Ecommerce SEO: The Definitive Guide

Amazon Suggest

Yes, Amazon is probably your competitor. But it’s also the biggest ecommerce site online… which makes it a product keyword goldmine.

Here’s how to tap into Amazon for keyword research:

First, head over to Amazon and enter a keyword that describes one of your products.

When you do, Amazon will list suggestions around that keyword.

The keywords Amazon suggests tend to be very targeted (also known as long tail keywords). Not only do long tail keywords tend to convert better than shorter terms, but they’re usually less competitive too.

Rinse and repeat for the most important products on your site.

Amazon (and Competitor) Categories

As someone that’s consulted for dozens of ecommerce businesses, I can tell you firsthand that lots of ecommerce site owners optimize their category pages around random keywords.

Sure, they’ll put some thought into what their customers might use to find products in that category. But the keywords they use tend to be, let’s just say…less than ideal.

This is a HUGE mistake. While category pages may not convert as well as product pages, they still generate sales. So it makes sense to spend time finding keywords for your category pages.

And the best way to do that?

Look at the categories your competitors already use.

If you’re competing against Amazon, click on the “All” button at the top of the homepage. This will list out Amazon’s main categories.

These are probably too broad for your site. So click on any that make sense so you can see that department’s subcategories:

Now we’re talking.

You can also hit up “Full Store Directory” under the “All” menu.

This will show you all of Amazon’s departments (and subcategories) on a single page.

Now it’s time to dig deep through the list and find category-focused keywords that match what your site sells.

For example, let’s say your site sells healthy dog food.

You’d go to the “Pet Supplies” category:

Then click on “Dogs” and choose “Food” from the list:

And Amazon will show you keywords they use to describe their dog food-related categories in the sidebar:

These are all GREAT keywords to consider using for your dog food ecommerce category pages.

Amazon is a great resource for finding category page keywords. But it’s far from the only place you can find category page keywords that your customers search for every day.

That’s why I also recommend taking a look at the keywords that your industry competitors use to describe their categories.

So if your ecommerce site sells high-end headphones, you’d want to head to Headphones.com.

And just like you did with Amazon, look at the terms they optimize their category pages around.

And add those keywords to your list.

Semrush

The strategies I outlined so far should have helped you get a hefty list of keyword ideas.

But Semrush is a little bit different. Semrush doesn’t generate new keyword ideas based on seed keywords. Instead, it shows you keywords that your competition already ranks for.

Let’s take a look at how you can use this tool to find keywords for your ecommerce site.

First, enter a competitor into Semrush’s search field:

Then click “Organic Research” in the sidebar:

Under “Positions” you can see all of the keywords that your competitor ranks for:

Nice!

If you want to squeeze every keyword out of SEMrush, check out the “competitors” report:

SEMrush will show you sites that are similar to the one you’re looking at.

Repeat this process with the competitors you just found.

This should give you enough keywords to last you until 2037.

How to Choose Keywords for Ecommerce Product and Category Pages

Now that you have a list of potential keywords in-hand, you’re probably wondering:

Which keywords should I choose?

The answer? Use this 4-step checklist to identify the best keywords for your ecommerce site.

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#1 Search Volume

This is (by far) the most important metric when evaluating a search term.

After all:

If no one searches for that keyword, it doesn’t really matter how well it converts or how competitive Google’s first page happens to be.

That said, there’s no way for me to give you specific search volume recommendations. In some industries, 100 searches per month is A LOT. In others, 10k monthly searches is nothing.

Over time you’ll get an idea of what a “high volume” and “low volume” keyword is for your industry.

To find the search volume for a given keyword, just pop it into the GKP. You’ll find the number of searches in the “Avg. monthly searches” column.

Why? Who knows. But it’s an important thing to note as these fluctuations can directly impact your bottom line.

To quickly see how search volume changes throughout the year, type your keyword into KWFinder. And it’ll show you a nifty chart with month-to-month search volume info.

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#2 Keyword-Product Fit

This is a big one. Let’s say you find a keyword that gets tons of searches. It must be a winner right?

