SEO for E-Commerce

SEO for E-Commerce

Having an online store today is one of the paths to success, along with SEO for e-commerce, as online presence continues to grow in Brazil. Currently, around 70% of Brazilians have access to the internet, with most coming from smartphones.

Despite the heavy competition from apps related to games, movies, series, food, and taxis, the demand for products and online shopping remains very strong. Among internet users, 74% prefer online shopping over physical stores. These statistics come from a study conducted by NZN Intelligence.

Importance of SEO for E-Commerce

Therefore, optimizing your online store to improve organic results is essential for your business to thrive and perform well in search results. A set of keywords can generate many clicks and interest from potential customers.

The better your SEO for e-commerce, the higher your chances of appearing on the first page, where most users search when buying products. However, don’t be misled, as organic ranking work is not fast. Every SEO strategy requires time to yield results, and this timeframe can range from medium to long-term.

The key takeaway is this: SEO for e-commerce is as essential as it is for institutional or content sites (journalism or blogs). The difference is that online store competition, depending on the sector, demands more intensive strategies based on user behavior.

Along with SEO strategies, it’s important to work with Google Ads, which brings faster returns, both in terms of purchases and traffic data for your store. However, it is a paid service. Both work together to deliver more balanced and better results in the future.

What is SEO?

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a set of techniques aimed at optimizing the positioning of your website on search engine results pages (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.). The ideal is always to have your business appear on the first page of Google, which is not an easy task.

Improving positioning is the outcome of SEO strategies, but the central goal is always to provide the best user experience. The more comfortable and confident the user feels on your site, the higher the chances they’ll complete a purchase.

According to the Annual E-Commerce Survey published by SEMRush, there are product categories with high conversion rates, such as health, electronics, and food. In these categories, organic search is the second-largest source of traffic, only surpassed by direct access.

This means that some brands are more loyal than others, leading consumers to seek them directly rather than searching for the product on Google. Customer loyalty and providing excellent user experiences can also be optimized through SEO, reinforcing the importance of this strategy.

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Some SEO Practices for E-Commerce

Whether for a brand-new online store (built from scratch) or an existing store needing an SEO strategy enhancement, there are various essential practices for e-commerce. This is especially important when a site generally doesn’t have much long-form content.

Although SEO strategies are generally similar, there are specific focuses for different types of websites. For example, on an institutional site, the goal is to convey the company’s experience and qualifications. This requires investing heavily in content, page loading speeds, and user-friendly navigation.

Key Practices for SEO in E-Commerce

In SEO for e-commerce, all of these aspects remain important but with a different focus. Content on an online store typically appears in product descriptions and titles, which are much shorter than informational content like this text. However, just because the content is shorter doesn’t mean it should be robotic or underdeveloped.

The idea is to describe your product as thoroughly as possible so that it is clear and informative for interested customers. For example, if you’re selling furniture, focus on the color, size, material type, installation details, include photos from different angles, and provide a clear product title instead of a factory code that’s filled with numbers and letters.

This is where the SEO for e-commerce strategy stands out. Attention to detail is crucial. Some of the most important factors include product descriptions, meta-tag choices (titles and related keywords), URL optimization, and 301 redirects (which are common in online stores).

Here are some essential optimizations, though they are not the only necessary ones. Let’s break them down step by step.

1. Keyword Research

Keyword research is even more important in e-commerce. Why? As previously mentioned, content in online stores tends to be smaller and more direct, but it’s still crucial to help consumers find your product, making the keywords even more critical.

The keywords you choose are the tools through which consumers will find your store. The research isn’t just about the most searched terms, but also understanding how consumers behave in your niche. This allows you to leverage frequently searched terms as well as more specific ones that better cater to your business and audience.

Remember that keyword repetition must be balanced. While repetition in longer content is already discouraged, in shorter content, it becomes even more noticeable and repetitive. Consistency in your keyword choices and their frequency is essential.

