A Simple & Comprehensive Guide to Ecommerce SEO

Our article focuses on the ecommerce industry, so if you are looking for a tutorial on SEO itself, we recommend using our Textbook – The Most Comprehensive Advanced SEO Guide. SEO in ecommerce is a complex topic, so basically, each section discussed here could be a separate article. However, we tried to include everything necessary to help you start your adventure with ecommerce.

We assume that you already know your niche, and you’ve prepared keyword research to find the most important ones. If not, visit our Textbook and chapter “Semantic search.” You can also check sections about “Foundational Keyword Research” and “Ontological Keyword Research.”

We will start with site architecture, and then we will focus on content, page speed, and all the SEO essentials.

Site Architecture and Internal Linking

The website architecture should be as simple as possible. It is best to create it based on good UX and SEO practices to avoid a situation in which users visiting our site will have problems with navigation.

The 3 click rule is an example of how you can make your site’s navigation work in favor of your customer’s user experience.

The 3 click rule states that if someone has to go more than three clicks deep into a hierarchy tree before reaching their destination page, then it’s time to rethink the way things are organized on your site.

You can follow different rules, but one thing is sure – the closer to the home page, the better.

See the example below:

The above image shows a clear and legible structure (flat site structure). Categories are one click away from the home page, subcategories are two clicks, and products are 3.

Such a structure also helps to manage the site itself more quickly. If you need to delete a category (or product or whatever), you don’t have to reorganize the menu.

This clear structure also supports internal linking. Link juice (term to describe the power that a link passes to the page it links to) flows freely from the home page to the rest of the pages.

Therefore, when organizing the site architecture, it is worth considering the appropriate internal linking strategy.

What’s internal linking?

Internal linking is the practice of linking to pages on your own website from other pages on your site. Internal links help people navigate your site more easily and improve search engine rankings by giving Google stronger signals that certain pages are the most relevant.

For example, we have a category page with women’s jackets and a second category with elegant pants. In the description of the first category, we can naturally include a link to the category with pants, arguing that it is possible to choose the fitting pants for the suit. Such a link will be natural.

Why is internal linking important?

1. It Makes it easier to navigate
2. It will be easier and faster for robots to understand the structure of the site
3. More link juice is transferred to the most important pages of the site

How to plan internal linking?

As we mentioned – everything is facilitated by proper navigation. Planning a clear site architecture will help with the preparation of an internal linking strategy.

However, if you want to check how to plan internal linking for pages that are already created and you want to potentially increase their ranking, you can use these hacks:

• site:domain.com/blog “keyword” (example domain.com/blog “sport shoes”) by entering this query into the search engine, you’ll see all pages of a given domain that already have the keyword “sport shoes” in their content. So you can take advantage of this information to link with this keyword to your internal linking page.
• Ahrefs -> Best by links – this feature allows you to check which pages within your domain have the highest PageRank. You can link to your “weaker” pages from them to increase their value. ( We will discuss Ahrefs later in the article).
• GSC – Report “Links” -> Internal Links – in GSC (Google Search Console), you have a linking report that also shows internal links. All the pages that are most important to you should be as close to the top as possible:

Optimize Product and Category Pages

Product pages are the most important on your ecommerce site, right next to category pages. It will depend on them whether the client decides to buy your product or not. Therefore, their optimization is essential. You can find more tips on customizing product and category pages for usability for users in the UX section. Here we’ll focus on the on-site optimization of product and category pages.

On-site optimization

It is impossible not to start with probably the most important things when it comes to optimization. The title tag and description are the two elements that start it all. They appear first in the search results when our site is displayed in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) for a given query.

How can you optimize your title tag?

• Length: The title should be around 60 characters long, but it won’t be a problem if it’s longer. However, you have to take into account that it won’t appear entirely in SERPs.
• Keywords: Be sure to include your main keyword.
• Brand: it is also important to include the brand name.
• CTA: A short call to action (CTA) will attract users.
• Uniqueness: each page should have a different title.
• Top referring keywords: it’s good if the title also includes related keywords.

