SEO optimization for online stores
Lower business costs, an unlimited market, the possibility for constant growth and business development, a constant increase in the number of those who look for the services and products they need via the Internet - these are just some of the reasons why more and more people decide to create an online store and why make the decision to move their business to the Internet.
Lower business costs, an unlimited market, the possibility for constant growth and business development, a constant increase in the number of those who look for the services and products they need via the Internet - these are just some of the reasons why more and more people decide to create an online store and why make the decision to move their business to the Internet. The Internet offers numerous possibilities and opportunities, and all those who direct their online presence in the right way can hope that their business will develop in the right direction, whether they are "smaller players" on the market or large and well-known brands.
The first step of starting an online business is certainly the creation of an online store, but it is equally important to constantly work on it after its creation. And this is where we come to SEO optimization of online stores, which depends on how successful you will be and to what extent you will be able to develop your business. That is why it is of crucial importance to pay maximum attention to the SEO optimization of online stores and to do this complex work in the right way.
Why is online store optimization so important?
It's no longer a question of whether you need to rank higher in Google search than your competition, it's simply a must.
If you have an online store, but you are ranked poorly on searches for phrases that are relevant to your business and you do not have significant traffic, this is a clear signal that something needs to be changed, ie. a signal that you must seriously devote yourself to the SEO optimization of your web shop. Because the proper management of the site optimization process will lead to growth in Google searches, which will result in an increase in organic visits to your site, i.e. people who are interested in, and need, exactly what you offer will come to your online store.
Your goal must be to rank at the top of searches for a broad range of phrases that are relevant to your business. That is why it is necessary to have a clearly defined SEO strategy that you will constantly adhere to.
In short, the goal is to provide Google with the best possible result for a phrase that is important to you by optimizing your site. You do this by:
- give answers to a wide range of questions concerning a specific topic
- use the highest possible quality images, video material, and examples that will provide clear information
- provide a better user experience to visitors, so that the site will be fast, mobile friendly, with a maximum customized design
- get people talking about you as well as linking to your site
In this place, we have tried to present the process of SEO optimization of online stores, which is complex and should be approached thoroughly, with the note that constant monitoring of SEO trends is also necessary and should be reacted accordingly if the need arises.
Keyword research
At the beginning of work on SEO optimization, it is necessary to do a detailed analysis of keywords, as well as an analysis of the competition.
The reason for such a thing is to find the most relevant phrases that matter to you and get the data as much as they are requested. This is very important, because if the focus is on the wrong keywords, your site can generate a visit that is not relevant to the web shop, which will result in fewer conversions.
In the picture below you can see a positive example from practice. For the relevant phrase LED bulb, which is significantly represented in the search, the online store of LED lighting ranks first, and that's exactly with the LED bulb page. This is the goal of SEO optimization of online stores.
It is recommended that this part of the work be done before the creation of the online store itself. With a high-quality keyword analysis, you will be able to design your web shop in the right way, which is a very important item for the further optimization process.
Analyzing the competition first of all involves checking the authority of their sites (mainly Domain Authority and Page Authorities), as well as research for which phrases rank at the top of the search, and which are also important to you. So, based on that, you will make a decision in which direction to go with the optimization of your e-store.
By analyzing the keywords, along with the analysis of the competition, you will start working on the SEO process in the right way.
The conceptualization of the online store is very important
Whether you are working on the optimization of an already existing web shop or creating a new online store, its structure and conceptualization are very important and you should work seriously on that work. Conceptualization (i.e. further conceptualization if working on an already existing e-store) is important above all for reasons of user experience. You must organize your online store so that the visitor can easily find his way around the site, so that he can easily find the things and products that are important to him.
If your store has a large number of products, it is necessary to categorize them in the right way (of course, if necessary, product subcategories should be introduced where necessary). Of course, it is recommended to use breadcrumbs as well, which greatly facilitates navigation, and at the same time, it will provide a potential customer who is on your site with clear information on exactly where he is on the site and how he got to that place.
The decision of which categories and subcategories will be located on the online store itself is closely related to keyword research and what is most represented in the searches, and it concerns the services or products you offer.
For example, if your online store deals with the sale of LED lighting, the categories will be LED bulbs, LED panels, LED strips and the like, ie. everything that is meaningful and at the same time represented in searches on the Google search engine. All those created pages will also be landing pages for specific inquiries. In addition, subcategories will be formed in order to present the complete offer of the web store to existing and potential customers as simply as possible.
These are the most important things that concern the concept of every online store, and in addition to this, you should definitely plan other aspects that are important for every web shop. These are primarily the Contact page, the Blog, the 'About Us' page, 'How to order' and 'Payment methods', 'Privacy Policy', 'Terms of Use', 'Frequently Asked Questions', the 'Promotion' page and the like...
