Ecommerce SEO checklist: Optimize your online store for success

Updated on: Sep 17th, 2024 11 min readWritten by:

Last Updated on September 17, 2024 by Admin

In 2024, putting your e-commerce website in line with SEO requirements is more crucial than ever. Converting prospects into customers and boosting revenue are two core benefits that come alongside effective SEO strategies. Statista states that global online sales increased to $6.54 trillion in 2023, meaning the growth is immense.

However, The market opportunity makes a good E-Commerce SEO checklist indispensable. It is meant to provide a step-by-step guide to enlighten you about the preferred methods and strategies for developing a quick website. If you adopt these precautions, you will do much better than the others and grow at your best.

What is E-Commerce SEO?

E-commerce SEO optimizes your online business or store to rank higher in SERPs for more leads and sales. Businesses do this using the factors of the E-Commerce SEO checklist (discussed below in detail). It increases visibility, attracts potential customers, ranks higher, and ultimately leads to more sales and profit.

5-Major Factors of E-Commerce SEO Checklist

Now that you know about e-commerce SEO let us give you a brief introduction to the factors of the e-commerce SEO checklist:

  1. On-page SEO: It includes many techniques, such as optimizing individual pages, including page content, meta tags, and internal linking, to earn a higher ranking and more related traffic.
  2. Off-Page SEO: This strategy begins with the internal (backlinks, social media) and external (reputation, authority) factors that influence your store’s reputation.
  3. Technical SEO: Thirdly, the whole process is designed to ensure that your website is easily crawlable, indexed, and accessible to search engines, with the necessary focus on site speed, mobile-friendliness, and structure.
  4. Local SEO: For businesses with physical stores or a particular geographical area of concentration, local SEO helps optimize location-based searches and thus secure footfall from the nearby locality.
  5. Content: Good and relevant content will keep the audience that matters to you and future customers close to you. It is the basis of any e-commerce SEO strategy, as it is the task of the content that is engaging and attractive.

E-Commerce SEO Checklist | 11 Best Tips in 2024

If you want to optimize your online store for ultimate success, then here are our tried and tested 11 tips to include in your E-Commerce SEO Checklist:

1. Research Your Niche & Competitors

First things first, knowing your niche and competitors is very important to integrate into an E-commerce SEO checklist strategy. You will analyze your industry and research your competitors to understand your target market. Doing this lets you understand what your audiences want, their pain points, and their online behavior (how they shop). Through an in-depth market analysis and competitor research, you will be able to shape your SEO strategy in an informed and effective way that will meet the specific requirements of your target market.

Consider the following:

  1. Find out your target customers’ demographics, interests, and buying habits.
  2. Analyze your competitors’ SEO strategies, including the keywords they are targeting, the quality of their content, and their backlink profiles.
  3. Assess your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses to find out the differentiation possibilities.

2. Identify and Target High-Converting Keywords

Keyword research is the base or foundation of a successful E-commerce SEO checklist. Choosing the right keyword can make or break your SEO strategy, as these are the terms your audiences search for while looking for your services/products. For a successful campaign with qualified traffic and conversion goals, you need to understand which particular sales-driven keywords are being used by your target audience while searching for the goods and services that your website offers. You can use the right keywords to target customers that can optimize your store for search engines, thereby driving qualified visitors and boosting sales.

Consider the following:

  • Leverage tools such as Google Keyword Planner and Ahrefs are used to find keywords with high volume and low competition.
  • Long-tail keywords are more likely to be converted and are less competitive; thus, concentrate on them.
  • Give preference to commercial words with strong intent, such as “buy,” “discount,” or “best.”
  • Keywords must be added naturally into your product titles, descriptions, meta tags, and content.

3. Internal & External Links

Link structure is the key to the success of E-Commerce SEO: internal and external links are a must. Internal linking is beneficial as it gives an idea about the site’s hierarchy structure and helps distribute link equity among pages. In contrast, a reputed site’s external links can add to your SEO store ranking.

To optimize your linking structure, follow these guidelines:

  • Ensure that the product pages are linked to both the homepage and the category pages in which they fall.
  • Keyword-rich descriptive anchor texts that are linked internally should be used.
  • Provide a figured-out and easy-to-perceive site structure with sections and subsections that are easy to navigate.
  • Look up blog posts, newsletters, and influencers with good reputations to obtain authoritative backlinks.
  • Monitor and avoid any links that are low quality or spammy since they will be harmful to your site’s reputation.

Example: If your product page is titled “organic coconut oil,” consider including an inner link from related blog posts such as “10 benefits of coconut oil for skin” or “how to use coconut oil in your daily routine.”

4. Optimize Meta Tags

Meta tags and descriptions represent important on-page optimization elements that will probably greatly influence your click-through rates (CTR) and search engine rankings. Generating catchy and concise meta tags that accurately depict your page information and convince users to click on your page should be included in the list of things that you should do in your E-Commerce SEO Checklist.

Here are some tips for writing effective meta titles and descriptions:

  • Place your primary keyword keyword at the beginning of the meta title.
  • Count both the meta titles at around 60 characters and meta descriptions at 160 characters.
  • To get the click, use action statements and emotional stimulators that are in line with the actual call to action.
  • This is where you can emphasize your unique selling point or the key benefit of your product or service.
  • Write a keyword-rich meta title and a descriptive meta description for each page.

