Rivalry in the ecommerce market is heating up. As this happens, Google constantly works to improve its shopping features in search results. Many websites still make the same SEO mistakes, even though improved SEO strategies help businesses overcome these obstacles. Regarding search engine optimization, ecommerce businesses can’t afford to lose ground.
In this guide, you will discover where your website might fall short and avoid these expensive blunders. That way, you can improve your online store’s visibility and, ultimately, your sales.
1. Skipping Over SEO Basics
When auditing an online store, you start with the most fundamental aspects, like the page names and H1 tags. Many online stores fail to seize crucial chances to boost their search engine results because they lack a well-defined strategy.
As an ecommerce platform grows, more elements are being templated, greatly facilitating scalability. After setting the right rules and structure, you should ensure you QA the live results. While trying to figure out why your site isn’t working well, a comprehensive audit will likely uncover these things if they were missed initially.
These are the SEO fundamentals to think about:
- Image alt text
- Product descriptions
- Site pages
- Page indexing
These are just some examples. You can still find out more aspects to fix by regularly applying and optimizing your SEO strategy. Working with experts ecommerce seo can also help you improve in some areas you are not familiar with.
2. Disregarding Page Speed Optimization
Even though Google says Page Speed won’t be a ranking consideration, users still care about site speed. Site performance affects revenue, according to a 2019 study commissioned by Google. Based on this research, decreasing mobile site load times by just one-tenth of a second resulted in major performance gains. Also, a mere 0.1-second improvement resulted in an 8.4 percent boost in conversion rate for retail websites.
So, if you want to know your website’s performance, you can use the Page Speed Insights tool. By using this tool, you can learn the factors that can cause slow loading on the site, such as:
- Improperly compressed and scaled images
- Loading massive JS and CSS files at page load, some of which contain code that isn’t necessary to display the content in the initial viewport
- Bad caching
- Poor server performance
Remember, page speed is more important than ever for user experience, customer satisfaction, and your bottom line in today’s highly competitive ecommerce search.
3. Poor Site Structure
Websites with poorly planned structures become increasingly tangled as they expand in size. Poor site architecture prevents internal linking, ranks poorly, and may negatively impact user experience for online stores.
For Google to properly index your site, it must first comprehend its structure. Only then can it deduce your products’ relative importance and hierarchy.
A lower search engine ranking is more probable if Google has difficulty crawling and understanding your site. Google won’t be able to give you good search engine rankings if it can’t even read your site.
With this factor in mind, you should give your site’s structure a fresh look. Check if Google can easily comprehend the website. You should also examine if there is more room for the website to expand as you grow your business and if it is still scalable. If you’re determined, you may fix a badly structured site and see an improvement in your rating.
4. Neglecting Faceted Search
Ranking well for popular, high-volume keywords is a goal of every website. For instance, keywords like “cleaning supplies,” “men’s shoes,” and “women’s dresses” are more practical to use.
However, long-tail keywords with smaller traffic volumes cannot be disregarded. Some examples are “black men’s running shoes” and “blue women’s shoes,” as these keywords are more specific. Using these terms is also more likely, especially for people buying online with the specific item in mind.
Many sites sell these items, but not all are designed to help with search engine rankings. So, faceted pages might not rank for various reasons, including canonical tag misalignment, page cannibalization, and no index tags.
5. Ignoring the Importance of Conversion
A customer will abandon a purchase at the first sign of trouble at any point in the buying funnel. Customers could become overwhelmed by an overly complex or unclear product page. A buyer can feel let down if they require additional help purchasing a product but can’t locate the contact details.
Also, it can be worthwhile to examine your conversion flow if traffic to your priority pages is increasing but your conversion rate is slightly low. With this factor in mind, increasing your site visitors’ conversion rate is an excellent strategy to generate additional income.
6. Using Category Pages Excessively
Customers should find value in your category pages as they go through the buying process. The consumer has the right to see category information, FAQs, and any other relevant purchase details posted for their perusal.
However, some websites go over and above by creating blocks of text that resemble articles. Does your consumer benefit from that much copy? Plus, Google may start seeing the page as more content than a product page.
That’s why you should add material to your category page. The content must be long enough to address the customer’s concerns. Also, priority should be given to valuable, customer-centric content. However, in some cases, little is more. Sharing personal experiences with your company and products is an important part of creating high-quality content.
7. Disregarding E-E-A-T
The SEO emphasizes content demonstrating E-E-A-T qualities: expertise, trustworthiness, authority, and experience. Blogs, videos, manuals, and other content components are just as vital as the transactional components of your site. That’s why creating one-of-a-kind, high-value buying material for clients is yet another chance to do so.
Also, some customers may require more than one interaction with your brand before they are ready to buy. To create top-notch content for your website, utilize team members who are specialists in the product or sector and have a direct connection to the categories of your products.
Remember, well-informed customers about a product or service are more likely to be satisfied with their purchase.
8. Neglecting Customers
The quality of your site’s user experience directly correlates to the likelihood that visitors will remain on your site and even return.
If you want to attract customers and keep them coming back, no matter how they find you, you need to master the fundamentals of search engine optimization. Find out what’s new in user experience design and strategy. These things work together to make your brand more memorable and approachable to customers.
Also, the deciding factor in whether a customer becomes a repeat customer is their experience with each encounter on your site.
Practice the Right Way of SEO for Your Business
The importance of an organic search strategy that builds businesses to compete with ecommerce sites on search engine results pages (SERPs) is rising. Keeping up with Google’s newest updates is just the beginning of a data-centric, performance-driven strategy that will empower you to know more and accomplish more.
So, research further ways to incorporate first-hand knowledge into your present content approach. As a result, your marketing and company will be able to do more.
Also Read: An Exclusive Interview with the CEO of Ranking By SEO: Mr. Lalit Sharma