2. Optimized URLs

Content management systems (CMS) for informational websites are easier to find, such as WordPress, which offers themes to meet various needs. However, e-commerce is a bit different. Creating pages and ensuring secure payment environments are carried out by specialized developers and companies.

The first reason for this is that an online store may have a huge range of products—or none at all. If it does, the URL changes rapidly, unlike a news article on a site like G1, which only gets updated with new or corrected information.

In an online store, a product might come in different colors, and thus it may be worthwhile to create a separate page for each color variant. This creates many very similar pages, which can make Google perceive the content as duplicated or engaging in illegal practices.

Therefore, URL optimization is much more serious and important in e-commerce. Any penalties or errors can make customers abandon their purchase or cause your ranking to drop drastically. These details can seriously damage your business.

Besides creating personalized, well-constructed URLs that follow Google’s regulations, URLs cannot be a meaningless string of codes. Today, semantics is key, similar to how a headline works. The URL should be relevant, attractive, and contain the most appropriate keyword for the product.

3. Competitor Research

Every business analyzes its competitors, no matter the industry. In e-commerce, this logic remains the same. It’s important to have a competitor analysis tool that works well. This analysis, in SEO terms, is called “skyscraper.”

Currently, this analysis involves tracking competitors’ keywords, URL information, product page titles, descriptions, subtitles, and links inserted in pages. Tools like SEMRush and MozBar help with this, but the goal isn’t to copy competitors.

Monitoring competitors can bring ideas and improvements for your own business and also gives you a better chance of competing on equal footing, especially when it comes to positioning and Google Ads.

4. Loading Time and Mobile Responsiveness

Remember when we mentioned mobile access and the growing demand for online shopping? Now imagine being a customer visiting a site that isn’t responsive and isn’t mobile-friendly for easy browsing and shopping directly from your phone.

The loss in sales is evident. If a simple purchase takes more than 10 minutes, something is wrong. Having a slow e-commerce site is extremely detrimental to your business. You need to pay attention to all factors that affect user experience, both on desktop and mobile devices.

That’s why it’s essential to have a responsive site with the fastest loading time possible. According to Google, a one-second delay in mobile loading can negatively impact conversions by up to 20%.

“Did it seem like an eternity? If people have a negative experience on mobile, they are 62% less likely to buy from your business in the future – no matter how creative or data-driven your campaign is.” – Think with Google.

Just think about that.

5. Data Security Certification

Some people still don’t believe in the importance of security certificates. But for online stores, they are essential. If your site is only HTTP, its security is severely compromised, and it’s unlikely you’ll see good conversion rates.

Google tends to rank higher sites that comply with online security guidelines. This means websites with the HTTPS protocol, responsible for encrypting data, offer a safer environment for purchases.

Your e-commerce site needs to be indexed with the SSL protocol, which ensures user data is secure during transactions. This protocol is required by payment gateways to ensure that credit card and personal data are not intercepted.

Many hosting providers offer this protocol, and it should be one of the first things you implement when launching your online store.

6. Link Building Investment

Sites that refer to your product bring very positive results because the authority of the referring site is transferred to you and your business. The more trusted sites link to yours, the better it is for your page’s SEO. However, link building is one of the most complex strategies in digital marketing.

On-page link building—referring to internal link strategies—is much simpler to plan. You need to build a relevant, semantic structure. For example, a “related products” suggestion at the end of a purchase is an internal link building strategy.

It doesn’t make sense for an online store to recommend an Egyptian statue on the same page where you’re buying a crochet book. The linking must make sense and be planned ahead.

This is an internal strategy that brings conversions and makes it easier for customers to find other products they might like. It also helps keep customers on your site as they browse and decide what to buy.

However, link building isn’t only an internal marketing strategy. External link building is much harder to control (in fact, it’s impossible to have full control). External link building refers to how many other sites link to your product page.

Therefore, if a shopping recommendation blog, a social media profile, or even a media channel endorses you, you gain much more authority and recognition from Google. It’s advisable to seek relevant and trusted partnerships, but this is a more complex task than digital marketing technology itself.