During the past few years, Google has been diligently updating their algorithms to improve their ranking system. This is the reason why it is essential to keep up with Google’s changes. Their updates have changed the way results appear on Search. If you want your website to perform well, it is imperative that you do your best practices and amp up your SEO game.
Unlike regular websites, eCommerce stores have a couple of webpages that need to be optimized. Take into consideration on-page SEO when you build your website. A well-designed site results in better user experience and will increase your sales. Follow this on-page SEO guide to improve your site:
Two On-page SEO Factors
If you have a well-designed on-page eCommerce SEO, your ranking will not only be improved in search engines, this will also be a great influence on your brand presence.
1. User Perspective
How users view your website is a defining factor in the whole shopping experience. There are some end-user factors you should look into when designing your shop:
Interface – Some important elements to think about include navigation, page loading speed, readability features and mobile display.
Content – Your content should be valuable, fresh and informative. Having great content on your site not only draws in consumers, it also effectively creates repeat customers.
Value – Everything should tie in smoothly. Your headline and descriptions need to be relevant to your whole context.
2. Search Engine Bots
Search engines prefer a well-optimized page. This is how their bots determine your page rank and domain authority.
Bot Friendly – The data published on your website needs to be well-optimized for search engine bots. When your page is bot-friendly, their bots can easily crawl and search your content. If your data is scattered, the bots might recognize your page as unreadable.
Mobile Friendly – Search engines highly value pages that are optimized for mobile users. Aside from having a desktop version of your shop, you should also design a mobile-friendly version.
Metadata – Ensure that your titles, meta descriptions and URLS are in sync. A well-optimized page should have all factors working together and in accordance to your content.
With these important factors in mind, we can now move on to more details about what store owners can do to upgrade their own on-page SEO.
Keyword Research
Every online shop has a niche category that they focus on, or a key product. This is the ‘head keyword’, where all other products and services revolve on. One of the first steps to do is perform a detailed keyword research before putting up your shop. In your research, do keyword mapping to come up with a set of keywords for your pages, categories and products.
If you do this properly, you will be able to avoid keyword cannibalization, therefore giving you a better chance to get a higher ranking. When you perform keyword research, the head keywords, long tail keywords and LSI keywords will be covered. Additionally, this will provide mapping that you can use to improve your content.
Header Tags
Keyword research also plays a vital role in assigning appropriate header tags. To increase your ranking, it is advisable to always use the head keyword in all your tags. It is important to set up the proper tags – title tags, H1, H2, description tags and image ALT tags using the main keyword on your pages, including your product pages.
According to a study, short and concise URLs perform better in SERPs. One of the Google’s spokesperson stated that Google will place value only up till five words in the URL. So keep it simple and short!
Page Content
Google prefers long-form content more than shorter blogs. Usually, articles that are 1,000 + words are ranked higher in search results. If you have an eCommerce website, this might be a bit more challenging but there are still ways you can do to reach your word count. For example, aside from your product descriptions, you can also add various tabs that detail usage, benefits, bran information, reviews and more. Proper optimization requires that the head keyword should be carefully spread out in the content for about 3-5 times.
Links
Another essential to keep in mind is internal links that direct to other primary pages within your website. When you have abundant internal links, search crawlers will be able to visit your other pages easier. Make sure to link only to pages that are relevant to your content.
Overall, on-page SEO is a key factor in improving the overall performance of your eCommerce store. Investing in these little steps, while it may seem tedious, can reward you with amazing results.
