SEO for Ecommerce Product Pages | A Comprehensive Guide

Source: Freepik

Search engine optimisation is the art of improving your site, content and user experience to match the high standards of search engines and gain high positions in related searches. Since a large share of business discoveries now occur on the web, SEO has become the cornerstone to success and growth in pretty much every business field, including ecommerce. 

With its help, brands can boost trust and engagement, gain lots of organic traffic, and, eventually, ensure more sales. But how do you use this opportunity to promote and sell your ecommerce product?

In this article, we’ll share with you the ultimate guide to SEO for ecommerce product pages to help you get on the right track!

Contents

• 1. Target the Right Search Queries and Conduct Keyword Competitor Research
• 2. Boost Clicks Through Titles and Meta Descriptions
• 3. Encourage Visitors to Take Action Through Effective SEO Product Description
• 4. Engage Consumers With Impeccable Visuals
• 5. Help Search Engines Rank Your Site Better With Schema Markup
• 6. Optimise URL Structure for Seamless Navigation
• 7. Embrace Mobile Friendliness
• 8. Boost Loading Speed for User Experience
• 9. Grow Trust and Boost Rankings With the Help of User Reviews
• 10. Create an Effective Network of Internal Links
• 11. Boost Your Product SEO Outcomes Through Performance Analytics

1. Target the Right Search Queries and Conduct Keyword Competitor Research

In order to get to product content optimisation, you need to conduct in-depth research first to identify winning keywords to target in your strategy. Keywords are the search terms users insert in the search bar to find the content and goods they need. By integrating them into your content, you can improve rankings and get in front of your potential buyers.

To find the right keywords for SEO products page, follow these steps:

• Identify your target audiences and collect thorough data about who they are, what interests them, and what pain points they help.
• Leverage all available mediums to explore search queries related to your business. Look for queries using specialised research tools like Keyword Planner in Google Ads or similar. Also, evaluate the results in different result page features in Google, such as “People also search for,” and “People also ask,” to explore popular related queries. You can also find more ideas with the help of Google Autocomplete.
• Assess popular queries by relevance, search volume, and competition to target the best ones. Aim for low-competition and high-medium volume for better ranking chances. Pick short-tail, long-tail, and LSI keywords to make your strategy more thorough.
• Conduct keyword competitor research to gain a competitive advantage. Pick a reliable search engine optimisation solution to make research simple. For example, Website Traffic Checker by NinjaReports can help you not only check website traffic and acquire valuable insights into your site’s performance but also analyse your competitors’ traffic and define which keywords are driving it.

2. Boost Clicks Through Titles and Meta Descriptions

Titles and meta descriptions are the tags displayed in search engine result pages (SERPs). They greatly affect whether users want to click on a particular link or not, which is why optimising them wisely is pivotal for your SEO for ecommerce products.

These HTML tags give you an extra opportunity to improve your rankings by integrating keywords and helping search engines understand your pages better. To make the most out of it, you need to follow these key rules:

• Target your pages’ primary keywords in titles and descriptions;
• Create titles that are under 60 characters long and descriptions under 155 characters to avoid truncation and;
• Integrate action verbs like “discover,” “learn,” “get,” and others to enhance impact;
• Make a call to action.

Most importantly, while crafting every SEO product description and title, avoid keyword stuffing and unnatural formulations. Make them look engaging and intriguing for users to maximise clicks and traffic.

Source: Freepik

3. Encourage Visitors to Take Action Through Effective SEO Product Description

Enhancing your descriptions is an integral element of your ecommerce content optimisation because product descriptions are what can make visitors make a purchase or leave your site.

Here’s how to make the most out of your product descriptions:

• Understand your buyer personas. The key to success is knowing what your potential buyers crave and cater to their needs. To do this, you need to create dedicated buyer personas and keep them in mind when crafting your descriptions.
• Speak the language of buyer benefits. When describing the functionality and characteristics of your products, demonstrate them through specific benefits customers can gain from them.
• Select target keywords for every description. Ideally, pick only one main query and a few additional ones and place them organically in your copy, avoiding stuffing.
• Craft unique descriptions. Duplicate or even similar descriptions look bad both for search engines and your prospects. Thus, it’s important to keep your copy unique for every page.
• Make a call to action. Complete your product content optimisation with noticeable, clear, engaging, and clickable CTAs to let users interact with your products with ease. First of all, you need to create primary CTAs like “Add to Cart” or “Buy Now.” Additionally, you may want to include secondary CTAs like “Add to Favorites,” “Save to Wishlist,” etc.

4. Engage Consumers With Impeccable Visuals

On the Internet, consumers get impressions of a brand pretty fast. It takes them half a second to form their first impression on your site and 95% of it is made of what they see. That is, impeccable visuals are among the key ingredients of a successful ecommerce website. By enhancing your SEO for ecommerce products with the help of high-quality visuals, you can attain the following goals:

• Create positive user experiences;
• Improve your content’s shareability;
• Boost dwell time;
• Optimise loading speed;
• Earn more backlinks;
• Entice visitors to make a purchase.

Here’s what you can do to ensure that your product pages feature excellent visuals:

• Use high-resolution visuals without pixelation;
• Ensure the optimal format and size of photos and videos so that they don’t hinder your site’s loading speed;
• Provide multiple photos of the same item to showcase it in different settings and angles;
• If there are variations in your item (e.g., it’s available in different colours) provide clear and appealing photos for different variants.
• Use appealing videos to give prospects a 360-degree of your item or to demonstrate its functionality.
• Accompany all visuals with clear, descriptive, and keyword-optimised file names and alt text to help search engines understand your site and content better.

