Amazing, SEO, Organic Search Product Page Hacks!
Being optimised in eCommerce has always been a priority for successful brands. Having worked on a number of eCommerce projects over the last number of months it’s fair to say that some platforms take SEO more seriously than others. With many products competing for search engine visibility space this time of the year, its vital your brand is on page 1 of Google and also within the top 5 SERP’s.
Doable? Yes is the answer!
Properly optimised product pages for organic search will not only drive quality traffic but they will also help convert organic searchers quicker. Positive signals in website user experiences indicate to search engines like Google to trust them more, ranking them higher in relevant search queries.
Follow these Amazing SEO, Organic Search Product Page Hacks that we put together. They'll help you prioritise what most important at this time of the year and what to check on your most valued web pages.
We also decided to go a step further and add some ‘do nots’ so you don’t fall into a trap, but let’s highlight the ‘do’s’ first!
#1. Conduct Keyword Research then define your Keyword Strategy.
Can’t stress this one enough, it’s the first thing you’ll need to do. Get keyword ideas that make sense for brands product pages to rank for in search engines. Think about relevancy and quality, volume will not necessarily convert, it’s what makes digital marketing so cost effective.
Develop a keyword database for all your product ranges, keep about 6-10 highly searched keywords per product. Don’t over use or keyword stuff on your product pages, remember they have will users landing on them who are intent on buying so keep the pitch in mind!
#2 Optimise Your Page Titles & Meta Descriptions.
Just to be clear! Meta descriptions are NOT a recognised ranking factor by Google, but they do entice clicks, so make sure they contain the relevant product keyword and their availability, these always encourage interest and click-throughs.
Meta Descriptions are limited to 160 characters even-though some eCommerce platforms like Shopify provide for up to 320. Search engines like Google won’t allow a full showing and will truncate after you reach the 160 limit.
Page titles must be product specific, if possible some detail about them like, size, power output, quality or grade. Page titles are search engine readable so not only do they provide vital information to entice click throughs but also trigger specific product pages to appear in organic and paid searches, shortening the search cycle and satisfying searcher intent.
*Page titles should be between 30 to 60 characters in length. Use this free tool by Moz to verify your page titles are within the specified limit >> Moz page title tool <<
#3 Optimise your Product Page Content.
The content (that is - product descriptions, their benefits and unique selling points) are your key to driving a conversion. Remember your users are now at the ‘Buy Button’ page so all they need is an effective but gentle push to go forward and make a purchase.
Make sure your product page content is clearly laid out, your descriptions be keyword specific and highlight the benefits, style and/or fit if necessary. Provide as much detail as possible, add some videos to your image gallery to give a more enriched user experience.
#4 Keep Points 2 & 3 Unique!
It happens all the time and is one of the most common faults that appears on website audits. Duplication in SEO elements is a MAJOR error and will deeply impact on your
websites optimisation. I see it all the time, so keep this mind when developing and optimising your product page SEO elements.
> Page Titles
> Meta Descriptions
> Product Page Content
> Image ‘Alt text’
> Page URLs
> Broken site links
Also make sure that none of the above are missing, this also a common RED in website performance audits.
#5 Proof Your Brand - Share Customer Reviews.
Feedback and testimonials drive authenticity, keep this a priority to show on your website. Most eCommerce websites will have plugins or apps that will allow you to integrate customer feedback loops into your product page design.
Product pages with customer reviews convert 58% more visitors than those without!
It might be not closely related to SEO as a technical factor, but Google loves fresh content that drives conversions which is a vital indicator of good SEO.
#6 Monitor Your Sites Load Speed Performance.
Have you ran a full website audit recently? Optimisation will be completely flawed if you don’t have a good performing web platform. Check your site using Google Page Speed. If your site can load quickly then your information can be viewed quickly by users. Every second your site is delayed you lose over 7% of your initial traffic. A site with a load time of more than 3 seconds is possible to lose over 50% of it’s traffic and a delay of a further 2 seconds could result in up to 90% traffic loss.
With all this in mind it might be best to run some audits, sometimes third party servers are located in foreign, distant countries which can have an impact on server speed.
What not to do!
#1 Don’t delete your seasonal pages, just unpublish or archive them.
Black Friday is a recurring event, so the best way to handle your product URL pages when it’s over is just to unpublish them and keep for next years event. They will have gained traffic and as a result search rankings. Christmas is similar don’t delete your seasonal product pages just unpublish and archive for next year.
#2 Don’t forget the mobile experience.
It’s the norm to use desktop to publish, edit and update website product pages. Just remember to review all these changes on mobile. I always check what volume of mobile traffic reaches a site so I can gauge how important mobile is to a specific brand.
B2C consumer brands especially would need to examine their mobile experiences carefully to ensure all changes on their product pages are intuitive and inline with the online brand experience, Be careful as not all eCommerce platforms are developed with a mobile experience in mind.
#3 Don’t forget to build links to your product pages.
It might be done throughout your website on blogs or company pages, but internal linking is mainly ignored on product pages. Think about a PR piece on new arrivals or a blog post on your Christmas product range, There might be little over a week before Christmas but think about a last minute gift guide with links to your seasonal offers!
Go one step further link product pages together. Pair products that complement each other. Offer the user some easy text links between your product pages.
The goal is to create a robust web of links across your eCommerce site. Allowing search engines to crawl your site with ease.
Just be aware not to create too many links to non-value pages like privacy policy, shipping and returns pages.
Every time a search engine crawls your website they use a crawl budget so keep your product pages highly linked so they crawl them as a priority.
#4 Don’t let your product pages click depth be more than three.
As a continuation to the above point on crawl budgets, it’s vitally important to ensure that all your product pages are within ‘3 clicks’ of your homepage (counting your homepage as 1) - homepage >> product category landing page >> product page and so on…
If Your high value pages are outside the optimum click depth range, they will most likely be forgotten about in search engine crawls (as they run outside the crawl budget set for your website) and become invisible in search results.
This leads into the whole area of site architecture and design, why it’s so imperative that an SEO lead is involved at the site development stage to foresee these issues happening.
#5 Don’t let your Google Analytics & Google Search Console slide.
Being busy on your web platform is the norm this time of the year, making quick decisions on-the-go sometimes leads to disaster without any data to back them up. Therefore take the time to review the Google Analytics and Google Search Console integrations on your website. Back your decisions with rationale and data. Look at your overall web performance, what are the product pages with the highest bounce rates?, check how people are finding your website and what are your most high value pages on your eCommerce store... get the idea?
To Summarise.
Organic Search should typically account for 60% of your total website traffic. If it doesn’t then you’ve work to do. SEO is not easy, sure there are bits that you can do yourself but to be honest it’s best to get some expert advice.
Optimising your product pages will drive more quality traffic to your website. Delivering high ‘search intent satisfaction’ should be the ultimate goal of your eCommerce SEO strategy.
This will provide you with the best chance of converting customers who are directed to your website from what they were originally searching for.
With that will come high brand and domain authority, low website bounce rates and an overall greater conversion percentage from organic search.
Need to know more? Download the SEO Strategy Checklist.
Or reach out and enquire about Our 1-2-1 SEO Strategy Workshop!