These are quite a lot of guidelines for several dozen characters! That’s why it’s so hard to create a unique, well-optimized title. However, it is possible. You need to do the right research and prepare your suggestions based on it. Then you can test different title suggestions and see if any of them have higher CTR (clickthrough rates).

Headings are no less important. There are several types of headings – from h1 to h6. The main heading (h1) is the most important, and it is assumed that it should appear only once on each page. However, this is not a rule of thumb, and sometimes more than one h1 heading can be used. The remaining h2-h6 headings are used to mark subheadings or names of individual sections important to us. Ideally, they should include the most important keywords related to that page.

Don’t forget about URLs as well – it’s also an excellent place to put keywords. However, these elements should be as short as possible and contain mainly the main keyword. Simple and easy to remember and written so that the user won’t need to go to this specific page to know what it is about.

Content marketing

Content is king – you’ve probably heard it more than once. Content is indeed crucial – after all, Google is a text search engine (mostly), so if you don’t have content, it is difficult for your page to rank well!

In the case of ecommerce, content can be highly problematic. Category pages, information pages (shipping info, returns policy, etc.), and also product pages – all these places need content. However, it is quite a challenge when there are thousands of products (often similar) in the store. It takes time and money to prepare this amount of content.

Looking at the guidelines, the articles/texts on the website should be:

• unique – each content should be included on the site only once,
• answering customer questions and having value for them,
• focus on product features and benefits
• long and exhaustive – the longer the text, the more detailed it is likely to be,
• grammatically and stylistically correct,
• with appropriate keyword density.

Product descriptions

Each product will have some features that differentiate it from others. Product descriptions should highlight these characteristics and show the benefits that users will gain. It often happens that products have variants (different colors, patterns, etc.). Then it’s best to create a unique description for the product and put different variants as options to choose from. Creating new pages for each variant will be problematic – not only will it require much more content to be written, but it can also lead to keyword cannibalization.

Category descriptions

You should write sales pages showcasing the benefits of your products. The users must be aware of what they’ll gain when they buy your product.

It should be understood that the benefits and features of a product are very different. People often confuse features with benefits. Features are what your product or service offers, and benefits are what they do for them.

When customers buy something, they want to know what benefits they will gain and its features. So, for example, if you were looking to buy a new car, anti-skid brakes would be a feature, exceptional performance on wet and icy roads would be a benefit.

It’s also worth focusing on the features of your product that stand out from those offered by the competition (e.g., competitive prices, higher quality, hand-made, locally produced materials, etc.).

Responsive Design

Mobile shopping has been growing in popularity ever since smartphones and tablets became widely available. Most people can’t live without their phones! This is why it is so important to use responsive design in your ecommerce shop.

What is responsive web design? It’s an approach to building a website that makes it easy to use on mobile devices. It concerns many different aspects of web design, including scalable images and elements, simplified layout, faster loading time, and more legible content (including both text and interactive elements like buttons). It makes it easier to navigate the site and use its functionalities. Smartphones and tablets are significantly smaller than desktop devices – this is why it’s necessary to adjust a website’s content to smaller screens and touchpads.

What is the most essential part of responsive design for ecommerce, you might ask. It concerns readability and speed primarily, as users must browse the website and easily reach all of its elements and content. The navigation should be simple, so most developers use hamburger menus with convenient access to categories. Products have to be visible on small screens, which is usually made possible by changing the grid layout into only one column with bigger pictures and text.

The overall goal of responsive design is to improve the user’s shopping experience. The website should work seamlessly and be readable on every kind of mobile device.

Responsinator.com:

Page Load Speed

Since 2010 page loading speed has been one of the ranking signals (initially only on desktops and since 2018 also in mobile search results). In 2020 Google announced “Core Web Vitals,” which is – in short – a set of metrics that measure the speed, responsiveness, and visual stability of a website.

Page loading speed is especially important for ecommerce and should be a vital part of your digital marketing strategy. The faster your store loads (or, more precisely, the sooner customers see your website and interact with it), the more likely they will stay longer and convert, i.e., make a purchase. Online store owners should therefore ensure that their sales platforms are well optimized and function with maximum efficiency.

Why page speed matters for your ecommerce store?

