The Complete Ecommerce SEO Guide (2024)

Ecommerce SEO is crucial for any online store to drive organic traffic and increase sales. In this blog, we will discuss the in-depth Ecommerce SEO guide for 2024 covering all the important aspects like keyword research, on-page optimization, technical SEO, link building, content marketing and more. Follow this guide to improve your search engine rankings and visibility.

What is Ecommerce SEO?

Ecommerce SEO refers to optimizing an online store to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) and drive more organic traffic from search engines. The main tasks involved in ecommerce SEO are:

Conducting keyword research to find the right long-tail keyword opportunities.
Optimizing individual web pages like product pages, category pages, and blog posts for the targeted keywords.
Ensuring technical SEO best practices are followed to make the website crawlable and fast.
Creating helpful content and promoting the content to earn backlinks.
Managing customer reviews and testimonials.

The ultimate goal of ecommerce SEO is to attract more potential customers through organic search and increase sales for the business.

Why is Ecommerce SEO Important?

There are several reasons why ecommerce SEO is important for online stores:

Search drives major website traffic – Google handles billions of searches everyday and search contributes to around 80% of overall traffic for most websites. Ecommerce SEO helps get this traffic.
Increased sales – WhenSearch contributes to around 33% of total sales for small and medium online stores according to some reports. Ecommerce SEO directly impacts the bottom line.
Brand awareness – SEO results in more pages of the website getting indexed in search engines. This helps build brand awareness and trust over time.
Cost effective marketing – Ecommerce SEO requires initial setup costs but has very low ongoing costs compared to paid advertising. It’s a scalable marketing channel.
Improves customer experience – SEO optimized sites provide a better overall experience for searchers when they find relevant information easily. This improves conversion rates.

This makes ecommerce SEO absolutely crucial for online retailers to compete and generate more revenue. A good SEO strategy is mandatory for any ecommerce website.

Ecommerce SEO Strategy in 6 Steps

Here are the six main steps to create an effective ecommerce SEO strategy:

1. Keyword Research

The first step is to identify the long-tail keyword opportunities related to products and categories. Use tools like KeywordSh*titer, Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush for the keyword research.

2. Site Architecture

The website structure and URL patterns need to be optimized. Follow best practices like keeping pages 3 clicks or less from homepage to improve crawlability.

3. On-Page SEO

Optimize individual pages by incorporating the target keywords in title tags, page headings, URLs, image alt text, product descriptions etc.

4. Technical SEO

Ensure your site follows technical SEO best practices like responsive design, fast page speed, eliminating errors, implementing sitemaps etc.

5. Content Marketing

Creating helpful blogs and content helps improve user experience and brings relevant backlinks. Infuse SEO throughout the content strategy.

6. Link Building

Build natural backlinks from authority sites in the industry through outreach, guest blogging, securing directory listings, among other techniques.

Now we will discuss each of the above steps in more detail:

1. Ecommerce Keyword Research

Keyword research forms the foundation of any ecommerce SEO strategy. It helps identify the long-tail keywords or phrases related to products and categories. Some of the common methods for keyword research are:

Google Keyword Planner: This free tool from Google shows average monthly search volumes and competition for keywords.
Ahrefs Keyword Explorer: Paid SEO tool that provides volumes, CPC estimates and keyword difficulty score.
Semrush: Another popular SEO tool like Ahrefs offering detailed keyword insights.
Amazon Autocomplete: Enter keywords related to products sold on Amazon to see variants people search for.
Your Customer Questions: Look at top questions asked on forums, social media, product reviews to find informational queries.
Competitor Analysis: Analyze top-ranking competitors in search results and on Ahrefs/SEMrush to see which keywords they target.

The final keyword list should have a good balance of informational queries alongside commercial keywords representing buying intent. Focus on keywords with 250 – 50,000 monthly searches initially for most opportunities.

