Ecommerce SEO Tactic Standpoint
- Start optimizing the right
landing pages.
- Steer clear of unethical methods
used in building links (paid links and rushed links such as comment spam).
- The most important link building
strategy for ecommerce sites lies within the site itself – internal linking.
- More on non-promotional content,
less on advertising. Educating your market is the best arsenal to making them
buy your product.
Below
are some of the strategies that you can implement on optimizing your ecommerce
store. And you can also check out this updated ecommerce SEO strategies from some of the most recognized
thought leaders in the world of Search.
On-site Optimization
Site
Elements and Structure
1. User-generated reviews on product pages
- User activity is known to be used
by Google as one of their search algorithm’s signals for search rankings.
- Increases conversions as visitors
can see how well the product is based on users that have already tried the
product.
- You’ll be able to produce unique
content on your product pages, which is definitely good for its search
rankings.
2. Regularly updated section on homepage (for static webpage)
- Inclusion of recent blog posts or
twitter updates.
3. Specific keyword targeting for all important
pages
- Assign keywords that are
absolutely relevant to certain pages by placing it on each landing page’s title
page and meta description.
- “Affordable mobile phones” –
homepage
- “Cheap Nokia mobile phones” –
category page
- “Buy Nokia N8” – product page
- “Nokia N8 specifications” –
information page
4. Optimize product descriptions and images
- Using the targeted keywords
within the product’s description and Alt text attributes for product images
will help boost the product pages’ relevance scores.
5. User-friendly permalinks/URL
- Include your pages’ targeted
keywords on the URL. It’s also best to keep your URLs clean and short (ex.
http://examplestore.com/nokia/buy-nokia-n8)
6. Weed out duplicate contents
- Fix URL canonicalization of the
site, wherein the site must only direct to one preferred URL version (non-www
or www. version), since this can cause duplicates within your site if both
version are showing up when looked up.
- Check your product pages for
duplicates through Copyscape, to avoid
similar content from the product’s manufacturer or others who’re also
promoting/selling the same product.
7. Produce linkable pages
- Add 2-3 cornerstone content/page
to your site that will generate interest or particularly educate your visitors.
Thinking outside of the box to make your products look prettier in the eyes of
your audiences will enhance the linkability of your site.
- Content ideas – Resources page,
awards, List of top ranking blogs in your industry (based on traffic rank,
authority, etc…), best of the year (ex. “100 best movies of 2011), infographics
(ex. “lifecycle of mobile phones), free downloadable ebook or extremely
interesting videos.
8. Video sitemap
- Adding a video sitemap to your
site is very efficient, since it can help your site generate traffic through
universal search as videos posted within your site can improve its own search
rankings for highly competitive keywords. Here’show to create a video sitemap
9. Search feature
- Builds up the site’s usability,
particularly if it’s placed on all the pages of the site.
- Designating this feature to a
much visible section of the site will make it easier for your site’s visitors
to find what they are exactly seeking for.
- Also used as a signal for search
rankings by Google’s search algorithm.
10. Treat
category pages as an independent homepage/landing page
- Dealing with your category pages
as a separate homepage will enhance its own Pagerank, which will be very
beneficial to your product pages indexation and search rankings (whether it’s a
subdomain “http://nokia.examplestore.com” or a folder in your site “http://examplestore.com/nokia”).
- Build high quality and dofollow
links directing to your category pages (which I will be explaining more below).
- It’s also important to have a
separate category or landing page for branded items, especially for brands that
are being specifically searched by users.
11. Include
a blog section
- If your ecommerce site has no
blog section yet, then you better start adding one because it benefits your
site in so many ways.
- It allows your site to generate
more organic traffic as blog posts have good chances of getting higher search
rankings for long tail keywords related to your industry (through the blog
posts’ titles).
- Entries on your blogs,
particularly those that are intentionally created to inform and educate readers
can massively improve your site’s lead generation and conversions.
- Can certainly improve the site’s
internal linking structure, in which it can be advantageous for the site in
ranking for more relevant search terms.
- It allows your business to
develop relationships with your readers as well as with other sites that have
similar theme through interaction.
- It puts emphasis to your brand’s
expertise in the industry as you showcase it through publishing useful,
entertaining and educational content.
12. Site’s
speed
- Remove
unnecessary plugins and applications to enhance the loading speed of your
site’s pages.