Ranking factor

As already mentioned, page speed (along with other quality signals) is one of Google’s ranking factors. Google is gradually taking further steps in order to present the best quality pages in the search results.

Bounce rate

People are more likely to leave your website if it takes too long to load. This is a negative signal for Google (as it indicates low user engagement) but also directly affects the conversion rate.

User satisfaction

Page speed also has negative psychological effects. Slow-loading websites not only cause frustration in users but also may be a sign of lack of professionalism that may discourage a potential client from buying your product.

What determines page loading speed?

• Your client’s internet connection – The most obvious but often overlooked factor that we have no influence over.
• Your hosting provider – Providing the best possible performance hosting is undoubtedly not something you should skimp on.
• Your application / CMS performance – Even the fastest hosting service won’t make up for a poorly designed application (including both backend and frontend).

User experience (UX)

User experience is an extensive topic, which refers to how the visitors interact with the website. There are many good practices that basically sum up all the expectations that users have because of their previous experience on the internet and with different devices.

UX covers many areas, beginning with the first impression and ending with small details concerning CTA (Call To Action elements, e.g., buttons) and product displays. While there are many elements of user experience that are similar for most websites, there are a few that are inherently related to ecommerce platforms.

One of the first elements that has to be well prepared with user experience in mind is navigation. The shop’s menu should reflect its structure and content, allowing visitors to browse all the most important product categories and reach the information they need.

Most popular and easy-to-navigate menus are placed on a bar above or below the hero image, and they usually expand with more categories. Quite often, the main navigation includes a search bar, which allows users to search for a product or article with a certain keyword.

Another vital element of the ecommerce UX is the product display. Anyone who works in ecommerce knows that people buy with their eyes, which is precisely why the categories and product pages have to look and work as well as possible.

Good photographs are the first step, but they are not enough – products should be easy to find, have interesting and detailed descriptions, and one cannot forget about the CTAs! Call To Action elements serve the purpose of encouragement – colorful buttons that stand out should scream „buy me!” (or whisper, if you will).

Another important element of the product page is the reviews section. Many CMSs have plugins available that allow users to leave their reviews of the products, which is a great way to show potential customers that your shop is reliable and sells high-quality merchandise.

Another key element of the buying process is the checkout, which should be easy, quick, and safe. Remember that your website should have an SSL certificate and a safe payment system implemented, as the billing information is very delicate, and the users should feel safe while making a purchase. You should also remember to add various payment methods. The users shouldn’t have to worry about their money and data safety, and the checkout shouldn’t discourage them from finalizing the purchase.

As you well know, the competition on the internet is very fierce. You want to keep the potential client on your website, but it’s not that easy. This is why attention retention is another important element of the UX. There are many different ways to keep the user on your page: an alert on the tab encouraging them to stay and finish the shopping process, a bot that serves as a shopping assist 24/7, or interesting promotions. There are many ideas on how to make users engaged in your website, but you also have to remember that being too invasive might give the opposite results!

Image Optimization

There are many factors that determine a successful online store. Product images are very important but often play an underestimated role in SEO and the purchasing process.

A single image can provide users with more relevant information about the product than paragraphs of text that won’t even be read. Not only do images attract the attention of potential customers but also largely decide how fast a product page loads.

There are several things to keep in mind here.

Choose the right images

• Always try to provide good quality, high-resolution images that, when zoomed in, will represent the product well. Just remember, the higher the resolution, the larger the file size, so don’t go overboard! Full HD resolution (1920 * 1080) is more than enough.
• Product pages should be treated like virtual store shelves or hangers. Let potential clients explore the product by including images that allow them to see as many details of the product as possible. Show it from various angles, on different backgrounds, in actual use.
• Create unique images. Google values what is high-quality and unique. You usually hear that about content, but the same is true also for images. Most sellers use photos provided by the brand manufacturer – why not take advantage of that? The more original images you use, the better your odds are that Google will rank your content higher.

