Having decided to open an online business, you are probably wondering how to increase traffic to your site. Options may include purchasing high-visibility advertising spaces, pay-per-click, and boosting your marketing campaigns with search engine optimization. You can, however, achieve the most effective long-term results with your online store by focusing on SEO strategies.

The goal of search engine optimization for an eCommerce store is to attract more visitors, who will then convert into leads and sales. But before starting to talk about how to achieve this, let’s first take a look at what it is product page SEO.

What is Product Page SEO?

SEO for product pages refers to optimizing product pages strategically for search engines. A product page is where your users can find helpful information about your product such as a size, dimensions, description, and other relevant information.

Product page SEO aims to improve the visibility and ranking of a product page in search engine results. This can be achieved through a variety of tactics, such as optimizing the page’s content and HTML tags, using relevant keywords, and ensuring that the page loads quickly and is mobile-friendly. By improving the ranking of a product page, you can increase the chances of attracting more traffic and potential customers to your online store.

The Importance of Product Page SEO

You now understand what product page SEO is and how it works. But why is it so important?

Product Page SEO Improves Visibility and High Rankings

By implementing product page SEO tactics, you can improve the chances that your product pages will appear higher in search engine results for relevant keywords and phrases. This can attract traffic and potential customers to the website, leading to increased sales and revenue.

Product Page SEO Increases User Engagement

Well-optimized product pages can give users the information they need to make an informed purchasing decision. This can include product descriptions, images, customer reviews, and other relevant content. By providing users with a positive and engaging experience on the product page, you can increase the chances that they will make a purchase.

Product Page SEO Doesn’t Require a Large Marketing Budget

Product page SEO does not necessarily require a large marketing budget. While some costs are associated with implementing product page SEO tactics, such as hiring a professional to optimize the product page or purchasing tools to monitor and track performance, many of the tactics used for product page SEO can be implemented at little or no cost. Additionally, many free or low-cost tools and resources are available online that can help you implement and track the success of your product page SEO efforts.

Best Practices to Optimize Product Page for Better SEO

Product page optimization typically includes a variety of tactics and techniques to improve the visibility and ranking of a product page in search engine results. The following are the most essential steps in optimizing your product page SEO:

1. Determine the best keywords for your products

2. Get better at product description

3. Optimize images

4. Practice internal linking

5. Write clear URLs

6. Acquire backlinks

7. Add breadcrumbs to your product pages

8. Generate product schema markup
   
   

Determine the Best Keywords for Your Products

Optimizing product pages for search engines begins with keyword research.

The following steps will assist you in determining the best keywords for your products:

1. Start with a list of relevant keywords to your product or industry. Tools like Google’s Keyword Planner or Ubersuggest can help you develop ideas.

2. Analyze the search volume for each keyword. The keywords you choose should have enough search volume to be worthwhile but not so much that the competition will be too intense.

3. Consider the competition for each keyword. To determine how difficult a keyword is to rank, use tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs. Look at the number of websites competing for the keyword and their relative authority.

4. Consider the intent behind each keyword. Are people searching for informational content or want to make a purchase? Targeting keywords with high commercial purposes can be more valuable for your business.

5. Use long-tail keywords. These are longer, more specific phrases that are less competitive and can still drive relevant traffic to your site.

6. Test and optimize. Once you have a list of keywords, start using them in your website’s content and track your performance. Test and optimize your keyword strategy to see what works best for your business.
   
   

The best practice for keyword generation is however being intuitive. Meaning, you can think of the search terms that you’d want to add to a search box to find your products.

Write Compelling Product Description With Relevant Keywords

Original and well-written product descriptions are an effective tool for guiding your customers through the sales funnel. Adding creativity and excitement to your descriptions can make your products more attractive and more likely to convert into sales.

Product descriptions play a crucial role in your eCommerce store’s SEO strategy. They provide essential information to potential customers, give search engines context about your products, and help them understand your site. Optimizing your product descriptions can improve your search engine rankings, drive more traffic to your site, and increase sales.

Product Descriptions Can Convert Visitors

Creative and funny descriptions for product pages can effectively improve the visibility and ranking of the page in search engine results which in turn will convert visitors. This is because unique and engaging content is often more likely to be shared and linked to by other websites, which can help improve the page’s search engine ranking.