Well…not really.

That’s because the keyword may not be a perfect fit well with what your site sells.

If the keyword you pick is even a little bit of a stretch compared to what you have for sale on your ecommerce site, people that search for that term aren’t going to convert.

So before you move onto the next two stages in this process, double-check that the keyword you’re considering fits your site like a glove.

For example, let’s say your site sells Japanese green tea bags. And you come across a keyword like “matcha green tea powder”.

Even though you don’t sell green tea powder (only tea bags), you might be able to create a category page around this term… and convert those searchers to what your site actually sells.

But it’s tricky to pull off. That’s why I recommend stretching into other product categories AFTER you exhaust keywords that your target customers search for.

Even though the keyword may get fewer searches, I recommend choosing a keyword that’s much more targeted to your business, like “green tea online”.

Now that you’ve got a list of keywords that people search for (and fit well with your site’s products) it’s time to see if these searchers are ready to whip out their credit card and make a purchase.

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#3: Commercial Intent

Ranking #1 for a high-volume keyword? Awesome.

Ranking #1 for a high-volume keyword that tire-kickers search for? Less awesome.

So before you decide on a keyword, take a second to see if people using that keyword are ballers …or broke browsers.

Fortunately, this is super-easy to do using the Google Keyword Planner.

First, check out the keyword’s “Competition” rating.

“Competition” reflects how many people bid on that keyword in Google Ads. In general, if a lot of people are bidding on a keyword, there’s money to be made. That’s why, when it comes to SEO for ecommerce websites, I recommend sticking with “medium” and “high” competition keywords.

You also want to take a look at “Top of Page Bid”.

Top of Page Bid is how much people tend to spend on a single click in Google Ads. And when it comes to sizing up commercial intent, the higher the suggested bid, the better.

Obviously, keywords with high suggested bids are also more competitive to rank for in Google search. But we’ll cover that in the next section.

For now, check out the Top of Page Bid for the keywords on your list.

And note how certain words and phrases that suggest “I’m ready to buy!” impact the estimated bid.

As you can see in this example, the keyword “Japanese green tea” has a suggested bid of $2.20.

That’s because many people searching for that keyword probably aren’t ready to make a purchase. They might be looking up the definition. Or they might be curious about the health benefits of green tea.

On the other hand, a similar keyword like “buy green tea online” has a suggested bid that’s 2.4x higher.

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#4 Competition

Finally, it’s time to see how hard it’ll be to crack Google’s first page.

Here’s how:

SEMrush’s “Keyword Difficulty”

This metric gives you an idea of how competitive a given keyword is to rank for.

You can find a keyword’s difficulty in SEMrush by entering a keyword into the search field…

…and then looking at the “Overview” section.

The higher that number, the harder it is to rank for that keyword in Google.

Example of How NOT to Setup Your Ecommerce Site’s Architecture

Here’s an example of a site architecture that breaks the Two Golden rules:

What’s wrong with this picture?

First, it’s not simple. It’s hard to understand the logic of what goes where.

Second, it’s not scalable. Every time you want to add a new category, you need to create a new layer…. and reorganize your existing categories and subcategories.

But it’s also way too deep.

Most of the links that point to ecommerce sites point to their homepage.

And when you have a “deep” site architecture, that authority is diluted by the time it reaches your product and category pages.

In this example, it takes six clicks to reach the first product page.

(You want all product pages to be three clicks or fewer from your homepage.)

Title Tag: Add Modifiers Like “Buy”, “Cheap” and “Deals” to Get More Long Tail Traffic

You (obviously) want to use your target keyword in your page’s title tag.

But don’t stop there. Adding “modifiers” to your title tag can help you show up for more long tail searches.

For example, let’s say your target keyword is: “noise canceling headphones”.

Instead of making your title tag: “Noise Canceling Headphones at Headphones R’ Us”, you want to add a word or two that people might use when searching for “noise canceling headphones”

Here are some common terms people use when searching for products in Google:

• Cheap
• Deals
• Review
• Best
• Online
• Free shipping

So your title tag could be something like this:

Description Tag: Include Phrases Like “Great Selection”, “FREE Shipping” and “All Our Items are On Sale” To Maximize Your Page’s CTR

Your site’s description tag used to be an important part of on-page SEO.

