07 May, 2021

E-Commerce SEO – Properly optimize your online store

The real secret to e-commerce success is getting constant visitors to your online store. One of the most effective ways to reach users through e-commerce is SEO.

Ecommerce SEO is an unmissable useful digital marketing strategy to grow your business and get the highest ROI. All the complexities of SEO may seem daunting at first but imagine steady, high-quality traffic. Whether you own a new or existing online store, it is important to learn how to perform SEO e-commerce in these steps that will improve your ranking, traffic, and sales!

What is E-Commerce SEO

SEO is the process of optimizing your website to generate targeted organic traffic by ranking on Google (and other search engines). Ecommerce SEO is a special type of SEO that ensures that your product pages rank at the top of the search results (Google) to attract qualified visitors to your online store. This means that when someone searches for a type of product on Google (suppose men’s basketball shoes), your e-commerce site appears at the top of Google search results.

Why is SEO important for e-commerce?

With E-Commerce SEO, your brand will definitely get more visibility, online shoppers, and, in turn, more customers and sales.

Online research is embedded in modern shopping behavior; 71% of consumers start their shopping journey using a search engine to discover new products and services. Respectively 74% of buyers use a search engine for consideration and purchase (research, comparison, transaction).

High ranking in search results gives you instant visibility and more traffic. 39.34% of traffic and clicks go in the first 3 places in Google. Organic search engine traffic also brings the highest revenue (38%), surpassing all other digital marketing channels. If you invest in SEO in advance, you will get consistent, unquestionable traffic to your online store for years to come.

How to properly do E-Commerce SEO, step by step

Now that you know what SEO e-commerce is and why it matters, we are going to show you how to optimize your online store to get more traffic and sales. The e-commerce SEO process consists of 7 key steps:

Keyword research

Optimize the architecture of your e-commerce site
On-page SEO for product categories and pages
Technical SEO
Content marketing for e-commerce
Building e-commerce links
Measuring e-commerce for your SEO success

Keyword research for e-commerce

It is very clear that keyword research is the cornerstone of every SEO process. You need to find out what search terms or keywords your potential customers are entering into the Google search engine when they want to buy. Then, you will use these keywords to build the rest of your e-commerce SEO strategy.

Identify targeted keywords that have a decent search volume, low to moderate competition, and can drive traffic and sales. These are the keywords you need to enter in product categories and pages. But before you start your keyword research, you need to understand one essential thing.

a) Understand the user’s intention

User intent is the most important thing to consider when conducting keyword research. It is the essential concept that guides you to choose the right keywords that can drive qualified traffic and generate sales. The intention of the user is what the searchers are trying to accomplish as a result of their search. There are 4 main types of useful keywords based on user intent:

Informative Keywords – These keywords often start with “how to …”, “what is …” or contain “… definition” and correspond to the stage of the buyer’s actual jorney.
Navigation (branded) keywords – A good example of a navigation keyword is when someone searches for “Facebook”, “Netflix” or “Amazon” with the intention of visiting a particular website.
Business Keywords – These are keywords that are related to the analysis stage, such as “Best WordPress Developer in Toronto”, “iPhone XS Review”, “WooCommerce vs. Shopify”.
Transactional Keywords – People who want to buy something now use transactional keywords. For example, they might search for “where should I buy dog food online”, “the best flight options”, “Toronto to Vancouver”, “car insurance offers”. Also, product-focused keywords such as “merino wool baby clothes” and specific product names such as “Dell XPS 13.”

Your e-commerce site should be tailored to your product searches. Therefore, the main keywords for your e-commerce SEO should be product-focused phrases that show the intent to buy. Now that you know what type of keywords to target, let’s move on to actual keyword research.

b) Find keywords with Amazon’s suggestion

The best place to start keyword research for e-commerce is on Amazon but it only applies to countries where Amazon has a website, for example, Romania is excluded. Therefore, a lot of people use Amazon to search for products when they want to buy something. This makes it a real treasure trove of keywords with high buyer intent. To find potential targeted keywords, enter something that describes one of your products in the search box. Amazon will come up with autocomplete suggestions related to the product keyword. These are potentially highly targeted keywords that people are actually looking for when they want to buy.

For more keyword ideas, click the “departments” button to see all departments along with their categories. Find the right one for your business and analyze your keyword ideas.

You could even take this a step further and open the relevant department to check product categories and subcategories, along with the appropriate keywords. Now, this type of keyword research can take a long time, especially if you sell hundreds or thousands of products. Fortunately, there is a very useful tool for this.

You can use the Keyword Tool Dominator to automate keyword research using Amazon suggestions. Just enter your product name, category or keyword and save the best keywords in your list. You can also use KTD to search for keywords on eBay, Etsy, Google Shopping search, etc.

c) Perform a competitors analysis

The next step in your e-commerce keyword research is to analyze your competitors to discover keyword opportunities. Scanning your competitors’ websites can help you control successful strategies and find opportunities to overcome them.

USEFUL TIP: Install SEO Quake (Chrome extension) so you can spy on your competition right from your browser. Run a quick SEO audit of the page to be inspired by your competitors keywords, title tags, meta descriptions, header structure, etc. This is a great way to spy on your SEO competition and see some of their ecommerce SEO strategies.

Manual checklist for competitive e-commerce SEO analysis:

Check the look of your competitors
Determine the structure of your competitors’ site (categories, product pages, etc.)
Examine the entire product page
Identify rivals’ keywords by analyzing: URLs, title tags, and meta descriptions; titles (h1, h2, h3, etc.), keyword density report
Investigate the internal and external links of your competitors

d) Use professional SEO tools to find optimal keyword opportunities

Professional SEO tools such as SEMrush and Keyword Planner can automate and extend your entire keyword research process. Using these advanced tools, you can choose the optimal keywords for your e-commerce SEO.

SEMrush

Enter your opponent’s URL in the search box, open the Organic Research report, and navigate to the Positions tab. There you will see all the keywords that your competition is using. Each keyword is accompanied by values such as search volume, traffic, keyword difficulty, CPC (cost-per-click), etc.

Keep in mind that this report will likely contain a lot of brand keywords that aren’t relevant to you. You can easily filter your brand keywords using advanced filters. If you want to go one step further, look at your competitor’s competitors. Repeat the same process as the initial competition analysis to collect even more keyword ideas. Choose relevant keywords and add these keywords to your targeted keyword idealist.

If you are thinking of creating content (blog) to expand your coverage and improve your ranking, run your keyword research using the SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool. Just enter your basic keyword, and SEMrush will come up with an extensive list of keyword suggestions.

More so you can easily use this research method to come up with relevant blog topics that your potential customers might be interested in. There are many other excellent SEO tools, such as Ahrefs and Moz. We recommend that you choose the option that suits your needs and budget.

Keyword Planner

The other essential keyword research tool we recommend is Google Keyword Planner. The keyword planner is originally designed for Google Ads keyword research but is also useful for SEO.

Even if it’s intended for PPC campaigns, you can use Google’s keyword planner to measure accurate search volume as well as user intent. These values will help you choose the optimal keywords for your e-commerce SEO.

For any extra questions on this topic, feel free to write to us in the comments or confidently access the SEO optimization services page to discover the many ways we can help you optimize your online store.

Tags: digital marketing strategy

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