13 Simple eCommerce SEO Checklist for Online Stores and Websites No ratings yet.

SEO is critical to any eCommerce website or online store. SEO helps with search engine ranking, which in turn can help increase traffic to your site and boost sales. However, there are some basic things you can do to improve the SEO of your eCommerce website without requiring a lot of technical knowledge or needing to hire an expert.

You don’t need to know everything about SEO, either. Follow these 13 simple steps and improve your site’s searchability today!

Include Keywords in the Heading & URL

Headings and URLs are important for SEO. Ensure you include keywords in both the heading and URL of your pages, as this can help boost their rankings on search engines.

Here are some tips to keep in mind when creating headings and URLs:

• Use descriptive headings that contain relevant keywords, but don’t stuff them with unnecessary words or phrases just to include more keywords in one place. It’s better to have fewer but more meaningful words than lots of filler text!
• Use unique names for each page so it doesn’t get confused with other pages on your site (or other sites). You may want to consider using numbers instead of words if possible; this way, there’s no room for confusion between titles like “Our Products” vs. “OurProducts.”

Use Unique Title Tags

Title tags are an important part of SEO and should be unique for each page. If a title tag is duplicated across different pages, it can cause problems with search engine rankings.

The title tag should also contain your main keyword(s). For example, if you sell watches and want to rank highly in Google’s search results for “buy watches online,” your title tag would be “Buy Watches Online | Store Name.”

This helps search engines understand what your site is about so they will display it higher up in their listings when people look for related terms on Google or another search engine platform like Bing or Yahoo!

Perform Keyword Research

Keyword research is the most important step in SEO. It’s also one of the most difficult to get right, but if you do it right, it can greatly impact your business.

Keywords are words that people type into search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing when looking for something specific. Keywords make up a search query–the words someone types into their browser to find what they’re looking for online.

As an eCommerce store owner or website owner, your goal should be to attract as much traffic as possible through organic (non-paid) search results on Google and other major search engines like Bing & Yahoo! This means creating content that ranks highly in these SERPs (search engine result pages) based off of user-intent driven keywords. This converts into sales conversion rates through organic traffic coming from those same SERPs!

Local SEO keywords are important for local businesses. If you’re a small business in a specific niche, then it’s crucial for you to optimize for the right keyword phrases that people are searching for in your area.

For example, I need a request for a Proposal for software development. If I want to know how to write it, I am more likely to search for a term like “rfp for software development” as opposed to just “RPF”.

Optimize Alt Text and Image File Names

Optimizing images with alt text is a good way for search engines to understand the content of your images. This can help improve your rankings in image searches, which are becoming more popular each year.

Image file names should also be optimized for SEO purposes. Image filenames should contain relevant keywords and descriptive information about the image (e.g., “blue-eyed_cute_girl_smiling” instead of just “image2”). If you’re using WordPress, some plugins will automatically optimize these things for you when uploading new images into posts or pages on your site.

Avoid Duplicate Content

The next thing you should do is avoid duplicate content. Duplicate content is when you have the same information on your site that’s also available on another site but with a different URL. This can cause problems for search engines because they cannot distinguish between the two pieces of content, so it’s harder for them to rank both in their search results.

If you already have duplicate content on your site or are worried about creating it in the future (for example, if someone else has written an article and published it on their blog), there are ways to fix this problem:

• Use noindex tags in robots.txt files or meta tags
• Add rel=”canonical” links.

If these solutions don’t work and Google still thinks there’s more than one version of each page available online (which means they’re not being penalized), then try disavowing those links as well!

Optimize for Featured Snippets

Featured snippets are a great way to get your brand in front of potential customers. Featured snippets are clickable results that appear at the top of Google’s search engine results page (SERP), and they’ve been around since 2016.

According to Moz, featured snippets have increased by 15% since last year alone. And if you’re not using them correctly, you could be missing out on thousands of dollars in revenue each month!

Mobile-First Indexing

Mobile-first indexing is a huge change for ecommerce sites. As of October 2018, Google has begun rolling out this new indexing method, prioritizing mobile-specific content in the search results.

Google’s goal is to provide users with a better experience when searching on their phones or tablets. The new system gives preference to websites that have been optimized for mobile devices (and thus easier to use).

If you haven’t already implemented this strategy on your site, now is the time! It will help boost traffic and conversions by ensuring visitors can quickly and easily find what they’re looking for when they visit from their phone or tablet device.

