The Most Effective eCommerce SEO Guide of 2020

Doing marketing for e-commerce sites means facing very specific challenges. First of all, put forward eCommerce sites requires that the person doing the marketing work create a good balance between user experience, conversion improvements and SEO. Secondly, since online stores are generally comprehensive and complex, on-site optimization efforts can turn into an endless nightmare.
In this guide, all the content and technical problems that eCommerce SEO workers may encounter are mentioned. However, there are ways to deal with these problems and techniques that can save you time.

Keyword Research

Set aside the general keywords and focus on combinations wisely.

Searching for keywords for eCommerce sites means going beyond search volumes and competitive analysis. The main reason behind this complexity may be the buying cycle. Each step in the buying cycle requires the focus of different keywords.

In general, when customers enter online stores, they go through 5 different steps before making a purchase. The keywords and keyword phrases within these different steps are different from each other just like the steps.

Being Conscious: Searchers are in search of general information about a topic. It isn't so easy to have a ranking in the search engine for keywords in this field due to competition.
Research: Visitors look for more specific information. The names of the category pages are keywords that should be focused on.
Compare: Users investigate the pros and cons of a brand, product, or store. Keywords included in blog posts and product reviews are important.
Purchasing: Searchers decide what they want to buy and shop. The focus here is the keywords on the product pages.
Retention: The best thing to do at this step is to try not to lose the customer directly acquired. For this, it is necessary to reach the customer with interesting campaigns.

Create 3 Different Keyword Lists

As you can see in the steps above, the keywords used in customers research, comparison and purchasing steps are the keywords with the most conversion potential. You should try to create a comprehensive list of these keywords. In order to create a comprehensive list of these keywords, you will need 3 groups of keywords that you can later convert into long-tail queries.

However, before you start, you should research the current search behavior of your target audience. You should be familiar with the gender, age and social status of your target audience. For example, if you are a man and you are not familiar with personal care products for women, you should try to get information in this field by getting help from your female friends. You should try to understand the language of the target audience by spending some of their time on appropriate social media sources.

Note: Searching internal sites can help you learn about the keywords your target audience uses to find your products or services. The information to be obtained here is extremely important for e-commerce sites. However, since you will be able to reach real keywords, you can have data about the popularity and popularity of the products.

When you begin to understand how your customers speak and the words they use, you should add them to your keyword list.

You should create a list of keywords with action. "Like buy, price, compare, or review."
You should list all the brands of products in your store. "Like Apple, Samsung, Sony, or LG."
You should create a list of categories, product names and key features. “Like television, laptop, smart phone, iPhone.”

Mix Keywords

When you have prepared the three lists as mentioned above, you can proceed to the preparation of the search phrases. You can create dozens of long-tail keywords by combining general keywords with product keywords and their features. “Buy Samsung Galaxy S20 smartphone” is the ideal example of this. You can create tens or even hundreds of search queries of this type by tampering with your keywords.

You can do this yourself if you wish. If you wish, you can do this in a much shorter time by getting support from keyword tools. You can instantly get long-tail keywords using tools with word combining features like Rank Tracker. Which of these keywords has a good search volume and low competitiveness you should try to use those keywords in your SEO work.

Keyword Matrix

Do Keyword Targeting Smartly.

Have you heard of keyword shredding before? To put it briefly, this term means that multiple pages on your site focus on the same keyword. Targeting the same query, these pages will compete with each other in terms of ranking on the search engine result page. In some cases, search engines highlight the page you consider insignificant and leave the main page in the background.

In order to avoid the keyword fragmentation problem, you should try to create a keyword matrix. In this matrix, you should properly show which page targets which keyword. Thus, you can avoid using similar keywords on the pages you will try to create in the future. Thanks to this simple method, you can manage to avoid the keyword shredding problem.

Alternatively, if you are using a keyword tool, you can use the keyword map feature of the tool you use. Thus, you can easily see which landing page targets which keyword. If you aren't using a custom keyword tool, you can continue using the simple method above.

When you manage to match keywords with landing pages, you should get rid of pages that have targeted the same keyword or try to change their keywords. For this, using a special keyword tool can be much more efficient. However, if you are unable to meet this financially, you can handle everything yourself.

Note: If the content management system you use to manage your e-commerce site creates additional pages for variations of products, you should inform the search engines that these pages are equivalent to the main product page. For this, you can benefit from the regular use, canonicalization method.

Optimization within the Site

Save Time Optimizing Thousands of Product Pages

An e-commerce site can often have thousands of product pages, even if they don't have many options for category pages. Considering the category pages, everything seems very, very simple, but when it comes to product pages, the landscape changes suddenly. You may not have enough time and resources to create unique titles, H1 tags, and custom descriptions for product pages.