- Employing
GZIP compression for pages that have larger html size.
- Speeding
up your site’s loading process will strengthen your visitors’ mood that can
lead to conversion. Search engine crawlers also give high scores for this
site’s usability aspect that can help boost its search rankings.
13. Accessibility
- Keeping product pages 3 clicks
away from the homepage is a very constructive structural strategy for your
site, given that the link juice flowing from the site’s homepage will easily
reach those vital sales pages.
- Getting them crawled regularly is
very important and that’s why treating your category pages as independent
landing pages is a smart move – as I’ve mentioned above.
- Making your site’s structure
easy-to-navigate for users will enhance its conversion rate.
14. Trust indicators
- Well optimized about, contact and
support (email ticketing) pages.
- Presence of physical business
address and local numbers.
- Photos of business founder(s) and
staff members.
- Privacy policy, terms and
agreement, disclaimer, disclosure and user testimonials page.
- Certificate badges from
associations and/or organizations.
Internal
Linking Strategies
15. Related products
- Including a section for related
products on each of your product pages can help improve their search rankings,
as these links are considered as very relevant votes, particularly if rich
keyphrases were used as the links’ anchor texts.
- Can somehow improve sales as your
pages suggest other related products that might be of their interests. However,
this method may sometimes distract your visitors, depending on its placement.
16. Category pages should link to products with
keyword rich anchor texts
17. Create separate product information pages that
link to product sales pages
- Product information pages can
contain more in-depth descriptions or specifications of the site’s offered
products that will direct readers to the main product page (through call to
action and keyword rich text links). Basically, it’s a support page which aims
to help boost the product pages’ SERP rankings.
- You can as well choose to
cross-link the two pages, wherein the product page can link to its particular
information page by displaying a link that explains they can read more about
the product.
18. Product comparison pages
- Comparing your top products will
help your visitors in making wise decisions in purchasing and it also generates
highly relevant internal links to your top products.
19. FAQ pages linking to site’s important pages
20. Highlight your top products through sidebar
widget
21. Produce
blog posts that will act as support pages for your product pages
- Content ideas – written/video
reviews, best selling products of the month, newly added products, product A
vs. product B, etc…
- Use keyword rich anchor text
links when linking to your product pages.
- Images of the posts can link to
the product pages.
- Off-site Optimization
Content
Distribution
22. Ebook
distribution
- Create a useful content in PDF
format, which links out to important pages in your site. The concept of the
content may focus on giving guides, price list or your own research about the
industry.
- Distributing the content can be
done through directories (such as Docstoc, Scribd and Eric.ed.gov),
reaching out to bloggers for them to upload and promote your free Ebook and by
promoting through your own blog.
23. Press release and news submission
- This method can certainly provide
high quality links to your site, and it can as well amplify your brand if your
news gets syndicated and picked up by other news articles as a source over the
web.
- It’s important that you first do
a comprehensive research about the angle of your news story (ex. industry
expert interviews, charity work, upcoming events, state of your market,
analysis/reactions or current business performance and findings) before
creating your press release. Gathering your contacts in media for a smooth
sailing publication process is also a vital part of this research. You can read
more about this method at Distilled’s Online PR tutorial.
24. Video product review
- Submitting your product reviews
or other interesting videos related to your business on video sites like Youtube,Vimeo and Metacafe can boost your product pages’ search
rankings, especially if they are linking to it.
- Video sites are known to be a
good traffic source, given that users mostly search for visually appealing reviews
about products that they are interested to purchase. It can also help generate
relevant and organic traffic to your site as these pages from highly trusted
sites can rank on its own on search result pages (mostly for long tail
keywords).
25. Image and infograph distribution or link
building through image submissions/bookmarking
26. Submit
Product Feeds to Product Comparison/Review Sites and Shopping Engines
Link
Building and Brand Development
27. Reverse engineer competitors’ links
- Analyzing your competitors’ links
is an imperative phase of any SEO campaign, mainly to understand how they are
ranking for certain keywords (which you want to rank for).
- Acquiring links from authority
pages or domains where your competitors are getting their links from can help
you achieve the same results.
- A thorough competitor analysis
will also allow you to know what methods best work in your industry as seen
from what your competitors have done to obtain good rankings.
- You can use tools such as Open Site Explorer to track your top competitors’ links.
It’s best to choose 10 – 20 competitors to monitor.
