E-commerce SEO 101 – A Guide To Successful Ecommerce SEO
Search engine optimization for an ecommerce store can be a daunting task. Heavy coded back ends make even small changes difficult. Link building can be equally as challenging. Who wants to link to your product page anyway?
The goal of ecommerce is to get customers to purchase your product. Getting product pages ranked well in the SERPS is the key to any ecommerce success. After all, the product page is where all the action takes place.
In the graph below, you will see how SEO is usually approached for most online store owners:
The graphic depicts the normal flow of PageRank in an ecommerce store. The home page is heavily SEO’d. The category pages receive the bulk of the PageRank as it is passed downwards from the home page. The product pages usually end up with the least amount of PageRank passed to them. This is unfortunate, since most product related searches are long tail and low competition, while most category pages are higher competition searches.
Ranking for “Rolex” is much more difficult than ranking for “mens black dial rolex“. Don’t ignore high traffic keywords, but avoid tunnel vision. By focusing solely on the biggest and baddest keywords, you could miss most of the traffic in your market.
It is typical for most ecommerce stores to link to 10 or 20 products from the home page. Increasing the number of products linked too from the home page will increase the number of products showing up in the SERPS. The top 100 products in your store should probably be on your home page. Here are some suggestions for listing more product links:
- A featured product list
- Top sellers list
- Discount product list
- Items that have been reviewed list
Creating High Value Pages
After leveraging the PageRank of your home page, creating pages of high value, highly linkable content enables further deep linking to product pages. In essence, create linkbait. Creating link bait for an online store can pay huge dividends.
In the watch store example, I want my Rolex watches to rank well for long tail keywords. So I need to pass some strong PageRank to specific watch pages. I create a page as link bait. On this page I create unordered lists with links to the products I want to highlight.
The linkbait would not be too difficult. Perhaps a drawing to give away a Rolex…or better yet, an auction where all of the proceeds would go to charity. I would list the watch with no reserve and host the auction on my site.
Most likely, the charity you have chosen would be happy to link to the auction and help you get the word out. A good piece of linkbait in this situation would result in great PageRank and strong movement for your product pages.
Lets take a look at how PageRank should be passed:
In the mind map above, “Prodcut 1″ represents an entire subset of products (at least it does now) and so you can see that each important subset is being passed PageRank from high value pages. The red lines represent PageRank passed to the product pages from the high PR pages.
URL Structures
There is direct correlation between the depth of a page in the URL and the authority given to it by Google. So, instead of a URL structure like this:
www.example.com/category1/subcategory/rolexwatch
I use:
www.example.com/rolex-watch
This URL structure signifies that my product page is important to this site. Also, notice that I used “-” in between words in the second example. Google uses the”-” as a word separator in the URL.
Canonical URLs
Of course, the canonical issue of www vs. non www should be resolved for any website.
In light of the URL structure discussion, the canonical URL meta tag may be needed to avoid duplicate content issues. Using the previous example, I discover that I need to use both URL structures for usability issues.
- www.example.com/category1/subcategory/rolex-watch
- www.example.com/rolex-watch
So, on the deep page (www.example.com/category1/subcategory/rolex-watch) I would create a canonical meta tag in the head section that looks like this:
<link rel=”canonical” href=”www.example.com/rolex-watch” />
This will notify Google which page to use in their index and which page should carry all of the PageRank.
SEO for Ecommerce Images
Its always nice to get traffic from Google Images for a specific product. However, there are other benefits. Using proper SEO for images improves the overall page’s optimization. Here are some best practices:
- Use descriptive names and the “-” for image names…black-dial-rolex-watch.jpg
- Include an Alt tag…alt=”black dial Rolex watch”
- Do not use large pictures and HTML to shrink them down. Ecommerce sites are already slow, having huge picture files when they are not needed will only slow down page load time and possibly hurt search ranking.
Matt Cutts from Google discusses image URLs:
On to a big issue of late…
Duplicate Content
If a site has 1,000,000 products, it is not realistic to think that it will all be unique content. However, some or most of the site should be unique content. Google does gives some duplicate content penalties.
In reality though, it is not a penalty as much as a quality control decision. If 10 competitors have the same content for a certain product, only a few of them are going to show up in the top ten search results. Google does not want its users seeing the same content over and over again.
