text.
- Compress images to reduce file size, without sacrificing quality.
- Use the right file type
The Bottom Line
SEO ecommerce is complex, yet a very integral part of driving traffic and sales into your online store. Follow these SEO checklists to get the full rewards of your hard work. You can also contact an ecommerce SEO agency to be well on the road to having a friendlier, search-engine-friendlier e-commerce website that will rank better and convert better.