2. Ecommerce Site Architecture

Before starting on-page optimizations, ensure your site structure is optimized properly by following these guidelines:

Keep architecture flat: No more than 3 levels of sub-categories/pages.
Inform bots: Submit an XML sitemap through Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
Enable deep links: Use URL parameters for filters and attributes for better crawlability.
Use semantic URLs: Include target keywords that describe content in URLs safely.
301 redirect old pages: Properly redirect pages that change URLS or get removed to pass link juice.
Monitor canonical tags: Automated tags should not cause duplicate content issues for dynamic pages.

With the right site structure setup, search engines will have an easier time discovering content through internal linking and bots will crawl pages more efficiently.

3. On-Page SEO for Ecommerce

Search engines evaluate your product/category page content to understand relevancy for keywords. Key on page optimizations include:

Title Tags: Include focus keyword and modifiers for higher CTR and impressions.
Meta Descriptions: Write compelling snippets featuring keyword, customer benefits for clicks.
H1 Headings: Use focus keyword or closely related variation as header.
Product Descriptions: In-depth 300-800 word descriptions with target keyword, related terms.
URLs: Use /product-name/ or /category/keyword/ URLs structure.
Images: Optimized file size, include keywords in alt text and filenames.
Internal Links: Link to relevant pages within content using keywords.
User-Friendly Layout: Ensure pages load fast on all devices with easy navigation.

Proper on-page optimizations are key to portraying relevancy and authority for targeted keywords to search engines.

4. Technical SEO for Ecommerce

Technical aspects like page speed, security, indexing etc. play an important supporting role in ecommerce SEO success. Here are some must-follow Technical SEO best practices:

Responsive Design: Ensure pages load fast and are usable across all devices.
Page speed: Learning What is Page Speed Optimisation CWV is crucial in technical seo. This concept refers to improving core web vitals to enhance user experience and search engine ranking. Compress images, lazy load content, and reduce page weight to achieve speed scores above 90/100.
HTTPS: HTTPS improves speeds, protects site against security risks and tracking.
Error Pages: Give clear error pages for 404, 401, 500 status codes rather than server default.
Redirects: Set 301 redirects from old page URLs to new to pass link juice and rank history.
Sitemap: Automatically generated by CMS but submit to Google and Bing through their webmaster tools.
Eliminate Bots: Block access to /wp-admin/ and other unnecessary pages through Robots.txt.

Keeping technical aspects optimized helps search engines discover pages easily and assess your site authority better for rankings.

5. Content Marketing for Ecommerce SEO

Creating helpful, educational content supports ecommerce SEO in several ways. Here are some ideas:

How-to Guides: Create guides focused around resolution of common customer problems or project ideas.
Best of Lists: Curate and display lists of top selling products customized for seasonal trends or categories.
Educational Articles: In-depth articles on your products, industry trends, reviews and comparisons build expertise.
Landing Pages: Create optimized landing pages for specific campaigns, products or collections.
Video Production: Use video tutorials and reviews for visual content consumers discover on YouTube.
Blog Optimization: Include target keywords, internal links, calls-to-action on blogs to improve discoverability.

Well-optimized content brings relevant traffic and engages shoppers for the long run. It also facilitates link opportunities.

6. Link Building for Ecommerce

Building quality backlinks from high authority websites is a cornerstone of any successful search marketing strategy. Here are some tactics:

Partnerships: Approach publications, forums, directories in your niche for sponsored content deals or links.
Backlink Opportunities: Find websites linking to top competitors and request links through outreach.
Press Mentions: Distribute press releases on new products or sales through PR websites to get publisher links.
Brand Mentions: Discover unlinked brand mentions through Google Search or SEMrush site:search and request rel=”nofollow” links.
Surveys: Form partnerships with influencers, create surveys to build affinity and get links in survey results.
Guest Posts: Find websites accepting guest posts and produce topical content for backlinks.

Consistent link building requires long-term commitment but helps improve search rankings sustainably over months.

