To achieve success in e-commerce, it is crucial for your target audience to easily DISCOVER your online presence with SEO. Once they have FOUND you, it becomes essential for them to promptly locate the items they desire, and then proceed through a smooth and swift checkout process. Moreover, it’s imperative to ensure that all these aspects function seamlessly on a mobile device.
How to Optimize a Website
Conducting SEO for e-commerce websites demands vigilant monitoring of numerous factors. E-commerce sites, given their scale, are susceptible to generating errors and encountering issues within search console and other analytics tools.
Consequently, the site’s overall health and functionality rely heavily on your ability to effectively address indexing concerns. However, the efforts don’t end there, as proper maintenance alone is insufficient to drive conversions. Additional strategies are necessary to boost conversion rates.
1. Identify and Fix Crawl Errors
A crawl error refers to a situation where a search engine attempts to access a page on your website but encounters difficulties in doing so, resulting in an unsuccessful retrieval of the page.
Most websites encounter this problem, but e-commerce websites often experience a greater number of crawl errors. A crawl error occurs when Googlebot attempts to retrieve a URL but cannot read its contents successfully. This can negatively impact your site’s indexing, leading to resource inefficiencies and revenue loss.
The crawl error section is divided into two parts:
- Site Errors: These affect the entire website and highlight issues that have a widespread impact on multiple pages.
- URL Errors: This section provides specific information about individual URLs that are causing indexation problems. These errors pertain to particular pages rather than affecting the entire website.
Swiftly addressing these crawl errors is crucial to ensure optimal website performance and prevent potential revenue and visibility setbacks in search engine results.
2. Improve Site Speed
Site speed shows how quickly users are able to see and interact with content
Ideally, your site should load as quickly as possible, and a threshold of 2 seconds is generally recommended.
To enhance your site speed, consider implementing the following tips:
- Enable GZip Compression: Utilize GZip to compress HTML files, reducing their size and improving loading times.
- Utilize Page Speed Insights: Employ tools like Page Speed Insights to receive valuable suggestions and enhance your site’s speed.
- Implement AMP Pages: Create Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) for faster-loading versions of your regular HTML, offering a better user experience, particularly on mobile devices.
- Reduce Redirects and Leverage Browser Caching: Minimize redirects and take advantage of browser caching to store resources locally, thereby reducing load times for returning visitors.
- Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN): Distribute your server load using a CDN to process requests faster by delivering content from a server nearest to the user.
- Minimize HTTP Requests and Defer JavaScript Loading: Reduce the number of HTTP requests made by your website and consider deferring non-essential JavaScript loading until after the page has loaded.
3. Use Amazon Keyword Tool To Find Product Focussed Keywords
Here’s a surprisingly simple yet effective hack that many people overlook, and it’s not limited to just e-commerce SEO but can benefit all aspects of your business:
Rather than solely relying on Google Keyword Planner, which provides more general keywords, try using the Amazon Keyword Tool. This tool specializes in identifying product-based keywords that have a higher likelihood of leading to conversions. By leveraging this approach, you can uncover valuable keywords that can significantly impact the success of your business.
4. Create Interactive Product Pages
Crafting engaging and interactive product pages that offer users various options to take action and actively participate, ultimately enticing them to make a purchase.
Interactive product pages offer dynamic and engaging experiences, enticing users to interact actively. They feature 360-degree visuals, user reviews, and seamless navigation to persuade customers to make a purchase. This approach fosters customer loyalty and drives sales on e-commerce platforms.
5. Optimize Your Crawl Budget
“A crawl budget refers to the quantity of pages Google crawls on your website within a day. Although this figure may fluctuate slightly, it remains relatively consistent. The crawl budget is primarily determined by the size of your site, its overall health (including encountered errors), and the number of inbound links to your website.”
The credibility of your site improves as Google indexes more quality pages. However, it’s not just about the quantity of these pages; equally important is how frequently you update and add fresh content. A healthy and reputable site is characterized by speed, freshness, regular content updates, and increased user engagement through sharing with others.
The crawl budget is influenced by the site’s popularity and freshness, resulting in faster crawling for more popular pages compared to less popular ones.
Another indicator of popularity is the number of backlinks pointing to your site. Backlinks occur when other websites mention or reference your site in their content. These backlinks serve as referrals, and the more you receive from high authority websites, the higher your site will rank in Google’s search results.
Backlinks
Imagine backlinks as digital referrals, just like when someone recommends a great movie to you. When many people link to a specific website, Google pays attention. But when respected or famous people link to that site, Google pays even more attention. It’s a bit like the Oprah Effect – if a highly credible source like CNN recommends something, Google thinks, “Wow, if CNN finds it important, it must be really important!”
6. Offer a Solution and Mention Your USP In The Title
Websites matching a user’s search intent are more likely to attract clicks. To boost the chances of visitors making a purchase, it’s essential to include your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) in the title. This helps people quickly decide to buy from your store.
For instance, when searching for Adidas shoes online, users are likely to click on the first option, as it highlights their USP of offering the best price guarantee. On the other hand, the other two page titles lack appeal and might not convince users to click, unless it’s a renowned brand like Amazon.
7. Add Proper Schema Markup
By implementing Schema markups, your e-commerce site gains a unique appearance in search results, providing additional information that simplifies comparisons and encourages users to select your site over competitors. Utilizing proper rich snippets can significantly increase click-through rates (CTRs) and ultimately drive more revenue for your business.
Below are the suggested snippets that you should incorporate into your website:
- Product – The product schema markup lets you display the features of the product like it’s color, brand, logo or the condition of the product in the search listings.
- Ratings and Reviews – This search snippet lets you display the product ratings and reviews directly in the search results. Here is an example of how it looks.
- Availability: you can showcase the status of the item, whether it’s in-stock, out of stock, or available for pre-order. This information helps users make informed decisions and improves their shopping experience.
- Image and videos : By incorporating relevant product images and videos within the item description in search results, you can achieve a higher click-through rate (CTR) and increased conversions. An excellent example of this implementation can be observed in how Zappos uses schema to display product videos in their search results. This visually engaging approach helps potential customers make well-informed decisions and enhances their overall shopping experience.
- Limited time offers: With the offer schema, you can showcase limited-time offers alongside your products, enticing people to click on your listing and make a purchase. A great example of this strategy can be seen in how Offers.com presents irresistible offers in the search results, driving more traffic and increasing conversions for their website.
In conclusion
Optimizing SEO for an e-commerce site requires considerable effort. Every aspect, from ensuring smooth navigation to maintaining a higher crawl rate, plays a crucial role in enhancing user-friendliness and visibility. By applying these tips, you can promptly optimize your SEO, making it easier for potential customers to find your site and complete their purchases seamlessly.