07 May, 2021

E-commerce technical SEO

Technical SEO aims to provide an excellent user experience, fast performance, and ensure that Google can crawl and index your site. All websites benefit from technical SEO, but this is especially true when it comes to e-commerce. This is because e-commerce sites do not receive as many backlinks, so technical SEO serves more often as a tiebreaker. E-commerce sites also have a large number of pages, which increases the chances of technical problems. Let’s focus on technical SEO.

Increase your site speed

The speed of your site plays a huge role in SEO. A fast website is one of the main contributors to excellent UX. Google loves excellent UX, which is why it uses site speed as a major ranking factor. It is estimated that 47% of general consumers expect a page to load in 2 seconds or less. Amazon also found that a 1-second delay costs it up to $ 16 billion a year.

First of all, you need to realize the current speed of the site. You can use your own Google PageSpeed Insights data to get a solid overview of your speed performance. PageSpeed Insights will evaluate your overall speed performance on your desktop and mobile devices. If you want to get a thorough diagnosis, we recommend using GTmetrix to analyze the speed of your e-commerce site.

Inspect the speed report for any issues and fix anything that could slow down the site. Some common reasons for the slow loading of e-commerce pages are:

Large image size
Slow hosting and servers
Bloated HTML, JavaScript, and CSS
Redirect issues

Typical speed optimization includes:

Reduce HTTP requests
Use the browser cache
Reduce server response time
Use a content delivery network (CDN)
Enable Gzip compression
Optimize images
Limit crawlers.

Make your site mobile friendly

In 2018, Google announced its first mobile indexing. This means that the ranking of your e-commerce site will depend on your mobile performance. And it makes sense, given that over 52% of all internet traffic goes through mobile devices. It is also extremely important from a business perspective. Over 50% of people will not consider purchasing from a company that has a poorly optimized mobile site.

Therefore, you need to make sure that your site is 100% compatible with mobile devices. Also consider installing the WP Touch plugin, which automatically adds a simple, responsive theme for mobile visitors to your WooCommerce store. Use the Google Mobile-Friendly test to inspect the mobile availability of your e-commerce store. You can also check your mobile usage report in the Google Search Console.

Include breadcrumbs

The so-called breadcrumbs are those small text paths often located at the top of a page. They show users where they are on your e-commerce site. They also allow visitors to easily go back and forth by clicking on links in the Breadcrumb navigation.

Google also loves breadcrumbs because it helps you find out how your website is structured. Breadcrumb can also appear in search results. More so, you can easily add breadcrumbs to your WooCommerce site using Yoast SEO.

Make sure you have a very secure HTTPS connection

Having a secure connection (HTTPS) is a priority for your e-commerce site. It is important for SEO, the security of your site, as well as for increasing trust and credibility.

HTTPS means that your site uses SSL encryption to secure the connection between your site and visitors’ browsers. This means that all data that passes is encrypted and private, preventing hackers from stealing information such as passwords and credit card details.

Google takes security seriously, which is why in 2014 they started using it as an important SEO ranking factor. Having a secure connection is essential for your e-commerce site, as shoppers use confidential information (personal information, credit card details, etc.) to make a purchase from your online store. Make sure your hosting provider can equip your e-commerce site with 128-bit SSL encryption for maximum security.

Perform a complete SEO audit

Ecommerce sites are particularly prone to technical SEO issues. With so many pages, certain technical problems are almost inevitable. These issues can cause all sorts of problems, from poor performance and UX to indexing issues. Either way, technical issues can affect your SEO and rankings. Let’s look at some of the most common SEO technical issues.

Duplicate content

Duplicate content is one of the most common e-commerce SEO issues with devastating consequences for your rankings. Google could completely deindex pages that contain duplicate content. Duplicate content can occur in several varieties, such as:

Duplicate title tags
Duplicate meta descriptions
Description of the duplicate product
Product variations (size, color, etc.) can cause duplicates

USEFUL TIP: You can check the site for duplicate content issues using the SEMrush site audit tool.

Be sure to fix any duplicate content issues you encounter:

Add canonical links to all duplicate pages
Add HTML links from all the duplicate pages to the canonical page
Redirect pages similar to the canonical URL

Redirect issues

Redirection is very useful, especially when adding, removing, or modifying pages. A common redirect issue is a redirect chain when one URL redirects to another that redirects to another, which redirects to another … Redirecting chains can cause serious problems, such as:

Slow performance
Indexing issues (Google may refuse to index pages with too many redirects)

USEFUL TIP: Use Screaming Frog to identify redirect chains and other related issues.

