As an eCommerce owner, you understand that driving sales is equal to getting found online. But with countless competitors, getting ranked highly in search results means having good products and a sound technical SEO strategy.
From page speed to structured data, adhering to certain e-commerce SEO services will help in the process of better understanding your website by search engines, thus allowing you to start ranking for more keywords and attract more customers to your online store.
Let’s delve into deep and ready-to-implement tactics for optimizing the technical side of your site.
Speed Up Your Site For Both Users and Search Engines
When shoppers click away from your site due to slow loading speeds, it’s a lost opportunity for a sale. Similarly, search engines view speed as an important ranking factor. By optimizing your images, reducing page weight, enabling compression, and monitoring performance with tools like Google PageSpeed Insights, you can deliver a snappier experience for all.
Aim to achieve scores of at least 90 on mobile and desktop. Speedy sites see increased conversion rates and higher search visibility.
Clean Up Your URLs for Better Usability and SEO
Search engine bots and people both appreciate clean, readable URLs.
- Ensure your product, category and content page URLs are descriptive yet concise.
- Use hyphens to separate important keywords.
- Implement URL parameters carefully so they don’t negatively impact your SEO.
- Be sure to set up 301 redirects for any outdated or removed pages to avoid duplicate content issues down the line.
- Well-structured URLs make your content easier for search engines to understand.
Optimize Your On-Page Content for Relevance
Filling your pages with the right keywords in the right places is key. But don’t stop at keyword stuffing; your content must provide genuine value to users as well. Write informative, unique descriptions optimized for real people, and use heading tags wisely to emphasize important information.
Include important product specifications and answer common customer questions to boost relevancy in the eyes of search engines. Take the time to analyze your top-converting pages and identify what makes them successful for replication.
Leverage Structured Data for Rich Results
Structured data, like JSON-LD or microdata, allows you to provide extra context about your content to search engines. For e-commerce, hiring an e-commerce SEO company and organization-structured data enables you to display rich snippets and product cards in search results.
This gives users more information at a glance, increasing the chances they’ll click through to your site. It’s a win-win for boosting clicks and conversions. Be sure to validate your structured data is being picked up correctly in the Search Console.
Optimize Images for Fast Loading and SEO
Large, poorly optimized images can cripple your site’s speed.
- Compress and resize images without losing quality, and only load high-resolution versions on desktop.
- Add alt text descriptions for images to improve accessibility and inform search engine crawlers.
- Consider lazy loading images that are further down pages.
- And don’t forget image naming—use title keyword combinations like “green dress-summer” for SEO and usability benefits.
Properly optimized imagery enhances both the user experience and your technical SEO.
Monitor and Improve 404 Errors and Redirects
Broken links send the wrong signal to search engines and frustrate users. Use the Search Console to identify outdated URLs throwing 404 errors, then set up 301 redirects to send visitors to related, relevant replacement pages. This passes link juice and prevents duplicate content issues. You can also use server logs or e-commerce SEO services to find and fix additional broken links on your site. Keeping 404s to a minimum and redirecting properly is important for maintaining a seamless user journey and search engine optimization.
Ensure Your Sitemap is Up-to-Date
Submit an XML sitemap to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools to tell search engines about new and updated pages. An accurate sitemap indexes all of your important pages, aiding discovery. Generate the sitemap dynamically or use a plugin to automatically keep it current.
Check it regularly for any broken or missing URLs and resubmit after any major site changes. An up-to-date sitemap improves crawlability and helps search engines understand the scope and structure of your valuable content.
Implement Robust Security Practices
Shoppers will not be too keen on making a purchase on an insecure website. And search engines hate those insecure sites too, because search engines do not like pages with malware or other security issues. Make sure your SSL certificate is properly installed and kept up-to-date, and test for common vulnerabilities.
Use a security header plugin to help lock down permissions for things like JavaScript and cookies. Observe best practices for security and privacy so that users can trust that their data is safe and that your site is safe for search engines too.
Monitor and Analyze Performance with Tools
Monitor what your website looks like to search engines through e-commerce SEO services and your server log files. Check and fix errors and warnings in these. Check crawl stats and indexing reports. Keep an eye on key metrics like page speed, core web vitals, and search traffic over time.
To track key metrics, including search traffic over time, use Google Analytics and Hotjar to get insights on user behavior. Track these performance indicators to help you find new optimization opportunities as well as issues that need fixing. For the best results in technical SEO, follow data-driven decisions.
Get Backlinks From Quality Sources
Now, while off-the-page technicality of external links is important, get those backlinks from industry publications and trustworthy partner sites. Do not get lured into low-quality automated links or networks.
Focus on creating valuable, shareable content, and those links should come in time. Then, interact with your target communities on places like Reddit and Quora. And supplement your technical efforts with relationship-building to boost your authority and trust with search engines.
Conclusion
All these best practices take quite a lot of time to be implemented, but their results are high: organic traffic goes up, conversion rates increase, and so do sales. Measure all results with analytics, and try to keep up with the frequent changes in algorithms on trusted resources. Combine the constant desire to improve and add a small amount of effort, and your e-commerce website will outperform competitors, meeting the users’ and search engines’ needs. Now get to work—your sales boost is just a few optimizations away.