28. Reach out to bloggers and build relationships
- Engage with bloggers that
provides content related to your products by regularly following their blogs
and leaving sensible comments, sharing their posts and connecting with them via
social media, personal email messages or phone calls.
- Request for your products to be
reviewed if it’s possible, and offer incentives to increase the chances of
getting the request approved.
29. Guest blogging
- In choosing the blogs to submit
your guest blog entries, focus on blogs that provide information related to
your site’s theme and are specifically targeting the same market as yours. The
blog should also have high Pagerank and traffic (can be determined through low
Alexa Traffic ranking) to make the most out of the technique (in generating
highly relevant traffic and of high quality backlinks)
- It’s best to direct the links
that you’ll be acquiring from this method to your category pages – using their
targeted keywords as anchor texts – and to your homepage using your brand as
its anchor text.
- Make your guest entries extremely
relevant to your targeted keywords as well as to its target destination pages,
and of course – promote your guest posts to make it a strong linking page.
30. Contact suppliers, dealers or manufacturers
for links and offer to write a review or testimonial of their products.
31. Branding through community participation
- Build your online store’s brand
by providing useful information about the products you are selling through
related forum threads and questions posted on Q&A sites. Link to
informative contents published in your site as your resource whenever it’s
possible.
32. Brand monitoring
- Monitoring your brand/mentions of
your brand over the web and social media through Google Alerts can help you acquire more quality
links that are really intended to your site, particularly to articles that have
cited your brand with no link attribution, wherein you can request for a link
placement or links with your preferred anchor texts.
- In setting up your Google Alerts,
it’s also important that you include your targeted keywords on its daily
reports to keep track of what you’re competitors are currently doing, to find
more relevant linking opportunities and also to generate more content ideas for
your own campaign.
33. Encourage your users to make positive product
reviews
- You can give incentives such as
freebies, discounts or coupons to persuade your past customers to make a
positive review about your products through your newsletter or a blog post.
- Users can make a review of your
products on the list of product comparison sites and shopping engines listed
above.
- Garnering positive reviews
through those given sites will optimize your product pages’ search rankings
through Google product search.
34. Encourage your staff members to link to your
site through their social media profiles or blogs/websites(if
they have).
35. Sponsor or organize contests
- Collaborating with other online
stores and/or bloggers to organize a contest can produce massive quality and
natural links to your site. It’s also a win-win-win situation for the sponsors,
hosting site and participants.
- Contests can expose your brand to
a wider range of audience.
36. Establish business-related link partnerships
- Find online stores that offer
related products (if you’re selling shirts, find stores that exclusively sell
jeans, accessories, shoes or basically products that you are not offering on
your site) and try to build a linking relationship. You can help promote each
other’s products through product feeds placed on both websites and/or a simple thematic link exchange.
- It benefits both sites as the
generated traffic is very relevant and doesn’t conflict with the other site’s
interest.
- 37. Leverage the site’s domain authority, Pagerank
and trust by
building quality links to its important pages (homepage, categories and
resource pages) from authority sites in your industry. This will enhance your
product pages rankings on SERPs. By quality, it means links:
- From high authority domains (can
be measured through SEOmoz toolbar)
- Sites that have high Pagerank
(homepage)
- Pages that have high Mozrank and
Page Authority (SEOmoz toolbar)
- From pages that are topically
relevant to your site
- That are visible to readers
(link’s placement is within the body copy)
- With dofollow attribute
38. Link out
- Linking out or making a shout out
to your loyal followers through your social networking accounts or blog posts
is also a good way to establish company-customer relationships. This in turn
can lead to word of mouth or more natural links from your followers.
- Voluntarily mention and promote
events (charity, conferences, webinars, etc…) in your industry to help your
business build more relationships – eventually potential link partners. It also
allows you to produce unique and useful content in your blog that can improve
readership and increase your blog’s subscribers.
39. Google Product Search Optimization
- Submit your products to Google Product Search.
- Optimize your submitted products
by making use of all the attributes in defining your products for higher
relevance and better search rankings – get to know more on how you can optimize
these attributes here.
- Acquire positive user reviews
from the list of sites cited above as much as you can to improve your products’
performance on Google Product Search.
40. Constant Link Search
- Always seek for link
opportunities and suitable linking targets; because once you’ve reached the
top, your competitors will never stop in trying to outrank you – make this part
of your campaign’s daily tasks