Here you may find yourself a bit lucky because the keyword research method we mentioned above is also available for meta tags. You should create title, meta description, and H1 templates for product pages. For example, you can use the "buy <product name> - <site name>" template on all product pages. In this example, the part shown as <product name> will be different on each page. You should try to choose a content management system where you can easily make this change.

You should make similar arrangements for H1 tags and descriptions. Remember, titles and meta descriptions will appear on the search engine results page. For this reason, you should try to increase the click-through rate in the results using appropriate call-to-action messages.

Structured Data

Highlight Product Details and User Reviews

We have all adopted the logical search approach since the day it began to better understand the intent behind Google search queries. Although the search giant is good enough in this regard, we still have to help search engines describe certain content on the site. By placing Schema formatting codes on our site, we can enable search engines to provide users with more informative results.

There are dozens or even hundreds of formats supported by Schema. However, two are extremely important for e-commerce sites. The product chart and product evaluation chart are these two types of formatting. After applying Schema formatting, your site will be able to inform your potential visitors about the degree of evaluation, price and availability in search results.

Copy Problem

Make sure Every Page on Your Site is Unique

The copy content problem for e-commerce sites is divided into two categories. Offsite copy content problem is when the content used is on many different sites on the internet. In-site copy content problem means that more than one page on the site has the same content.

1.Solving Out-of-Site Copy Problem

Offsite copy problem is actually a natural situation for e-commerce sites. Online stores use product descriptions, images and feature information provided by the manufacturers. This is a logical situation because you cannot, for example, set new features for the iPhone that has just been released. However, it is possible to take various steps to eliminate this problem.

Write unique descriptions for each item. If you have a team of copywriters, you should include unique descriptions for each item in your inventory. The only thing you need to pay attention to here is undoubtedly to make the necessary changes in accordance with the changing inventory items.
Take advantage of user-created content. Encourage visitors to make comments and reviews on the products they buy. Try to get their comments by sending them follow-up emails. If necessary, try to offer them an extra discount to do so. While doing this, you shouldn't forget to check all the comments that come to make the site healthier.
Create a question and answer tab for each product. You can take a good step towards customizing the relevant page by adding frequently asked questions to the product pages. In order to do this, you should remember that you need to use human resources again.
You can only consider improving product category pages. If you do not have enough time and resources to edit and improve product pages, then you should try to produce original content only for category pages. While doing this, you need to disable indexing of product pages. This method works well to eliminate the copy content problem even if it is not very useful.

2.Solving On-Site Copy Problem

On-site copy problem is a common problem in online stores. The reason for this may be the content management system used by the sites, as well as site configurations that have been performed contrary to the logic.

Two different scenarios are often encountered within the scope of improvement works. The first is that a product is associated with more than one category. For example, a Samsung TV can be associated with both household goods, TVs and the Samsung category. When content management systems create separate site addresses for each product, a copy content problem occurs.

The second scenario stems directly from the content management system and is caused by creating separate pages for different variations of the same product. Even if this does not seem to be a huge problem, product pages created for white and black versions of the same product may cause you trouble due to copy content. To get over this problem, you can try the following methods:

You can review the URL addresses of the site. You can provide a single URL page to the user, regardless of the paths the user will take on the catalog page. The best thing you can do is to ensure that all product variations are displayed on one page and no redirects. In this way, you can eliminate the copy content problem.
You can apply for canonization. This technique completely eliminates the copy content problem. However, it is an approach that can cause trouble to your site in terms of user experience and browsing budget. If you don't know what you are doing on your site, you should avoid using this method.

Out of Stock Products

Use Search Engine Friendly Pages for Unavailable Products

To be clear, it is a situation that you may encounter from time to time that certain products are out of stock in your e-commerce store. You may even be faced with some items being out of sales. However, you need to deal with these two situations differently.

1. Create custom pages for products that are not available temporarily

If an item is temporarily unavailable, it is not an option to completely remove the page it contains. Because on this page you can explicitly state that the product is temporarily unavailable and you can provide visitors with all other appropriate information.

You can specify the re-supply time of the products. If you specify such a date, you will inform the visitor about the status of the product. In this way, you can make the visitor wait for the product or turn to alternatives.
You can send notifications to visitors when products are available. You may not know when some products will be available again. In such a case, you should review the possibility of providing visitors with a notification that the product is available.
You can allow visitors to pre-order. If you think that a product will be added to the stocks again in a short time, you can give users the opportunity to pre-order. In this way, you inform the users that the product can be obtained again. You can also offer them the opportunity to be one of the first to supply the product.
You can create similar product lists. If you can, you can offer alternative options to visitors. If a product is out of stock or temporarily unavailable, you can have them meet similar products instead of sending them to the competitor site.

