The opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
There are nearly 14 million e-commerce sites in the United States and over 26.5 million worldwide. This extremely fierce competition makes it incredibly difficult to stand out and attract the attention of online shoppers.
Without a solid presence in Google search results, your online store can lose out on valuable organic traffic. In turn, this could impact your bottom line and hinder the growth of your business.
In this article, I share six powerful SEO techniques to help you drive more organic traffic to your ecommerce store and outperform your competition.
Related: An introductory guide to ecommerce SEO for beginners
Why SEO is important for e-commerce
A whopping 37.5% of all traffic to e-commerce sites comes from search engines. In other words, not optimizing your website for search engines means losing many potential customers.
Whether your potential customers are looking for the latest fashion trends, tech gadgets, or niche products, they’ll likely start their journey with a simple Google search.
Unlike traditional advertising methods, which can quickly eat into profit margins, SEO offers a cost-effective alternative. It generates organic traffic without you having to pay for each click or impression, ensuring you pocket more dollars.
6 SEO Tips for E-Commerce Businesses
Now let’s explore the six most important SEO tips for e-commerce businesses. These practices will help you focus on what’s important and avoid the most common SEO mistakes.
1. Start with keyword research
While SEO for small businesses focuses primarily on informational keywords, your ecommerce success thrives on product-focused keywords (e.g., “queen-size platform bed”). This is because these keywords have higher buyer intent, so your customers primarily search for them on Google when they’re ready to make a purchase.
Here’s how you can find some good keywords:
-
Understand your customers’ language, needs and pain points
-
Use an SEO tool to find out what keywords your competitors are targeting
-
Check the “People also ask” section on Google
-
Leverage long-tail keywords, like “leather sectional sofas for small spaces”
2. Steal your competition’s ideas
One great thing about ecommerce SEO is that you can simply “peek” at what your competitors are doing, figure out what already works, and improve upon them.
Use an SEO tool like SEMrush or Ahrefs to analyze your competitors’ websites and analyze their SEO strategies. This goes beyond keyword research. You can, for example, review category pages and make sure you don’t miss any.
Additionally, you should explore their blog topics and create your own posts based on your competition’s gaps. As you adopt ideas, however, make sure your SEO content provides greater depth and value to the reader to help you stand out from the competition.
3. Improve website architecture and URL structure
While ecommerce URLs can naturally be longer due to your website’s categories and subcategories, you need to keep them as neat and short as possible. Include a keyword in the URL and keep it clean to help Google understand what your page is about.
For category pages, the best idea is to include a short description, such as https://example.com/homefurniture
The same goes for the subcategories: https://example.com/homefurniture/sofas
Finally, product pages should focus on a target keyword, for example: https://example.com/homefurniture/sofas/leather-sectional.
Since e-commerce sites have many pages, they require excellent website architecture. A good rule of thumb is to keep it simple and scalable. Avoid unnecessary complexity and make sure adding new categories is simple.
Beyond that, every page on your website should be three clicks or less from your homepage. A flat architecture that focuses on product and category pages is the best way to improve the user experience on your website.
Related: 4 Unexpected Ways Short URLs Can Help You Grow Your Business for Free
4. Optimize your product and category pages
Once your website architecture is in place, the next step is to optimize your product and category pages. These pages are traffic and lead magnets for e-commerce websites, so you need to pay special attention to on-page SEO.
Here’s how to optimize these pages:
-
Include your target keyword in your title tag and amplify its impact with strategic modifiers like “Buy,” “Cheap,” or “Offers” for greater visibility. Example: “Best home furniture deals”
-
Use click-through words like “X% off,” “Guarantee,” or “Lowest Price” to increase click-through rates. Example: “Best Home Furniture Deals: 25% Off Sofas”
-
Create an eye-catching descriptive tag using phrases like “Free Shipping” or “Great Selection” to attract online shoppers to your page. Example: “Get the best deals on quality home furniture: FREE shipping on all orders”
-
Remember that Google prefers in-depth product pages, so you should aim for descriptions of 1000+ words. Strategically use your target keyword 3-5 times in your content. Place one near the top of the page for greater impact.
If this seems too complicated, you can hire an SEO agency to help you optimize your product and category pages and scale your search engine rankings.
5. Blog regularly
Sharing valuable content on specific topics related to your products can help you establish authority in your niche. This builds trust among your audience and signals to search engines that your site is a reliable source of information.
As your current authority grows, so does the trust and credibility of your website. For example, blogging about specific topics related to your niche categories makes Google trust you more. As a result, your products and categories are more likely to rank well in search results.
This strategy helps small e-commerce businesses level the playing field and compete with big brands for top positions on Google.
6. Focus on building links
Once you have a solid website architecture, optimized product and category pages, and quality SEO blog content, it’s time to focus on link building strategies.
When all these factors are equal, the number and quality of backlinks becomes the deciding factor in ranking in search results. That’s why you should build five to 15 backlinks monthly using strategies like guest posting, niche edits, and other popular tactics.
Related: 5 Essential SEO Strategies for Business Owners to Increase Their Traffic
These six SEO strategies can help you navigate the fierce competition in the e-commerce landscape:
-
Performing in-depth keyword research
-
Improve your competitors’ ideas
-
Improved website architecture and URLs
-
Optimization of product and category pages
-
Blogging regularly
-
Building backlinks
Following these SEO tips will increase your online presence and ensure the success of your e-commerce business.