Creative and funny descriptions can help your product stand out from its competitors and make potential customers more likely to purchase it. Using a clever and humorous approach, a business can establish a stronger connection with its audience and enhance its brand reputation. However, a product page should strike a balance between being creative and being informative, as its ultimate goal is to offer users all the information they need to make an informed purchase decision.

Product Descriptions Can Increase Traffic

Product descriptions can be a powerful tool for increasing traffic to a website. Product descriptions can help improve the search engine ranking of your website, making it more visible to potential customers searching for the types of products or services offered. Using relevant keywords, and optimizing your product description for search engines help with higher ranking and increased traffic.

Optimize Your Product Images

Besides making your content more accessible, attractive, and engaging for users, images are important for SEO. The best way to optimize your images for search engines is to understand how to optimize them.

The images of your products are also essential for an online shop’s success; they determine most of the sales you make. Before making any purchases, clients want to check the details of the products visually.

According to Salsify, 73% of shoppers need a minimum of three images to make a buying decision.

The following image optimization techniques will help your eCommerce site’s SEO performance:

Size Your Image Correctly

To optimize the size of images on a product page, it is essential to balance the need for high-quality images with the need for fast loading times. The best dimensions for images will depend on the specific layout and design of the product page, as well as the type and size of the images being used. It is best to use images that are large enough to provide users with the details they need to make a buying decision while not too large that they significantly slow down the loading time of the page.

Keep in mind that there is a difference between the image and file size. In terms of image size, we refer to the dimensions of an image (such as 1020 x 580 pixels). The file size is the amount of storage space, such as 150 kilobytes. Keeping your image files below 70-80 KB is ideal for eCommerce files.

You will need to check which CMS or e-commerce platform you use to determine the dimensions. Images with higher resolutions and larger sizes will considerably slow your page load time.

Use Proper File Names for Images

Use titles that accurately and clearly describe the image when naming image files. Rather than “Image04”, or random “assdfgh”, use the product name itself, and search engines will be able to identify the image this way. A keyword should be included in the file name of your image if you want to rank for it.

File names can be visible to search engines in the URL of a webpage.

For example, if a webpage is located at http://www.example.com/files/my-file.html, the file name “my-file.html” will be visible in the URL of the webpage. This can be taken into account by search engines when evaluating the relevance of the webpage for a particular search query.

Compress images

Compressing images implies reducing image size without compromising quality. Compression can be divided into two types: lossy vs. lossless.

• Lossless – reducing file size without affecting quality. 

• Lossy – significantly reduces file size but may affect quality. The “lossy” compression process has several levels: some are not even visible to the human eye, while others are more aggressive and affect the quality.
  
  

You can use free image compressor platforms like Optimizilla to bulk compress your images for free.

Choose the proper file format

Using the right file types, you can minimize the size of your files. JPEG files are commonly used in eCommerce stores because they offer higher quality with smaller file sizes.

You can use some apps & plugins on your eCommerce platforms to bulk change the file format automatically.

Write image alt text

We have already discussed the importance of images for your eCommerce website. Now let’s talk about alt text, which is an essential component of image SEO.

Text describing an image on a webpage is called alt text (short for alternative text). In addition to alt text, it is also called “alt attributes” and “alt tags.” 

For your images to rank on Google Images, you need to add alt text – keywords to your images. This helps Google to understand what the image is about by using alt text.

Additionally, it can make your site more accessible and provide users with information about what an image should look like if it’s broken. A website’s alt text can add further relevancy signals, improving its SEO performance. By doing this, Google can better understand the context of a site’s images to rank them more appropriately.

This is how it looks like:

It’s good to know that optimizing alt tags doesn’t require knowledge of HTML. Most eCommerce platforms have built-in feature to add alt text to your media files. The following is the best practices to optimize image alt tags:

1. Keep alt text 125 character or less
   
   

Be descriptive without going overboard when adding alt text.

If you needed to describe a picture to someone, how would you do it?

When writing alt text, it’s best to keep it to 125 characters. Typically, screen readers stop reading alt text after 125 characters.

2. Don’t use “image of” or “picture of” as alt text
   
   

The description of your image can only be 125 characters long, as mentioned above. By adding filler text like “picture of” or “image of,” you’re wasting that space since users and Google already assume they’re images.

