June 30
42 min reading time
42 min reading time
This is the most comprehensive guide for online shop / e-commerce SEO.
In this text written by experts (Eduard Luta), you will learn everything you need to know to optimize your e-commerce website: from keyword research to technical aspects. SEO, all the way to link building.
Online shops can greatly benefit from these items and improve their online marketing.
However, if you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us. SEO agency Contact.
If you need an e-commerce shop, we have various partners who can help you.
(Which have created many e-commerce websites).
According to information from NChannel, 44% of online shopping begins via a search engine.
Percentage of customers who start their online shopping via a search engine
According to Kissmetrics, 30,5% of online traffic comes from search engines.
Share of organic traffic from search engines
Data from Custora shows that 26% of e-commerce online orders originate directly from organic search engines.
Online orders that originate directly from an organic search engine
As you can see, it is almost impossible for e-commerce companies to thrive today without search engine optimization.
However, e-commerce SEO is far more difficult, complex, and competitive today than ever before.
Not only are they competing against major providers like Amazon and Walmart, but they also have to pay attention to ranking factors such as web loading times, user experience, and organically generated clicks.
Fortunately, this guide will show you how, against all odds, you can outperform the big competitors on Google.
So if you want to generate more targeted traffic via search engines and convert that traffic into customers for your e-commerce business, then you will love this guide.
…and off we go…
If you want to launch an effective e-commerce campaign, make sure you start things off with keyword research.
Why?
Because keyword research informs all other SEO-related activities you are doing on your website (e.g., without keywords it is not possible for you to optimize your product and category pages).
Believe it or not, your keyword list also influences the effort you need to put into your technical SEO.
For example, you should pay attention to keywords when building the website and choosing URLs.
As you can see, keyword research is an important element for your e-commerce website.
We'll show you exactly how to find the unused keywords your customers are searching for... and how to find the best ones for your website.
Most keyword tutorials focus on "informative keywords", i.e., keywords that customers enter into a search engine to find helpful information and instructions.
These keywords have their established place in an e-commerce company.
Nevertheless, the majority of your keywords will be precisely tailored to your product pages.
This means that you should focus your keyword research on product-related keywords.
This describes exactly how the process should be carried out:
Amazon is most likely your competitor.
Furthermore, Amazon is the largest e-commerce website, making it an absolute goldmine for product-related keywords.
Here's how you can use Amazon for your keyword research:
First, go to the Amazon website and enter a keyword that describes one of your products.
The keywords that Amazon suggests are usually very targeted (these are also called long tail keywords).
On the one hand, these long-tail keywords are better than keywords with a length of 2-3 words, on the other hand, they are also less competitive.
Repeat this process several times for the most important products on your website.
PRO TIP: KEYWORDS FOR CATEGORY PAGES
Sometimes Amazon suggests categories based on keyword suggestions.
These are very good keywords for your category pages.
The Keyword Tool Dominator is a sophisticated tool that uses search suggestions from Amazon.
To use it, enter an initial keyword into the tool:
And it will suggest dozens of keywords.
This tool not only speeds up this process compared to manual input, but in my experience also provides significantly more keyword suggestions than would be possible with the old-fashioned method.
An example: When I entered the keyword "dog food", Amazon suggested eight keyword ideas, whereas the Keyword Tool Dominator offered 35 suggestions.
To better organize the results, you can save the keywords that seem relevant in a list.
Before we leave Amazon, let's take some time for another tool that's a goldmine of keywords for your category pages.
In my experience as an e-commerce business consultant, I repeatedly observe that many e-commerce entrepreneurs organize and build their category pages along arbitrary keywords.
It is certain that consideration is given to what customers would likely use to find products in the relevant category when creating these pages.
However, to be honest, the keywords used are not ideal.
That's a big mistake.
Although category pages are not as good at converting into sales as product pages, they still generate revenue.
Therefore, it makes sense to invest some time in finding keywords for the category pages.
And what's the best way to do this?
If Amazon is your competitor, go to “all categories” in the top left corner of the homepage.
Here you will find Amazon's main categories.
These many categories are probably too broad for your website.
If you now click on one of the categories, you will see the subcategories.
