87 Top ECommerce SEO Tips

Outside of Internet Marketing for your e-commerce store, the main way to drive more traffic is through organic search rankings. You can achieve higher rankings with the tips we’ve listed below. Print them out and use this as your checklist.

Put your whole e-commerce store on HTTPS. This can be done for free and is not difficult. Having people see your site on HTTPS as soon as they land can be a huge confidence booster, helping them complete a purchase. People want to know their information is safe, and having your site on HTTPS ensures that and lets them trust your store. Besides, when Google sees this, they’ll boost your rankings because they know people look for it.
Make sure your page load times are as low as possible. The four main areas to improve page load times are: minifying resources, installing a CDN, optimizing images, and caching resources. Even a second extra delay in your page load time leads to significantly higher bounce rates. If you are using WordPress, you can install plugins to take care of these things for you.
Make sure your site is mobile optimized. Many people search on the go, so your site needs to look great on mobile for them to make a purchase. Mobile can account for as much as 50% of site traffic, so don’t neglect it. Things to do to make your site look good on mobile include using hamburger menus or even using AMP pages (accelerated mobile pages). To easily create AMP pages, you can install a plugin on WordPress.
The most important factor Google considers when ranking a page is backlinks. Even if all your on-site SEO is perfect, you will not earn very high rankings without other brands linking to you and verifying you as a quality site.
Write meta titles and descriptions using the keywords you want to rank for. Meta titles and descriptions are some of the most important parts of on-site SEO. They appear directly in your results when someone searches. Having a compelling meta title and description will bolster your rankings and CTR.
One of the simplest and most effective things you can do is add alt text to images. This lets people know what the images are about and can be useful for the visually impaired. It also tells Google what your images are and helps them rank your page higher for relevant images.
Using e-commerce breadcrumbs simplifies the navigation on your site, and if you install the schema as well, Google will display it on its search result pages.
Use a 301 redirect for old pages that have been taken down, and route them to relevant newer pages. This also allows SEO value to be transferred to your newer page.
Write content for your category pages using relevant keywords to help them rank.
Structure URLs for maximum SEO boost. Google looks at how far away your keywords are from the domain to give them a ranking boost. So, for example, domain.com/blog/article won’t rank as high as domain.com/article.
Use category-level navigation to help people easily navigate your site.
Optimize images: we recommend using the WebP format. There are WordPress plugins that can do this for you, and other free ones that can compress files. Optimizing images can save a ton of page load time, especially if you have big images over 1MB.
Optimize the SEO on marketplaces such as Amazon.
Optimize your title tag to include keywords and keep it under 60-70 characters. Your title tag is another important facet of SEO. This is what people will see when they click on your result in search engines.
Go social: Set up sharing icons so people can post your content on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
Optimize your 404 pages by redirecting them to new content, a high-converting page, or product pages.
Add a live chat to your site. Sometimes people want to contact you, but they aren’t ready to make a call. Here’s where a live chat can come in to drive additional sales.
Build a site map for Google to index all your pages. You may think Google can find all your pages by simply crawling your site, but it’s good practice to build an XML sitemap so it can locate pages that may not have links.
Create a robots.txt file: if you have pages you don’t want search engines to crawl, such as duplicate content, add them to the robots.txt file.
Use internal links to boost your site’s search engine rankings. While external links to your site help, so do internal links. Make sure to link to your most popular pages to improve their rankings. You can also include links on product pages to related products or ones that other customers also bought.
Don’t use click here as anchor text in your links. It’s easier for people to understand where they’re going if the anchor text explains that. It will also help with your search engine rankings because search engines will see that those keywords are about that page.
Optimize your content so that it doesn’t look like you made it for a search engine with lots of keyword phrases that don’t relate to the page. Make it easy to understand and simple to use. There’s a lot of work that goes into designing a site well, and if you skip out here, you’ll likely not rank as high as you could.
Use promotions, holidays, and sales as text in your CTAs (calls to action). This will help identify when you have certain sales and make them stand out, so people see them.
