Ecommerce Writing for SEO

Setting up an ecommerce store means selling to untapped audiences from around the world. But reaching that audience can take some serious effort & requires a strategy to find success. Social media is one place to start but it isn’t as effective as Google search.

Growing your organic search can dramatically increase your search traffic. Research shows that SEO drives over 1,000% more traffic than organic social media. And 92.96% of global traffic comes from Google search, Google Images, and Google Maps.

The good news is that SEO doesn’t have to cost a dime. Instead, you need time, effort, & patience to kickstart your SEO strategy. Here’s how to get started.

Keyword Research

Ecommerce keyword research is one of the most important aspects of SEO. Skipping this step will result in targeting challenging keywords or ones that don’t get much traffic. Instead, you want to find a balance of easy to moderate ranking keywords. 

Areas & SEMRush are two tools the SEO pros use but do come at a cost. Or you can get started with a free tool like Uber Suggest. It’s not as robust as the big SEO tools but provides what you need as your ecommerce store scales & grows. It’s also fairly intuitive & will walk you through the process step by step.

Competitor Research

You should also keep an eye on what your ecommerce competitors are doing with their own SEO efforts. SEO tools like Uber Suggest also have an option to enter a domain, or URL, into the search field instead of a keyword. You can use your competitors’ domain names to see what types of keywords they’re ranking for. 

Once you see what types of keywords your competitors are ranking for, you can plan your strategy. You may find particular keywords that are too competitive to rank for. In this case it would work best for you to find words that are similar, but not exact.

Site Architecture

Site architecture can get complex quickly, but at its core, it’s about how you organize your ecommerce store. Think of your site architecture as a pyramid. At the very top is your Home Page. Beneath the Home Page is Categories, followed by Subcategories. Focus on keywords as much as possible, from the name of your ecommerce store to your subcategories. 

Well-planned site architecture helps improve your SEO, but it’s also more user-friendly. Part of SEO is about keeping your audience on your website without them leaving after viewing only one page. This is called the “bounce rate.” The lower your bounce rate, the more the search engines will rank your site favorably. 

On-Page SEO

On-page SEO is all of the writing & other actions you perform on your site to improve your rankings. The cornerstone piece of on-page SEO is identifying quality keywords. However, the value your content offers is also essential to good SEO practices. High-quality content will keep visitors on your site & improve your conversions. Make sure your content is also easy to read.

On-page SEO also relies on making the most of your metadata field, which tells search engines what your content is about. If you create a page called “Animal Novelty Socks,” you should incorporate keywords into your metadata & throughout the copy. Next, add subheadings that allow readers to scan through your content to find what they’re looking for. Keeping paragraphs to just a few sentences also makes it easier to read & digest. 

Engaging Product Descriptions

Are your product descriptions engaging & informative? Your ecommerce writing for SEO should spark a reaction from your customers to buy. Write unique product descriptions that incorporate your keyword strategy. Your ecommerce writing should also be engaging & easy to comprehend. Add in an action word, like:

-Buy

-Click

-Learn More

-Add to Cart

Keep your descriptions to a sentence or two. You can always add more detail & context with a dynamic content marketing strategy.

Content Marketing

Content marketing can rapidly grow your ecommerce traffic. According to the Content Marketing Institute, “Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating & distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract & retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.” 

But what does that mean for ecommerce stores? Your content marketing strategy can incorporate informative blog posts, gift guides for your ecommerce products, YouTube videos, and podcasts. Use as many keywords as possible while still sounding natural in your content. 

Get Rid of Duplicate Content

Writing unique content is crucial for SEO. Google SEO duplicates content as “appreciably similar” and can make it challenging for search engines to know which content to pay attention to. Search engines may end up indexing or ranking the wrong content on your site. Duplicate content will dilute your SEO efforts.

Use the Right SEO Apps

Ecommerce platforms like Shopify come equipped with SEO apps to help your strategy. Apps like the SEO Suite: Image Optimizer walks you through the process of adding ALT data to images, metatags and working on technical SEO like your sitemap. The SEO Optimizer, All-in-one SEO, also helps put your SEO on autopilot so you can focus on growing your business.

Measure Your SEO Analytics

Measuring your SEO efforts is key to a successful campaign. Use your Shopify or WordPress analytic tools to see what’s working & what’s not. You may also discover that people find your ecommerce store based on keywords you weren’t trying to rank for. You can then take those new keywords & work them into other areas of your ecommerce store.

Writing for SEO takes some skill & creativity but is also doable for anyone willing to learn & execute. Remember that SEO requires some effort & patience. What are your best tips for ecommerce writing for SEO? Let us know by leaving a comment below!