Now it's crunch time.
You can also access "all categories" on Amazon.
Here you will find all categories and their respective subcategories displayed on one page.
Search for specific keywords that are relevant to the category and apply to your products.
Let's say you sell, for example, healthy dog food.
Click on "Household, Garden, Pet & DIY Store".
Then click on “Dogs”…
…and then on to “food”
And you will be shown keywords that Amazon uses to describe food-related categories.
These are the keywords you can consider when choosing your dog food e-commerce website.
PRO TIP: GOAL-ORIENTED KEYWORDS
If your category is unique in any way, make sure you include the unique element in the keyword for the category page.
For example, you can expand Amazon's "dry food" category to include "healthy dry food" or "organic dry food".
This makes the keywords more targeted and less competitive. Your target audience can therefore find you more quickly on Google.
Amazon is a good source for finding keywords for the category page.
But Amazon is far from the only site where you can find keywords that your customers search for daily.
That's why I recommend taking a look at the keywords on the pages of your industry representatives.
If you sell high-tech headphones through your e-commerce website, take a look at http://www.headphone.com
And just like with Amazon, you can also view the categories used here.
And include these keywords in your list.
Wikipedia is one of my favorite sites for finding keywords for products and category pages.
Why?
Because Wikipedia sorts its topics by keywords and categories, just like we do with our category pages on our e-commerce website.
In other words: Wikipedia has done a whole lot of organizational work for you!
Let us show you an example of how you can use Wikipedia to research an e-commerce keyword.
Start by entering a keyword that describes a product or category from your e-commerce business:
Search the article for words and phrases that make sense in relation to the products you offer:
In addition to scanning the articles, it is also worth taking a closer look at the table of contents.
In some cases, excellent keywords for category pages can be found here.
Once you have finished your keyword search on Wikipedia, you can move on to another of my keyword research tools.
The SEMrush.
If you have applied the strategy I have explained so far, you should now have a suitable list of keyword ideas.
If you have the necessary budget, I recommend SEMrush, as it can find keywords that you would otherwise find difficult to come across.
This is because SEMrush does not generate keyword ideas, but instead relies on existing keywords from your industry representatives.
Now let's look at how e-commerce entrepreneurs can use the tool to find targeted keywords.
First, enter the URL of an industry representative.
Then select the "Organic Research" tab.
Here you will find all the keywords that your industry representative uses:
If you want to squeeze every keyword out of SEMrush, click on "Competitors".
SEMrush then displays pages that are very similar to the website you entered.
Repeat this process with the industry representatives you have just found.
This way you can find enough keywords to work with until 2025.
Finally, there is also the option of using the Google Keyword Planner.
Although the Google Keyword Planner is essential for keyword research, it usually does not generate unique keyword ideas.
For example, if you enter "organic dog food", the Google Keyword Planner will only show very similar variations.
However, if you investigate more persistently, you can find real treasures.
PRO TIP: UNIQUE KEYWORD IDEAS
Before clicking on "Keyword Ideas," take a look at the keywords under the "Ad group ideas" tab. This tab contains unique keyword ideas that don't appear under "Keyword Ideas."
Because the Google Keyword Planner does not generate unique keywords, I recommend using it primarily to check search volume and economic success.
Which brings us to the next step…
Now that you have a whole list full of keywords, you're probably wondering:
How am I supposed to know which keyword to use?
The answer?
Follow these instructions to identify the best keyword for your e-commerce SEO campaign in 4 steps.
This is (by far) the most important element for evaluating a search term.
If nobody is searching for that one keyword, it doesn't matter how well it converts search queries into sales or how competitive the first page of Google is for that keyword.
Apart from that, I cannot give you a specific figure for search volume.
In some industries, 100 searches per month is a lot, whereas in other industries a monthly search volume of 10,000 searches is nothing special.
If you go through your list of keywords and enter them into Google, you can easily see what constitutes "high volume" or "low volume" in your industry.
To find the search volume of a specific keyword, go to the Google Keyword Planner.
Here you can find the number of searches under "Avg. monthly searches".