Improve Page Load Time

The next step is to improve page load time. This may sound like an obvious tip, but it’s easy to overlook this critical aspect of SEO.

To make sure your website loads quickly and efficiently, there are several things you can do:

• Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN). A CDN will host your files on servers worldwide so that users get faster access to them wherever they are located. This can greatly reduce load times for international visitors and mobile users who might not have fast connections or be in areas with poor bandwidth.
• Use a caching plugin – If you’re using WordPress as your CMS platform, many plugins are available that allow you to cache pages for faster loading speeds without having any technical knowledge!

If none of these options work out for you or if they don’t meet all of the criteria above (they probably won’t), then consider getting help from an expert who knows what they’re doing!

Add Schema Markup

Schema markup is a way to tell search engines what information is on your site. It can be used to describe things like people, places, and events. It also tells the search engine what type of content is on your site and how it should be displayed in search results.

Schema markup can help you with SEO because it provides context for search engines so that they know what content they are looking at when processing queries that involve your site or product catalogs (e-commerce).

If a user searches for “cameras,” then all cameras will appear in their results. It doesn’t matter if there are different types of cameras available from different sellers, where each seller may have different prices or features which would make them more relevant than others based on what the user wants from this type of product category.

Adding schema markup will allow Google (and other major search engines) to understand exactly what kind of products/services we offer without requiring extra effort from us as marketers!

Ensure Your Website Can Be Crawled and Indexed

The first step to SEO is making sure that your website is accessible to search engines. You can check for broken links and use the robots.txt file to exclude pages from search engine indexing.

To notify search engines about your site structure, use sitemap.xml files on all site pages (including subdomains). Finally, 301 redirects preserve link equity so that any traffic coming from other sites will continue going there after you update or change URLs on those pages.

Simple Site Structure

Make sure your site is easy to navigate. The more straightforward your e-commerce store is, the better. A good way to do this is by keeping a low number of pages on your site (around 10). This will allow search engines such as Google and Bing to crawl through your content quickly and easily without getting confused by too many options or links that lead nowhere.

You also need to make sure you have an XML sitemap set up so that search engines can find all of the pages on your website–even if they’re hidden off-site in another CMS system like WordPress or Drupal!

Write Blogs Regularly to Engage Users

If you are an eCommerce store owner, blogging is a great way to engage your audience and help them find what they are looking for. Blogging also helps with SEO, as search engines love fresh content that is updated on a regular basis. Blogging can also be used as part of your content strategy, which includes social media marketing, branding, and more!

Choose topics that will resonate with the target audience of your store or website. You should also make sure that these topics are related to the products or services offered by your business. Otherwise, it won’t make sense for users who visit this page in the future (and thus lower its ranking).

Create content around trends instead of just creating generic articles about every new product launch happening in the eCommerce industry today because those are too broad-based topics that might not attract many readers unless they’re specifically searching for something specific related to the said topic(s).

Add Canonical Tags to Duplicate Pages

If you have duplicate pages on your site, it’s important that you use canonicals to tell search engines which page is the original. This helps them understand which version of the content should be shown in their search results.

For example, if you have a blog and have multiple posts about different topics but all using the same title and meta description (or not), then you can use a canonical tag so that only one version shows up in search results.

Conclusion

Promoting your eCommerce website on Google is a great way to boost sales. However, it’s important not to get carried away with SEO tactics that seem easy but can actually harm your site in the long run. Remember that search engines are always changing their algorithms, which may affect your rankings or even cause them to drop altogether!

Author Bio

Sophie Douglas is a digital marketing specialist and a journalist based in Columbus, state of Ohio.
Her characters are passionate, innovative, and ambitious.

Before becoming a writer for DigitalStrategyOne, she was writing short stories, screenplays, and directing short films.

Jon Crain

Jon Crain has written hundreds of website design and marketing article blog posts.
He is the sole owner of Pittsburgh SEO Services LLC which is a small business in Pittsburgh PA that specializes in affordable wordpress websites and digital marketing campaigns. Jon Crain has a marketing degree specializing in digital marketing and holds multiple internet marketing certifications. Jon Crain has over 25 years of experience along with managing hundreds of website projects and marketing campaigns. He also has won a variety of awards over the years from Tribune Review, Post Gazette and other publications.