Bonus Ecommerce SEO Tips for 2024

Staying updated on industry trends helps optimize your online store better. Here are some bonus tips based on recent SEO developments:

Mobile-First Indexing: Google prioritizes mobile experiences. Ensure optimized speed, design across devices.
Artificial Intelligence: Leverage AI like Anthropic to auto-generate thorough content at scale addressing buyer questions.
SEO Expertise: Outsource complex tasks or hire in-house SEO teams to optimize websites professionally.
Voice Search: Optimize for conversational voice queries with relevant snippets and answers for common questions.
Brand Mentions: Monitor brand mentions in forums, Q&A sites and social mentions for SEO opportunities.
Short Videos: Create 10-90 sec explainer videos for YouTube, TikTok, Instagram reels to boost discoverability.
Smart Shopping campaigns: Consider shopping campaigns on Google with dynamic landing pages based on product ads.

Keeping up with industry shifts helps stay ahead of the search algorithms for continual organic visibility.

Quality content and technical optimizations come together to form the foundation of a complete ecommerce SEO strategy. With proper keyword research, on-page optimizations, link building efforts and patience, any online business can rank higher in search engines like Google. Constant website improvements ensure sustained success. I hope this guide provided actionable insights to boost your ecommerce marketing efforts in 2024.

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People Also Ask Ecommerce SEO FAQs:

What is ecommerce SEO?
Ecommerce SEO refers to optimizing an online store to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) and drive more organic traffic from search engines. The main tasks involved in ecommerce SEO are conducting keyword research, optimizing individual web pages like product pages and category pages, ensuring technical SEO best practices are followed, creating helpful content and promoting the content to earn backlinks. The ultimate goal of ecommerce SEO is to attract more potential customers through organic search and increase sales for the business.

How does ecommerce SEO help online stores?
There are several ways in which ecommerce SEO helps online stores:

It helps drive major website traffic as search contributes to around 80% of overall website traffic for most sites.
It can help increase sales as search contributes to around 33% of total sales for small and medium online stores.
It helps in building brand awareness as SEO results in more pages of the website getting indexed in search engines.
It is a very cost-effective marketing channel as ecommerce SEO requires initial setup costs but have very low ongoing costs.
It improves customer experience as SEO optimized sites provide a better experience for searchers when they find relevant information easily.

How often does SEO need to be done?
SEO is an ongoing marketing process. Websites constantly need to be refreshed and re-optimized in order to meet search intent, prove to Google that the site is relevant, and target keywords that your audience searches for. Content needs to be added or updated regularly to engage search engines. Technical aspects also need periodic audits. Major platforms like Google conduct algorithm updates periodically which require optimizing sites according to changes. In general, SEO activities need to be done at least monthly or bi-weekly for best results.

Does Shopify do SEO automatically?
Shopify stores come with certain built-in SEO features like auto-generated XML sitemaps, canonical tags, 301 redirects etc but a lot of optimization needs to be done manually as well. Theme templates generate some on-page tags but they need customizing. Shopify AI can assist in content generation but human input is needed. Additional SEO apps also provide more features. However, Shopify alone does not fully optimize the site – manual efforts through research and optimizations are important to implement a successful strategy.

What are the on-page SEO elements?
The major on-page SEO elements that need optimization include title tags, meta descriptions, headings, URLs, images, internal linking, product descriptions, schema markup etc. Key elements like title tags, H1 headings need to be optimized with target keywords. Descriptions help users and influence CTR. URLs and images need to be optimized for semantics and accessibility. Internal linking helps with user experience and influences rankings. Schema helps display richer snippets. Optimizing these elements makes the site understandable to search engines.

Is technical SEO important for ecommerce?
Yes, technical SEO is very important for ecommerce sites. With many pages, technical issues can severely impact the site. Aspects like page speed, eliminating errors, security, proper sitemaps, image compression need attention. Crawability issues affect how search engines discover pages. Slow sites provide poor user experience. These under-the-hood aspects if not optimized correctly can prove detrimental to rankings and should be periodically audited. Technical SEO is the foundation and enables other optimizers to function well.