PRO TIP: SEASONAL FLUCTUATIONS IN SEARCH VOLUME PAGES
Some keywords vary greatly depending on the season. Naturally, the keyword "ugly Christmas sweaters" will generate more searches in December than in June. But there are also other non-seasonal keywords that still exhibit seasonal fluctuations. For example, the keyword "organic dog food brands" is searched 2,5 times more often in October than in November.
Why?
Who knows.
However, it is important to consider this when selecting keywords for your e-commerce business, as these fluctuations can directly impact your net profit.
To see directly how the search volume changes over the course of a year, click on the small graph icon located next to each keyword.
You will now see a graph showing the monthly search volume.
That's an important point. Let's say you find a keyword that's searched for a lot. That must be the best one, right?
No…not necessarily.
This is because the keyword does not exactly match what you sell on your website.
If the keyword deviates even slightly from what you sell on your e-commerce website, you will have difficulty generating clicks.
Before you proceed to the next two steps in this process, double-check that the keywords are a perfect fit for your products.
Let's say you sell Japanese green tea bags on your e-commerce website.
And you came across the keyword "Matcha green tea powder".
Even though you don't sell matcha green tea powder (but only tea bags), you could create a category page around this topic and redirect searches for matcha green tea powder to your products.
That's quite doable.
But it's difficult to pull it off.
This is also why I recommend first exhausting the relevant keywords before turning your attention to other product categories.
Even if the more targeted keyword generates fewer searches, I recommend choosing the more suitable keyword for your products, such as "green tea online".
Now you have a list of keywords that receive a reasonable number of search queries and are tailored to your product range.
Now it's time to find out if the searchers are actually ready to buy your products.
Ranking #1 for a high-volume keyword? Great.
Ranking #1 for a keyword that only people without strong purchase intentions search for? Not great.
Before you decide on a keyword, take a second to check whether the people using the keyword are actually buying or just browsing.
Fortunately, this is very easy to do using the Google Keyword Planner.
First, check the rating under "Competition".
Under "Competition," you'll see how many people are bidding on this keyword in Google AdWords. This means that if many people are bidding on a word, a lot of money can be earned.
That's why I recommend that e-commerce companies follow the "medium" and "high" keywords.
As you can see, the competition metric is helpful to see if the people searching for a keyword are also willing to visit the e-commerce website.
"Suggested bid" is an indicator of how many people are willing to pay for a single click.
When assessing commercial intentions, the following rule applies: The higher the proposed stake, the better.
Understandably, keywords with higher bids face greater competition in Google rankings.
But this will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter.
First, you should now take a look at the "Suggested bid" section for your keyword list.
And see how certain words and phrases that suggest a purchase influence the suggested use.
As you can see, the keyword "Japanese green tea" has a suggested bid of $1,19.
This is because people searching for this term are probably not ready to make a purchase.
You could also search for a definition.
Or they might be curious about the health benefits of green tea.
The suggested bid for the similar keyword "buy green tea online", however, is three times higher.
In contrast, this keyword generates far fewer search queries.
This is why it is important to consider all four factors when evaluating keywords for your e-commerce SEO.
Finally, it's time to show how difficult it will be to land on the first page of Google.
And so it goes:
Below I will show you how difficult it can be to improve rankings for a specific keyword.
You can find out the “Keyword Difficulty” by entering the relevant keyword into the search field in SEMrush.
Now click on “Keyword Difficulty” in the sidebar.
Next, look at the “Difficulty %”.
The higher the number, the more difficult it is to achieve a good Google ranking.
In this step, you analyze the first Google page and see if the top 10 results are optimized for the entered keyword.
If the displayed pages don't exactly match the keyword, it's easy to outrank them with a targeted page (I'll show you how to optimize your page later).
Example:
If you search for a “bamboo cutting board with handle”, you may find that most of the results on the first page of Google are not optimized for this keyword:
Most visitors to Google will probably be surprised by this result.
So, if you build one of your e-commerce pages around this keyword, you have a good chance of overtaking your competitors.
PRO TIP: BUILD A KEYWORD-SPECIFIC PAGE
Thanks to Google Hummingbird, precisely targeting a specific keyword is no longer as crucial as it once was. However, by building and restructuring your site around a keyword, you can still outperform websites that aren't as well optimized.