5. Help Search Engines Rank Your Site Better With Schema Markup

Schema markup is structured data that comes in the form of HTML tags used to help search engine bots understand your pages better and give you appropriate rankings.

You can add tags to your pages manually. To do this, you will need to check the tags vocabulary at Schema.org and create your schema markup based on it. Once the code is ready, all you need is to paste it into the header or footer of your website.

In order to implement schema markup on your ecommerce product pages with less stress, you can also use specialised plugins. For example, Schema and Schema & Structured Data for WP & AMP are two of the many plugins for WordPress that enable you to implement markup faster and easier.

6. Optimise URL Structure for Seamless Navigation

A URL (your site’s address on the web) consists of a protocol, domain, and a path to a specific page. It’s an important part of product page SEO for three reasons. First, it enables search engine bots to understand what your pages are about and how they are connected to each other. Respectively, a proper URL structure enables simpler crawling and indexing of your site. 

Secondly, you can insert your target keywords in URLs, thus, boosting your rankings. And lastly, a logical URL structure can help you create a more intuitive page hierarchy, enhancing navigation and user experience.

To make your URLs SEO-friendly, use these tips:

• Establish a logical URL hierarchy;
• Implement HTTPS protocol for greater security;
• Hide the www prefix to save more space in the address bar;
• Make URLs relevant, simple, logical, and memorable;
• Separate words with hyphens;
• Steer clear of stop words like “the,” “and,” “or,” and others;
• Insert target keywords where possible.

7. Embrace Mobile Friendliness

According to forecasts, the volume of mobile commerce sales in the UK will reach 109.34 billion British pounds by 2027. This is quite a shift compared to 91.59 GBP in 2023. These numbers clearly indicate an ongoing rise in the number of mobile shoppers, which means that mobile-friendliness is generally good for the online sales market. 

On top of that, search engines long prioritise websites that are well-optimised for mobile devices, making it also an important part of product page SEO.

To get started, first, assess how mobile-friendly your site currently is. You can do this via the Mobile Usability report in Google Search Console or Chrome Lighthouse.

If the initial test shows the need for improvement, follow these tips to ensure positive experiences for mobile users:

• Implement a responsive design that is easy to navigate;
• Optimise the look of your pop-ups, images, and videos;
• Implement dynamic serving or separate URLs;
• Optimise meta titles and descriptions so that they show completely in SERPs.

8. Boost Loading Speed for User Experience

Loading speed is one of the direct ranking factors that search engines use to determine your position in SERPs. Sites that load faster typically tend to rank higher. On top of that, they also tend to have lower bounce rates and overall better user experience.

To improve your site’s rankings, as well as user experience, first use reliable technical SEO solutions like PageSpeed Insights by Google to assess the current loading speed. It will help you assess whether you need to make any changes or not.

If you need to improve your site’s speed, you can try the following approaches:

• Implement HTTP caching;
• Optimise images and videos;
• Limit the number of redirects;
• Pick a hosting solution with optimal performance;
• Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN);
• Minimise the number of plugins.

9. Grow Trust and Boost Rankings With the Help of User Reviews

When it comes to SEO for ecommerce, customer reviews are absolutely pivotal for success. Positive reviews boost brand authority and credibility, eventually leading to new business. Additionally, they make you more visible in local search and enhance your overall rankings in SERPs.

Receiving customer reviews shouldn’t be hard, but it requires an active approach. Here are some of the most popular tactics to try for this purpose:

• Create a seamless and intuitive review process;
• Don’t be afraid to ask your customers to share their experiences;
• Leverage follow-up messages and emails to encourage buyers to leave feedback;
• Offer your clients special incentives like discounts, freebies, and others for their reviews.

These simple tactics should help you receive more feedback to showcase on your product pages for better SEO. Bonus tip: Make it a rule to answer customer feedback (even negative) promptly and effectively to improve brand image.

10. Create an Effective Network of Internal Links

Internal links play two crucial roles in product SEO:

1. Search engine bots follow internal links to crawl and index more pages of your website. As a result, a good network of links can help them discover more of your site and rank it accordingly.
2. For users, internal links serve as another navigational tool. With their help, they can easily explore related pages and hop on them in a single click. Eventually, this can make them stay on your site longer and receive better experiences.

To get started with internal linking, run a comprehensive inventory of your website to determine its structure and flag important pages and content pieces. Then, organise all pages into clusters and determine the hierarchy in every group.

When ready, integrate contextual, navigational, and breadcrumb links. Also, you can add additional groups of links, such as footer and sidebar links.

11. Boost Your Product SEO Outcomes Through Performance Analytics

After handling all stages of SEO for ecommerce product pages, you might notice the first improvements in your site, content, and rankings, but the most tangible results will show up after some time because search engine optimisation is a long and complex process. That is, in order to receive the best results in the long run, you need to implement continuous performance monitoring and analytics.

To handle this right, you first need to set your core metrics that align with your business goals, for example, it might be helpful to track:

• Organic traffic;
• Pages per session;
• Average time on page/session duration;
• Keyword rankings;
• Click-through rate;
• Bounce rate;
• Conversions, etc.

After knowing your metrics, you need to set up an analytical solution, for example, Google Analytics, and continuously watch how your results change to make strategic improvements and achieve even higher rankings in the long run.

Conclusion

The ecommerce market has always been competitive, and now, it keeps growing rapidly, causing even more competition. In order to survive in this dynamic niche, businesses need to leverage the art of search engine optimisation, which can help them establish authority, build trust, and drive more potential buyers through organic search results. 

Now you have a complete list of steps and tips to handle keyword research, ecommerce content optimisation, and other aspects of SEO for ecommerce that should help you get your products noticed and boost sales. Integrate them into your strategy ASAP to achieve your short-term and long-term business objectives!