E-commerce search engine optimisation is perhaps the SEO practitioner’s greatest challenge. E-commerce sites are the most difficult of all websites to work with. The situation becomes more difficult as Google steadily improves its ability to assess content quality and filter duplicated content from top positions.
At the same time, Google is getting smarter at filtering out the trivia and rewarding the source of the authoritative content! If you copy word for word, you immediately consign yourself to mediocrity! An understanding of the minutiae is why seo experts are able to improve website performance.
To rank well in ecommerce, you need a point of difference – and that comes from properly categorising and describing your product lines. Use every opportunity to ensure that every page is both accurately described and is unique. Most people are too damned lazy to take the time to do that. Therefore, tedious effort and time-consuming attention to detail across a site with hundreds of pages will reap rewards.
Whilst its estimated that there are 200+ elements that Google processes in its relevancy ranking algorithm, some are more important that others!
Whilst we have no control over the rules of the game, we can use them more effectively than our lazier competitors to gain a competitive advantage!
Online shops divide Products into Categories and sub-categories – its both normal and desirable as it makes it much easier for a shopper to locate the items he or she wishes to purchase.
Often, the categories directly represent high-volume keyword search phrases e.g. “fly fishing rods.” All too frequently, ecommerce shops fail to provide any static, descriptive text on the page. Therefore, there’s a dearth of accurate on-page information as to what the page contains. Instead, there’s a series of cryptic Products headings e.g. “Temple Forks 4-pce #9 weight” with some equally brief technical details. The page is therefore rendered devoid of context, with no clear and unambiguous explanation as to its intent and purpose.
Categories are important because they are usually placed at level 2, and subcategories at level 3 within the shopping cart hierarchy of the site. Products are at best level 3, and usually level 4. The deeper a page is pushed within the site, the less its perceived importance, and the more difficult rankings are to attain for it.
The page Description should incorporate the targeted phrase at the beginning, plus relevant descriptive text using closely related keyword.
If there is the opportunity to use Category Images, name them wisely, and add descriptive Image Alt text that incorporates the targeted keyword phrase.
On the page, add an accurate H1 heading plus a paragraph that encapsulates the targeted phrase and the describes the essence of the page content.
Don’t use the manufacturer’s products descriptions and images verbatim – doing so immediately defines your ecommerce website as a 2nd rate imitator. Instead, rewrite the (usually cryptic) product names and descriptions, ensuring that relevant keywords are incorporated within the text.
Change the names by adding in the product name and at least a hint of the category, e.g.
If you are lucky, your ecommerce system will add Image Alt tags automatically, either using the Product Name, or the image file name. If you’ve properly prepared the images prior to uploading, you’ve given both your Category and individual Product pages an insertion of relevant keywords into an important area that Google et al assesses as part of relevancy ranking algorithms.
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