Now that you have a list of keywords that are being searched for, are competitive, and attract customers ready to buy, it's time to define and optimize the structure of your e-commerce website.
The page architecture, that is, the organization and structure of the pages, is in any case important for the SEO crucial.
And it's twice as important for e-commerce websites.
This is also the reason why e-commerce websites have, on average, more pages than the pages of blogs or local pizzerias.
For example, BestBuy.com has over 6 million pages.
With so many pages, it is doubtful that visitors and search engines will find the most important page with this page architecture.
The secret?
Follow the two golden rules of page architecture:
Golden Rule #1:
Don't make it too complicated and keep the page expandable.
Golden Rule #2:
None of the pages should be more than 3 clicks away from the homepage.
These rules are explained in more detail below.
First, let's look at an example of how a faulty page architecture can harm your SEO efforts…
Here is a schematic representation of a page architecture that breaks both of the Golden Rules:
And what is wrong with the picture?
Firstly: It's not easy. It's difficult to follow the logic and understand where things lead.
Secondly, it's not expandable. Every time you want to add a new category, you have to create a new level and reorganize all categories and subcategories.
And in terms of SEO, there are far too many layers. For most e-commerce websites, the highest link authority is on the homepage.
And if you have a deep page architecture, meaning many layers are stacked on top of each other, the authority you have on your homepage is lost through all those layers until you reach the product.
In this example, it takes 6 clicks from the homepage to reach the product. As mentioned before, none of the products should be more than 3 clicks away from the homepage.
PRO TIP: HIRE AN SEO PROFESSIONAL
If your site is already far from ideally structured, don't start rearranging everything without consulting an SEO professional. They can ensure that old pages are redirected to new ones. Once this is done correctly, you can make significant changes to your site architecture without losing a large portion of your search engine traffic.
Now that you have seen an example of an unsuitable page structure, it is time to take a look at an example of a good e-commerce website.
As you can see, on this page, authority is concentrated in the product and category pages (which are the most important pages on e-commerce websites).
The authority concentrated on these pages helps to achieve a high ranking on Google. It also increases index binding.
Here is an example of what the structure of an e-commerce website for shoes could look like.
This is not only good for SEO, users will love it too.
A simple and flat page architecture makes it easier for searchers to find the products they want.
Let's now take a look at a real e-commerce website with this optimized architecture: PetSmart.com.
As in the example above, no page is more than 3 clicks away from the homepage.
Let's say you want a new food bowl for Bello.
You go to the homepage and click on "dog".
Then click on “bowls and feeders”.
And in this subcategory you have a list of products.
And just as you found what you were looking for, Google can easily find and index all PetSmart product pages.
Now that your site architecture is built, it's time to optimize your category and product pages.
For most e-commerce websites, the largest share of traffic and sales comes from these two page types.
That makes sense when you think about it:
Someone searching for "running shoes in size 43" is much closer to making a purchase than someone searching for "buy shoes online".
Let's take a look at an example of a perfectly optimized e-commerce website.
You should use your primary keyword in the title tag.
But don't stop there. Adding variations of the word to your title tag can help you rank for other long-tail keywords.
Let's assume the keyword for your category page is "Noise Cancelling Headphones".
Instead of simply writing the title tag, add one or two words like "Noise Cancelling Headphones at Headphones R' Us" that your customers are likely to use when searching for "noise cancelling headphones".
Here are a few words that are often used in product searches on Google.
Accordingly, your title tag could read:
"The best and cheapest noise-canceling headphones"
Google uses organic CTR as a ranking signal.
Even if Google didn't do that, it would still make sense to optimize the title tag to maximize the CTR.
The reason: Higher CTR = more clicks = more sales.
Fortunately, there are a handful of words and phrases that magically draw a customer to your site.
I call these "click magnet words".
Here are some of the best clickbait words for e-commerce product and category pages:
Here is an example of these words:
Slow cooker: 25% cheaper and free shipping on every order.
And if you integrate these into your title tags (and description tags), you will get more clicks (which can also mean more customers).