Optimize images for page speed

• Resize your images – As mentioned above, try to serve images in the most optimal resolution. Avoid scaling images in HTML / CSS and use physically resized thumbnails instead.
• Lazy loading – In short words, lazy loading is deferring the loading of an object until it’s needed. This can significantly improve your website’s performance, especially those pages including lots of images – as category pages.
• Image compression – There are free tools that allow you to compress images and reduce their size by up to 50% or even more.

Optimize images for SEO

• Provide a valid filename that would be a useful hint for both users and search engines. Instead of 2021_06_02_8542.jpg or qwerty123.png use a name that describes the product.
• Make use of the alt attribute. It’s an HTML attribute that specifies the alternative text for the image in case it somehow can’t be displayed. Similar to the filename, the alt text should precisely describe what’s in the image.

Structured Data

Structured data, in short, is a type of additional code on a website that is used to describe its content. For example, in the case of online stores, it’s the price or the availability status of a given product. The benefits of using it are mutual – based on structured data, the search engine can assess which pages will be the most valuable for the user and correspond to its intent. On the other hand, the website owner can benefit from a higher click-through rate, and a lower bounce rate as people who click on a link have a better understanding of the page’s content before they even decide to visit it.

One of the most popular uses of structured data are rich snippets for products. If you sell online, you can provide Google with detailed information about your product (e.g., name, price, currency) and thus attract potential customers searching for products in the search engine. In addition, you can use properties such as image, description, review, or aggregate rating. There are several different ways to implement structured data: microdata, RDFA, and JSON-LD.

You should know that Google treats rich snippets as a privilege, not a right for every website. Adding microdata to your store does not guarantee that rich snippets will appear in the search results. First, Google carefully analyzes your tags and assesses whether they will be useful to search engine users. In addition, indexing data by search engine robots takes time, so be patient. You should focus on completing the information about the product and validating the structured data on the page. You can do this easily with the help of the tool provided by Google – Structured Data Testing Tool.

FAQ Content and “About us”

There are some elements of the website that might not seem SEO-related, but they actually might have a more significant influence on your shop than one might expect. We would like to bring two of these topics closer: FAQ content and E-A-T elements.

The FAQ – Frequently asked questions – can be used in many parts of the website, as they can serve different purposes. The first one often seen is the FAQ on the product pages, which helps answer all the clients’ questions. This can be also added in the page’s code, as there is a “FAQ” Schema markup that allows to display more information in the search results. Frequently asked questions are also a good idea to use on the “about company page,” which is another aspect surprisingly useful for SEO.

Section “About us” or “About our company” serves the purpose of increasing authority. The E-A-T is one of Google’s guidelines that stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. It basically means that you should show your customers that you have experience in your line of business. The more information on your expertise, the more authority you get and gain user’s (and Google’s trust). This is why adding this kind of page or section is so important, especially in the more demanding industries related to health or finances.

Local SEO

If you own a business that offers products or services locally, it’s important to optimize your website with local search results in mind. You have to consider a couple of things in this topic, starting with selecting keywords related to the area you sell in. Local searches are usually less searched than general queries, even if your business is based in a big city. You can consider optimizing for the whole region, city/town, or even district – it depends on your offer and possibilities! Choosing keywords is an obvious first step, but what should you do next?

The second step should be setting your company’s Google My Business account, which serves as an online business card with address details, link to the website, and customer reviews. You can add all the most essential information about your business and photos of the shop or products. GMB displays in the search results when someone is looking for your company’s name or – if you’re lucky – some related keywords. Don’t forget about responding to customer reviews, as they add up to your overall rating, which is shown in golden stars on your GMB card.

Apart from setting GMB, it’s also important to optimize your website with the local keywords that you chose. You can add your location in page titles and meta descriptions, as well as adding your company’s address in the “About Us” section. Remember to add some of the local phrases in the blog articles and product descriptions, which will help your local SEO ranking overall.

Ecommerce Platforms

Everyone who starts their own online shop starts with the same question – how to set up my website? There are many great platforms, systems, and plugins for ecommerce that allow you to run your business. But which solutions are the best? It depends on your needs. Some platforms perform better than others in different ways. You can choose depending on your IT and marketing knowledge, the time you can dedicate to implementations, and the performance in terms of UX and SEO.

