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E-commerce SEO Checklist to Drive Sales in 2023

E-commerce has grown significantly in importance within the retail sector in the current digital era. But with the level of online competition rising, it is now crucial for companies to optimize e-commerce SEO in order to stand out in the online market.

If you're looking to hire an e-commerce SEO agency, get in touch with us.

In this blog, dive deep into:

1. What is e-commerce SEO?
2. Why is SEO important for e-commerce sites?
3. Technical e-commerce SEO checklist
4. E-commerce SEO keywords checklist
5. On-Page e-commerce SEO checklist

Let's dive right in!

What is SEO for E-commerce?

E-commerce SEO is the process of optimizing an e-commerce website to improve its search engine visibility and ranking. The goal of e-commerce SEO is to increase traffic to the website, improve the user experience, and ultimately drive sales.

Among the regular e-commerce SEO services are link building,improving product and category pages, and addressing difficulties with website architecture.

Why is SEO important for E-commerce sites?

Here are a few e-commerce SEO statistics for you to consider why SEO matters:

  • The first five results in a SERP receive more than two-thirds of all clicks. [source]
  • The first page of search results receives 95% of all visitors. [source]
  • At least 43% of all e-commerce traffic originates from Google's organic traffic. [source]

Technical E-commerce SEO checklist

Technical SEO is all about ensuring your website provides excellent performance and a wonderful web experience for both users and search engines, i.e. it is easily crawlable.

1. Make sure that your website can be crawled and indexed.

A search engine cannot rank your content if it cannot crawl your website. It cannot rank your products in search results specifically.

Technical SEO must take into account your site's indexability, crawlability, speed, content, schema markup, and general user-friendliness. The other components of your e-commerce SEO plan will come together if these are properly set up.

2. . Include schema markup on your website

It's important that you do this since adding it to your website is simple. It makes sure that your products are more attractive on Google's first page of results and in the shopping section.

The products report of Google Search Console gives a view of your current schema markup configuration.

3. Fix pages having 4XX errors

All websites can benefit from Google Search Console. After your website has been inspected, the first thing you should do is fix any pages that have issues.

These are damaged pages that Google cannot crawl, frequently because of an outdated sitemap, out-of-stock merchandise, or a transient server fault.

4. Verify excluded pages again

You should also look at the pages you have blocked Google from indexing because of the coding in your robots.txt file.

Even though this list frequently includes pages you already don't want a search engine to crawl, like the cart or customer profile page, you should still double-check it to make sure no important pages are excluded.

SEO keywords for E-commerce checklist

Once your technical SEO is solid, you should assess your current keyword strategy and determine which pages are ranking for each phrase.

1. Sales-driven, niche-specific keywords


Choosing the incorrect keywords to target is one of the biggest errors that e-commerce shop owners make.

Many target the search terms relevant to a brand that receive the most traffic. Even though they appear well in the search, conversions will be driven by more precise, low-search-volume terms.

For instance, compared to "Subaru rims" or "rims," "2017 Subaru Cross trek rims" may not have an outstanding volume.

2. Pay attention to keyword intent.


Make sure the keywords you are focusing on correspond to the appropriate searcher intent.

An informational or transactional inquiry can be distinguished using Google's Rank Brain. You should be sure to target transactional keywords if you have an e-commerce website. Searching for a specific term in an incognito window and observing the results will show you what kind it belongs to.

You're on the correct track if the inquiry leads you to product pages.

3. Avoid competing against yourself


As soon as you have identified your transactional, sales-oriented keywords, check to make sure no other pages are ranking for the same phrase.

If two pages are ranked for the same query, Google won't know which to show first or at all. You shouldn't invest so much time in analyzing your transactional keywords only to have consumers taken to the homepage rather than the product page.

If there is any artificial competition for keywords, Google Search Console may display the ranking position, clicks, impressions, and CTR for the pages of your website.

On-Page E-commerce SEO checklist

When it comes to your rankings, quality content is not a new element. As an e-commerce company, lengthy, in-depth content might not be your main concern right away, but if you neglect it, your rankings will suffer.

1. Keep Your Content Unique


Websites with duplicate material will pay a price because Google consistently promotes unique, high-quality content.

Google might classify a page as duplicate if 60% of its content is identical to that of another. If you have different product pages for the same item in diverse sizes or colors, such pages may be considered duplicates from an e-commerce perspective.

This problem may be resolved, and your site will be made user-friendly and responsive by combining all these options onto a single page.

2. Strengthen any weak content


Google keeps an eye out for websites with inadequate content.

It's possible that an item's product page won't be indexed if it lacks a thorough description and relevant photographs. Because there isn't much information on the website, Google doesn't think it will fulfill the user's search criteria.

Make sure all the specifications, photos, and other crucial details are included and accessible to visitors for each of your products.

3. Using mobile-first indexing


With mobile-first indexing, Google now bases your ranking on the content of your mobile site, not the desktop version, for at least 90% of websites. You should make sure your website and products are optimized for mobile devices as the number of mobile searches has surpassed desktop searches in most cases.

On your mobile site, be sure to include clear, in-depth content to help customers who are looking to buy locate your offerings.

A responsive e-commerce website is the greatest solution to this problem.This will enable your website to adjust to the size of the user’s device screen, thus reducing the issue associated with mobile-first indexing.

Read more on how to create SEO content to rank higher on SERP.

Conclusion

In conclusion, have the following in mind as you leave this article:


• Never undervalue the impact technical SEO has on your website's rankings. The success of your project depends on technical factors like crawlability and schema markup.


• Avoid mistargeting your SEO keywords. Be aware of the distinction between informational and transactional search phrases and aim for terms that will boost sales.


• Pay attention to thin or redundant content on your website as it might significantly reduce the likelihood that your website will rank well.


• Optimize your website for mobile devices for Google's mobile-first indexing.

Ogilvy Martech is an award-winning web design and SEO company with over 10 years of experience. We help businesses to grow their online presence exponentially with data-driven strategies and purposeful goals.   Learn more about our services.