Ranking for relevant keywords is crucial for business growth. Securing that top spot puts your store in front of a wider, high-intent audience and enables you to generate more sales.
However, eCommerce SEO is a complex discipline. It involves utilizing various eCommerce marketing tools, conducting regular eCommerce content optimization, keeping up with Google’s updates and partnering with an eCommerce optimization agency – the list goes on.
To make everyone’s lives easier, Google released a compilation of advanced eCommerce SEO tips and guidelines to help site owners improve visibility across Google’s services. And when information comes from the source itself, it shouldn’t be ignored. This latest eCommerce development reference guide shares actionable insights into how to optimize eCommerce website content for more traffic, leads and sales.
In the sections below, we summarize seven topics discussed in Google’s advanced SEO guide:
1. Where eCommerce content can appear on Google
2. Sharing product data with Google
3. Eight eCommerce structured data types
4. eCommerce SEO tips on launching a new site
5. Designing your eCommerce site’s URL structure
6. Helping Google understand your eCommerce site structure
7. UX patterns and how they impact page performance
Where eCommerce Content Can Appear on Google
Google says:
Google has multiple surfaces where your eCommerce content can appear… Providing the right content on the appropriate Google surface can help you reach new potential customers.”
Google Search isn’t the only Google service displaying your content to users – your eCommerce SEO checklist should include strategies on boosting your presence and visibility on these five other services:
• Google Images
• Google Lens
• Google Shopping
• Google My Business
• Google Maps
As you perform your eCommerce content optimization, note that these services support varying ways of displaying content. Maximize each by working with an eCommerce SEO agency in creating tailored content, such as your company story, customer product reviews and catalogs.
Sharing Product Data With Google
Any eCommerce SEO agency will agree that entering product data helps optimize eCommerce website performance for search. It enables search engines to show relevant product information to high-intent customers.
Google’s recently published guidelines include eCommerce website tips on sharing product data with the search engine effectively. It recommends site owners to either:
• Add structured data to product pages: Doing so increases your eligibility for Product rich results and improves Google’s understanding of your content.
• Upload a feed to Google Merchant Center: This helps Google understand your products and know what to display for relevant search queries.
Eight eCommerce Structured Data Types
Google says:
Structured data is a standardized machine-readable format for providing information about a page. This can improve the accuracy of Google’s understanding of your content.”
In simpler terms, structured data is the code helping search engines understand how to interpret and display your website content. Structured data, in general, isn’t specific to eCommerce, but these eight types are:
1. LocalBusiness: Helps Google understand your location, opening hours and other details on your business information pages.
2. Product: Tells Google more about your products.
3. Review: Helps Google understand product reviews on your site.
4. HowTo: Helps Google understand your “how-to” guides and display a rich result for them on relevant search results.
5. FAQPage: Helps Google crawl and index your FAQ pages and display a rich result for its questions and answers.
6. BreadcrumbList: Helps Google understand a page’s position in the site hierarchy.
7. WebSite: Helps Google understand how your site implements site search and makes your eCommerce site eligible to display a search box in search results.
8. VideoObject: Helps Google present your pre-recorded videos or live stream events in relevant search results.
You can work with a technical SEO specialist or a technical SEO consultant to implement these structured data types throughout your pages. Doing so helps you conduct eCommerce content optimization effectively and appeal to all audiences, regardless of the buying stage they’re in.
eCommerce SEO Tips on Launching a New Site
Having a well-designed and functional site isn’t enough to achieve a successful launch. As you work with your eCommerce marketing agency, make sure your new eCommerce site performs well on search engines, too. Google shared the following eCommerce website tips you should add to your eCommerce SEO checklist:
1. Verify your website property.
2. Request Google to crawl your site.
3. Check how Google Search is indexing your site using the Index Coverage report.
4. If you have a physical store, claim your local business or create a new one using Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business).
5. Sign up for Google Merchant Center to enter your business information, product descriptions and deals.
Designing Your eCommerce Site’s URL Structure
If you’re using an eCommerce platform like Shopify, you may not need to include your site’s URL structure in your eCommerce SEO checklist. Most platforms already handle this aspect for site owners.
