Imagine a crowded physical market. Many shops are selling products similar to yours \u2014 you\u2019ve got competition. Potential customers are walking down the street searching for the right shop. How do you show your ideal customers that your shop sells exactly what they\u2019re looking for?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n You put up signs, showcase your best products, and make the store look appealing.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n eCommerce SEO gives your online store the potential to get discovered by your ideal customers and beat competitors.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Search engine optimisation (SEO)<\/strong> is the process of optimising your website to get seen on search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n According to a <\/span>survey by Think with Google<\/a><\/span>, 41% of shoppers go to Google when discovering a new brand. In order to acquire customers, it\u2019s important to appear across places where potential customers may be browsing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This means that when your target audience searches on Google for the product or service they want, your online store<\/a> should rank high on the search engine results pages (SERPs). For example, if you search for \u2018cotton sarees\u2019. <\/span><\/p>\n This is what you will find on Google:<\/strong><\/p>\n You will find 10 organic search results<\/strong> for the product (red). Alongside these, you can see paid ads results<\/strong> (blue) and the Google shopping carousel<\/strong> (orange).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Performing SEO for your eCommerce website helps it rank for organic search. This means that you can attract customers naturally, without the help of paid ads.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The higher you rank for search terms that your potential customers might be using, the more traffic you\u2019ll generate for your store. Your goal should always be to show up in the first 3 to 4 results on the first page.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Before you start optimising, here is a checklist that you should follow to ensure your website homepage is optimised and good to go!\u00a0<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Search engines decide which websites to rank based on keywords.<\/strong> These are words that searchers type in the search bar. Your business should target specific keywords related to the products you\u2019re selling.<\/span><\/p>\n The first step is to keyword strategies to improve your eCommerce SEO<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n For example, if you sell cotton sarees, here are some of the keywords people search for based on that: pure cotton saree, plain cotton sarees, chanderi cotton saree, khadi cotton saree.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Now, let’s look at how you can perform keyword research effectively.<\/p>\n The easiest way is to use Google Search.<\/span><\/p>\n Type in \u201cbuy [what you sell]\u201d and you will see a bunch of suggestions. <\/span><\/p>\n These are the main keywords people search for on Google related to your product. If you have multiple products, repeat this step for each product.<\/span><\/p>\n To get this task done quickly, you can use keyword research tools like Ubersuggest<\/strong> and Semrush<\/strong>. <\/span><\/p>\n Simply enter the product name to get related keywords and search volume (how many people search for it every month on average).<\/span><\/p>\n For example, if you look up the term \u2018toys for pets\u2019 on Semrush, here are the results:<\/span><\/p>\n You now know how to perform keyword research. In the next sections, we\u2019ll look at how to use these keywords to make your eCommerce website SEO-friendly.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Choose keywords that are genuinely relevant to your website and what you sell.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Want a beginner’s guide? Get this ebook for free: Stop feeling invisible – a beginner’s guide to eCommerce SEO<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The page which you mainly need to optimise with the keywords is the product page.<\/span><\/p>\n Here are the sections that you need to keep in mind when doing SEO:<\/strong><\/p>\n These are mainly title tags and meta descriptions. Meta tags help you optimise your store by telling the search engine what the website is about.<\/p>\n Meta descriptions<\/a> are the short descriptions that show up when your website shows up on Google search results. <\/span><\/p>\n The description helps the user understand what your website is for, and who is it meant to target. <\/span><\/p>\n If people like what they read, they will click on the link. A high click-through rate has a positive impact on Google’s ranking.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The description of the product<\/a> is extremely important for not only search engine rankings but also for better conversions. <\/span><\/p>\n Using relevant keywords, good-quality content, original copy and informed writing can help your online store rank better. <\/span><\/p>\n Here\u2019s an example of a good product description:<\/strong><\/p>\n Images are recognised by search engines with the help of Alt texts. They are brief descriptions of an image. Use your keywords to correctly describe each and every product image and use them as alt texts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Once you know the right business keywords to target, it\u2019s time to use that information to structure your online store.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Site structuring is about setting up your eCommerce store\u2019s navigation, category pages, and product pages. <\/span><\/p>\n The goal is to get the best, most relevant pages in front of shoppers and reduce the number of times they have to click to find it from the home page.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Your home page should link to all your major category pages, and even some of your popular product pages as well. (Online stores made with Instamojo<\/a> do this automatically!)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It will help your store visitors find products easily and also give your site a better chance of ranking highly in search.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n To get a good idea of this, take a look at the online store home page of Shilpkriti:<\/strong><\/p>\n Your home page<\/a><\/strong> is the most authoritative page on your website. In technical words, internal links from one page on your site to another pass some of that \u201clink juice\u201d or \u201cauthority\u201d from one page to another.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So, a site with poor navigation also hurts your search rankings.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Here is what a good site structure looks like:<\/strong><\/p>\n If your customers can\u2019t find your products efficiently, then they will leave your website. And the more customers you lose, Google also sees you as untrustworthy. <\/span><\/p>\n Having a good category structure helps build legitimacy with Google.