Google likes to see that sites have an “about us” page. If you don’t have one, you could be hurting your rankings. They also help Google gather more information about your site.
Include your product names in your title to maximize keyword boost.
If you aren’t a big brand, you may want to focus on long-tail keywords. If you know you don’t have a chance to rank high for shorter keywords, give long-tail keywords a try. It’s better to be #1 for a low-volume search term than #100 for a high-volume one.
Get people interested in products right off the bat by including popular or recommended products on your homepage. This will put them in the right frame of mind to buy something.
Use keywords to structure category pages: Having your keywords as category pages is a great way to rank.
Use the product keywords in your URLs and leave out item numbers. This will help your rankings of those keywords because you’re using a clean URL.
Collect emails from product pages that are out of stock and notify users when the product is back in stock. This will decrease the bounce rate and bring in additional traffic when the product is back in stock.
Use smaller-sized images on your mobile site. Mobile screen resolutions are much smaller than desktop ones, so they should load smaller images to reduce page load time.
Let people know whether they can buy your product online or need to call for a quote. If they can buy it online, they may be more likely to make a purchase, especially if it’s not too expensive.
Use heading tags: Heading tags are another important aspect of SEO. By simply using an H1 or H2 tag, you let Google know that that is the page’s headline. Google will now rank your site accordingly.
Use canonical tags when you have duplicate content on multiple pages. Doing so will allow you to avoid the duplicate content penalty.
Advertise deals for a limited time only: doing so creates a sense of urgency. If you say an offer is limited-time only, make sure you follow up on that and remove the offer in the future.
Include phrases like “free shipping” and “on sale” in the title of product pages to maximize CTR. These indicators can drive more traffic to your site just by listing them.
Have a minimum of 1000 words of content on category and product pages, and include your keywords 3-5 times throughout. Google needs content to rank your pages, and by providing it, you can increase your rankings. People also like to see a thorough review of products with all the information they need.
Create a page that compares different products. People often search for one product over another. Here you can highlight the benefits or disadvantages of each product.
Use power words such as free, new, or proven to ignite audience engagement and increase CTR.
Write blog posts more often: Blog posts are one of the best ways to drive traffic to your site. They contain valuable information that users often search for, and Google has been known to give them high rankings, especially if you’re using WordPress. Blog posts are the perfect way to include additional information on your site that doesn’t fit elsewhere.
Create a holiday gift guide: do you have products that work perfectly as gifts? Put them together in a holiday gift guide and send them out to your users.
Feature user reviews and comments: Google likes to see user-generated content, which can help you rank higher. Additionally, you’ll provide your users with valuable content to help them make purchasing decisions.
Write long-form blog posts: Google likes to see lots of content about a subject and will reward you with higher rankings for doing so. People also like long-form posts because they tend to answer all their questions.
Give away free content: for example, giving away the first chapter of a book allows people to sample the content and influences them to purchase.
Build out your product descriptions using this structure: an H1 header with the product name and secondary keywords, an intro paragraph, bullet points, a closing, and a product video.
Create a funnel with content for each stage of the buying cycle. If you have a product that requires some explanation and may be expensive, consider providing more information in a funnel that gets them engaged with the product.
Use videos whenever you can: they boost SEO, and people like to see them.
Compare your product to your competitors using a head-to-head review. List all the features of each product and showcase where you are better than other competing products.
Use paid search: It’s a great way to advertise your product and can drive organic purchases.
Use aggregate review schema markup to get stars next to your results in search engine listings. Stars are a great way to make your listing stand out and get you more clicks.
Make sure you are listed on Amazon. Many e-commerce searches start on Amazon, and if you’re not listed there, you’ll be missing out.
Contact the blog owners and ask them to provide a link and possibly review your product. It can be difficult to get in touch with blog owners and get a link, so make sure to follow up multiple times if you don’t hear back.
Use consistent branding. Make sure your color schema on product pages matches that of the homepage.
A great way to get free blog posts is to have guest posts from other authors and to offer them a link to their site if they agree to post. If you have a popular blog, it shouldn’t be too hard to get guest posts.
