To get your slice of the lucrative eCommerce pie, you need to drive organic search traffic to your site and convert your audience. An eCommerce SEO Audit can whip your website into shape and give you the eCommerce SEO strategy you need to improve your search result rankings.
What is SEO for eCommerce?
Ecommerce SEO is just like regular SEO in that it helps online businesses rank higher in search engines and helps to increase organic search traffic. But why does this matter?
Nearly 40% of online retailer traffic comes from organic search. For retailers operating 100% online, ignoring your website’s organic performance would be like ignoring 40% of the customers that walk through the door of a physical store. Simply put: You cannot afford to miss out on opportunities to boost organic search traffic.
If your eCommerce site is optimized, your product pages will rank well and shoppers will be able to find your products easily. Optimized eCommerce sites also provide content that delivers based on the user’s search intent at each stage of the buyer’s journey.
Not many businesses can afford to secure a long-term spot at the top of the SERPs with paid search. Strategic eCommerce SEO is a more sustainable way to achieve a better result and reduce overall advertising costs.
Why is an eCommerce SEO Audit so important?
In just over 25 years, online shopping has grown into a multi-trillion dollar industry. According to Statista, eCommerce sales in 2019 topped $3.5 trillion and are projected to reach $6.5 trillion in 2022.
It’s not enough to build an online store and hope that customers will find you. Your best approach to growing your online business is a strong eCommerce SEO strategy that is evaluated and improved regularly. This is where an eCommerce SEO Audit can help.
Discover customized eCommerce SEO strategies for your business. Book a free consultation.
Shopify SEO
According to BuiltWith, usage of the Shopify platform has more than doubled since 2017. Shopify is popular among online retailers for a reason. It is easy to use, flexible and secure, with features that are scalable as your business grows over time.
When it comes to SEO for Shopify, there are a few issues that are relatively unique to Shopify merchants. Bluetrain’s eCommerce SEO Audit often includes strategies that improve Shopify SEO for the following elements:
1. Duplicate content
This is the main Shopify SEO issue we see. Duplicate or similar content that exists on two separate URLs creates issues for search engines trying to determine which page should be the canonical version. More problematic is Shopify’s internal linking structure. It links to the non-canonical version of all product pages, leaving it up to Google to determine if the content is duplicate or not when it crawls the page.
2. Product variant pages
While not always an SEO concern, some Shopify stores will create multiple product URLs for the same product with minor variations such as size, colour, or material. This may also cause duplicate content issues or may benefit from optimized indexable pages. Ultimately, product variant pages need some special attention to ensure they perform well.
3. Structured data
Adding structured data elements ultimately provides Google with important information about the structure and function of your Shopify website content.
4. Product page content
Adding unique on-page content, such as product descriptions, to individual product pages can help optimize those pages and boost SERP rankings.
5. Shopify blog
A great feature in Shopify is the ability to include a blog. This provides an opportunity to add informational content that may rank higher for certain keywords mapped to your Shopify store.
How does your Shopify eCommerce site measure up against the competition? Book a free consultation to find out.
How is an eCommerce SEO Audit different?
All websites benefit from a regular SEO Audit to fully evaluate website performance and finetune your business’ SEO strategy to improve metrics and rankings.
However, certain SEO elements particularly impact eCommerce sites. An eCommerce SEO Audit will specifically assess these elements, and SEO strategies will maximize the overall performance of your eCommerce site.
How does an eCommerce SEO Audit work?
Whether you’re operating a Shopify store or using a different eCommerce platform, an eCommerce SEO Audit is a great way to assess your site. It covers the overall function and technical health of your website and helps you work towards higher organic search ranking.
Bluetrain can work with you to create a customized audit plan that prioritizes your business needs. There’s really no bad time to undertake an SEO Audit, but ideally, it should be a key part of any major website changes or redevelopment plan.
What Comes Next?
First comes the technical, then comes the content. Once we’ve made sure that your site is healthy from a technical SEO perspective, we typically recommend having some granular Keyword Research done.
Keyword Research for eCommerce
The purpose of Keyword Research is to find target keywords that are relevant and also have a strong search volume. Basically we want to ensure that people are searching for what you sell online. Not only will keyword research drive the strategy for our main pages but it also uncovers long-tail keywords to use for blog posts.
Learn more about Bluetrain’s Keyword Research Service >
eCommerce SEO Audit steps
- Discovery: First we’ll meet up to discuss your business, website history, and overall goals.
- Comprehensive website audit: This is where we do the tech nerd stuff and take a deep dive into the inner workings of your eCommerce store. We complete this using Google Analytics and Google Search Console among other platforms.
- An On-Page SEO Audit looks at the site structure and any SEO elements a search engine uses to read your site. This will include key structure and SEO elements that are specifically problematic for eCommerce sites. This also looks at the high-level SEO elements of your website including page titles, headings and meta descriptions.
- The Technical Audit evaluates any technical issues, from site architecture to product categories, that may prevent search engines from crawling through your site.
- An Off-Page Audit reviews the number and quality of websites that are linking back to yours and also analyzes the pages that are being linked to by your site.
- SEO strategy action plan: Targeting any issues identified in the audit, we’ll work with you to create an actionable to-do list to complete.
Need help checking off the SEO items on your to-do list? Bluetrain is here to help. We’re happy to help you improve your eCommerce SEO in any way we can.
Find out how your eCommerce site ranks for organic search traffic. Book your free consultation now >