Even though that’s not the case anymore, your description tag is VERY important for CTR.

And the title tag Click Magnet Words that I listed above also work for description tags.

The only difference is that, with a description tag, you have more room to include longer phrases.

Here are a few examples of phrases you can use in your description tag to get more clicks:

• Get the best prices on ____ today.
• Save X% off on ____.
• All of our ____ are on sale right now.
• Get FREE shipping on all ____ today.
• Click here to see all of our exclusive deals on _____.
• Great selection of ____ at the guaranteed lowest price.

Here’s an example of how a description tag optimized for clicks might look:

URLs: Use Short, Keyword-Rich URLs

Our analysis of 11 million Google search results found a clear correlation between URL length and rankings.

Specifically, we found that short URLs tend to rank higher on Google’s first page than long URLs.

Because you run an ecommerce site, your URLs are probably going to be longer than other sites.

That’s because your URL will include category and subcategories in your URL. For example: https://example.com/category/subcategory/product.html

However, that doesn’t mean you want your URLs to stretch out to 50+ characters. That’s because long URLs confuse Google and dilute the impact of the keywords in your URL.

Here’s an example of an unnecessarily long ecommerce product page URL:

(Not only is this URL a mile long, but it contains unnecessary junk like, “productID.300190600”.)

Speaking of using SEO-friendly terms in your URL, you also want to make your URLs keyword-rich.

For category pages, include a 1-2 word description of that category:

https://example.com/kitchenappliances

Follow the same process for subcategories. Only this time, the subcategory will come after the category in the URL:

https://example.com/kitchenappliances/slowcookers

Then, for product pages, include just your target keyword for that product, separated by dashes (“-”).

https://example.com/kitchenappliances/slowcookers/6-quart-crockpot

Implement Product Review Schema to Get Rich Snippets Displayed in Google

If you want an easy way to stand out on Google’s first page, look no further than rich snippets.

And ecommerce sites have the opportunity to get one of the most eye-catching rich snippets out there: reviews.

Here’s an example:

How do you get these awesome snippets? By implementing Schema markup on your ecommerce product pages. Schema is a special code that gives search engines (like Google and Bing) a deeper understanding of your page’s content.

Here are the types of markup specific to reviews.

While there’s no guarantee that Google will display rich snippets just because you ask them to, proper Schema markup boosts your odds.

You can manually set up Schema markup, but it’s not easy. That’s why I recommend that you use Google’s excellent Structured Data Markup Helper.

Here’s exactly how to use this helpful tool so you can quickly implement review Schema markup.

First, head over to the tool and choose “products”:

Next, find a product page on your site that has reviews and ratings on it. This can be a single reviewer, or as is the case with most ecommerce sites, user reviews.

Paste the URL of that product page in the URL field and click “Start Tagging”.

Then highlight the section of the page you want to tag. In this case, we’re going to focus on product reviews and ratings.

If a single person reviewed your product, choose “Review”. Then highlight the name of the person that reviewed the product, the date of the review etc.

If customers reviewed the product, highlight the number or star rating and pick “Aggregate Rating”.

Make sure to provide as much info as you can. For example, don’t forget to highlight the number of reviews and choose the “count” tag.

When you’re done, choose “Create HTML”.

You can either copy and paste this new HTML into your page or add the new Schema markup to your existing code.

How to Fix Common Technical SEO Issues On Ecommerce Sites

Problem: Too Many Pages

Having thousands of pages on your site can be a technical SEO nightmare. It makes writing unique content for each page a monumental task. Also, the more pages you have, the more likely you’ll struggle with duplicate content issues.

Why It Happens

Some ecommerce sites just have lots and lots of products for sale. Because each of these products require their own page, the site accumulates lots of pages. Also, sometimes each slight variation in the same product (for example 15 different shoe sizes) has its own unique URL, which can bloat your ecommerce site’s total page count.