Use rich snippets for additional product descriptions on Google. This will increase your CTR.
Bid on your brand: Bidding on your brand name will help you get the most clicks from organic search.
Write a post reviewing relevant products in your industry surrounding a product you offer. If you do a good job writing a review, you could earn a high ranking and control which products get the best review, allowing you to bolster your own product.
If you decide to start an affiliate program, you can earn free links to your site on blogs that become affiliates of your company. To start an affiliate program, there are already companies that can set you up for a fee.
Check out the link roundup posts and see if any of the links are broken. If they are, contact the owner with your link as a suitable replacement.
Consider donating to a charity to get a backlink.
Sponsor a local event. Many events list sponsors that have made contributions. If they have such a list, you’ll know you can get a backlink.
Get listed on review sites like Yelp. You could earn a backlink and promote your brand.
Give Reddit a try by posting in a relevant subreddit about your product or service. If you post something interesting, you could gain tons of clicks.
Use Google Shopping. It tends to have higher conversion rates and get many clicks for usually less money.
Use Google Trends to analyze keywords on your site. There may be better terms you can optimize your pages for.
Enable internal site search on Analytics. This will allow you to determine what your visitors are searching for most. You can then create additional pages for your most popular terms.
Use a tool that generates a heatmap of where visitors spend most of their time on your pages. Then optimize your page flow so that the most-visited content appears first, with the rest in order.
Use Search Console to find the top terms you’re ranking for, then further optimize your pages to rank even higher. This works great because it lets you know which keywords you actually have a chance of getting decent traffic for. Then you can focus on getting more traffic instead of optimizing for terms where the competition may be too tough, and you don’t have a chance of generating significant traffic.
Set up e-commerce tracking in Analytics to determine which of your products generate the most traffic and which sites refer the most sales. You can then increase the prominence of said products and work on getting more traffic from your top referrers.
Use the Adwords Keyword Planner to find search terms with a high amount of traffic relevant to your site. Optimize your site for keywords that you think you’ll have a chance at ranking with.
Conduct competitor research to see how other sites are getting their backlinks. You can do this in tools such as SEMRush and Ahrefs.
Use Yoast if you’re using WordPress. It will tell you how well each page is optimized for a given keyword and give you suggestions to improve it. Try to get a green dot on each of your pages, which means it’s well-optimized. If it has a red dot, you’ll know you need to work on it.
Generate long-tail keywords that are relevant to your site using LSIGraph. Ranking high for a bunch of long-tail terms could work just as well as ranking high for a more popular term.
Scan your site for duplicate content. You can do this using Siteliner. Search engines penalize you for duplicate content, so be sure to either change or remove any of it.
Don’t forget about Pinterest. Pinterest can be a huge driver of traffic.
Enter keywords such as a product into Amazon, see what suggestions come up, and optimize those keywords.
Enter your products or services into Google and YouTube to see what suggestions come up, and then optimize for those keywords.
Use Screaming Frog to find pages with missing meta titles and descriptions, 404 errors, duplicate content, and more.
Use Mention to find out when people mention your brand, but don’t include a backlink. You can then reach out to them and ask for a backlink.
Find keywords that you are already ranking for on the second page using Ahrefs, and optimize your site to rank on the first page.
Search for keywords on Google and find the “Searches related to…” at the bottom. Use these suggestions for long-tail keywords you can optimize for.
Create videos and post them on YouTube. These can be either explainer videos that explain your services or product demos that show your product. YouTube gets more traffic than Facebook, so don’t ignore it. It can be a massive lead generator for your company.
Create stunning infographics to get links from other blogs. People love to link to infographics, especially if you do a great job on yours.
You don’t have much time to get a user’s attention. Make sure your content is structured correctly to grab attention early and keep people on your page.
Answer questions related to your store on Quora. This is a great way to generate backlinks if you put one in your answer.
Use Google’s Mobile Testing Tool to analyze your site and get tips to improve it.
Find out what terms your competitors are bidding on using SEMRush and optimize for those terms. These will usually be keywords for people about to purchase, so they convert well.