There is a lot of competition in the modern, online marketplace. Countless eCommerce vendors exist today, and the battle to land high on search result pages and drive customers to one site or another is fierce. SEO is one of the many powerful tools that online vendors have at their disposal to help attract attention, drive website traffic, and generate revenue.
Generally speaking, SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of creating original website contentthat helps improve a site's standing in search results. However, if there is one certainty with SEO, it is the fact that mistakes are inevitable. In this post, we'll cover the common SEO mistakes eCommerce vendors make, and offer advice on avoiding these problems.
Ineffective Product Descriptions
Product descriptions are the biggest obstacle for many eCommerce websites and their SEO efforts. No product descriptions, weak descriptions, or manufacturer descriptions all spell disaster for your online shop when it comes to search results. While high quality images are important for your customers because they want a visual of what they are browsing, Google, Bing, Yahoo, and others are built to read words with equal (if not greater) value.
In order to remain competitive in search engine rankings, it is a necessity to produce unique content that describes your merchandise in detail. This, coupled with quality images or media, gives you a huge advantage on eCommerce sites that sell the same or similar products. However, if you simply use the manufacturer's description you're only going to blend into your competitors. So how can you stand out from the crowd and drive traffic to your site?
First and foremost, never copy and paste the product description from the manufacturer's website. This will do more damage than having no product description at all because it registers as duplicate content when search engines crawl through your page. To help generate website content for your eCommerce business, consider working with a content writing service. Professionals working for these services make a living generating unique content.
Never Ignore Metadata
When consumers shop online, they interact with metadata each time. In simple terms, metadata is best described as the advertising platform contained within a search engine. As shoppers enter search terms online, the results they see include eCommerce website names, an official link to the site, and descriptions of the exact product they queried.
The standard approach for most eCommerce vendors is to simply use duplicate information from a product page, such as the title, description, and keyword for the individual item. The problem with this is that search engines are trying to differentiate results based upon those bits of information (title, description, etc.) on your site. If your metadata information is the same (or roughly similar) to competitors, search engines will not differentiate your product and you will rank lower as a result.
Lack of Related Content
Mastering the art of metadata and providing engaging product descriptions are both critical to improving SEO. However, there is an entire website that extends outside of the product section. Some of the most engaging eCommerce stores have created outlets where they are able to consistently post new, relevant content that engages customers and can be crawled by search engines. The most popular example of this is a blog.
If your eCommerce site doesn't have a blog, start one. These archives filled with unique articles not only increase SEO, but also provide relative information that benefits the consumer. New industry trends and innovative ways to use your products are a few samples of posts that can be linked back to a product page on your website. While you're at it, create or expand unique content for other pages on your site, such as the "About Us" and "Shipping & Return Policies" pages.
While it is visible that the best SEO success stems from tracking your efforts and recording results, there are always companies that have paved the path and made it a little clearer as to where to focus your efforts. The strategies listed above are just three examples of major SEO tactics than can surprisingly be overlooked. Even though competition is high, and mistakes are inevitable, minor tweaks to your eCommerce site such as unique product descriptions, strategically worded metadata and relevant content could be the differences between ranking on the first, or the third search engine results page.
Generally speaking, SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of creating original website contentthat helps improve a site's standing in search results. However, if there is one certainty with SEO, it is the fact that mistakes are inevitable. In this post, we'll cover the common SEO mistakes eCommerce vendors make, and offer advice on avoiding these problems.
Ineffective Product Descriptions
Product descriptions are the biggest obstacle for many eCommerce websites and their SEO efforts. No product descriptions, weak descriptions, or manufacturer descriptions all spell disaster for your online shop when it comes to search results. While high quality images are important for your customers because they want a visual of what they are browsing, Google, Bing, Yahoo, and others are built to read words with equal (if not greater) value.
In order to remain competitive in search engine rankings, it is a necessity to produce unique content that describes your merchandise in detail. This, coupled with quality images or media, gives you a huge advantage on eCommerce sites that sell the same or similar products. However, if you simply use the manufacturer's description you're only going to blend into your competitors. So how can you stand out from the crowd and drive traffic to your site?
First and foremost, never copy and paste the product description from the manufacturer's website. This will do more damage than having no product description at all because it registers as duplicate content when search engines crawl through your page. To help generate website content for your eCommerce business, consider working with a content writing service. Professionals working for these services make a living generating unique content.
Never Ignore Metadata
When consumers shop online, they interact with metadata each time. In simple terms, metadata is best described as the advertising platform contained within a search engine. As shoppers enter search terms online, the results they see include eCommerce website names, an official link to the site, and descriptions of the exact product they queried.
The standard approach for most eCommerce vendors is to simply use duplicate information from a product page, such as the title, description, and keyword for the individual item. The problem with this is that search engines are trying to differentiate results based upon those bits of information (title, description, etc.) on your site. If your metadata information is the same (or roughly similar) to competitors, search engines will not differentiate your product and you will rank lower as a result.
Lack of Related Content
Mastering the art of metadata and providing engaging product descriptions are both critical to improving SEO. However, there is an entire website that extends outside of the product section. Some of the most engaging eCommerce stores have created outlets where they are able to consistently post new, relevant content that engages customers and can be crawled by search engines. The most popular example of this is a blog.
If your eCommerce site doesn't have a blog, start one. These archives filled with unique articles not only increase SEO, but also provide relative information that benefits the consumer. New industry trends and innovative ways to use your products are a few samples of posts that can be linked back to a product page on your website. While you're at it, create or expand unique content for other pages on your site, such as the "About Us" and "Shipping & Return Policies" pages.
While it is visible that the best SEO success stems from tracking your efforts and recording results, there are always companies that have paved the path and made it a little clearer as to where to focus your efforts. The strategies listed above are just three examples of major SEO tactics than can surprisingly be overlooked. Even though competition is high, and mistakes are inevitable, minor tweaks to your eCommerce site such as unique product descriptions, strategically worded metadata and relevant content could be the differences between ranking on the first, or the third search engine results page.
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