If you run an online store but aren’t seeing the number of sales you'd like, then it may be because people simply aren’t finding your website on Google. Declining or plateauing sales can often be a result of little or no ongoing visits (poor SEO) which is a similar problem for SaaS companies.
Gaining traction with eCommerce SEO starts with proper auditing of your site to uncover the best strategies so you can climb the Google search rankings. This will help guide more users to your store and away from your competitors.
There are many ways to boost your SEO and skyrocket traffic and conversion rates. You need to implement a complex mix of optimization efforts (and not just keywords). This is a long-term mission, and in order to get the highest and fastest growth, it requires consistent hard work fueled by sound strategy and prioritization. To help get you started, here are seven of the best ways to boost your eCommerce SEO rankings and traffic.
When you play your SEO cards right, you will generate a flywheel of leads and sales…so let’s get started.
SEO Content Audit: Quick Wins/Striking Distance Keywords
In the beginning, it’s a good idea to prioritize quick wins.
That means optimizing for keywords that are within striking distance of the top spot (bottom of page 1 or somewhere on page 2-3 of Google). This is where you are close to more traffic but currently coming up short.
Start by doing a content audit of your entire eCommerce website and checking which keywords you are close to the top 3 spots (where 60-70% of clicks happen). If there are any already in the top 3 positions, then you can leave these (for now) and move on to the next ones. The keywords that are currently ranking in positions 4-30 on the search engine results page (SERP) are your striking distance keywords.
In many cases, a few little tweaks to these pages can help them move up several spots on Google. This will help you see results within a few months. If you were to focus on moving a page from position 45 to position 30, then this will hardly make a difference to site traffic and store sales. That’s because most people aren’t scrolling that far down on Google. However, moving a page from position 8 to position 4 will lead to a direct increase in both ranking and traffic.
While the first result of Google receives ~30% of the total clicks, positions two and three receive ~15% and ~11% respectively. In some cases moving from the top of page 2 to the bottom of page 1 still yields clicks so the effort is worth doing. This shows the dramatic increase in traffic that comes from focusing on your striking distance keywords.
After this, you can move on to your poorer-performing pages but start by raking in those quick wins.
Competitor Research (Direct + Indirect)
Your eCommerce store doesn’t exist in a vacuum and neither should your SEO. It’s important to research your competitors and use this to dictate your own SEO strategy. Think about both direct and indirect competitor research.
Your direct competitors are those who sell the same products like you to the same kind of people. For instance, if you sell formal shoes for women, then you may be targeting working women with a certain level of education. Another company selling footwear to a similar demographic would be your direct competitor.
Indirect competitors are those who aren’t selling a competitor product but rather talk about similar topics (news sites, industry publications, etc.). It’s a good idea to look at these too since you can get content topic ideas that your customers are interested in.
The benefits of competitor research are twofold.
First, you can see what your competitors are doing right and emulate their strategies to see similar rates of success.
Second, you can identify where they’re not investing enough time and money, leaving a gap that you can fill. If you’re able to exploit this weak spot, then you’ll see a rapid increase in traffic and conversion rates.
Site Organization Recommendations
The next way to increase your eCommerce SEO score is by working on onsite organization. This is important for two reasons: it creates a better user experience (which is increasingly important to SEO) and it helps Google’s bots to crawl your site more easily.
The latter benefit will help search engines to categorize your website and work out its relevance to customers. This helps the bot figure out what you sell so that it can rank your store highly when potential customers search for a product or article.
Improving user experience is also crucial because it keeps visitors on your site for longer and decreases bounce rate. Both of these things will improve your eCommerce SEO score. In order to improve your site organization, you need to focus on 4 key areas.
Main and footer menus help users quickly find the products they’re looking for
Internal linking helps both users and bots understand how pages on your site relate to each other.
Don’t forget your XML sitemap which tells Google’s crawlers how your site is structured
URL directories also help Google’s bots to understand the site structure
Product Page Keyword Research
The most important pages on your eCommerce website are the product pages. This is where you want your customers to end up and are, therefore, the pages that need to rank the highest on Google.
If you sell running shoes, then your ultimate aim should be to rank first for a “keyword + running shoe” Google search (like “color” or “size”). This requires doing as much product page keyword research as possible and optimizing these pages using those keywords.
Many eCommerce stores will have a blog as a way to increase the amount of content on the site and, therefore, increase traffic to your website. The same is true in these cases, focusing on product keyword research.
A blog post about foot health could lead them to understand how to buy the right shoes. If this ranks highly on the SERP, is shared widely on social media, and is linked to other authoritative sites, then it’ll get a lot of Google love. Then, you just need to add a call-to-action and a few links to your products.
Technical SEO Site Audit
No matter how good your keyword SEO research is, you won’t rank highly if your website is full of bugs, errors, duplicate pages, and broken links. You need to complete a regular and thorough check of your eCommerce store to ensure that everything is working correctly. To do this, carry out an eCommerce SEO site audit.
Think of this as a check-up on your site’s health, with many of these technical items living behind the scenes. Even if users can’t see them, you can bet Google does.
Some of these issues do affect the user experience. For example, if a customer isn’t able to find and purchase the product they want right away, then they’ll quickly abandon your store and look elsewhere.
A broken “buy now” button is not only frustrating for a shopper but also brings down the legitimacy rating of your site in the eyes of the consumer. Internet users are particularly careful with their money online and if a site seems broken in any way, they won’t want to put in their credit card details.
Complete a site audit to maintain the reputation of your store (in the eyes of Google) and increase conversions.
Article Keyword Research + Editorial Calendar
The product pages of an online store are obviously important. These are the endpoints on the buyer’s journey and when the final decision of whether to make a purchase is made. However, you have to guide a user there in the first place.
To do this, think about writing high-quality, informative, in-depth, and SEO-optimized articles. These tend to rank highly on search engines, are shared widely on social media, and can convince users to click through to one of your product pages.
To ensure you’re consistently putting out high-quality content, be sure to conduct article keyword research and create an editorial calendar. The first stage of this process lets you know which keywords to target and, therefore, dictates the topic of an article.
The second stage allows you to put out and promote articles consistently. Search engines like a website that’s regularly adding new high-quality content because it shows you’re a serious site and not a spammer.
Users also like regularity and may become followers of a weekly blog post. Without a content calendar, though, your articles will be sporadic and disjointed.
“Quality” Backlink Outreach Strategy
On-site SEO is crucial and has been covered in detail above. However, your site is only as authoritative as the sites that link to it. If no one is linking to your eCommerce store, then it will be difficult to rank highly in the search engines. That’s why you should consider outsourcing your backlinking strategy to start working on getting as many quality links as possible.
Links are obviously a great thing for an online store. Users often flock to review and advice blogs, which can then make recommendations to buy your product and link directly to your product pages. However, it benefits you beyond this by improving your eCommerce SEO score and ensuring that your pages are regularly featured on the SERP.
Final Thoughts on Boosting Your eCommerce SEO
Using the seven tips above, you can take control of your eCommerce SEO strategy. Once you’ve implemented all of them effectively, you’ll no doubt see an increase in traffic and, hopefully, conversion rates.
Of course, the quality and value proposition of your products as well as email opt-ins are also crucial factors in the success of your business. So don’t forget about optimizing those as well. Your products and related articles deserve to be ranking higher and generating SEO traffic so don’t delay with implementing these strategies.