The description tag used to be an important part of on-page SEO. Although this isn't as much the case nowadays, the description tag is still important for maximizing your click-through rate (which has a direct effect on your ranking position).
As mentioned above, click magnet words can also be used in the description tags.
The only difference is that longer expressions and idioms can be used here.
Here is an example of what an optimized description tag could look like:
"Get the absolute best prices on dog food today. Free shipping on all orders. Click here to see all our exclusive offers."
One of the most challenging steps in e-commerce online marketing is the optimization of product and category pages.
Of course, you want high-quality content.
But unlike blog posts, conversion targets must be met here.
Here are the most important on-page SEO tactics I recommend for e-commerce websites.
Industry studies have shown that longer content tends to rank higher on Google.
(And yes, these results apply to e-commerce websites).
The fact is, Google wants to understand what your page is about.
The more content they provide, the better Google can do its job.
Furthermore, publishing a long post on your site helps customers better understand what they want to buy.
It is probably impossible to write 1,000 words for every page on your website.
If this is the case, I recommend that you write long and detailed descriptions for your 50-100 most important product and category pages.
In addition, customer reviews and opinions can be gathered, which in turn increase the word count.
Once a detailed description has been written, it's time to check that you have included your keyword 3-5 times in the text.
This has nothing to do with keyword density or keyword overcrowding.
This step is to ensure that you have mentioned your keyword, so that Google can understand what your page is about.
For example: Your keyword is "6 quart crockpot" and you want to make sure you've mentioned that exact phrase at least 3 times:
PRO TIP: KEYWORDS AT THE TOP OF THE PAGE
Google gives slightly more weight to keywords at the top of the page. Therefore, make sure that one of your keywords is mentioned at the top (e.g., in the first 100 words of the description on your product or category pages).
Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) keywords are words and phrases that are very similar to the actual keyword.
Let's say you optimize your e-commerce category page with the keyword "slow cooker". Similar terms could be...
Do you understand how it works?
And this is how you find specific LSI keywords for your e-commerce SEO.
First, go to Amazon and search for your keyword.
Then look for words that appear repeatedly on the category page.
…or check the product page for our keyword:
PRO TIP: USE INFORMATION FROM COMPETITORS
If your competitor ranks higher than you in Google, use the information from their website.
The next step is to enter the keyword into the Google Keyword Planner.
Take a look at the keywords Google suggests under "Ad group ideas".
And what Google suggests under "Keyword ideas".
Take the LSI keywords and distribute them throughout your content, which you publish on your product and category pages.
Our analysis of 1 million Google search results has shown that there is a clear correlation between URL length and Google rankings.
Specifically, our analysis revealed that short URLs tend to rank higher than long URLs on Google's first page.
Since you are building an e-commerce website, your URL will most likely be longer than those of other pages, as you will most likely include categories and subcategories in your URL.
For example:
https://beispiel.ch/kategorie/subkategorie/produkt.html
Nevertheless, you don't want the URL to be longer than 50 characters.
Long URLs confuse Google and reduce the impact of the keywords in your URL.
Here is an example of an unnecessarily long e-commerce product URL:
(The URL is not only miles long, but it also contains SEO- and user-unfriendly terms such as "productID.300190600").
Speaking of SEO-friendly terms: Make your URLs keyword-rich.
For category pages, use a 1-2 word description of the category.
https://beispiel.ch/kuechengeraete
Follow the same procedure for subcategory pages.
The only difference is that in this case, the subcategory is named after the category in the URL:
https://beispiel.ch/kuechengeraete/schongarer
For the product page, insert the product keyword, separated by a dash (“-”).
https://beispiel.ch/kuechengeraete/schongarer/5-liter-schmortopf
One of the advantages of e-commerce SEO is that internal links are created almost automatically.
The reason for this is that your site navigation generates many natural internal links:
PRO TIP: SHORTENS URLS (PRO TIP MUST BE BETWEEN
Some e-commerce companies don't include categories and subcategories in their URLs. For example, instead of https://example.com/kitchenappliances/slow-cooker/5-liter-breadpan, you would use just https://example.com/5-liter-breadpan. This shortens your URL and increases keyword density. I don't recommend this without reservation, but if you've structured your site this way, it certainly won't hurt your ranking.