Onsite SEO for online stores
When we have a ready concept of how the store's website should look, the next step is Onsite SEO, i.e. it is necessary to carry out refinements and corrections on the site itself, which are extremely important for the optimization process of the online store. This is certainly one of the most important steps that must be done in the right way, because properly done Onsite SEO is a prerequisite for successful further work on the optimization of online stores.
Tags on the site (title, meta, alt, H1, H2...)
Title tags are one of the most important components from Google's point of view, so special attention must be paid to them. Title tags must not be duplicated and each page on the site should have a unique title tag. The title tag on the landing page should contain a key phrase that is relevant to that page.
In the case of online stores, which in most cases have hundreds or even thousands of pages, the solution is to automate title tags. So if we are talking about the product page, the title tag should be written in the form 'product name - subcategory name - category name - keyword'. In this way, we will avoid duplicating title tags and each page will get a unique title tag. In addition to automation, there should be an option to manually change title tags through the admin, which is also very important for the optimization process.
You can contact us at any time for all questions regarding the optimization of online stores as well as a complete appearance on the Internet. We will put our years of experience at the service of your business.
Meta description is a short description of the page and it is also necessary that each page has a unique meta tag. It can also be formed automatically from the description found on the page itself or by creating a short text where only the title of the page will be automatically changed. This is especially useful for online stores that have a large number of product categories, where the solution is to automatically create a meta tag that will read 'View our complete range of products from category category name. Choose top quality for yourself and your loved ones.' Of course, as was the case with title tags, meta tags should also be able to be changed manually through the site admin.
When we talk about other tags, every image on the site should have an alt tag, which will be added manually through the admin or will be automatically pulled from the name of the image or the page it is on. Then, each page on the site should have only one H1 tag (and that is the name of the page), with the possibility of adding other H tags through the text on the site itself, whether it is descriptions of categories, blog posts or some other text.
Content creation and content editing
Quality and unique content on the site is something that is necessary when we talk about optimization. This primarily means creating category descriptions, product descriptions, as well as constantly adding new content in the form of blogs, news or tips.
Category descriptions are very important because the category page is in most cases also the landing page. That description must be unique and must contain keywords that will flow through the text in a completely natural way.
Enabling the product review option can be very useful from the SEO side. Thus, in a completely natural way, you can find unique content that will enrich the online store.
Related products and related blog posts
An extremely useful thing is to allow related products and blog posts to be shot on the page of a specific product, as well as a specific blog post. In this way, the bounce rate can be significantly reduced, and visitors to the web shop will stay longer, which is certainly a positive signal for Google.
Is a canonical tag required?
Setting the cannonical tag is necessary when we have a filtering (sorting) option on the site itself, i.e. when each filter inserted into the site gets a separate url. With the help of the cannonical tag, we suggest to Google the content on which page to 'read', while other pages with the same content should be ignored.
In this way, we prevent duplication of content, which is one of the most common mistakes made in the process of optimizing online stores.
Site loading speed
This is certainly one of the items that largely affects the optimization itself and is an important SEO factor. There are numerous tools on the Internet that measure the loading speed, and at the same time offer solutions for what needs to be corrected if there is a problem.
Optimum loading speed is important first of all for the reason that users who come to the online store do not leave immediately because they wait too long for the site to load.
SEO friendly URLs
Special attention should be paid to this as well. The URLs that are created must make sense and clearly indicate which page it is about. For example, for a specific product the SEO friendly URL would be - domain/category_name/product_name.
The HTTPS protocol is mandatory for online stores
Security is important to everyone, so potential customers who come to our web shop want to be sure that their data will be protected. By installing an SSL certificate, the transition from HTTP to HTTPS protocol is ensured, and on this occasion, a label is obtained that will be displayed on the online store. This lets your visitors know that their shopping will be safe and secure.
Sitemap creation
Creating a sitemap is also a very important thing, because in this way you will help Google to easily index all the URLs on your site, and this is very important especially for online stores that have a large number of pages.
Deleting pages from the site and changing the URL structure
In cases where for some reason a page is deleted from the site or the structure of the URL itself is changed, a 301 redirection is mandatory. This is done to avoid error pages that negatively affect the authority of the site.
In cases where a product needs to be removed from the offer at online stores, it is recommended to mark it as 'out of stock' and place it at the bottom of the product list. This is certainly a better option than simply deleting that product, which results in the formation of an error page.
Certainly, within Onsite SEO, a check is made to see if the site has an error page, and if this is the case, redirection to the existing pages on the site is mandatory.