Use proper headings on your product pages

Search engines and visitors can quickly understand a page’s subject and structure by skimming headings.

Heading levels are used to organize the content on a page and indicate the information hierarchy. In general, you should hierarchically use heading levels, with the page’s most important heading being a Heading 1 and subheadings being heading 2, 3, and so on.

Using heading levels consistently and logically to create a clear information hierarchy for users and search engines is essential. Avoid using multiple H1 tags on the same page, as this can confuse search engines and dilute the importance of the main product title. Additionally, include relevant keywords in the heading tags to improve search engine visibility.

Regarding the product’s features, technical specifications, reviews, and Q&As, use H2 titles. Incorporate the product name into one of the H2s naturally, but only do it if necessary.

• H1: Title of the product

• H2s:

  • Features

  • Technical Specifications

  • Reviews 

  • Questions and Answers
    
    

Practice internal linking

Internal linking is connecting one page of your website to another. This allows visitors to navigate easily between different pages on your website and helps search engines understand the structure and hierarchy of your website. Internal links can be text links, image links, or any other type of HTML link.

Here is how to optimize your internal links for SEO:

Maximize link equity and link juice for better search rankings

Link juice or link equity is a term used in search engine optimization (SEO) to refer to the value or authority passed from one webpage to another through hyperlinks. When a webpage links to another, it gives some of its value or power to that page, known as link equity. Link equity improves the search engine rankings of the linked page as well as the domain authority of the website. In general, high-quality and relevant links from reputable websites are considered to have more link equity and can be more beneficial for improving search engine rankings.

Use internal linking on product pages to pass link juice and link equity within the website. This can help improve the product page’s search engine ranking and the website’s overall domain authority.

Use link-building strategy for your product page

Identify high-quality and relevant websites in the same industry or niche as the product page to target for link building. These websites should have a good reputation and a high domain authority to provide the most value for the product page.

Monitor and track the performance of the links on the product page using tools such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console. This helps identify any issues with the links and make adjustments to improve the overall link-building strategy.

It’s essential to approach link building naturally and authentically rather than to use spammy techniques that may harm your reputation and violate search engine guidelines. By carefully selecting high-quality, relevant websites to link to your product page and building relationships with these websites, you can increase the “link equity” and “link juice” flowing to your pages, which can help improve your search rankings and drive more traffic to your online store.

Use descriptive anchor text

An internal link’s anchor text is the text used to link to another page. It’s essential to use descriptive anchor text that accurately describes the content of the page you are connecting to.

Descriptive anchor text can be more compelling and engaging for users, increasing their chances of clicking on the link and visiting the link.

What is also noticeable, anchor text with keywords can help to pass more link equity and link juice to the linked page, which can improve its search engine ranking and domain authority.

Link to relevant pages

It would be best if you only linked to pages relevant your niche. This will help search engines understand the relevance of the linked pages.

Use links that only add value to the reader. It can provide users useful and relevant information, enhancing their overall experience on the website.

The practice to enhance a customer’s experience can be opening a link in a new tab. Links that open in a new tab allowing users to keep the original webpage open while they browse the linked page. This can be particularly useful for users who want to compare information or refer to the original website.

Use a mix of “Dofollow” and “Nofollow” links

A dofollow link is a standard HTML link that passes link equity to the linked page. A nofollow link, on the other hand, does not expire link equity and is used to link to pages that you do not want to pass link equity to. Combining dofollow and nofollow links creates a natural and balanced internal linking structure.

Write clear URLs

You can think of a permalink as another name for the URL of a page on your website. A URL is a string of text typed into the address bar of your browser to navigate around the web. Unless you deliberately change these links, they will never change.

In fact, URLs provide search engines with information about a page’s content, context, and target. The factors that makeup URLs are only somewhat important. But there are the most important ones that you need to consider:

Use readable URLs

Your URL must be readable by both readers and search engines. Using your URL, search engines can determine what the page is about based on what it says. If you want your content to be understood by your target audience, avoid using dynamically generated URLs and customize them.

For instance, if you sell white women’s sneakers, you should write the URL as follows:

http://yourdomain.com/white-women-sneaker and not this way:

http://yourdomain.com/index.php?=5756787=g89=?p=943

Do not use capital letters in URL

Using capital letters in URLs can harm a website’s search engine optimization (SEO) for a few reasons. First, most web servers are case-sensitive, so using capital letters in the URL could result in errors or broken links. This can negatively impact a website’s search engine rankings, as search engines may only be able to access and index some of the pages on the website.