Instead of rewriting all of the manufacturers content, add a few hundred words to the top of the product description with details that no one else is carrying. Google knows that some content has to be duplicated, like product specifications. However, if you can set yourself apart with 100% unique content, you will have a greater chance of ranking well for long tail keywords.
Its not all or nothing, I typically advise my clients facing this issue to tackle this issue a little at a time. Identify your top 100 sellers and rewrite those descriptions. Twelve product pages with absolute unique content is better than none.
User generated content is always a great plus. Getting customers to review products will assist you in getting great, unique content that both the search engines and potential buyers love.
Sitemaps
I create two sitemaps on any given ecommerce site.
- XML sitemap: an XML sitemap should be submitted to Google through webmaster tools. It is best if the sitemap updates itself automatically, however you can use a free online service to generate one. The purpose of this sitemap is to let the SEs know about the entire site’s pages.
- HTML Sitemap: creating an HTML sitemap with the top 100-200 products will serve to direct your users in the right direction as well as distribute more PageRank to the product pages. Link to the HTML sitemap from the footer of the site.
Keyword Research
When doing keyword research for an ecommerce site, the main objective is to find keywords that will result in a transaction. However, there are many different types of traffic, and it is important to understand the intent of any particular search.
For example, a search for “rolex store” may only have 1/100th the traffic of “rolex”, but may be more valuable based on conversions. Traffic from both keywords is desirable, however a decision must be made about priority.
I divide keyword research into several different categories based upon the intent of the user.
- Transactional
- Information
- Navigational
- General
Transactional keywords indicate the intent of the user is to buy something. Transactional keywords will often have much higher conversion rates than other keywords and can be a driving force inside any ecommerce store. Here are some words you can identify as indicating transactional intent:
- buy
- for sale
- cheap
- new
- discount
- warehouse
- store
- online store
- retail
- price
These are obvious giveaways, however through research and understanding the typical customer, other indicators will arise.
For example, a search for a specific product may indicate that the searcher’s intent is to make a purchase. However, in markets where owning a specific product makes the searcher a part of a sub-culture, the product search may not be transactional at all. Many “iphone” searchers behave in this fashion.
Informational keywords signal that the user is looking to answer a question. Such as, “Why are Rolex’s so expensive?”. Chances are the search would look much more different than the question.
For example, the search “rolex cost review” may be asking the above question. There are always common threads of questions related to any product or industry. Even though the searches may look very different. Identifying those questions and answering them on the ecommerce site is a solid strategy for link building and positioning the site as an industry leading expert. Here are some common words that indicate informational searches.
- How
- Where
- Guide
- Tips
- Manual
- Fix
- Why
- What
Informational keywords are often easy to identify and use. Putting up content that answers the user’s questions in your market will make great linkbait.
Navigational keywords usually indicate the searcher is looking for a specific site. A search for “Target” is more than likely a search for www.target.com. There are two ways to use navigational keywords.
- Determine who in your industry is getting the most searches. Analyze their internet marketing strategy and brand awareness campaign. You may be able to benefit from their research and emulate their success.
- Determine which of your products is most sought after by brand. Focus your SEO energies on ranking for those brands in search queries.
General keywords are where the intent of the user cannot be determined simply by their search. A search for “Rolex” can be transactional, informational or navigational. These keywords are also the most heavily searched and therefore the most competitive. The best solution for handling these keywords is giving the user a quick way to find what they are looking for on your site.
That is why web 2.0 designs are so popular and effective. Especially those that provide two or three huge buttons for a user to click on instantly.
Keyword Research Tools
My favorite keyword research tool is Google analytics. I know that it is not a keyword research tool, however it does help identify low hanging fruit.
Low Hanging Fruit
I like to take 1000 or so long tail keywords from Google Analytics and determine their current rank in the search engines. It takes some time, but it is well worth the trouble. If you do not want to go through all the trouble, you can use SEMRush in the same way.
Export the keywords into an excel file. Once all of the rankings are in one place, filter out all results except for those between 11 and 30. Most of these keywords will never have crossed your mind. Prioritize them and start doing SEO for each word. Pushing a large number of results from the second or third page to the first page of Google will result in large traffic increases.