Mobile friendly site has no alternative
According to some research, significantly more than half of website visits come from mobile devices, so the online store must be adapted to mobile devices.
Creating an 'Action' page
All the products that are currently on sale are listed on the specially created 'Promotion' page. In this way, visitors can easily view all promotional products, which is a great thing from the user experience point of view.
Creating blog posts
A blog is an extremely powerful 'weapon' in terms of SEO. His role is multiple.
A blog is ideal for adding new and unique content to the site itself by focusing on special topics that could be interesting to your site visitors. Furthermore, it is also ideal for sharing on social networks. Through interesting topics covered in blog posts, which are later shared on social networks, the site generates additional, and what is very important, quality visits that can be converted into customers. Anyone who comes to your online store in this way becomes interested in topics that are important to your business and thus becomes a potential customer.
In the process of SEO optimization of an online store, the blog is also used as a way to attract organic traffic to the site via long tail phrases. So for the LED lighting online store that we mentioned earlier in this article, the long tail phrases would be 'the best lighting for the living room', 'which lighting to choose for the children's room', as well as all those phrases that are searched for in Google search and not they can flow naturally through product categories. In these cases, blogs are written on these topics, respecting the SEO rules when writing, so that later those blogs will be ranked precisely for those important long tail queries. Of course, in addition to a well-written blog, it is also necessary to constantly work on strengthening the authority of that particular page, so that it ranks at the top of the search (primarily through link building, as well as sharing on social networks).
Offsite SEO - link building and social signals
This part of the work on the optimization of the online store is just as important as the work that is done on the site itself. First of all, this refers to link building, which requires constant work. A high-quality link building process involves creating a network of incoming links from other sites to your site, that is, your online store. The best quality are those links that come from sites with great authority and from texts that deal with topics that are relevant to your business.
And that's exactly how we do the link building process. We write unique texts on topics that are important for a specific online store, we publish them on numerous portals with authority, with a link that leads to the web shop for which SEO optimization is done. What is especially important to emphasize is that naturalness must be taken into account here, because that is exactly what Google values the most. It used to not be the case, but now it is.
Social signals are certainly another item that affects the results of optimization of online stores and that must be paid attention to. So it is extremely useful when the content of the site is shared on social networks, whether it is about the blogs we mentioned earlier or about concrete products. Google also takes into account the traffic that comes through social networks, because it is a clear signal that people are interested in what you have to offer.
Adwords campaigns alongside work on optimization
Adwords campaigns are definitely recommended, especially at the beginning of the process of work on SEO optimization of online stores, i.e. until the optimization does not produce results, which certainly takes time.
SEO and remarketing - a winning combination if done the right way
An SEO campaign that is conducted in the right way results in a significant increase in organic visits to the site itself, which means those people who are interested in exactly what you offer. This is extremely important for remarketing campaigns that can be run, both Google Adwords remarketing and Facebook remarketing (via the Facebook pixel code placed on the site). By conducting such campaigns, you reach those people who have visited your online store and who have expressed interest in what you offer, and this is certainly an excellent opportunity to reach new customers.
Constant monitoring of results through Google Analytics and Google Search Console
SEO optimization should definitely be the center and the most important part of the internet presence of every web shop. And that entails the need to constantly monitor results and trends, in order to spot some new opportunities in time, and to create a strategy for appearing on the Internet in the right way.
The Internet offers many tools for monitoring the results of SEO optimization, and certainly the most reliable are Google Analytics and Search Console.
Google analytics is a tool that not only measures the number of visits to the site, but also provides other data that can be very useful for the SEO campaign itself. Among other things, they are Bounce rate (percentage of people who entered a specific page and left it without any interaction), Exit rate (percentage of people who left the site from a specific page, regardless of previous interactions), then you can track specific conversions and more.
All these data are very useful, because if they are interpreted in the right way, they can provide a guide in which direction to make some changes on the site itself and in which direction to direct the SEO strategy.
Google Search Console is another tool that is extremely useful when monitoring the SEO process. Among other things, it gives us an overview of the error 404 pages that are on our site, if there are any, then it shows problems with the indexing of individual pages or the entire site, and most importantly, it gives us information about which specific phrases visitors type in Google search and come to our site. . If you have added a new page to the site, or made some changes, you can send a 'message' to Google in a simple way with this tool so that it can be indexed in a short period of time or list the changes that have occurred, using the 'Fetch as Google' option. .
Finally, we note once again that if you have or have decided to open an online store, SEO optimization is necessary if you want to use its full potential. Because once you position yourself at the top of the search for relevant phrases that are important for your business, you will lose all the benefits that a properly done SEO optimization of an online store brings with it.