What is ecommerce content marketing?
Ecommerce content marketing refers to creating helpful blogs, guides, how-tos and other long-form content related to products and industry. This serves informational needs of customers and search intent. Content brings organic traffic and builds trust. With proper optimization, content can rank and also attract relevant backlinks supporting the website. Creating content aligned to buyer personas addresses their questions, problems and inspires purchase. Content forms a critical part of ecommerce SEO strategy by engaging audiences and search engines both.

Is ecommerce link building still important?
Yes, link building is still one of the major ranking factors in search. For ecommerce sites which may have hundreds of pages lacking authority individually, links help pass page-level trust to such landing and product pages bolstering their individual rankings. Links from relevant authoritative sources in niche add gravitas to the website and its credibility and influence search placement. Managed organically over time through partnerships based on value, links help gain sustained visibility in search versus temporary tactics. Links when acquired naturally over the long-run through quality outreach establish authority.

What are the main policies SEO depends on?
The main search engine policies and guidelines that SEO strategies are based on include:

Google Webmaster Guidelines which provide the ground rules of building links, optimizing and promoting content without spammy practices.
Browser and device compatibility guidelines around responsive design and progressive enhancement.
Accessibility policies around ADA, WCAG to make content accessible.
Privacy policies around use of personal user data and mechanisms like cookies.
Competition and consumer protection laws around fair/transparent business conduct.
Intellectual property policies around usage of copyrighted content and trademarks.
SEO experts ensure strategies abide by such guidelines else risk facing algorithmic or manual penalties.

How to start a blog for ecommerce store?
Starting a blog for an ecommerce store requires deciding a theme, choosing a platform, optimizing for keywords, publishing regular posts and promoting posts. The theme can be based on products sold, related guides, industry trends etc. Blogs are easily setup within Shopify stores. Key steps are – selecting a suitable domain, configuring settings, optimizing first few posts, promoting through social platforms. Initial focus needs promoting new arrivals, trends through images and video. Publishing 1-2 relevant posts each week engages search engines and customers. Internal linking between posts and products aids rankings across the site.

How to optimize product pages for SEO?
Optimizing product pages involves in-depth keyword research, picking target keywords and variants, optimizing titles, meta descriptions and images for target keywords while ensuring natural flow. Page slugs, headings and file names need optimization. Lengthy descriptions covering key attributes through tables aid communication and SEO. Including reviews while verifying their quality and avoiding duplicate content impacts positively. Backlinks from authoritative sources and internal linking within sites to boost rankings. Specially tailored landing pages for certain products can outrank generic pages.

What is the difference between SEO and content marketing?
SEO majorly focuses on ranking websites through search-friendly technical implementations and content optimizations to satisfy discoverability through search engines. Content marketing is about engaging and converting audiences using branded, helpful and share-worthy content. SEO aids content discoverability besides conversions. Content marketing nurtures communities through branded storytelling and social proofs across owned, earned and paid channels besides search. Both are complementary – SEO makes content discoverable, marketing converts findings to customers and amplifies impact through shares.

What are the best SEO tools for ecommerce?
Some of the major SEO tools for ecommerce include:

SEMrush – For competitive keyword research, rankings and backlinks.
Ahrefs – For keyword research, backlinks analysis and content gap analysis.
Moz – For keyword research, links analysis and local SEO features.
Screaming Frog – For technical audit and fixing crawl issues.
GTmetrix – For auditing page speed performance.
Google Search Console – For monitoring search performance and issues.
Buzzsumo – For content research analysis and influencer outreach.
Ubersuggest – For keyword research directly from content.
Answer The Public – For query volume analysis

Is local SEO important for ecommerce?
Yes, local SEO is important for e-commerce stores having physical stores or targeting customers within certain geography. Such stores can benefit from local citations, optimizing their Google My Business profiles, generating local reviews across directories and user-generated content platforms. Customers searching locally within google maps can be driven through local optimization. Stores ranking locally helps get discovered by potential new customers within relevant locations they serve or deliver to physically adding to their store visibility and credibility locally.