However, if you’re building your site from scratch, you must work with a technical SEO specialist in controlling your URL structure. Doing so helps you avoid indexing issues while helping Google efficiently locate and retrieve your web pages.
Google’s eCommerce development reference guide recommends the following practices:
• Reduce the number of alternative URLs returning the same content to keep Google from making more requests to your site than necessary.
• Use the same case for all text in a URL if the web server treats upper and lower case text the same.
• Have a unique URL for each page in paginated results.
• Use descriptive words in URL paths to help Google better understand your page.
An experienced technical SEO consultant should be able to keep your site compliant with these recommendations.
Helping Google Understand Your eCommerce Site Structure
A key point to add to your eCommerce SEO checklist: Google analyzes the relationship between your pages based on their linkages to find the best content on your site. Site navigation structures like menus and cross-page links can influence how Google does this.
To make your eCommerce site navigation crawler-friendly, Google says to:
• Ensure your pages can be reached by following links through your site’s navigation.
• Add structured data to help Google understand the roles different pages play on your site.
• Link to the product pages you wish to be indexed – Google’s crawlers might not find products without direct links from category pages.
• Build as many links to your best-selling products to let Google know how important these pages are.
There’s also the option of enlisting SEO services for eCommerce websites, especially if you aren’t familiar with site structure optimization. Seeking out expert assistance helps you get the job done quickly and efficiently.
UX Patterns and How They Impact Page Performance
Google says:
You can improve the experience of users on your site by displaying a subset of results to improve page performance (page experience is a Google search ranking signal)… For example, you may display a subset of available products in response to a user using the search box on your eCommerce site.”
Google enumerates three UX patterns for incrementally loading results on eCommerce sites, along with its pros and cons:
1. Pagination: A UX pattern splitting contents into separate pages, letting users navigate between pages by clicking links like “Next,” “Previous” and page numbers.
PROS: Pagination separates content into pages for easier consumption and helps shoppers easily track how many pages they’ve viewed.
CONS: Pagination hinders a seamless viewing experience, requiring visitors to use complex controls to navigate through results.
2. Load More: A UX pattern allowing users to click a button to see more results.
PROS: Load More is a mobile-friendly way of displaying results as it uses a single page for all content.
CONS: Since all of the results are added to a single page, it can’t handle large numbers of results.
3. Infinite Scroll: A UX pattern continually loading content as users scroll downwards.
PROS: Infinite Scroll only requires users to keep scrolling to view more content, keeping them on the page for as long as possible.
CONS: It can cause “scrolling fatigue” as it displays a seemingly never-ending list of results.
To find the best option for your eCommerce website, consider these factors and how they might impact user experience. You can also seek your eCommerce optimization agency or technical SEO specialist for expert advice.
Propel Your Business to Success With An Ultramodern eCommerce Marketing Agency
Navigating eCommerce SEO could involve a lot of guesswork, but there are readily available resources like Google’s eCommerce development reference guide to inform your strategy. The search engine giant itself released eCommerce website tips on boosting your site’s visibility across its various services. You should leverage these materials to improve the way you do eCommerce SEO audit, site optimization and eCommerce marketing.
On that note, it’s completely possible to optimize eCommerce website content and perform eCommerce SEO audit on your own. But if you want to maximize efficiency and skip the trial-and-error stage, partner with an eCommerce marketing agency like Thrive.
Thrive, an eCommerce optimization agency, provides results-driven eCommerce SEO services. Our thorough eCommerce SEO audit process, tailored strategies and commitment to staying up to date with Google’s updates are the cornerstone of our SEO services for eCommerce websites. Moreover, we use top-notch eCommerce marketing tools and stay abreast of Shopify SEO and Amazon SEO best practices to cater to any requirement you may have.
If you’re ready to boost your online sales through conversion-driven eCommerce SEO services, send us a message or speak with a technical SEO consultant. We’re excited to take your business to new heights!
