Ecommerce SEO Guide: In-Depth Coverage [2023]
Why Is SEO Important For eCommerce?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. As the name suggests, it involves optimising your website’s pages for several ranking signals that act as inputs for Google Algorithms, and help improve a site’s visibility in Search Engines.
When done right, SEO can help your eCommerce Business climb up in search engine rankings, driving plenty of organic traffic to your site.
According to a Backlinko study, only 0.63% of searchers clicked on websites from the second page of Google search results. That shows how important it is to put your eCommerce site ahead of the competition by ranking within the top 10 results on the first page of search results.
Search has become the default method to purchase just about anything online. And in today’s hyper-connected world of smart devices, we’re no longer limited by when and where we can search.
If an eCommerce business is not being found online in search engines such as Google and Bing – that’s a threat to their long-term growth and survival. A good way to start with your eCommerce SEO efforts is to follow a simple SEO checklist.
SEO is critical for every eCommerce business – big or small. Unlike Paid Search, you don’t pay out of pocket for every site-visit.
While some small businesses can manage to grow through referral-leads and word-of-mouth marketing (only up to a certain point), E-Commerce Stores do not have that luxury. They require a concerted, strategic Marketing push to thrive and flourish.
With Google being the centre of the internet revolution, SEO is one of the most important components in making that push.
NOTE: For the purpose of this Guide, I will be using the terms “Home Furniture” and “Leather Sofas” to illustrate eCommerce SEO examples.
What Is The Future Of eCommerce And How Does SEO Fit Into The Marketing Strategy?
Globally, eCommerce Shopping has emerged as one of the most popular online activities in recent years.
Based on this Forbes ecommerce Statistics Report from 2023, eCommerce sales worldwide were $6.310 trillion USD($). And the figures are projected to grow to $8.148 trillion USD ($) by 2026. The Ecommerce Market just keeps growing and it is no big surprise!
There are various ways to drive Traffic to your eCommerce Store, Digital Marketing is a major lever in boosting one’s online search presence. And, SEO is one of the most foundational pillars to get right.
Why Should You Invest In SEO When you Can Easily Get To Page 1 of Google With Paid Advertising?
A few reasons:
1. First, unlike Paid Advertising, you don’t pay for every click & site visit that SEO generates. You of course pay someone to do SEO for you but beyond the initial investment, SEO is practically free advertising on Google.
2. Second, the Return on SEO Investment can be huge. Big Brands can afford to burn millions of dollars in Paid Advertising even when they get limited results or low conversions.
Not true for 99% of small ecommerce businesses. SEO, done right, is guaranteed to positively impact your bottomline and help you make more money long term.
3. Based on a survey done by Statista in 2019, 33% of e-commerce sessions were generated through organic search and 32% were generated through paid search.
The difference in sessions might not seem huge. But, think again.
With Paid, you pay for every single click whereas SEO is a cash cow – once it’s set in motion, you reap the returns long-term.
Paid Ads and Organic SEO perfectly complement each other. So, consider layering both strategies rather than only focusing on one.
Is Google The Most Important Search Engine For ecommerce SEO?
Yes, Google is the undisputed leader among Search Engines. As of September 2023, Google had 91.58% search engine market share worldwide.
However, that might change in the near future, based on recent developments in Generative AI and also based on the outcome of the US Vs Google Antitrust trial.
Clearly, most search marketers focus on Google since it’s the biggest. Doing well on Google will bring you the most relevant traffic and eventually more sales.
For now, with its deep pockets and the World’s best possible talent, Google is also the most sophisticated search engine that uses advanced machine learning, natural language processing & AI, to rank pages.
Google Search Engine Alternatives such as Bing, Yahoo, Ecosia (an environment-friendly search engine), DuckDuckGo (search engine that doesn’t track you) may have a minuscule market share. But they could offer untapped opportunities, due to much lower competition.
Finally, for international SEO, it’s important to focus on localised Search Engines for specific markets.
China’s largest search engine is Baidu with nearly 70% market share, and as of this writing, Russia has Yandex with over 64.1% market share.
How Is eCommerce SEO different from SEO for other industries?
SEO is industry-agnostic, meaning the foundational principles stay the same, no matter what the industry & niche. However, the factors that create a difference between ecommerce SEO and SEO for other industries arise because of:
- Level of SEO planning, detailing, and scale of work involved, based on the size of an eCommerce business site. Typically, small to mid-sized E-Commerce sites will have pages between a few hundred to several thousand, making SEO a far more time and resource-intensive activity than it is for smaller websites.