How to Fix it

First, identify pages that you can delete or noindex… without affecting your bottom line.

In my experience, 80% of an ecommerce site’s sales come from 20% of its products (the ol’ 80/20 principle at work). And around 25% of an ecommerce product pages haven’t generated ANY sales over the last year.

Rather than working to improve these pages, you’re better off simply deleting them, noindexing them, or combining them into a “super page”.

Most ecommerce CMSs (like Shopify) make it easy to find products that haven’t generated any revenue lately. If they haven’t, you can put them into a “maybe delete” list.

But before you actually delete anything, check Google Analytics to make sure these pages aren’t bringing in any traffic.

If a page isn’t bringing visitors to your site or putting cash in your pocket, you should ask yourself: “what’s the point of this page?”.

In some cases, these “deadweight” pages will make up 5-10% of your site. For others, it can be as many as 50%.

Once you’ve removed excess pages that might be causing problems, it’s time to fix and improve the pages that are left.

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Problem: Duplicate Content

Duplicate content is one of the most common ecommerce SEO issues on the planet. And it’s one that can sink your site in Google’s search results (thanks to Google Panda).

Fortunately, with a commitment to unique content on every page of your ecommerce site (and using advanced SEO techniques like canonical tags), you can make duplicate content issues a thing of the past.

Why It Happens

There are a lot of reasons that duplicate content crop up on ecommerce sites.

Here are the three most common reasons.

First, the site creates unique URLs for every version of a product or category page.

For example, if you have a category menu like this…

…it might create a unique URL for every selection the person makes.

If those URLs get indexed by Google, it’s going to create A LOT of duplicate content.

This can also happen if slight variations of the same product (for example, different shoe sizes or colors) create unique product page URLs.

Second, we have boilerplate content. This is where you have a snippet of text that appears on multiple pages.

Here’s an example:

Of course, it’s perfectly fine to use some of the same content on every page (for example, “At Brian’s Organic Supplements, we use the best ingredients at the best price.”).

But if your boilerplate content gets to be 100+ words it can be seen as duplicate content in the eyes of Google.

Finally, we have copied descriptions. This happens anytime you have the same (or very similar) content on multiple products or category pages.

For example, here’s an example of duplicate content on two different ecommerce product pages…

Product Page #1:

Product Page #2:

As you can see, the content on these two pages is almost identical. Not good.

How to Fix it

Your first option is to noindex pages that don’t bring in search engine traffic but are causing duplicate content issues.

For example, if your category filters generate unique URLs, you can noindex those URLs. Problem solved.

Once you’ve noindexed all of the URLs that need to go, it’s time to tap into the canonical tag (“rel=canonical”).

A canonical tag simply tells search engines that certain pages are exact copies or slight variations of the same page. When a search engine sees a canonical tag on a page, they know that they shouldn’t treat it as a unique page.

(Not only does canonicalization solve duplicate content issues, but it helps make your backlinks more valuable. That’s because links that point to several different URLs reroute to a single URL, making those links more powerful.)

Finally, it’s time to write unique content for all of the pages that you haven’t noindexed or set up with canonical URLs.

Yes, this is hard work (especially for an ecommerce site with thousands of pages). But it’s an absolute must if you want to compete against the ecommerce giants (like Amazon) that tend to dominate Google’s first page.

To make the process easier, I recommend creating templates for product and category page descriptions (I’ll have an example template for you in the next section).

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Problem: Thin Content

Thin content is another common technical SEO issue that ecommerce sites have to deal with. So even after you solve your duplicate content issues, you might have pages with thin content.

And make no mistake: thin content can derail entire ecommerce SEO campaigns. In fact, eBay lost upwards of 33% of its organic traffic due to a thin content-related Panda penalty.

But let’s not focus on the negative. Our data from analyzing 11 million Google search results found that longer content tended to rank above thin content.

Why It Happens

One of the main reasons that ecommerce sites suffer from thin content is that it’s challenging to write lots of unique content about similar products. After all, once you’ve written a description about one running shoe what can you write about 25 others?

