Proven eCommerce SEO Hacks

What is anAn eCommerce SEO hack is just a term for an SEO tactic that will gain a quick win for eCommerce websites.

These hacks will deliver quick results that will continue to have long term benefit and adhere to Google’s guidelines.

When the chips are down and that important retail period is coming up every brand can use an eCommerce SEO hack.

Every brand can use an eCommerce SEO hack

eCommerce SEO Hack?

speed testRun a GoogleGoogle looks at the speed of your site as a hugely important factor in it’s ranking algorithm.

This is because the speed at which your site runs is indicative of the user experience.

The best way to know how fast Google thinks your site is - is to take the Google PageSpeed test.

After the speed test - implement the red flags as a priority.

Site assets viewed using the Firefox developer browser

Then after you know what you need to fix on your own website, run the speed test on your competitors who are ahead of you on page 1 for the best keywords!

Fixing things on your own website which are amber for your competitors might give you the competitive edge.

than the competition? Are you faster

Picture By Paul Kehrer via Wikimedia Commons

Fix the faults...

Fixing the issues raised is not a matter of life and death, but providing a site that’s fast and gives a good user experience (UX) is a good thing.

Your Site

HereAddress the red flags first if you can.

Well Done. Fixing these issues after running your competitors through this test, can give you the competitive edge.

your homepage title tag

Optimise

Your title tags are displayed in your Google search results for each of your website’s pages ranking in the index.

not popularBe relevantIncluding relevant keywords in your title tags is the most impactful place you can put your keywords for SEO.

Your homepage is the main entry point for search engine spiders and therefore they place the utmost importance of the keywords in your homepage. Always opt for relevant over popular keywords.

the condition of being relevant, or connected with the matter at hand: Some traditional institutions of the media lack relevance in this digital age.

[rel-uh-vuh ns]

relevance

every category page title tag is utilised

Ensure

The amount of characters that are displayed in the titles of your Google search results does vary and has been slyly cut back by Google over the years to around 60 characters.

It’s not about keyword stuffing, it’s about carefully analysing the most relevant keywords that have previously driven purchases and identifying keyword gaps.

<title>

</title>

A big mistake website marketing

teams often make is to underutilise this

allowance.

Be aware

with product page title tagsGet specificIf you pack your category pages with a range of descriptive keywords like luxury… or quirky… dresses, then your product pages are where to describe in detail what wouldn’t be relevant to all products at a category level.

So for example, along with the product type, such as “chair”, product pages should include keywords such as colour, style, material and size keywords. Where possible, use widely accepted naming conventions for colours like “brown” rather than “caramel”, or “caramel brown” if changing the brand colour options isn’t possible.

the same languageSpeak

Include a CTA in your meta descriptions

For many years now, meta descriptions have been dropped as a Google ranking factor

Including keyword variations, unique selling points, free delivery and a call to action (CTA) still significantly increases click-through rates

If you’re #1 organically, your click-through rate may be as high as 100%!

A current Google ranking factor that pushes your site up above the rest is click-through rate, so spend the time on optimising your meta descriptions for clicks and the increased rankings will send more relevant traffic, conversions and revenue your way.

Add text links to deeper category pages

Search engine spiders crawl text links, so if you add 100-200 words of copy or so to each category page with text links through to

deeper sub-category pages this will help search engines crawl and index your deeper level pages.

The more pages that are indexed in Google the more potential doorways to your shop you create for potential customers.

Add keyword variations to product pages

So you’ve added specifics like colour, size and style to your product title tags. Now you can really go mad and include as many ways of describing that particular product as possible.

Colours (red coffee pot with white stripe)

Size (chunky or large)

Style (vintage or retro)

Material (high gloss ceramic)

Unique selling points (thermostat controlled or next day delivery)

Get hyper-specific with alternative ways of describing the product type, including:

Add reviews to your product pages

If you already have great product reviews on your site you can code these product reviews using Google Rich Snippets to pull through into your search result listings.

Product reviews increase your conversion rate as they are a major influence on purchase.

An example of a rich snippet

Rank higher with a good click-through rate

Remember when we covered that search result click-through rate is an important Google ranking factor? Well pulling reviews into search results can improve your click-through rate, and in turn improve your rankings!

Happy hacking

Once you try one eCommerce SEO hack on

your website and see the results, you’ll see

how moreish hacking is. So go forth and hack!

ThoughtShift is an award-winning digital marketing agency specialising in eCommerce PPC & SEO.

Our expert team of Consultants have helped companies add £1 million in eCommerce SEO revenue and deliver digital marketing happiness across the retail, furniture and fashion sectors for clients including RED5, Biscuiteers and Gopak.

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