SEO for an eCommerce Website: Best Practices

There are between 12 and 24 million eCommerce sites in 2022. As an eCommerce website owner, you may struggle with how to market your marketplace effectively. This is why SEO for an eCommerce website is a must for all store owners. 

Optimizing your eCommerce website for SEO will not only create a better user experience. It will also increase your ranking on search engines. Business owners must understand eCommerce marketing if they want to succeed in today's competitive markets. 

Keep reading to learn more about eCommerce SEO and best practices. 

What Is eCommerce SEO?

SEO for eCommerce sites optimizes a website to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) for specific keywords. The main goal of SEO is to bring more traffic to your site and increase your sales.

SEO increases a website's visibility in a search engine's organic or natural search results. You do this by getting other websites to link to the site. You can also use on-site optimization techniques such as producing high-quality content and having a site map.

SEO Tips and Best Practices: 

So, how do you optimize for search engines? Many people ask this question because SEO can be a bit overwhelming at first. But...it doesn't have to be. 

The following best practices will improve your ranking and create a seamless customer experience: 

Use Keywords

Keywords are the most important factor to consider when optimizing your eCommerce site for SEO. Keywords are the words and phrases that people type into search engines when they are looking for information. It is crucial to optimize your site around keywords that you want to rank for to attract potential customers.

When optimizing your eCommerce site for SEO, it is important to use keywords in the following areas:

• Title tags
• Headings
• Meta descriptions
• Product descriptions
• Image alt tags
• URL slug
• URL structure

Successful SEO is a complex process that requires a lot of hard work and dedication. It starts with keyword research and ends with the implementation of a successful strategy.

Focus on Shopper Experience

The customer experience is one of the most important aspects of an eCommerce site.

The conversion rate is an important metric that every eCommerce store owner should be tracking. It is a measure of how many people who visit your site end up purchasing a product or signing up for a subscription.

A high conversion rate means that customers are finding what they are looking for, and more importantly, what they want. A great user experience increases conversion rates. 

Simplify URLs

URLs are important for SEO. They allow search engines to crawl and index your site so that it can be found by potential customers.

A long, complicated URL is not a good thing for your SEO. It is difficult to remember, it takes up more space on the page, and it can be difficult to type out.

Use Alt Tags in Images

Alt tags are the alternative text that provides additional information about a picture. Alt tags show up in place of an image when it is not available or when a person is using a screen reader to navigate the web.

There are two main reasons why it is important to use alt tags in images when optimizing your eCommerce site for SEO:

1. To improve page readability for screen readers 
2. To provide search engine crawlers with more content 

Create Unique Content

The importance of unique content is paramount for search engine optimization (SEO). When you create unique content, you are telling the search engine crawlers that your site is worth crawling and indexing. Without this, your site will not rank as well and will be lost in the sea of other sites.

Unique content also helps with increasing the conversion rates on your eCommerce site. By having a high-quality website, with original content, customers are more likely to convert and buy from you.

Research Competitors

If you want to know your competitors, you need to do research. Researching your competition is the best way to see what they are doing on their site and what the competition is like. It also helps you find out how they rank and how they are being found by potential customers.

Researching your competitors will help you determine what keywords to use on your site, as well as how competitive those keywords are. You may also find that there are some keywords that your competitors rank for but you don't rank for at all. This is an opportunity for improvement!

Optimize Your Homepage

The homepage is the first page that users see when they visit a website. It is also the most important page on the site because it serves as a gateway to all of the other pages. Optimizing your homepage for SEO is an important step in ensuring that your site can rank well in SERPs.

The homepage should include a compelling offer, an explanation of what you do, and a clear call to action. It should also include links to other pages on the site such as product pages, blog posts, and contact information.

Get Started With SEO for an eCommerce Website Today 

Now you know what SEO for an eCommerce website is. We hope you learned a lot about SEO and digital marketing! 

Are you struggling with optimizing your eCommerce site? At Bitbranding, we have the expertise needed to optimize every page on your site while designing an easy and memorable user experience. By applying our eCommerce and SEO expertise, we're able to accelerate your company's growth. 

If you are ready to take the next step and scale your site, contact us today!