This is a massive list of little SEO for ecommerce tips.
We won’t go into a ton of detail about each. But we hope this list serves as a reminder of some of the ecommerce basics you may have been neglecting.
Depending on your previous experience with ecommerce SEO, you might also find some inspiration for ranking strategies you’ve never considered before.
Regardless, these tips should help any online store drive more traffic over time.
Related: 5 Common E-commerce Issues and Challenges [And How To Overcome Them]
31 Ecommerce SEO Tips
1. Separate your products into categories that fit the way customers browse. If necessary, use subcategories as well.
2. Make your menus and other navigation elements reflect your category system.
3. Make your urls SEO-friendly. Add your primary keyword when possible, and avoid strings of meaningless letters and numbers.
4. Create a url structure that matches your category structure, such as www.sitedomain.com/category/subcategory/product
5. Set up a 301 redirect for products that you have discontinued. Send the traffic to a product or category that is likely to meet the same customer need.
6. Optimize your page load speed in order to reduce bounce rate, which is a negative ranking factor.
7. Optimize your metadescriptions to encourage clicks. CTR is a ranking factor, especially as you compete for the highest positions on the first page.
8. Ensure your title tag contains the keyword you want to rank for, and optimize it to encourage clicks.
9. If your customers are likely to search by exact model numbers (such as for replacement parts), consider putting them in the title tag.
10. Build natural internal links to related products and pages. For anchor text, choose something that exactly or closely matches the primary keyword for the target page.
11. Install an SSL certificate to get your site on HTTPS. This has always been integral to keeping customer information safe, but now it is a definite ranking factor.
12. Ensure your site is responsive to display smoothly on any device. A whopping 40% of consumers say they will go to your competition’s site if they have a bad mobile experience on yours.
13. If you aren’t sure about what you need to be more mobile-friendly, plug your site into Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. Pass the results on to your web developer or hire a skilled freelancer who specializes in ecommerce web development.
14. Add alt-text to your images. Make them relevant to the keywords you want to rank for. But also keep in mind that people with visual impairments will use alt-text to help make purchasing decisions.
15. Add social media share buttons to your product pages and checkout confirmation to earn some free publicity.
16. Design an optimal user experience. Almost every Google algorithm update centers on preferring sites that are giving users exactly what they are looking for.
17. Add a blog and use it to rank for long-tail keywords that target customers earlier in the buyer’s journey.
18. Create blog content in silos relevant to your categories (or subcategories). For example, if you have a “hand bags” category, you might write 10 posts all related to hand bags in some way.
19. Interlink your silos. Send links from blog posts to the relevant category page, to individual products, and even to the other posts in the silo.
20. Publish content to your blog regularly. At least once a week. The more you publish, the more keywords you stand to rank for.
21. If your products would make good gifts, publish gift guides for the holidays or occasions that are most likely to fit with what you are selling.
22. Share your blog content everywhere possible. The more you get it out there, the more likely readers are to share it themselves and earn you valuable backlinks.
23. Write unique product descriptions. Don’t stick with the manufacturer’s descriptions.
24. Write longer product descriptions that are keyword rich. This will give you a leg up on lazier ecommerce stores that aren’t putting in as much effort to rank every page.
25. For every product possible, add a video. This will increase dwell time and also help your customers make more well-informed buying decisions. If they aren’t getting the information they need from you, they will go to your competitors.
26. Find micro-influencers in your industry and ask them to review your products. This could earn you a decent backlink as well as a lot of referral traffic.
27. Add an affiliate program. You’ll soon find that bloggers are writing about your products, building contextual backlinks to your site, and sending targeted traffic your way.
28. Use a tool like Ahrefs to discover the keywords you might not realize you are ranking for. Then optimize your content and linking strategies to boost rankings for low hanging fruit.
29. Check out the backlinks that your competitors have. See what you can do to get the same or similar links.
30. Use parasite SEO for traffic and backlinks. In a nutshell, this involves publishing content on high authority sites like Quora and Medium. Target low competition keywords and rest on the authority of the domain to rank quickly. Be helpful and include a very non-salesly link back to a relevant product page. This boosts your SEO and helps drive referral traffic.
31. Use a tool like Audiit to discover how your on-page SEO compares to your competitors in a matter of seconds. Make the simplest changes first, let the rankings settle, then devote time to the more complicated changes if necessary.
Find Professional Help For Your Ecommerce SEO
Likely, you can implement plenty of our SEO for ecommerce tips on your own.
But some of them can get pretty technical. And others are easy but time intensive.
If you are looking to outsource some or all of your ecommerce SEO, check out this list of services on Legiit from professional freelancers who specialize in search engine optimization for online stores.
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