What is more, using lowercase letters in URLs is considered a best practice in web development, and following best practices are  generally beneficial for SEO. For these reasons, it is generally not recommended to use capital letters in URLs for SEO purposes.

Improve your slug by including keywords

Slugs are parts of URLs that identify specific pages and posts on a website. The slug is typically the last part of the URL and is often used to describe the page or position in a concise and user-friendly way.

For example, if the URL of a blog post is “www.example.com/blog/how-to-optimize-your-website-for-SEO,” the slug would be “how-to-optimize-your-website-for-SEO.” Slugs are often used to make URLs more descriptive and keyword-rich, which can help improve the search engine ranking of the page or post.

Slugs are important in SEO because they can help improve the search engine ranking of a page or post. This is because search engines use the words in a URL, including the slug, to understand the page’s content and determine how relevant it is to a particular search query.

It is possible to rank higher for relevant keywords in the search engine results if the slug includes relevant keywords. Additionally, having a descriptive and user-friendly slug makes it more likely that people will click on the link to the page in the search results, which also helps improve its ranking.

There is no specific rule for how many characters should be after the domain name in a URL for SEO purposes. However, it is generally considered best practice to keep URLs as short as possible while accurately describing the page’s content. This is because long and complex URLs can be difficult for users to read and understand, making it harder for search engines to accurately index the page.

Generally, you should keep your URLs under 60 characters, including the domain name and the slug. The exact length will, however, depend on the content of the page and the keywords you intend to target.

Acquire backlinks

The term “backlink” refers to links between websites. It is also known as an “inbound link,” an “incoming link,” or a “one-way link.” Backlinks are considered votes for a page by Google and other search engines.  Your search engine ranking can be improved by linking to other websites that are relevant to yours and have authority.

To optimize your backlinks for SEO, there are a few best practices you can follow:

1. Focus on acquiring high-quality backlinks from reputable and relevant websites. These links carry more weight than low-quality or irrelevant links.

2. Use anchor text that accurately reflects the content of the page you are linking to. Avoid using the exact anchor text repeatedly, as this can appear spammy to search engines.

3. Engage in link-building activities, such as guest blogging or creating valuable resources that other websites will link to. This can help you acquire more high-quality backlinks over time.
   
   

Which backlink are valuable?

A quality backlink is much more powerful than thousands of low-quality backlinks. Here are some examples of valuable backlinks:

Trusted and authoritative backlinks

A trusted and authoritative backlink is a link from another website to yours that is regarded as trustworthy and credible by search engines. These links are essential to SEO because they help improve your website’s search engine ranking.

When a website links to your website, it gives it a vote of confidence. This tells search engines that your website is relevant and valuable and can help improve your ranking in the search results. However, not all links are created equal. For a link to be considered trusted and authoritative, it should come from a website that is itself trusted and authoritative.

One way to determine the trustworthiness and authority of a website is to look at its Domain Authority (DA) score. This is a score from 0 to 100 calculated by Moz, a company specializing in SEO tools and services. A higher DA score indicates that the website is more trusted and authoritative and is, therefore, more valuable as a backlink. The DA score of a website can be checked with tools such as Moz’s Open Site Explorer.

In addition to looking at the DA score, you should avoid getting links from spam or newly-created websites. These websites are often untrustworthy and can even be harmful to your website. Spam websites, in particular, are known for using unethical tactics to manipulate search engine rankings, and getting a link from one of these websites can damage your website’s reputation. It is generally best to avoid getting links from these websites altogether.

Link from a relevant site to yours

You can’t imagine how intelligent Google bots are. When one website links to another, they check whether the two sites are related. Let’s say you wrote an article about the best restaurants. A search engine will place more value on links from sites discussing restaurants or national foods than those discussing fitness, health diseases, or fishing.

The “Dofollow” links

Link juice or equity is passed on to the linked page through a “dofollow” link. This means that the link helps to improve the linked page’s ranking in search engine results by signalling to search engines that the linked page is relevant and authoritative.