Strategic internal linking is therefore the best practice for e-commerce SEO.
Therefore, you should allow yourself some time for this step.
More specifically, this is about linking internally FROM your authoritative pages TO your prioritized product and category pages.
Let's assume you have a blog post that generates many backlinks and also a product page that ranks #5 in Google (e.g., Moleskine Notebook).
Now add a keyword-rich link text FROM this post TO your product page.
Repeat this process until you have linked to all of your top-priority pages.
If you're looking for an easy way to stand out on the first page of Google, add rich snippets to your search results.
E-commerce websites have the opportunity to take advantage of the most eye-catching elements: reviews.
Here's an example:
How do you get these snippets? By adding schema markup to your e-commerce product pages. Schema markup is special code that you add to specific pages of your website.
This code allows search engines, such as Google and Bing, to better understand the content of your page.
Here are the different types of markup that are specifically for reviews.
Since there is no guarantee that the snippets will be displayed on Google simply because you request them, appropriate schema markup will help increase your chances.
You can create a schema markup manually, but it's not easy.
Therefore, I recommend Google's "Structured Data: Markup Help".
First, select the "Products" tab on the page:
Then go to your page and select a product that has reviews and ratings.
The product may have one review, or even many reviews – as is the case with most e-commerce websites.
Now copy the URL of this product into the URL field of the markup help and click on "Start Tagging":
Next, highlight the section of the page you wish to mark.
If your product has been reviewed by a single person, click on "Review".
Now highlight the name of the person who reviewed the product, the date, etc.
If multiple people have reviewed your product, highlight the number of reviews or the star rating and click on "Overall rating".
Make sure you provide as much information as possible.
For example, don't forget to highlight the number of reviews:
Once you are ready, click on "Create HTML":
Either you copy this HTML and paste it into your page, or you add the new schema markup to your existing HTML.
PRO TIP: CHECK THE IMPLEMENTATION
Use the Google Search Console to double-check that the schema has been implemented directly.
Then go to “Search Appearance”.
Then select “Structured Data”.
Here you can see the schema markup that Google found for your page…it indicates whether you have an error.
Technical SEO is one of the things that is important for ALL websites… but twice as important for e-commerce websites.
The reason for this is that e-commerce websites have a large number of pages to organize.
Even a "small" e-commerce website can have more than 5,000 pages.
And all these pages increase the chances of technical SEO.
In addition, most e-commerce websites do not have backlinks pointing to them.
This means that technical SEO is often a "decision game" where the path to the first page of Google is shortened.
If you're in a neck-and-neck race with your competitor, technical SEO can make the difference between #5 and #1 ranking.
This is also the reason why regular SEO site checks are considered best practice for the SEO of e-commerce websites.
In this example, we will use Raven Tools.
Because in my opinion, this website review system is the most comprehensive tool and also the easiest to understand.
In addition to Raven Tools, I will give you other SEO tools that you can use for e-commerce website audits.
To use Raven for your e-commerce SEO website audit, go to "Site Auditor" in the left sidebar.
Raven is now examining your page for potential errors.
Now, review the report of the errors that occurred.
For example:
Problems with your title or description tags:
Duplicate content and meager content:
Broken links:
Now that you know how to find the sources of errors, it's time for me to show you how to fix these problems.
How to fix common technical SEO errors on e-commerce websites
Problem: Too many pages
If you have thousands of pages on your website, this can be a nightmare for technical SEO.
In such a case, it is impossible to publish unique content for each individual page.
In addition: The more pages you have, the more you have to deal with duplicate content.
Many e-commerce websites simply have a looooot of products on offer.
Because many of these products require their own page, the website accumulates many individual pages.
Furthermore, products that differ only in minor details (such as 15 different shoe sizes) often have their own URL, which causes the number of your pages to explode…
First, you should find pages that you can delete or make unfindable for Google (noindex) without losing anything crucial.
In my experience, 80% of sales through an e-commerce website are generated by 20% of the products (the old 80-20 rule).
