It should go without saying, in an ideal world, that the product pages are important for making more sales and money for e-commerce stores. Unfortunately, due to the fact that many marketers have made millions of dollars from selling shortcuts on how to make money on the internet, lead some e-commerce store owners of today into a false belief that there are actually shortcuts present for optimization of their product pages that could help them make sales faster. That’s why you will find certain store owners driven by faster results and a delusion that “every product is same”, copy-paste product descriptions from other stores.
But since you are reading this blog, I assume that you’re a savvy marketer which also means that you are already aware that such a shortcut will be dangerous in the long run and can severely affect the SEO rankings of such product’ pages. So, what is your alternative? To focus on improving the SEO rankings organically.
Though some popular e-commerce platforms such as BigCommerce, Shopify and Magento website development come with their own set of SEO benefits, it’s still better to put whatever effort you can from your end. To help you out, I have mentioned below some of the best SEO practices for your product pages.
Use Important Keywords
In order to make your product information friendly to both search engines and shoppers, do ensure that all prices, measurements, color, sizes and other details are easily available. Also, try to keep your product information as up to date as possible. This also includes updating every new information that your manufacturer provides you. All this, apart from being valuable to your shoppers, can help you get more keywords, thus improving your ranking.
Design from the Shoppers’ Point of View
Your product page design along with your overall website should be such as to attract the visitors to your site. To do this, make your website easy to navigate, with sensible menus. Also, try to use images sparingly as a long loading time can deter the more impatient shoppers and most likely, lead them to hit the back button. And since loading time is a ranking factor, do your best to keep your pages loading as fast as possible.
Avoid Complicated URLs
A URL, which allows a visitor access to your page often contains a large amount of product information such as categories, names file types etc. in a small space. Now, your URLs should be clean and should contain keywords relevant to what appears on the screen. Not only does it make it easier for search engines to pick up information from the URL but it also helps make the visitor better understand where that particular URL leads to.
Use ALT text in Images
I am assuming here that you know about ALT text and have added images in the past either through CMS or by hand in HTML. But even if you don’t, ALT text provides another way of getting your important keywords on the site. Also, it’s extremely important for users who are legally blind or have a hard time seeing web pages. So, it’s better to avoid any instance where ALT text may not be displayed, such as displaying a product image in Flash.
Allow Customer Reviews
We all know how reviews can help boost conversion on product pages. Studies in this context also prove that almost 90% of consumers are prone to buy products that have reviews. But one thing you may not know, reviews also help with SEO as customers are more likely to use important keywords naturally in their reviews. Though duplicating the same keywords won’t have much impact, the use of synonyms and long-tail keywords most definitely will.
Avoid Duplicate Content
In case, you’re a retailer and not a manufacturer, you receive all your product descriptions from your manufacturer. Though it’s better to include as much information as possible, try to avoid duplicating any product copy or product descriptions provided to you. This will not only save you from being penalized but might save your SEO rankings as well. So, despite being difficult and time-consuming, create new, unique descriptions for each item you carry.
Create Unique Content
Ranking selected keywords or phrases might become an issue if your e-commerce site lacks original content or doesn’t have much products to speak of. One interesting way to overcome this issue is to create some unique content while giving your visitors another reason to buy from you. Also, you can add a company blog to your e-commerce site where you get to share news, trends and various new developments in your industry.
Conclusion
At last, a bit of advice. Though in this entire post I have stressed about optimizing your e-commerce store for search engines, just remember, any changes you make in your online store should be for the ultimate benefit of your customers. Think of your customers not as robots but as human beings. Create stuff that satisfies the shoppers and you won’t have to worry about SEO rankings anymore.