Dofollow links are valuable for improving search engine rankings and increasing website visibility and traffic. The value of a dofollow link depends on several factors, such as the relevance and authority of the linking website, the placement and context of the link, and the use of keywords in the anchor text.

Add breadcrumbs to your product pages

A breadcrumb is a type of navigational element that helps search engines and users understand a website’s structure. They are typically displayed in a horizontal line above the main content of a page and provide a hierarchical path of links that allow users to navigate back to previous pages.

In an eCommerce platform, breadcrumbs can help users navigate the site and understand its current location within its hierarchy. For example, if a user is viewing a product page for a specific item, the breadcrumb may display links to the category page for that item, the subcategory page, and the main category page. This can help the user understand how the current page fits into the site’s overall structure and make it easier for them to navigate to other pages.

There are several advantages to using breadcrumbs on your product pages for SEO purposes:

1. Improved navigation: Breadcrumbs help users navigate through the structure of your website, which can enhance the overall user experience and reduce bounce rates. This can be especially helpful on e-commerce sites, where users may look for specific products or categories.

2. Enhanced crawlability: A search engine’s crawlability refers to the ability to access and crawl page content. Web crawlers can easily access all the content on a site if it has no crawlability issues. Breadcrumbs help search engines understand the structure of your website, which can improve the crawlability of your site. This can help search engines find and index more of your pages, improving your site’s visibility in search results.

3. Increased relevance: By including relevant keywords in the breadcrumb trail, you can help search engines understand the context of your product pages and improve their relevancy for specific queries. This can help your pages rank higher in search results for relevant keywords.

4. Better user experience: Breadcrumbs provide an additional layer of navigation for users, which can help them find what they are looking for more easily. This can improve the overall user experience and increase the likelihood that users will continue to browse your site.
   
   

Breadcrumbs are often included in the theme or design of an eCommerce platform to provide a consistent navigation experience for users. They can be customized to match the look and feel of the rest of the site and may be positioned at the top or bottom of the page or in a sidebar. Some eCommerce platforms, such as Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento also offer options for customizing the text or labels used in the breadcrumb trail.

Generate product schema markup

Schema.org markup provides a common vocabulary of microdata that helps search engines understand web content better.

Product schema markup is a type of structured data that can be added to an e-commerce website to provide additional information about products to search engines. Information such as product names, descriptions, images, availability, prices, etc., can be included in this database.

Data can be structured around people, places, and things using the schema vocabulary. Google crawlers understand what a particular type of schema on a web page means and can serve richer results based on that information.

A significant benefit of Schema markup is that it makes your web pages appear in rich results or more prominently on SERP.

See, for example, the first page of search results for “Nike.”

This SERP offers more than just a blue, clickable page title and meta description; it also includes rich results at the top. This rich set of results is powered by schema.org markup.

As of now, Google offers over 30 different kinds of rich results. These are some of the most common search terms you’ve likely seen on Google:

• Article

• Breadcrumb

• Event

• FAQ

• How-to

• JobPosting

• Product

• Q&A

• Video
  
  

Your website may not be appearing in rich search results yet, which is a huge missed opportunity to stand out from your competitors.

Here is a free tool to generate schema markup for your online store pages: Schema Markup Generator.

Takeaways

Optimizing product pages for better SEO is essential to running an eCommerce business. By implementing the best practices outlined above, businesses can improve the visibility and ranking of their product pages, attract more traffic and potential customers, and increase their chances of generating sales and revenue.

Some key takeaways to remember when optimizing product pages for SEO include:

1. Conduct thorough keyword research to identify the best keywords to target for your products.

2. Optimize product descriptions to include relevant keywords and provide helpful information to potential customers.

3. Use high-quality images and optimize them with descriptive file names and alt tags.

4. Practice inbound linking to ensure your product pages are linked internally to other pages on your website to help search engines understand the relationship between them.

5. Create unique and descriptive URLs for each product page, and use keywords in the URL if possible.

6. Monitor your backlink profile and acquire high-quality backlinks from reputable websites to improve your product page’s authority.

7. Use breadcrumbs to improve the navigation, crawlability, and relevance of a website for SEO purposes.

8. Track and analyze the performance of your product pages to identify areas for improvement and continue to optimize your SEO efforts over time.
   
   

By following these best practices and being mindful of the key takeaways outlined above, you can effectively optimize your product pages for better SEO.