Best Practices in SEO for E-commerce
Even though search engine optimization (SEO) seems clear-cut on paper, there are dozens of interlocking pieces that need to be monitored in practice if you demand positive results.
With quite a few new players in the e-commerce game as of late, the importance of getting your site noticed and ranked ahead of the others is crucial.
The fundamentals of SEO, such as great content, quality inbound links and a good social media campaign, undoubtedly apply for e-commerce sites, too. But there are other important strategies that need to be applied in regards to SEO for e-commerce sites.
5 Important Aspects of SEO for E-commerce
Unique content – Google prizes unique content, and penalizes duplicate content. With so many newcomers in the e-commerce game, most are happy to copy the product description they find in Amazon or wherever else directly onto their pages. Not a good idea. Take the time to create unique descriptions for your pages.
Reviews and social proof – Most people are hesitant to purchase if they don’t see that someone has tested the waters before them That is why testimonials and social proof play such a big role in successful e-commerce pages. These are easy to get, and need to be a part of the plan!
Use redirects on dead product pages – Too often when a product is no longer being sold, the page lives on, though usually in the form of a 404 error page. This is a bad on-site SEO signal to Google, and will hurt you. Instead, us a simple 301 redirect to send that traffic to new or current offers.
Use unique imagery – Use unique images on your pages too. Like duplicate content in the form of text, using the same images found on Amazon won’t help you. If you can take on some image editing, it’s simple enough to alter the images enough to make them unique, and perhaps adding a message of your own.
Use different types of content – Shake it up on your e-commerce pages. Like other web pages, people like to see a variety of content, and this can make your product stand out. Videos, demos and testimonials can help immensely.
Using these small tweaks together with traditional on-page SEO can lead to your pages leapfrogging over the competition. All it will require is a little more work!