What is the best time to start a blog?
The best time to start a blog is as early in the website launch process as possible. An active blog pre and post-launch signals search engines that fresh content will be regularly added, keeping audiences engaged and search spiders visiting consistently. Early blogs generate history demonstrating expertise and authority while search engines determine relevance and ranking factors. Publishing 1-2 times each week consistently helps with content shelf-life decisions. Starting early with minimal posts per week eventually develops a robust volume of helpful, interesting content reinforcing all SEO elements favorably long-term for organic success.

How to start an SEO campaign?
Starting an effective SEO campaign requires understanding audiences, analyzing competitors, setting objectives and defining optimized site structures. Key steps include conducting keyword and market research, selecting most relevant keywords based on commercial intent and difficulty, setting up tracking & evaluation systems, optimizing site architecture and creating internal linking framework, on-page optimizations focusing identified keywords, managing technical aspects like HTTPS and speed, publishing engaging content assets, strategizing outreach programs and link building diplomatically advocating real value. Periodically ensuring ongoing site optimizations, new content additions and revised evaluation/tracking helps sustained momentum.

What isSchema markup and how can it help?
Schema markup adds structured data tags on websites to provide search engines and other programs more context about the website content. This helps show enhanced features directly in SERPs like reviews, recipes, FAQs etc promoting higher engagement and clicks. Schema also helps featured snippets, allows voice assistants to reply factually and aids organizational search engines. Common schemas include recipes, FAQs, products, organizations, reviews etc. Implementing carefully as per google guidelines aids enhanced visibility for queries relevant to tagged assets elevating awareness and trustworthiness in the long-run.

How to optimize landing pages for ecommerce?
Optimizing landing pages like category pages involves choosing target long-tail keywords to focus, optimizing page URLs, titles and headings accordingly. Optimized images and videos, calls-to-actions and compelling introductory copy aids lead conversions. Internal linking relevant additional pages boosts ranking while supporting customers with discovery. Suitable formatting using content chunks, lists, multimedia keeps users engaged. Landing pages perform dual function – ranking for keywords and converting visitors. Employing persuasive, relevant customer-centered content and optimizing keywords aids organic success through SEO.

How to do link building for ecommerce sites?
Some effective link building strategies for ecommerce include – conducting competitor backlink analysis to identify topical pages linking to them, creating quality blogs, guides covering industry topics, optimizing for commercial and informational keywords, outreaching publications and communities through sponsored or contributed content deals, guest posting on authority sites, engaging industry influencers and communities to secure mentions and links, optimizing store pages around unused domains to build pagerank passively, curating lists and rankings featuring products to earn links, securing links through PR activities like launching sponsored collections and securing mentions in trade publications and YouTube product reviews. Patience and consistent optimized link attractions help over months.

How important is local SEO?
Local SEO is very important for ecommerce businesses having physical presence that deal locally like grocery stores, hardware shops, clinics, automobile showrooms etc. Customers looking up locally within vicinity for such categories on Google maps can be driven through citations across directories and user generated platforms like Google my business, Foursquare, Yelp etc. optimizing name, address, local categories, photos, reviews etc. Stores ranking locally get discovered by new potential customers within relevant locations adding to discovery and credibility locally while supplementing overall marketing strategies. Local SEO is destination SEO targeting local exploration intent.

How to get reviews for ecommerce store?

Getting online reviews is important for ecommerce store credibility and conversions. Some effective ways are – requesting latest customers through emails with review requests linking review pages, thanking top reviewers through social media highlighting value, offering limited period discounts for reviews to regular customers on product anniversaries through newsletters, staff posting reviews themselves to develop initial momentum, reaching out to community forums and FB groups requesting reviews showcasing value, requesting influencers to review featured collections post usage against promotions, deploying review retrieval tools to source customer reviews organically from across sources like trustpilot, yotpo etc. Regular friendly reminders keep review velocity high.