2.Choose a method for managing out-of-sale products

If an item is permanently out of sale, you have to find the most suitable method to remove this product page from the site.

You can create a 404 page. The most natural way to remove a page from the search engine index is to create a 404 page. In this way, you do not affect the ranking values of the site. Unless you forget to remove 404 pages from the XML sitemap, you will have no problem with this. Search engines will remove related pages from search results over time. If the page in question has good rankings for some search results, you should consider other options.
You must create 301 redirect pages. You can redirect the page of the product that is out of the sale to the page of a similar product or to the appropriate category pages. Thanks to this redirect, you will protect the link values of your site, but at the same time, you will increase the opening time of your site due to 301 redirects.
You may consider keeping the product page. You can keep the page of an out-of-sale product active, but you should indicate that it is out of sale. Thus, you can prevent the page from losing ranking in the search engine and at the same time, you can maintain the link values. However, this option is not recommended for e-commerce sites whose inventory is constantly updated. Because unnecessary pages are on the site means that the party's budget isn't used correctly.

3. You must be ready for seasonal effects and traffic values

If you intend to announce a new product, after doing a thorough research, you should take your first step because your aim should be to get a good place in the search engines results pages. You must create a page for the new product. You have to strengthen it with visuals. You should include product descriptions and other content that will satisfy the customer. You should try to introduce potential customers with subscription forms that will keep them informed when the product is opened for purchase.

When seasonal effects or traffic values occur, you should review the pages on your site. For example, if there are products you want to bring to the fore during the New Year, you should try to deliver them to users from a page like /new-year-2020. When the season ends, you may want to consider redirecting the old pages to the new 301 redirects required. Thus, you will not lose the links coming to your site and you can keep the page up to date.

Pagination

Use Pagination to Eliminate Indexing and Duplicate Content Problems

Pagination is one of the useful methods to divide content into several pages. Pagination work on an eCommerce site can help you create overlapping content. If your site has a pagination bar and contains only a few numbers, if it belongs to pages that can be visited and clickable, you won't have any problems.

However, if the numbers on the pagination bar are too many and they don't take you anywhere else than the current page, then you are likely to have problems because search engines will crawl them. In short, pagination work is valuable as long as you can switch between pages. It is possible to eliminate the general problems you will experience with pagination by using the following steps:

Consider adding the Show all option. You should consider adding a page that can show products from all pages. In this scenario, all the pages handled separately must have the attribute rel = ”canonical” and each one should be directed to the show all option.
Consider using the rel = ”next” and rel = ”prev” tags. Using these tags between the page's <head> tags tells search engines that a page has previous and next states. The first page should contain only the rel = ”next” tag and the last page should only contain the rel = ”prev” tag. All pages between these two pages must have both tags. These tags will inform Google and other search engines that they should handle the pages one by one. Thus, you can manage to protect the backlinks of your site. In this way, you can ensure that more suitable results for your site are included in the search engine result page.

Site Speed

Improve Page Speed of Your Site and Have Better Ranking and User Experience

Site speed is a double effective ranking factor for e-commerce sites. A slow site means bad user experience. Bad user experience means being able to sell lower. Site speed has been an important ranking factor for a long time. Fast loading of pages belonging to your site is a factor that can take them to the top of the search engine result page.

First of all, you should analyze the main landing pages on your site and check that there are no speed issues involved. You can do this quickly by performing various tools. You can try using Google PageSpeed Insights, GTMetrix or WebSite Auditor. After all these tools scan your site in detail, they will present you the speed score of your site. Generally, the factors that ensure the low site speeds of the pages and which are ignored by the e-commerce sites include:

You should cancel redundant redirects. Usually, sites provide transitions between non-www versions and www versions with redirects. They make similar transitions for the mobile version of the site. If you cancel such unnecessary redirects, you can speed up your site.
You should improve the product images. E-commerce sites often have a lot of product images. The opening of the pages may be delayed because all these product images put too much load on the sites. You must make sure that all images are optimized and compressed at best. If necessary, you should try to use small versions of the pictures and show larger versions by clicking.
You can use the caching method for browsers. On e-commerce sites, visitors often browse through different pages in a single session. You should try to take advantage of browser cache technology as it would be unnecessary to waste time to reload and reload unchanged content.
You can set the content to load as it appears. Thus, the content is loaded when the user scrolls down the screen on your site. Thus, instant load on your site is less.
You should avoid using JavaScript scripts that prevent rendering of pages. When you use these scripts, you make the user need extra time to load the page. This is not a very useful method for user experience.
If necessary, you should try to use AMP technology. AMP technology is a fairly new technology. This technology helps load fixed content pages faster than other pages.

