Having an ecommerce site isn’t as simple as having the goods to sell and hoping that customers would flock to your site. After all, if you don’t improve your site’s conversion rate, you won’t gain the exposure you need to sell anything.
We’ve seen what works and what doesn’t over the years working with thousands of ecommerce websites. This ecommerce conversion rate checklist was designed using our own ecommerce SEO experience as a starting point to help online companies generate more revenue.
- Rank for the most important ECOMMERCE SEO terms.
This comprises the name of your company, products, and categories. These are the keywords that will generate conversions to your ecommerce site, therefore spend the majority of your PPC marketing spending on them. It’s critical to rank for your brand phrases in navigational searches, which target visitors who are expressly looking for your company.
- Come up with a list of keywords for the homepage.
Users are likely to land on your homepage first. You can direct a few keywords here and there, but make sure you’re not using a product phrase as the main keyword for this page unless you’re just selling one thing on the whole site. Otherwise, to maximise traffic, keep each product-related term to its own landing page.
- Keep an eye out for low-hanging fruit.
If you want to boost your total conversion rate, work on an alternative set of keywords if your competitors have more high-ranking sites. Look for keywords with a high search volume and focus your efforts on those that you can rank for quickly so you can get some traction online.
- Target Keywords That Your Competitors Aren’t.
What better method to get past your rivals than to attack their weak spot? Because your competitors aren’t utilising these terms, you’ll have an easier time ranking for these terms. It can take a little more keyword research to determine which keywords they haven’t cracked yet, but it’ll be easier if you have a dedicated keyword analyst on your team.
- Look for keywords that convert well.
Check a competitor’s site for terms that are doing effectively for them using a keyword explorer. Look for keywords relating to “best computers” if they have a “best computers for students” term. You might also conduct a Google search for relevant terms.
- Involve and educate your audience.
Make your website more than just a clickbait site. Offer something useful, such as infographics and information that connect your product to the needs of your customers. This also helps to balance the material on your product pages, as ecommerce sites don’t have to be text-heavy and sales-oriented.
- Concentrate on “Opportunity Keywords.”
You might have some keywords with low SERP rankings but high search volume and a low difficulty score. To rank for generic terms and phrases, target these keywords and apply long-tail variations.
- Outrank websites on the first page of the search engine results page.
There aren’t always major sites at the top of the SERPs. You can outrank websites and make your own more visible to clients with a flawless ecommerce SEO plan. Examine the number of outgoing and incoming links they have. You might be able to outrank them if they have less inbound links than you. It’s as simple as making few adjustments to your target pages and contacting authoritative websites.
- Use different page titles to catch people’s attention.
Use interesting and unique page titles instead of boring and generic ones. Your page title should be simple to comprehend while simultaneously eliciting clicks. When crafting the page title, include the name of the brand and the product that can be located on that page. Words like “discount,” “25% off,” and “free” may also help drive traffic.
Check the results pages to see how the titles of the top-ranking pages are formatted.
10. Fill up the “Content Gaps.”
It’s possible that your site is ranking for keywords that you haven’t targeted yet. This is a great time to focus on optimising the site for those exact keywords. To find out which terms you’re ranking for, use Google’s Keyword Planner tool and construct a landing page just for these terms.
- Make the switch to HTTPS.
Important information is frequently requested on ecommerce sites. If you adopt the “https” architecture, customers are more inclined to transact with you. This also informs Google that your site is more reliable than a standard “http” site.
- Add Unique Content to Category Pages to Optimize Them.
Google still indexes category pages, so they’re not just placeholders. Check your Google Analytics account for duplicate entries on indexed category pages. You can also use the “site:http://website.com” search to see how many of your pages, including category pages, are indexed by Google.
- Use Title Tags That Are Consistent.
This makes organising titles a lot easier, and it also reveals the overall trend of your pages. This helps Google rank your site while also assisting your clients in understanding the structure of your website. Make sure your title tags are unique across the entire website.
- For each product, create unique content.
It’s simple to believe that nobody will read the product descriptions. However, as an ecommerce site owner, you can’t afford to risk your site being flagged by Google for duplicate content. To please search engines, include a few paragraphs of keyword-optimized material.
- Product names and secondary keywords should be included in the headers.
You can improve your ranking for relevant keywords by using headers with target terms. Include the brand and product name, as well as any secondary keywords you want to target on the page. Secondary keywords should be synonyms for the primary keyword and belong to the same keyword category as the primary keyword. It’s not a good idea to try to target two primary keywords on the same page.
- Create Meta Descriptions That Are Optimized And Attractive.
Because meta descriptions are snippets of what your page is about, generic information will never increase click-through rates. You should also keep in mind the character restriction and employ action words to entice customers to visit your website.
- Improve the quality of your product images.
Multiple photos per page are possible on some ecommerce sites. Instead of using large photos, reduce their size to ensure that your site’s loading speed is not harmed. Remember to include an alt text and caption to aid Google’s crawling of your photographs.
- Remove The Footer’s Boilerplate Text.
Although some ecommerce site owners say that boilerplate information is necessary for a brand’s website, that block of text in your footer could be misinterpreted as low-quality, spammy content. Keep in mind that Google indexes each page separately. Seeing the same information over and over will have a negative impact on your rankings.
- Stay away from keyword cannibalism.
Yes, you can target multiple keywords on a single landing page, but each page should only have one main keyword. Instead, use secondary keywords and variations to avoid cannibalising visitors from another page that might be focusing on the other term.
- Examine the site architecture of your competitors.
Examine your competitors’ page structures, from categories to tags, as well as the depth of their link architecture. If it works for them, it’s possible they’ve discovered something you can apply to your website.
- Double-check your internal linking.
Site users shouldn’t have to navigate through so many pages to get to the page they’re looking for. Make sure your site is simple to use and that each page is only a few clicks away. Internal link building can be used to guide them from one page to another that is relevant to their needs.
- Increase the use of social media.
Customers frequently use social media to read product reviews and learn more about your company. Provide them with the information they require so that they can make an informed decision. Provide a mechanism for them to contact you via these channels as well.
- Use URLs that are easy to remember.
Customers will not click on your links if they encounter gibberish in the URLs. When building URLs for your site, instead of using random numbers, use the category and product name. You may easily adjust this in the settings of your website, as well as specify the canonical URLs.
24. Improve the usability of your website.
Even before they ask, offer to help them. Customers claim that having a live chat feature to answer their questions while they’re shopping is one of the best features of a smart ecommerce website since it helps you to tap into their pain spots.
- Create a mobile-friendly ecommerce site.
You should make your website mobile-friendly. After all, many of your consumers are likely to shop and complete purchases on their mobile devices. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, you’re missing out on a lot.
If you want to rule the internet market, now is the time to start using this ecommerce advice.
Having valuable items to offer on your ecommerce site is only one aspect of the business; you must also ensure that your selling platform provides a pleasant experience for your clients. It may only be a matter of time before your conversion rate improves by applying best practises to optimise your ecommerce site.