You can make your own decision after reading our summary on the two most popular solutions for ecommerce: Shopify and WooCommerce. We prepared a table for those who want to dig deeper with a comparison of Magento, PrestaShop, Wix eCommerce, BigCommerce, and the two mentioned earlier.

	Ease of use + implementations	Templates	SEO (overall + plugins)	Payment Methods	Prices	Support
	Open-source design On your side: hosting, theme, add-ons, security, and backups Need coding knowledge to get started	100+ professional themes Theme and template designs adjust	Optimization: sitemap, customizable URLs, meta information, etc.	One-click payments: Amazon, Stripe, PayPal, Square, Sage Pay, AliPay etc.	Based on the business’s traffic and sales Individual pricing	Limited unless you pay for the highest package (enterprise)
	Developer help needed to set up Simple daily operations	Many templates and add-ons possible customization	Many plugins Optimization possible for rich snippets and meta data	Wide range of payment gateways	Free to download Paid modules and add-ons	Paid support Active community on forum
	Simple website builder Drag and drop interface; simple and intuitive	Over 500 templates + advanced customizations	Possibility of optimization: meta tags and the URLs for both regular and product pages, etc.	Three payment options: credit card, PayPal and offline payments	Three premium plans (Basic, VIP, Unlimited); depending on the package, different options are available	24/7 live chat + phone
	User friendly interface Drag and drop page builder	12 free templates and 150 paid	Customizable meta tags, URLs, alt texts	Wide range of payment gateways No transaction fees	From $29.95 per month (basic) to $299.95 (Pro) and more (Enterprise)	24/7 live chat, email and phone support
	Some technical knowledge is required as it’s not a selfhosted platform	Lots of both free and paid templates	SEO friendly and easily managable URLs Full access to .htaccess and robots.txt files Wide range of SEO plugins	Four default payment methods Possible integration with external services	The plugin itself is free Some additional costs may include: hosting, domain, security (SSL)	Only for products sold on WooCommerce.com
	Simple to start and use	Lots of templates (free and paid) Uses Liquid – easy template language	Many SEO plugins available Some customization is available Possible speed issues	Wide range of payment gateways Point-of-sale app available	Three subscription options:  $29, $79 and $299 (monthly)	Shopify Help Center and an active community

 

Shopify

Shopify is one of the most popular platforms for ecommerce. With hundreds of templates, easy implementation, and their own Point Of Sale app, they are one of the top CMSs. There are a number of reasons why shop owners choose Shopify, and we prepared a summary that could help you decide for yourself.

First of all, Shopify is easy to implement and use – you don’t need a developer to start your own shop, and you can make all of the changes in its admin panel. Even if you don’t have experience managing websites, you will quickly get to grips with its simple-to-use interface.

Shopify also offers its own Shopify Checkout, which means that there is no need to implement additional shopping plugins.

What about Shopify SEO? This CMS has some SEO perks, as you can add page metadata, image alts, and various SEO plugins, yet there are also a couple of downsides. There are some issues concerning URL structure, as they are generated automatically for the products based on the collections they are placed in – this could lead to duplicate content problems. Also, if you use a lot of plugins – for marketing purposes, social media, etc. – they can significantly slow down the loading time of your website.

Pros:

• easy to start, choose a template, and add products
• different subscription plans that you can fit your needs
• safe payments and many shipping options
• easy to optimize pages with metadata, which is good for SEO
• Shopify Help Center available to solve issues

Cons:

• it can be too expensive for some business owners, as you start with payment for your plan option, template, and plugins to buy (if you choose paid ones)
• personalization possible mainly using code, which could be problematic for complete beginners
• more in-depth SEO needs changes in the code, and there can be some issues with the page speed

Woocommerce

WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin that allows you to transform your website into an online store with a wide range of functionalities. It was created in 2011 and has been steadily gaining in popularity since then. So far, the plugin has over 5 million active installations and is currently one of the most popular ecommerce platforms. Originally created by the WooThemes team, in 2015 was acquired by Auttomatic – the creators of WordPress.

