We continue our guide to the basics of SEO for ecommerce websites with part 2. If you missed the first half, you’ll be missing out on some key aspects that could help your ecommerce website, so jump over to the other part of our guide. If not, then please proceed!
Site Trust and User Confidence
Whilst not directly related to SEO, filling your user with the utmost confidence when on your site is a no brainer. Your site has to look the part. Your customer’s aren’t going to turn out their e-wallets if they don’t think your site is 100% trustworthy. For that reason, you need to reassure your users. As well as a contemporary, up-to-date design that users are familiar with on big online retailer sites, you should acquire an SSL certificate and use secure payment methods. Details about delivery and terms & conditions, whilst not a very riveting read, can also cast a little faith.
Pagination
Assigning pagination attributes to your product pages is a good tactic that contributes to a well optimised ecommerce site. As well as improving user experience by breaking up large lists of products, pagination attributes signify to Google which webpages are related in a chain.
Faceted Navigation
Faceted navigation can be great for allowing your users to find exactly what they want using a range of product filters. It can however give Google the impression that your ecommerce site has plenty of duplicate content because of unfriendly, repetitive URLS. To counter this, implement URL parameters such as categories & product IDs to distinguish URLs and avoid duplication.
‘Nofollow’ Tags
You might often require one product to be on multiple pages (a brand page and a special offers page, for example). To prevent the ever-present fear of duplication, you can add ‘nofollow’ tags that will prevent the less important page from being indexed.
Image Optimisation
As image searching continues to be enhanced, image optimisation becomes more important. Renaming your images and adding title & alt tags will contribute to increasing organic traffic through image search. Weave the keywords into a descriptive but relevant description that provides context about the image to both Google & users!
Call to Action
Seal the deal! You’ve captured the attention of your audience, and better yet, convinced them that you’ve got what they need. But wait! You’ve provided them with no link to buy the product, no contact form, newsletter registration nor even a telephone number. Your potential sale has got lost in limbo and out of rage and frustration they’ve quit. Point made?
Blogging
Reinforce your SEO plan with a content strategy. Spread the word of your sales, offers and products whilst also reaching out to new audiences with engaging blogs related to your industry where interests will cross over. Check out our guide to writing great blog content for tips on getting started.
That’s it for our guide to the basics of Ecommerce SEO. It’s important to reiterate many of these points should form the foundation of your site – get in touch with the Upperdog team if you’re looking to develop your SEO Ecommerce strategy. You can also read about the Labrador Company, an Ecommerce website design and development project implemented by Upperdog, digital marketing agency in Bournemouth. Get in touch!