Orphaned pages

Orphaned pages are pages without links that point to them. This means that no one can access them, especially Googlebot, which relies on internal links to navigate the structure of your site. For Google, orphaned content is invisible, which means that those pages will not be crawled. or indexed. You can easily find orphaned content using Screaming Frog. If you use Yoast SEO Premium, you can find these pages in the WooCommerce dashboard. If you find orphaned pages, be sure to indicate some relevant internal links so that Google and your visitors can find them.

Non-functional links

Non-functional links are bad for SEO because they dilute your authority on the page. Google also penalizes sites with consistently high 404 errors because they are less reliable for search engines.

Non-functional links are also detrimental to your user experience and can affect your conversion rates. However, non-functional links are not uncommon on e-commerce sites, as it is difficult to manage all their pages and links. Find non-functional links on your ecommerce site using Dr Link Checker. If you find broken links on your site, be sure to fix the problem:

Replace non-functional links with functional links
Remove links if they are no longer useful
Add a 301 redirect if your page has a lot of valuable backlinks

Missing tags

Various tags play different roles in SEO. These include:

Meta tags (title tags and meta descriptions)
Canonical labels
Header labels
Other labels etc.

Some of these could cause serious problems, such as missing canonical labels. The absence of canonical labels may lead to duplication of the aforementioned content.

Submit the e-commerce site to Google for indexing

Once you’ve optimized your pages around your targeted keywords and fixed any errors, it’s time to submit your site to Google for indexing. First, you need to verify your site ownership using the Google Search Console. Create a new property, then check your e-commerce site using your preferred method.

The next thing you need to do is create a sitemap to help Google identify all the pages on your site. You can also create a free sitemap using Yoast SEO. Copy the URL of the sitemap, which you can send to the Google Search Console. Google will now be able to find your pages more easily and you will have access to various useful reports that can help you improve your SEO.

USEFUL TIP: Whenever you publish a new page, go to Google Search Console and request indexing manually so that your pages appear faster in search results.

Generally, people use Google to get answers, find out new information, solve a problem, etc. Without content marketing, you leave a lot of potential traffic and customers on the table. Quality content can also increase the authority of your site. And with a strategic internal link, you can increase the authority and ranking of your pages.

When we say content in this regard, we mean blog posts, infographics, free tools, etc. But how to create content ?! What topics to address ?! The short answer – do keyword research to find out what topics people are looking for. Use informative keywords such as “procedures”, “product reviews”, “tutorials”, “comparisons”, etc. Whatever topic you decide to cover, make sure you create outstanding content around that keyword. The idea is that the better the content you provide, the higher your rankings will be. Plus, make sure you do on-page SEO for that keyword.

With a good content marketing strategy, your e-commerce can rank for more keywords, leading to more targeted traffic. High-quality blog posts will also be able to gain more backlinks and increase the domain authority of the entire e-commerce site.

USEFUL TIP: Optimize your blog posts to capture leads. Even if people are not yet ready to buy, you can still get their contact information to “warm-up” for a purchase.

Build e-commerce backlinks

One of the strongest SEO factors is the authority of your site which is measured by the number of external backlinks. For your e-commerce SEO to be truly successful, you need to get backlinks and increase your site’s authority. Links can increase your authority, as well as generate more organic traffic.

Backlinks can also promote your products and drive direct sales. Of course, some backlinks will come on their own (organic). Other website owners, bloggers, etc. might appreciate your products so much that they mention and connect with you in their content.

Run bids and contests

Offers and contests are a great way to capitalize on social media to create new connections. People always love free stuff, so this tactic definitely works like a charm. Create a contest, offer, or gift that people need to sign up for and share a link on their social media accounts to enter. You can also ask your users to sign up with their email, which you can later use for marketing.

Collaborate with influential bloggers

This link-building tactic is pretty simple, send product samples to bloggers to review. Offering free samples of products to bloggers in your niche is a great way to ensure coverage and drive traffic, engagement, and links to your e-commerce site. You can take this a step further and provide an affiliate link. That way, you don’t gain links, but promote your products to a wide audience and generate direct sales.