Pros

• It’s free (not including hosting and domain fees)
• Simple to set up and intuitive to use (although it requires some technical skill and WordPress experience)
• SEO friendly – tools like Yoast and All In One SEO provide suggestions and functionality to improve your site’s search engine rankings)
• Customizable – dozens of free themes and plugins available in the wordpress repository

Cons

• No official technical support (even though WordPress is known for having a large and supportive community)
• It’s just a WordPress plugin, not a standalone ecommerce platform
• Frequent theme and plugin updates
• Website vulnerability – due to the popularity of WordPress, it is the main target for hackers and spammers.

WooCommerce is recommended for small and medium-sized online stores that don’t want to be limited and dependent on SaaS monthly subscription platforms. It’s a good choice, especially for people that previously ran blogs, portals, or websites on WordPress and decided to expand them with a sales module.

Link Building

Link building is one of the key points when talking about effective positioning. Its mechanism is straightforward – it works like a system of recommendations. The more links from relevant external sites that lead to our website, the more valuable it is.

The best place to start link building is with an analysis of a specific local market. Firstly it’s good to use connections with clients and search for any potential opportunities for links – maybe some other local company can put a link on their website leading to yours.

Also, start looking for opportunities from web directories – these days, many of them are worthless, but there are some web directories that even now can boost the value of sites. Of course, those should be only verified web directories where you cannot add links for free. Moreover, those directories must be managed by a moderator that would check the quality of links.

Of course, sites from which it is good to gain a link must be contextually connected with our site. But where can we look elsewhere for opportunities?

A good idea is also a link from:

• a local forum where people search for help, advice, etc.,
• a “local guide” blog,
• local information sites with news about specific communities.

Ahrefs is a good tool for link opportunities. Not only does it make it possible to check which domains the competitors’ sites are linked from, but it also allows for a detailed analysis of the link profile of each selected site. We can use, for example, the “Link Intersect” option:

What links are the most valuable?

• From pages closely related to our site (same niche).
• With high DR (Domain Rating) – a factor that can be checked in Ahrefs.
• With high organic traffic (e.g., over 20k per month).
• With a large number of valuable backlinks and referring domains (to be checked in Ahrefs).

Best SEO tools

Google tools

Google Search Console

This is a free tool by Google. Its task is to collect data from the site. We will find all the basic information about keywords, the number of views or clicks, keywords positions, etc.

It’s also a great place to check for errors on the page, such as duplicate pages, missing canonical tags, or other problems.

Google Search Console also has a separate report for Core Web Vitals and Page Experience, which you read about earlier in this article.

You can submit your sitemap, check if any URLs are excluded from the SERPs, what pages need improvements, or check if any of your assets appeared as rich snippets.

Google Analytics

Another free tool from Google. GA is a powerful analytical tool where you can track very advanced information. It has the ability to create views and services tailored to specific data sets. It also allows for an analysis of clients purchasing paths or the sources or medium from which users access a given site.

Google Analytics comes in two versions – Universal (free and paid) and GA 4 (free).

Google Analytics also allows you to set conversion goals and see how those goals are being met.

Third-party SEO tools

Ahrefs

Ahrefs is a suite of SEO tools that allow you to analyze a wealth of information about your website and your competitors. This includes data about backlinks but also ranked keywords, anchors, organic traffic (estimated monthly organic traffic from search), and the strength of the page’s link profile. With its help, you can also run a website audit or perform a detailed analysis of the competition – both in terms of keywords and links. Ahrefs is paid (the free version doesn’t give much information).

SurferSEO

SurferSEO is primarily used to optimize written content on a website but has plenty of additional features.

Content Editor – thoroughly analyzes the competition and shows all the necessary information, enabling not only the appropriate optimization of the content but also the writing of new content.

Audit – you can run an analysis of the site.

Content Planner – in BETA version. This allows you to find low-hanging keywords, which can help you optimize the content with the most opportunity to rank better for valuable keywords.

SERP Analyzer – you can analyze how the SERPs look for a specific keyword.