- Specific features such as Faceted Navigation (also called filters), pagination and site architecture add an additional layer of SEO detailing to ecommerce sites.
- SEO Implementation differences are likely to arise due to the Content Management System itself. Popular ecommerce CMSs include WordPress, Wix, Drupal and Shopify.
- Optimising Images. Images are the bread and butter of eCommerce Sites. So, optimising them weighs quite heavily in any eCommerce SEO strategy.
- Structured data is also important for ecommerce. Optimising your site by including relevant structured data will trigger rich-results in search. Here’s an example
6. Finally, the level of competition for a specific eCommerce Site niche determines how easy/hard it may be for the site to improve rankings.
What is involved in eCommerce SEO?
Good Site SEO is built upon 3 foundational Pillars – On-Page SEO, Technical SEO, and Off-Page SEO.
This guide is structured to cover the main components of each pillar.
Section 1: On-Page Ecommerce SEO
Any task that involves working on or improving an ecommerce site’s on-page or internal signals, to improve the site’s chances of ranking higher for relevant keywords, is known as On-Page Optimisation.
The best thing about On-Page SEO is that a business has full control over their own website. So, to a great degree, they can influence the future of their site’s SEO rankings.
On-Page SEO: Keyword Research
Every day, there are roughly 12 Billion Keyword Searches across different Search Engines.
Search and Keywords are intricately tied to each other, and Keywords are nothing but a summation of people’s needs, desires, questions, answers, and more, as they type them into the Search Engines or Online Stores.
Cracking these “short and long-term keyword phrases” as per your industry and niche is the first step in strengthening your SEO armor.
For Ecommerce Businesses, Keywords present a fantastic opportunity to target potential customers at various stages of a Buyer’s Journey.
How To Do Keyword Research For Ecommerce SEO?
An important concept to understand when doing keyword research is Search intent.
Search intent represents the ‘why’ behind a user’s search. Based on the type of search terms used, it’s possible to make a guesstimate of what the searcher is after.
There are 4 types of Search Intent:
- I Want “To Know” – The User is looking to understand a topic better. Example – Best Leather Sofas
- I Want “To Go” – The User wants to get to a specific location or find places nearby . Example – Sofa Showroom Near Me
- I Want “To Do” – The User is looking for guidance in performing a specific task. Example – How To Buy a Leather Sofa
- I Want “To Buy” – The User has a clear intention to buy a product or service. Example – Buy Leather Sofa Online
To find relevant keyword ideas, the first step is to tap into important data that analytics tools are already providing you.
Established Ecommerce Businesses have a wealth of keyword data from tools such as Google Search Console and Bing Analytics. Please leverage this data when formulating your keyword strategy.
New eCommerce businesses will not have historical data to review. So, they need to rely on third party tools.
Some tools that will help automate this task:
If you’re a completely New Ecommerce Business:
Google Auto-Suggest
Google Autosuggest is a great place to start if you’re brand new to SEO, and are looking for an easy and Free way to kick things off.
All you need to do is type in a keyword phrase that you think your target audience searches for. The auto suggest drop down will show you multiple ideas and suggestions related to your search:
This option is fantastic for two reasons:
1. It gives you a bird’s eye view of the type of searches happening for your niche
2. The long tail keywords shown in Google autosuggest are far less competitive to rank for than a lot of short keywords that competitors may go after
You can add search volume to this mix by adding the Keyword Surfer Chrome Extension. It’s a neat little hack for day-to-day keyword research while surfing the web.
Now, you can quickly test keyword ideas, or put together an initial seed keyword list.
Amazon Auto-Suggest
Just like Google Auto-Suggest, you can perform keyword research by using Amazon Auto-Suggest.
Even better, it’s the perfect place to find product-focused keywords. Because 50% of product searches start on Amazon.
Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner is another free tool from Google that you can use to perform keyword research. To use this tool, you need to have a Google Ads account.
With Google Keyword Planner, you can discover new keywords and see the range for average monthly search volume.
If you have an active Google Ads account that’s running campaigns, you will be able to see the exact search volume numbers.
Uber Suggest
A good freemium keyword tool that allows you to tap into limited search engine data for your chosen country. The tool displays the most popular keywords on top, which usually also happen to be the most competitive ones to rank for.
As seen in the screenshot below, On the left are keywords, whereas on the right are the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) and related analytics. Keywords are further classified into various categories including Suggestions, Related Phrases, Questions, and Prepositions – handy and helpful for a Startup eCommerce Business.