While this is a legit concern, it shouldn’t stop you from writing at least 500 words (and preferably 1000+ words) for all of your important category and product pages.

How To Fix It

First, you want to identify pages on your site that have thin content.

You can go through each page on your site one-by-one or use a tool like Raven Tools to find pages that are a bit on the thin side (Raven considers pages with fewer than 250 words as having a “low word count”):

Once you’ve identified thin content pages it’s time to bulk them up with high-quality, unique content. Templates make this process go significantly faster.

Here’s an example template for a product page description:

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Problem: Site Speed

Site speed is one of the few signals that Google has publicly stated they use as part of their algorithm.

But site speed isn’t just important for ecommerce SEO: it also directly impacts your bottom line. Research by Radware found that slow load times can increase shopping cart abandonment by 29.8%.

Why It Happens

Here are the three most common reasons that ecommerce site pages load slowly:

• Bloated Ecommerce Platforms: Certain ecommerce platforms are inherently slow due to bloated code. And unlike a blogging CMS like WordPress, you can’t just install a plugin and watch your speed improve.
• Large Image File Sizes: High-res product images are awesome for your customers, but can make your page load like molasses.
• Slow Hosting and Servers: When it comes to web hosting, you get what you pay for. A slow hosting plan can put the brakes on your site’s max speed.

Fortunately, all three of these site speed issues can be solved somewhat easily.

How to Fix it

• Upgrade Your Hosting: I can’t recommend specific hosting providers because your decision depends on your preferences and needs (for example, the level of support, pricing, security etc.). But what I can say is that you should spend at least $50/month on your host. If you spend less, your loading speed is likely to suffer.
• Invest In a CDN: A CDN is one of the fastest (and cheapest) ways to significantly crank up your site’s loading speed. Bonus: a CDN also makes your site more secure from attacks and hacks.
• Optimize Image File Size with Compression: This is a biggie for ecommerce product pages. Make sure to export images so they’re optimized for the web.

Step #2: Learn What Words and Phrases Customers Use

Now that you’ve found your target audience, it’s time to stalk them. Don’t worry, this isn’t as creepy as it sounds 🙂

You just want to keep an eye out for words and phrases that they use to describe their problems and issues:

These phrases represent keywords that your audience uses when they’re NOT shopping for products. These make great keywords for you to create blog content around.

Case Study #2: How Mike Built Links to His Wedding Ecommerce Sites

Mike Bonadio recently launched an ecommerce website in the wedding space.

And considering how competitive the wedding industry is, Mike knew that he needed to build links fast.

Here’s the strategy that Mike used to get a HUGE influx of links.

One day Mike was poking around various wedding-related Facebook groups.

And he noticed groups put on events… events that featured products from wedding vendors.

Mike realized that he could use these events to build links his groomsmen gift shop, Groomsday.

And Mike was right! This simple strategy led to a bunch of great links.

Let’s break down the strategy step-by-step:

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Step 1: Find Groups in Your Industry That Put On Events

Join a few Facebook groups in your industry. Then check the “events” tab inside the group.

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Step 2: Look For Events That Need Stuff

Look for upcoming events where your products might be a good fit.

Some events even say that they’re looking for vendors.

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Step 3: Reach Out to Event Organizers

Reach out to the people hosting the event. Ask if they would like to feature some of your products at the event.

You can ask up front if products that you send will get featured in the group or in press coverage. Otherwise, just send them free stuff and hope for the best.

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Step 4: Ship Your Products

You can ask for unused items to be sent back. But it’s easier to not have to deal with return shipping.

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Step 5: Stay In The Loop

Keep in touch with the event organizer about the event. Specifically, when they’re writing a post about the event. Keep track of everything and watch out for your event or photo shoot to be featured. And make sure you’re credited with a link when it goes live.

Some events get published on super high DA sites with tons of authority. Here’s one on a DA77 site:

Nice!

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Step 6: Thank the Organizer

And offer to work together again on a future event.

The links from this campaign helped boost Mike’s traffic during the wedding season by 2272% compared to the previous year:

LEGIT.