7 critical SEO mistakes for e-commerce websites | Weboptim

Online merchants often think that they can just list hundreds or thousands of products on their e-commerce site and the search traffic will start to increase. But this is far from the reality.
The sad fact is that e-commerce sites are much harder to optimize than blogs or websites with a few pages. With so many products, which are constantly changing (in and out), there are a number of problems that can make SEO difficult.

We've brought you 7 SEO problems that often arise with e-commerce sites:

1. Lack of product specification

Unfortunately, the complete absence of a product description can effectively end a site's chances of being in the top 10 Google results, even for low-frequency searches.
So make sure that the product pages contain a description.

A good way to measure how much unique content is needed is to count the number of default words on an empty product page. Count every word used in navigation, sidebar, footer or other text on the blank product page.
Make sure that your text exceeds this default word count.

Of course, the more unique text you write in your product description, the better SEO results you can achieve. Keep the following in mind:

• only quality write content that helps visitors make a buying decision
• do not copy content from other websites - search engines will penalize you
• we can test how length description is best for conversion - but too long content can hurt

2. Using the manufacturer's product specification

If you want search engines to filter us out, just enter the manufacturer's product description. This action will guarantee that we will be banned from search engines.
Manufacturers distribute these specifications to online shops. And most of them keep the text in its original form. This results in a lot of non-unique content being available on the web, which Google filters out. What makes this even more of a mistake is that these manufacturer-generated descriptions are usually not for sales.
The rule is: always create unique content. With thousands of products, this is of course a daunting task. In such cases, it is worth considering adding a noindex tag to product pages for which you cannot write unique content.

3. Lack of product evaluations

Around 70% of shoppers read product reviews on websites or forums before they buy. This means that if your site doesn't have enough reviews, you could lose a large percentage of your audience. Review sites can get ahead in Google's organic search results more easily than sales sites.
The nice thing about consumer product reviews is that

• unique they create content for our website and it's free 🙂 There was talk about how Google penalizes non-unique content and how difficult it is to create unique content. Product reviews solve that problem!
• the product page "Live from", which may cause it to appear more than once in a Google search.

4. Non-optimised product pages based on search queries

Make sure to take into account the demand and the search keywords that people type into the search engine when writing the title, title tag and product descriptions.
Otherwise, you may end up promoting something that no one is looking for. This is a common mistake for shops offering many products.

Some tips:

• use the product name in the title and H1 tags
• use the brand name in the title and H1 tags
• don't forget to fill in the alt tag information in the images
• do not cluster keywords by repeating the keyword phrase over and over again
• never, ever use an iframe element to display content. Make sure that the content actually exists on the page, i.e. that it is displayed.

5. Not a unique title

Another problem for large online stores is duplicate title tags. Strive for uniqueness, avoid using the same title data.

Of course, it's difficult to create unique title tags when you're selling multiple products from the same brand or identical products from multiple manufacturers. We will inevitably repeat the same keyword over and over again. Search engines are aware that this can happen, so focus on writing unique title tags.
Many online shoppers type in a phrase instead of a word when searching. A formula for good title settings: Model | Product type | Brand

6. Lack of a meaningful URL

There are 3 main reasons why you should use conversational URLs:

• semantics: It makes it easier for customers or searchers to know what to expect when they click on the URL. If you use a very long URL full of numbers and characters, it can look like spam.
• keyword and link: There is a chance that the URL will be used by other websites. Include keywords in the text of the link pointing back to the main page, this can be a good driver to improve rankings.
• relevancia: Using relevant keywords in the URL is a great strength for the domain name. Google gives it less priority, but it doesn't hurt to include relevant keywords in the URL of your product page.

7. Lots of duplicate content

Print pages, archived content, tags - these are all things that generate duplicate content, so it's good to keep them out of indexing or exclude them using robots.txt. This is important, as the site can be penalised for duplicate content.

Some tips to eliminate duplicate content:

• Use robots.txt file to block areas that generate duplicate content, such as archive, member pages, and in some cases even category pages.
• Use canonical tag to indicate which pages of the website you want Google to index. For example, if the shopping cart page is generating new URLs for reviews and comments, the canonical tag can be used to tell the search engines which pages to pay attention to.
• Nofollow attribute for the pages that link to the duplicate content. However, we have to be extremely careful to find every single link that needs a nofollow attribute (because Google will find them).

The golden rule: usability is everything
Google is a search engine that is very concerned about its users and their search experience. So we need to make our webshop convenient and useful for visitors to gain respect. What's good and unique for customers is good for Google.
The more time people spend on the site and the fewer times they click back to the search results page, a signal to Google that it has sent them to the right place.
After all, people who like your website and what it has to offer are much more likely to link to it - and as we know, links are what can get your website to the top.

Source: blog.kissmetrics.com

Did you like the article? You can share it here!