And 60% or more were not sold at all last year.
It is better than trying to improve all these pages to simply delete them, implement a "noindex" action, or combine them into a larger "super page".
To see which products have not generated any revenue, you can use your e-commerce content management system (CMS), such as Shopify.
You can now add the unsold products to a "maybe-delete" list.
If a page isn't bringing customers to your website and generating revenue, you need to ask yourself what the reason for that page is.
Because all this page does is make your technical SEO more difficult.
In some cases, such pages make up 5-10% of all pages on the website.
In other cases, it could be 50% of all pages.
Simply deleting these excess pages can lead to problems.
Then it's time to improve the remaining pages.
Duplicate content is one of the most common e-commerce SEO problems on this planet.
And it's a problem that can worsen your ranking on Google (thanks to Google Panda).
Fortunately, the problem of duplicate content can be a thing of the past by using unique content on each page (especially if you also use modern SEO techniques such as canonical tags).
There are many reasons why duplicate content occurs on e-commerce websites.
Here are the most common reasons.
First: A new URL is created for each version of a product or category.
Suppose you have a menu bar like this…
…here, depending on what a person selects, a unique URL is created.
If these URLs are indexed by Google, MANY duplicate content will be created.
This can also happen if small changes to the products, such as shoe size or color, create a separate product page with its own URL.
SecondlyStandard formulations.
This happens when identical text phrases appear on different pages.
Here's an example:
Of course, it's OK to have one or two lines on each page (e.g.: "At Brian's Organic Supplements, we offer the best ingredients at the best price").
However, if the standard text you use exceeds 100 words and appears on different pages, Google may view this as duplicate content.
thirdly: Copied descriptions.
This always happens when you have placed the same (or very similar) content on different product or category pages.
Here is an example of duplicate content on two different product and category pages…
Product page #2:
As you can see, the content of these two pages is almost identical. Not good.
First, you can "noindex" the pages that do not generate search engine traffic but lead to problems with duplicate content.
For example, you can "noindex" the URLs that are generated by category filters.
Problem solved.
This is a simple way to nip problems caused by duplicate content in the bud.
Once you have “genoindexed” URLs, it is time to move on to canonical tags (“rel=canonical”).
Essentially, a canonical tag tells search engines which page is a copy or slight variation of another page.
When a search engine sees a canonical tag on a page, it knows that it doesn't need to treat that page as unique.
(Canonization not only solves problems caused by duplicate content, it also helps to make your backlinks more valuable.)
The reason for this is that the links, which lead to different URLs, all lead back to a single URL. This makes the links more valuable.
PRO TIP: CHECK THE IMPLEMENTATION
Use the Google Search Console to double-check that the schema has been implemented directly.
Then go to “Search Appearance”.
Finally, 100% unique content must now be written for all pages that have not been "genoindexed" or for which the problem was not solved by a canonical tag.
And that's a lot of work (especially for an e-commerce website with thousands of pages).
However, this is an absolute must if you want to compete against the e-commerce giants (like Amazon) that tend to dominate the first page of Google.
To simplify the process, I recommend creating a template for the descriptions of product and category pages (more on this in the next section).
Lean content is another problem for technical SEO that arises on e-commerce websites.
Even if you have solved the duplicate content problem, you may still have pages with meager content.
For example, eBay lost 33% of its organic traffic due to a fine related to meager content.
But let's not focus on the negative.
Our analysis of more than 1 million Google search results shows that Google ranks long content above short content.
Therefore, I recommend that you consider in-depth, unique content an advantage.
One of the main reasons why e-commerce websites suffer from lean content is the challenge of writing unique content about similar products.
If the first description is about a running shoe, what can you possibly write about 25 others?
Although this is a legitimate question, it should not deter you from writing at least 500 words (and preferably 1,000+ words) about all important category and product pages.
First, you should identify the pages with poor content on your website.
PRO TIP: CHECK THE IMPLEMENTATION
Use the Google Search Console to double-check that the schema has been implemented directly.
Then go to “Search Appearance”.
You can go through each page on your website one by one, or use a tool such as Raven Tool to find pages with rather thin content (Raven considers pages with fewer than 250 words as "low word count"):
Once you have found all the pages with meager content, the next step is to fill them with high-quality and unique content.