Advanced Keyword Tip
After determining what brands and products are searched for on a regular basis, dig deeper and find out as many combinations as possible for each keyword. For example, the “blue widget model xt330″ may be searched for in all of the following ways.
- blue widget model xt330
- blue widget xt330
- widget xt330
- widget xt 330
- xt 330 blue widget
- etc…
Once the different keyword variations have been selected, order them by the most traffic. Make sure that the most used variation appears in the title tag. Maybe even several of the variations…as long as it does not look spammy. Sprinkle the other keyword variations throughout the product description.
Focus on the pattern and you may not have to do the research on every popular product. Alternating “xt330″ and “xt 330″ throughout the product description may be all that is needed and can be easily turned into a best practice for all other product description copy.
Anchor Text
Do not underestimate the power of anchor text associated with internal linking. It can be difficult to get the anchor text that you want from other sites that you do not control. However, the internal linking structure of your site can be just as effective. Make sure that your anchor texts are descriptive and contain keywords when pointing to a specific page.
Avoid javascript menus and complicated navigational structures. Simple navigation and breadcrumbs can go a long way in passing strong PR to the right pages.
If you have any questions or would like to share some insight, please do.
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“Advanced Keyword Tip” is very helpful for me. I Found Create some web 2.0 Property Pages for all his targeted keywords as the url with some description included about the product and image of it and finally bookmarking them using tools like Bookmark Demon)shareware) or Social Marker.
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It took a lot of time as well as a lot of hair from being pulled out but I finally got several of my product pages in the one or two position for their key terms. This was worth all the effort!!!
@Natural,
I like the use of web 2.0 properties for product pages myself. Good tip.
@Tracy,
It does take time…congrats on your new found traffic for your product pages.
I have discovered it is much easier to get certain products ranked well. Though the search volume on these are lower those who are looking for them and are more willing to buy.
.-= Rocky@girls cowboy boots´s last blog ..Kenny Chesney: Possibly the Hottest Male Crossover Artist in Country Music Today =-.
that’s really comprehensive ,seo is really necessary to get traffic and to get index your website at top of the SERP’S .this is really useful and helpful as well.
@Rocky, search volume does tend to be low…but why waste bandwidth?
nice and great tips for seo.i love this topic
.-= Nokia Games Download´s last blog ..Silent Hunter : U-boat Aces Free nokia 5800 nokia n97 games download =-.
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thanks for your great articles.
about rel canonical i think for blogspot have automotic rel canonical,so no need to add it.
.-= Free Business Articles´s last blog ..Cash Loans When You Need it =-.
Thanks so much for this information, especially the 4 types of keywords – that was very enlightening for me!
I truly appreciate your willingness to share your knowledge with us!
You know I never even thought of building up the page rank for product pages. This is some great information. Thanks to ever posted this info.
I am Robert Stanley, a search engine marketing consultant. I am extending my skills and knowledge in search engine marketing.Your insights are great.Its so useful.I agree with you,search engine optimization for an ecommerce store is really a tough task.
I find your top search terms list interesting. It
Thanks I never seen that video about the google images I have many image urls on my pontoon boat site, and I want those images to be seen in the search engine, so it seems that I am doing things right so far..:)
.-= dave@used pontoon boat´s last blog ..Repossessed Boat – 2008 Vectra Boats 2302 OB =-.
Wow excellent post. Am thrilled and ready to draw traffic to my blog, especially amazed by the tips on keyword research and anchor text. Really helpful article. Cool stuff.
.-= Darren from Mind map software´s last blog ..Main Page – FreeMind – free mind mapping software =-.
Came across this on StumbleUpon
Great post and flow charts! To initiate a successful eCommerce website you must plan every move move and record the results. Thanx for the SEO tips!
.-= Thomas@Magento Design´s last blog ..Choosing an eCommerce Shopping Cart =-.
This is an awesome page with loads of information especially about the URL structures. I did not know the google ranked inner pages differently
Ecommerce websites offer a modern online shopping experience which is simple and time saving. There are several ecommerce websites offering similar products and services and therefore to stay ahead of the competition in the online business arena, search engine optimization for ecommerce websites becomes vital.
I’m looking for info on how to promote my xcart site. Thanks for the great piece of info. Bookmarked. Will certainly revisit to learn more from you.
Beautiful watch,Please tell me its price