Use video marketing

Videos are very addictive content, which is growing in popularity every year. Video content helps bring your brand product to life. You can even use funny videos that can be real backlink magnets. For example, if you run an e-commerce store for home appliances, you can create videos with product reviews. You can also create tips and video tricks such as “XX Tips for Cleaning Stainless Steel Appliances”. You can expand your coverage by sharing videos on YouTube and adding content to your blog. More so, you can even embed videos on your product page.

Get links from e-commerce partnerships

This is an e-commerce link-building tactic that does not allow you to get instant backlinks from relevant websites. Collaborate with other retailers in your industry that are not your direct competition. For example, these could be stores that sell complementary products. You can also get links from your suppliers, organizations you sponsor, the agencies that carry out your marketing activity, etc. By partnering with them you can promote each other. It’s a win-win for both sides.

Bonus: Local SEO E-Commerce

If you run a local brick store for example and an online store, you need local e-commerce SEO. SEO is definitely becoming more and more important for local businesses. Local searches, such as “shopping near me,” have grown by more than 200 percent in the past two years.

The SEO steps described so far still apply however, you will have to take a few extra steps to optimize your e-commerce for local searches.

Claim and properly optimize your personal Google My Business page
Google My Business is a tool for local businesses to help you add your store to Google Maps. Google relies on GMB data to be accurate, as it can verify all information and content posted there. Claim your company on GMB by entering the exact company name. Make sure you enter complete and accurate information about your business (this is very important).
Choose the right category
Enter the full address
Send your phone number
Leave a link to your e-commerce site
Fill in the opening program and other details

After optimizing your page, check your GMB record. There are several ways to do this, but the fastest is checking through the Google Search Console.

Build local mentions/citations

Citations have the same purpose as backlinks – check if your business is credible, increase your authority, and, in turn, boost your SEO. Citations and/or relevant links in relevant local directories, listings, etc. For example, an example might be Yelp!

The key factor in building citations is the consistency of the NAP. NAP means name, address, and telephone number. It is very important that the NAP remains consistent in all citations. Unlike link building, citation building is a relatively simple process; just head over to your local business directories and add your website and NAP.

USEFUL TIP: Instead of having to manually find each local business directory, you can use a tool like Whitespark. The other option is to hire an SEO agency to build and manage local citations for you.

Get more reviews

Reviews are a major SEO signal that Google uses to rank in searches. Reviews are a kind of social proof that your e-commerce, products, and services are legitimate and reliable.

The reviews are also excellent for potential customers. 73% of consumers have more confidence in a local business with positive reviews. A very good way to get more reviews for your store is to ask both new and existing customers to leave a written review on your Google listing. You should encourage customers to leave a review on sites like Yelp and other directories that showcase your e-commerce site. One of the best ways to encourage more users to leave reviews is to respond to already existing comments and reviews.

Implement the local scheme

Finally, implement local schema markup to improve your local ranking and improve your search results. The schema (structured data) helps search engines understand and index your content. It also helps you get some rich snippets with ratings, price, and availability. The schema also helps you to search for the voice of your business through Amazon Echo, Google Home, Siri, etc.

Did you know that 58% of consumers used voice searches to find local business information in the last 12 months? Thus we recommend you use Structured Data Markup Helper to create a local business schema for your e-commerce site.

Measure the SEO success of your e-commerce site

The last step in your e-commerce SEO process is to measure your results. It is important to evaluate your SEO success to see what works, what needs to be improved, and how much organic traffic you can get. Use Google Analytics to measure all the performance of your website. Check your Google Analytics purchase report to monitor your organic search performance. Analyze other values to check your SEO performance in e-commerce, such as:

Organic traffic growth
Conversion rates
Rejection rate
User involvement
Monitor keywords that bring search traffic, and so on

USEFUL TIP: You can use professional SEO tools like SEMrush and Ahrefs to get a detailed analysis of your SEO efforts. Use SEO performance analysis to make data-driven decisions. Check your analysis frequently and make any necessary adjustments.

Conclusion

SEO is definitely the best way to get reliable, targeted, and free traffic to your e-commerce site. E-commerce SEO may seem like a huge effort, but if you think about all the benefits, you realize that it is definitely worth it.

A solid SEO e-commerce campaign can generate hundreds of additional sales. And because it is a reliable source of traffic and customers, you can grow your business quickly and easily. If you have further questions about SEO or digital marketing, the Web Push team is always open to help our wonderful readers. The SEO, online marketing and SEM optimization services we are proud of are at your disposal.

Tags: E-Commerce, Technical SEO

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