Templates significantly speed up this process.
PRO TIP: PERSONAL PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
The more unique your content, the better. This means actually using the products you sell. Write about your experience with them. Include your own product photos. This will make your product descriptions stand out to both users and search engines.
Website loading times are one of the few signals that Google has publicly disclosed it uses as part of its algorithm.
But website loading times are not only important for e-commerce SEO: they also affect your net profit.
Studies by Radware have shown that slow loading times can result in up to 29% shopping cart abandonment.
Here are the 3 most common reasons why e-commerce websites load slowly:
Fortunately, all three speed-reducing problems can be solved relatively easily.
Like any website, e-commerce websites can significantly increase their traffic through content marketing.
For example, the well-known cookware e-commerce website has a great blog featuring recipes, cooking tips, interviews with chefs, and much more.
With regular and top-notch entries, it's no wonder the blog homepage has a Page Authority of 66.
How can you do the same for your e-commerce website?
Here is a step-by-step guide to creating great content for the blog on your e-commerce website.
Spending time on the same websites as your target audience gives you a good insight into their thoughts, dreams, fears, and desires.
Because this is not always possible in the real world, I recommend that you find out where your target audience is online.
If your target audience is, for example, coffee connoisseurs, you should browse places like Reddit's Coffee Community.
…and also old-school forums:
Now that you've found your target audience, it's time to stalk them.
Don't worry, it's not as strange as it sounds.
Here you focus your attention on words and expressions that are used to describe problems and issues.
These terms represent keywords that your target audience uses on Google when they are NOT searching for shopping products. Therefore, these are good keywords for you to use when writing blog content.
If you would like to read more about finding and choosing the right keywords, take a look here.
Next, it's time to write consistently good content.
What's the easiest way to do that?
The skyscraper technique.
This English video guides you step-by-step through the entire process.
And once you have completed step #3, start all over again and go through the entire process once more.
If you consistently publish new content following this template, you can expect a significant increase in traffic, customer contacts, backlinks, and customers.
If you publish great content on your blog on the e-commerce website, all link building strategies are available to you.
Yes, linking to your content can lead to an increase in search results on your product and category pages.
But these Links are not nearly as valuable as links that point directly to your product and category pages.
The following is important:
Even if you have something that increases the value of another page, you can pause link building for a short time.
Because the only way to convince someone of your point of view is by... that you improve their pages.
But how?
This is where step #1 comes into play…
Step #1 is to find sources that are no longer up-to-date or no longer work.
When an authoritative domain expires, it is usually picked up by a large domain auction such as GoDaddy Auctions, NameJet, or even Flippa Domain Search.
Domain auction houses have done a lot of work to find expired sources that you can use.
Auction houses have found sites that have done something for them (either traffic, backlinks, or both)... and they organize them in one place to make it easier to search them.
Google News is a treasure trove of information about companies that are closing down, rebranding, or changing their domain name.
Just quickly go to Google News and follow one of the search terms.
As I mentioned before, parked sides are PERFECT for the Moving Man method.
And this is how you find them:
“This page is parked FREE, courtesy of GoDaddy.com” + “domain is for sale”
This section displays the websites parked on GoDaddy that are for sale.
You might have to search a little…
…but if you search enough pages, you will find at least one link that can be used for the Moving Man method.
If you have found a known but expired source, it is time to find pages that link to it.
Tools like Ahrefs and Majestic SEO make the process child's play (I will use Ahrefs as an example below).
First, take the URL of the expired source.
If it is a single page of an entire website (such as a tool that no longer works or a service that is no longer offered), enter the URL of that specific page.
If the entire website no longer exists, you can use the URL of the homepage:
Now create a similar source on your website.
Since you have a reliable replacement for the expired website, forwarding the email, which you will do in step #3, will be very effective.
Now you can export the external links.
And so you have a list that enumerates all the pages that link to the expired source you found.
And that brings us to the final step.
They are almost finished.
Now is the time to inform people about their expired link.
The best way to do this? Write emails.
And that's all you have to do.
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