Example: In the case of a “premium leather briefcase,”

You should have the following meta title: ”

Premium Leather Briefcase | Durable & Stylish | By Your Brand Name”.

5. Page Loading Speed

Another crucial tip is to optimize page loading speed, as even a second delay can lead to a 30% bounce rate. The speed at which web pages load will determine both the users’ experience and the SEO of the e-commerce site. Pages loading too slowly can result in high bounce rates, lowered conversions, and bad search engine position. To improve your store’s loading speed, consider the following techniques:

  1. Compress the size of the image and video files to decrease their volume without losing quality.
  2. Keep the number of HTTP requests minimal by combining CSS and JS files.
  3. Provide browser caching of such often-used resources from the browser directly.
  4. Use CDN (Content Distribution Network) to distribute your content among multiple servers.
  5. Constantly use Google PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix to run performance tests on your site.

6. Image & Video Optimization

Visual content is a critical factor influencing both the buying process and customer conversion. To leverage the power of images and videos for E-Commerce SEO, follow these optimization techniques:

  • Make sure your pictures are clear and relevant. Show your products from a close-up angle to give customers a better view.
  • Increase images and reduce the file sizes without losing quality.
  • The meaningful image file names and alt text should be provided considering the most frequently used keywords.
  • Market the videos on platforms like YouTube and use the embed feature on your product pages.
  • Create video transcripts or captions to allow search engine indexing and easy access to your video.

7. Ensure Your Website Can Be Crawled & Indexed

To be ranked in the search results, your e-commerce store should be easily discoverable and crawlable/ indexable by search engines. Here are some steps to ensure your store is crawlable and indexable:

  1. Add your sitemap to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools for the submission.
  2. Use robots.txt files to determine which pages the search engine should crawl and index.
  3. Redesign the site’s navigation, making its structure clear and understandable and providing hyperlinks to the main pages.
  4. Repair any broken links or 404s that could halt the search engine crawl if you find them.
  5. Adopt a URL structure that is easy to follow and has a hyphen between all words.

8. Fix Technical Errors (4xx. 3xx)

Technical SEO matters may seriously impair the online visibility of your internet store and the quality of the user experience. To identify and fix common technical problems, consider the following:

  • Using SEO audit tools, inspect your site regularly for 4xx (system errors) and 3xx (redirecting) status codes.
  • Make sure all broken links are fixed and that, if any of the pages have moved permanently, you have set up 301 redirects for them.
  • Ensure your site has a valid SSL certificate for secure browsing to prevent security breaches.
  • Fix cannibalization between those pages by using canonical tags or combining similar pages.
  • Implementing the responsive design principle and optimizing touch-based navigation can make your site compatible with all mobile devices.

9. Avoid Duplicate and Thin Content

If you have duplicate and thin content in your e-commerce store, search engines will struggle to prioritize your website, harming your SEO performance. Furthermore, such content may confuse search engines and provide little value to users. To eliminate these issues, follow these guidelines:

  • Use canonical tags to indicate the preferred version of a page by setting it as the canonical version (e.g., product variations).
  • Combine similar pages onto a single page with all the sections intact to avoid thin content.
  • Provide outstanding product descriptions that differ from all others on the market and add significant value for your customers.
  • Do not use descriptive texts provided by manufacturers. They are likely to be added to different sites and thus considered duplicate content.

10. Post Consistently

Strategic content is the key to attracting customers to your e-commerce site, keeping them interested, and boosting your rank. To develop and maintain a successful content strategy, consider the following tips:

  • Create a content schedule that perfectly matches audience interests, seasonal trends, and promotional strategy.
  • Be consistent with blog postings about the latest releases, product guides, and any information your competitors provide that you could use to your advantage.
  • A mix of content types, including text, images, videos, and infographics, will catch your audience’s attention.
  • Post relevant content across social media platforms and email newsletters to maximize your audience reach.
  • Promote participant-generated content, just like reviews and testimonials, to reinforce trust and believability.

11. List Your Website in Business Directories

For e-commerce businesses with local ties, the perfect strategy is to be properly visible in local searches and to design your online listings to attract the people around you and the people they know. To optimize for local search, follow these tips:

  • Fill in and verify your Google My Business application, ensuring it has correct information on your name, address, phone number, and website. Your GMB can help you reach many clients and market your business more effectively.
  • List your business on online directories, such as Yelp, Yellow Pages, and a directory for your specific business category.
  • Motivate satisfied customers to review you on these networks, as reviews can lead to high rankings in local searches.
  • Lead your website’s content structure with local keywords. Like if you are an organic coconut oil seller than use keywords like: “best organic coconut oil in XYZ” or “Best uses of organic coconut oil.”
  • Utilize the data markup, which is organized such that websites contain information helpful to search engines.

Conclusion

When you successfully implement the above -mentioned e-commerce SEO checklist, you will drive traffic, boost sales, and achieve long-term growth. Using these tactics, you can create a strong foundation for your e-commerce store and a better online presence. It is an ongoing process that requires your continuous effort to stay ahead of the competition and bring more sales. Be on top of the game with strong and result-oriented E-Commerce SEO services from AlgoSaga.