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Here are some questions you should ask:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The answers to these questions vary for each business because every eCommerce site is unique. <\/span><\/p>\n The best way is to prioritise based on what your customers want, as it promotes more sales and conversions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Keep these three things in mind when structuring an eCommerce website:<\/strong><\/p>\n Keep it simple and scalable<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n Use keywords to decide which categories are more important<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n No page should take more than 3 clicks to get to<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n Here\u2019s an example of a good eCommerce navigational structure from Izzicommerce<\/strong> online store:<\/span><\/p>\n Though the store has a large number of products, they have been categorised according to relevant keywords and navigated to separate product pages.<\/span><\/p>\n While site structure varies for each website, here are some pretty universal navigation tips for online stores:<\/strong><\/p>\n Protip: <\/b>Add \u201crelated products\u201d section to each product page for building more link authority.<\/p>\n Instamojo offers premium merchants the option to include product bundles<\/a><\/strong> in their stores.<\/p>\n Related products and product bundles are primarily for upselling. However, it also has a secondary benefit – “interlinking”.<\/p>\n When eCommerce stores link related products and bundle them, they passively provide more context to Google bots about related products\/categories, which helps Google rank the store better. Having relevant content on your online store pages also helps in ranking higher. More on that in the next section.<\/span><\/p>\n There are certain features that every online store should have to attract online shoppers apart from the ones listed above. These 6 features are also tied to user experience, conversion, and other eCommerce elements other than SEO.<\/span><\/p>\n According to a recent study by Hubspot, 76% of consumers say that ease of use is the most important factor when it comes to websites.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Apart from this, a simple user interface also contributes to a better SEO score, thus improving your chances to rank. Here\u2019s how you can make your eCommerce store user-friendly:<\/span><\/p>\n Online sellers have minutes, if not seconds, to make a sale. Focus on the user experience and see your conversion rates soaring up along with organic traffic.<\/span><\/p>\n With mobile commerce growing rapidly each year, it\u2019s now more important than ever to craft a superior mobile experience for your customers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n According to recent studies, 53% of mobile shoppers<\/a> will abandon a website if it doesn\u2019t load in 3 seconds. <\/span><\/p>\n This means that even if you get your optimisation correct and rank higher on Google, your business might still fail if the page load time is higher.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n some of the critical mobile optimisation metrics that Google takes into account are Core web vitals<\/a> and Mobile usability<\/a>.<\/p>\n FAQ sections are a self-help area to address common customer problems and give more details about your store. <\/span><\/p>\n Apart from that, FAQ sections<\/a> play an important role in SEO for eCommerce. They can help your website obtain featured snippets along with rich results.<\/span><\/p>\n Good FAQ pages should only have keywords when they are relevant to the user or query. This will help avoid keyword stuffing, which can harm your search rankings.<\/strong><\/p>\n Your online store needs high-quality photos on product pages. Users highly depend on images when making a purchasing decision. <\/span><\/p>\n So, your eCommerce website should have the ability to display multiple photos per product. And the photos need to be optimized for page load by compressing them. sing lossless image compression tools like tinypng.com.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Here’s a complete guide on eCommerce product photography<\/a> to get you started.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t have a wish list feature yet on your eCommerce store?\u00a0 You\u2019re leaving a lot of money on the table!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Having customers bookmark a product in their wish list will give you chances for retargeting ads. Also, your website gets <\/span>free traffic<\/b> when shoppers share their wish lists with family and friends.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Instamojo online stores<\/a> come with many in-built features, including wishlists. Your customers can easily sign up on your store and create wishlists.<\/span><\/p>\n Reviews are important to build trust as a business<\/a> and also boosts your SEO organically.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When customers review products<\/a>, they tend to use terms that happen to be the keywords such as the name of the product, the brand, and the benefits of using it. <\/span><\/p>\n This boosts SERP ratings and improves your overall online brand presence.<\/span><\/p>\n Moreover, ratings on online stores become a factor for click-through rates from SERP because it\u2019s displayed in the snippet:<\/span><\/p>\n So make sure that your eCommerce website<\/a> has the ability to collect and display customer reviews.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n![\"cotton](\"https:\/\/www.instamojo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screenshot-2022-04-22-at-12.00.15-PM-1.png\")
How to do keyword research for eCommerce<\/strong><\/h2>\n
How to find the right keywords for your business<\/b><\/h3>\n
![\"keyword](\"https:\/\/www.instamojo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screenshot-2022-07-29-at-5.12.37-PM-e1659099577837.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"semrush](\"https:\/\/www.instamojo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screenshot-2022-07-29-at-5.58.18-PM.png\")
<\/p>\nOn-page SEO for eCommerce websites
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1. Meta tags and description\u00a0<\/b><\/h4>\n
2. Product descriptions<\/b><\/h4>\n
![\"product](\"https:\/\/www.instamojo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Screenshot-2021-11-18-at-10.20.23-AM.png\")
3. Alt text\u00a0<\/b><\/h4>\n
eCommerce SEO for category pages:
\nOrganise your eCommerce store<\/strong><\/h2>\n![\"shilpkriti](\"https:\/\/www.instamojo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/shilpkriti-1024x652.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"category](\"https:\/\/www.instamojo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screenshot-2022-07-29-at-6.30.48-PM.png\")
<\/p>\nGood practices for excellent user navigation\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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![\"izzicommerce](\"https:\/\/www.instamojo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Screenshot-2022-08-01-at-8.01.23-AM.png\")
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\n<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n6 must-have features for an SEO-friendly eCommerce website<\/b><\/h2>\n
1. User-friendly eCommerce website:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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2. Mobile-optimised website:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
3. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)<\/strong><\/h3>\n
4. High-resolution photos<\/b><\/h3>\n
5. Wish lists<\/b><\/h3>\n
6. User-generated reviews and ratings<\/b><\/h3>\n
![\"review\"](\"https:\/\/www.instamojo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screenshot-2022-07-31-at-11.40.41-AM.png\")
<\/p>\nSEO for your Instamojo eCommerce store<\/strong><\/h2>\n