Keyword Research – you can check here for all the most important information about a keyword:

SEMstorm

SEMstorm is a tool that enables the analysis of such elements as visibility (top 10 and top 50), keywords positions, competition analysis, keywords research, and new content suggestions. This is only part of its functionality. You can also carry out a quick website audit, which will show any problems. The tool is paid.

Senuto

Senuto is another paid tool with which you can measure and check keywords and positions:

Individual modules are used to analyze keywords, track position, or check SERPs for a given query.

The Keywords Explorer allows us to check not only the most important information about a given query but also suggestions for questions, related keywords, or whole groups of words:

The tool has a clear interface, and it is easy and convenient to use.

Keyword Research Tools

Ubersuggest

Partly free (limited) and partially paid tool for checking the number of searches for keywords per month or related keywords—a perfect tool for in-depth keyword research on various markets (with the possibility of choosing the location).

Keyword Tool

Like the tool above, it allows for both the free and the paid version. The paid option provides many possibilities for keyword analysis.

Answer the public

The tool is great for searching for new topics. Clear charts and tables show which queries are most often typed by users. The tool in the free version is very limited, so it is worth using the paid version.

Keyword Planner from Google

The tool is available only when we have an active Google Ads campaign because it is ultimately used to analyze words for paid ads. However, it can also be used for regular keyword research. It shows a monthly number of searches for a given keyword, as well as related keywords.

Advanced tools (for crawling and advanced analysis)

Screaming Frog

Screaming Frog is one of the most popular website crawling tools. The audit usually takes a long time (especially when the website is large, and the tool has to crawl many pages). The data we receive allows us to correct the most pressing problems (duplication, 404 pages, redirects, etc.). Screaming Frog presents us with raw data – to know what to do with this data, you need to have a little more knowledge in SEO.

Sitebulb

Sitebulb, like SF, crawls pages and presents them to us in the form of various data. It’s more user-friendly for people who do not know much about SEO because it gives us a ready interpretation of errors and tells us how to improve them. Its interface is friendly and intuitive. Therefore it is recommended for people who want to receive all the most important errors right away without analyzing them:

Sitebulb prioritizes issues for us according to their importance.

In Summary

SEO is crucial if you are an ecommerce business and want to be found online with more ease by potential customers in your niche. You can get started on the road to improved search engine rankings by understanding how people use Google and what they look for when searching for products like yours.

This guide discussed the many factors that go into ranking well with ecommerce SEO: page speed, keyword research, high-quality, unique content, user experience, and more. Use this new knowledge as a starting point to put into practice the steps needed to rank higher and sell more products. By implementing these changes, you’ll stand out amongst your competition and keep the search engines and your customers happy!

FAQ

Why is internal linking important for SEO?

In short, internal linking is linking from one page to another within a domain. Internal links are useful for establishing site architecture and spreading PageRank / authority.

What are the factors to take into account when considering an ecommerce platform?

The key factors to keep in mind when choosing an ecommerce platform are: pricing, integrations, ease of use and SEO friendliness.

Why is structured data beneficial for SEO?

Structured data not only helps crawling bots to better understand the content on a page but also gives an opportunity to attract users through rich snippets.

Why is page load speed important for your ecommerce?

Page load speed not only is a ranking factor itself but it can also directly and indirectly affect the conversion rate.

Why is UX important for your ecommerce?

Good user experience makes it easy for people to navigate your website, find what they want and buy it.

What should you focus on writing your ecommerce content?

Target your audience first. Provide users with all the information they might want to know about your product. Focus on product features and benefits. Other than that you should of course avoid duplicate content and keep an eye on keyword density.

Why are product images important for your ecommerce?

Images are a vital part of your product description and play an important role in the purchasing process. A single image can provide users with more relevant information about the product than paragraphs of text that won’t even be read.

Why responsive design is important for your ecommerce?

As more than a half of web traffic is currently generated on mobiles, it’s extremely important to provide user-friendly access to information regardless of device. Responsive design not only impacts the user’s shopping experience but it can also help you improve your rankings in search engines.

Why is link building important for SEO?

Alongside on-page SEO and content optimisation, link building is still one of the key ranking factors for Google. The more links from relevant external websites that lead to our website, the more valuable it is in Google’s eyes.

 

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