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is one of the world’s largest informational sites. With a database of more than 6,651,724 articles, it’s a great resource to mine for keyword ideas for every possible niche.
To start, simply type in your search query into Google and add ‘wikipedia’ at the end.
Example: home furniture Wikipedia
The above example brings up a Wikipedia page for “Furniture”.
A wikipedia page is likely to have a lot of sections. Jump to what’s relevant for your use case. Next, find names and keywords that are specific and relevant for your niche.
Below is an example:
Add keyword phrases for products you sell or plan to sell.
Remember to also check the “See Also” section in Wikipedia, for additional ideas and related topics.
If you’re an Established Ecommerce Business:
Google Search Console
If you’re an eCommerce Store that has been around for some time, and has decent organic traffic ( > 500/day), Google Search Console should be your first stop to play keyword-detective.
Go to your Google Search Console Property. Click the Performance tab, and right above the performance graph, change the date field from the default “Last 3 months” to Last 12 months or more. Next, click on Page, enter your Home Page URL, and hit Apply.
This will show you all the “Queries” that your URL is already showing up for. Don’t be surprised if you see high impressions, but very low clicks for certain keywords. That’s because your site may have URLs that appear in search results for tons of keywords, but these links may never be scrolled into view.
The important thing to remember is that these are keywords that your site is already being indexed for. Export this data into Excel or Google Sheets, and repeat the process for other pages.
Mangools KW Finder
The KWFinder tool by Mangools has a comfortable interface that I’ve found a lot easier to work with (priced at about $30 per month, its also easier on the pocket!).
The data seems just enough to get the work done, and is neatly segmented into Related Keywords, Autocomplete Options, and Questions.
The seasonal trends for every keyword are also easier to spot and understand with the month-wise bar distribution (In the screenshot, see under Trend), versus some other Paid tools.
SE Ranking
SE Ranking is a budget-friendly SEO Intelligence software that offers fantastic value for money.
Using this tool, you can conduct thorough keyword research for your product portfolio. It’s also great for competitor analysis and Link-Building research.
How To Decide The Right Keyword Tool For eCommerce SEO?
There is a wealth of SEO Intelligence tools in the market. Each provider has their own method of pulling keyword search data.
Some use machine-learning algorithms (SEMRush), others use clickstream & Google data (AHREFs), and a few others pull keyword data directly from the Google Keyword Planner API (KWFinder, SERanking).
What’s important to remember is that search terms and search volumes provided by tools are merely indicative of trends. They’re estimates that vary through the year.
The best way to decide the right keyword tool for your business is to try a few before committing to one (99% of market tools offer a free trial version). This will allow you to test their data and interface, and determine what suits you best.
How Much Time Does Ecommerce SEO Keyword Research Take?
Depending on the size of your ecommerce product portfolio, it may take anywhere from 3 hours to 20+ hours of work to perform thorough keyword research.
Keywords are the central pivot around which your entire SEO strategy is focused. So, it’s not a task you want to treat lightly.
On-Page SEO: Header Tags
What are Header tags?
A tag is a small piece of code to gather and organize data on a website. Header Tags are titles and subtitles that should be used to structure and design web pages.
Maximising the value of Header Tags is an important SEO tactic as it helps search algorithms understand the document structure of each page on your website. These Tags also tell search bots how the various text blocks on your web page are connected.
This information is used to rank pages from among an index of billions of pages.
Header tags range from H1 to H6 starting from the most important (h1) to the least important (h6). H1 is popularly referred to as the Title tag and is the most significant of all header tags.
For an E-commerce Store selling hundreds or thousands of products, it’s important to stagger header tags properly on all the categories, products, and blog pages.
In the example below, you can see how this online Furniture Store has staggered header tags across their “Living” Category Page.
Based on keyword research you conducted in an earlier step, map category, sub-category, and product-based keywords to different pages of your website.
Title tag, H1, H2, and Image Alt Tags are the most important tags for eCommerce On-Page SEO.
Add these different tags in a way that accurately represents the content of your page, without over-stuffing keywords.
EXPERT TIP: Put in most of your effort into the Top-level pages namely the Home Page, and Category-Level Pages as they are more likely to rank in Search Engine Results for high-volume, commercial-intent keywords. Then move onto your product pages.
How To Optimise eCommerce Title Tags for seo?
Use Primary Keyword In Title Headings
Make sure to add the primary target keywords in your Page Title Tags. That’s because the Title is what will show up in Google’s Search Results.
Example – If you’re in the Business of selling Home Furniture and have “Leather Sofas” as a Sub-Category, make sure to add the exact term along with any variants in the Page title.