Here are some of the common ecommerce SEO do’s and don’ts for savvy webmasters.
By the nature of ecommerce websites and the amount of pages on their sites, Ecommerce SEO is a laborious and time consuming task. Done well, you can reap the investment of a well optimised corporate or retail site through increased traffic, an increased conversion rate and improved bottom line. Find out more about the frequent mistakes made by companies operating ecommerce sites and how to avoid them.
Duplicate copy
A common ecommerce SEO mistake is duplicate content whether it is copy replicated across different pages of their website, duplicated across several branch websites or reproduced across different websites. Work with your developer to ensure duplicate pages are not indexed and rewrite generic product descriptions from manufacturers. You can use a simple online tool like Copyscape to check for duplication across the web.
Non-descriptive URLS
Static URLs are best in the context of SEO. Ecommerce sites are often found guilty of automatically generated, ID-based URLs or category-level URLs. This problem can occur with (CMS) that do not allow webmasters to create their own custom URLs. Ideally URLs need to be keyword rich and descriptive. This boosts your Search Engine rankings for that particular keyword but it also assists in the navigation of your site for consumers.
Duplicated title and description tags
A lot of ecommerce sites are still not adding unique title and description tags to their pages. A meta description is a snippet of text that sits just under the website URL after the title tag on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) – see example below. SEO experts are in debate over whether Search Engines use this as a ranking signal. Google has openly said they do not use the meta tags as in their ranking algorithms.
Regardless of this, it’s always a good idea to write your own meta description tags as a suggested summary for Search Engines to use. Why? Description tags give readers an understanding of what the page is about and entices them to click through to it. When you have a large site, it might be tempting to copy and paste the meta data to save time but you are potentially cannibalising your ecommerce SEO efforts.
Flash based sites
This is a common ecommerce SEO mistake. Search Engines have become a lot better at indexing Flash but sites such as Maurie and Eve built entirely in Flash with a lot of images and little text still present a lot of challenges for SEO experts. Some companies have both a Flash and HTML based site to counteract Search Engine visibility problems. Popular portable devices such as the iPhone and iPad do not support Flash at all.
Poor use of internal linking
Internal linking is another commonly missed ecommerce SEO opportunity. Not only can contextual internal linking be effective in helping to improve a site’s rankings for targeted key phrases, it is also where sites can take the ‘MacDonald’s – do you want fries with this’ approach to up selling, make your site more relevant to users and gives them reasons to stay on the site for longer. Examples of internal linking opportunities include:
- Complementary or related products eg clothing retailers can also highlight accessories or shoes also sold on the site that can be worn with an outfit. Luxury clothing retailer Net a Porter has a ‘You may also like’ section which is a good example of this.
- Products that other customers bought that you may also be interested in – Amazon does this well with their ‘Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought’ section.
- Displaying products that other customers viewed which may be of interest to the consumer. This approach is used on sites such as www.realestate.com.au which has a ‘People also viewed’ section.
- Linking products from the same brand with a ‘View Other Products from This Brand’ section.
- Highlighting customers’ favourites which is an internal linking tactic used on the Clearly Contacts site.
- Featured items – this could be the most searched for, highest selling products or an item that is discounted in a promotion you are running.
No external link building
While owners of corporate websites may be conversant with on-page optimisation, some struggle with off-page optimisation and the importance of external link building to boosting their Search Engine ranking. Creating a quality link building portfolio is always a challenge for ecommerce sites that may have a lot of product pages but present little opportunities to obtain organic links. Here are a few link building strategies:
- Adding your ecommerce site to trusted directories such as the Yellow Pages and White Pages, local directories and business-specific directories.
- Requesting your customers, suppliers and affiliates if you can put a link on their website.
- Creating a company blog about new products and services, events held at your company, industry-related news such and so forth.
- Uploading media releases and writing articles that can be used for syndication across different sites.
- Positioning yourself as an expert and writing guests’ posts on other related and quality industry sites, participating in forums and commenting on blogs with a link back to your website.
- Creating an account on video hosting sites like YouTube and adding videos regularly with a link back to your website.
- Sending out your products and services for review to journalists, reviewers and local bloggers in return for a link back to your site.
- Asking satisfied customers to write reviews about your products and services on industry-related sites.
Read more about other Common Link Building Mistakes and How to Avoid Them.
Neglecting their Google Places Page
Unfortunately a lot of smaller ecommerce sites do not even know what a Google Places page is let alone understand how to optimise it. For the uninitiated amongst us, Google Places is a web page for every place in the world, organising all the relevant information about it. Places Search was introduced in late 2010 where Places Pages were merged with organic search results thus making this important for ecommerce sites.
An ecommerce site cannot rest on its rankings – there are always opportunities to make your website optimal for search. SEO is an ongoing long term strategy – in today’s virtual market corporate sites especially those in competitive and saturated markets need to keep up with SEO best practices. Contact SEO Works for more information about their ecommerce SEO packages and proven performance history with a corporate clientele.