Mobile

Try to Offer the Best Cross-Device User Experience

50% of Google's search traffic comes from mobile. Nearly 60% of consumers use their mobile devices to make a purchase decision. If you have the goal of promoting an e-commerce site, you cannot ignore this large audience. As with site speed, providing a poor user experience on mobile devices will reduce your sales and ranking in search engines.

1. You should offer mobile support if you have not already done so

If you haven't moved your site to the mobile platform yet, you should start doing this with the right technologies. You can use three different methods for mobile support. Dynamic presentation, separate mobile pages and flexible design are three different methods that are useful. Flexible design is considered the best method for e-commerce sites because its benefits are what you will need:

Desktop and mobile versions of your site will have the same addresses. You can perform cross-device display in the most convenient way through a single URL address. This makes it easier for users to interact with and share the content. Thus, you can help search engines find site pages more easily.
Your content presentation is almost flawless because it is the most convenient method of viewing between devices.
It is a great advantage that no routing is used. If your site had a separate mobile version, you would use redirect and add unnecessary load to the site. However, the flexible design allows site pages to load faster and improves the user experience.

2. Double check mobile pages

If you do not know whether the pages on your site are mobile friendly or not, you can use the tools provided by Google to achieve the necessary checks. If you wish, you can do this by using different tools, but it is a good idea to use the opportunities offered by Google through Search Console on mobile compatibility.

HTTPS

Build a Trustworthy Site to Gain the Trust of Customers and Google

In 2016, HTTPS is not a very important ranking factor. SEO experts did not have any serious findings on this subject and were not convinced enough about the positive contributions HTTPS offered to the rankings. However, switching to HTTPS is critical for e-commerce sites. Because you need to protect the credit cards and other personal information of customers who shop on your site.

You need two different things to use HTTPS. The first is to use a private IP address and the second is to use an SSL certificate. To have a private IP address, you should contact the place where you received the server service. Getting certified is not a very difficult task because there are several reliable companies around like Comodo or Geotrust. After installing your certificate, you should make sure to test everything before confirming it. However, when switching to HTTPS, you should be prepared for several problems:

If your site uses content distribution network, CDN, third party script or API, you should make sure that they support HTTPS. Otherwise, visitors will start to encounter errors regarding page loads or notifications.
You should make sure that all internal links are directed to the HTTPS version of the site. You should ask the people who are interested in the technical part of your site to solve this problem.
You should make the most appropriate redirects from the HTTP version of your site to the HTTPS version. Bad referrals are common problems. If you don't want to deal with such problems, you should definitely perform the configurations in the most appropriate way.

Crawl Budget

Check that Search Engines are Crawling Important Pages for SEO

Crawl budget means the number of pages a search engine crawls during the day. This value differs on all sites because the browsing budget is determined by the authority the site has. This metric is especially important for e-commerce sites with large inventory. You cannot get search engines to crawl more pages of your site, but you can make their job easier by eliminating the obstacles that may arise.

You should get rid of duplicate pages. You can eliminate duplicate content in some way using the rel=”canonical” tag, but it is not possible to bypass scanning of duplicate content in this way. These pages push your browsing budget and delay the discovery of new content.
You can prevent indexing of content that is useless for SEO. You can prevent indexing of pages such as privacy policy, terms of use and outdated promotions.
You should stay away from long-term orientation chains. If your site has 301 redirects that you don't use for valid reasons, search engine crawlers will be able to refuse to follow these redirects. As a result of this, you may encounter a problem that the page that is directed is not scanned.
You should try to manage URL properties in the best way. Your content management system may have created many dynamic URLs for one or more pages. Search engines that will encounter all these pages may have difficulty understanding what is going on. For this reason, you should define the features in question, parameters, in your Google Search Console appropriately.
You should repair broken links. Repairing broken links will relieve your browsing budget. By repairing broken links, you can prevent search engine bots from reaching unnecessary points.
You should keep the XML sitemap up to date. You also need to promote all the XML sitemaps you have to your Google Search Console account.

When optimizing an e-commerce site, you have to consider each of these steps. If you follow these steps successfully, you can make your e-commerce site competitive on the search engine result page.

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