E-commerce SEO Guide for Beginners: Strategies and Best Practices

Focusing on general keywords will put you up against huge competitors. Instead, target niche, long-tail keywords specific to your products, much like Amazon sellers do. Instead of just “necklace,” you might target “Cross Necklace for Women 14K Real Gold Silver Plated Dainty Small Cross Pendant.” This approach brings in highly targeted traffic with less competition.

Just ensure every keyword you choose is directly relevant to the products you offer, making your SEO efforts more effective.

Many e-commerce sites often neglect optimising their category pages, but Manyavar is a great example of doing it right. They use well-structured categories and subcategories that make navigation easier, while also helping Google index their pages more effectively. This tactic improves both user experience and SEO rankings.

To effectively raise your SEO score when naming your category pages, make sure the keywords you choose have high traffic.

One effective yet underutilised tactic is leveraging user-generated content (UGC), such as customer reviews, testimonials, and even videos or photos shared by your customers. This type of content can improve your SEO rankings while giving potential customers confidence in your products.

Encourage customers to leave reviews by offering incentives, and be sure to display them prominently on your product pages.

With the growing popularity of smart speakers and virtual assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant, voice search optimisation is becoming essential for e-commerce success. People tend to phrase voice search queries differently compared to traditional typed searches. For example, while someone might type “iced coffee shops near me,” they could say something like, “Where’s the nearest place to get iced coffee?” when speaking.

Make sure your website content and SEO strategies reflect these conversational queries to capture this expanding market.

Your website’s internal search is the tool customers use to find specific products quickly by typing into the search bar.

Let’s have a look at Zappos’ internal search system. They improve their internal search by adding features like filters (to narrow down results) and autocomplete (to suggest popular search terms as they type). Also, keep track of what customers are searching for on your site. This can give you insights into popular products and even reveal items you might want to stock in the future.

E-commerce is highly visuals, and properly optimising your images is an often-overlooked SEO technique. One key element is Alt Text, which is a short description of an image that helps screen readers describe the image to users with visual impairments. It not only describes what’s in the image but also explains how it relates to the page content.

For example, instead of just saying "jacket" in the Alt Text, you might use something like “regular fit double-breasted jacket.” This gives more detail about the product and helps search engines understand the image, improving your SEO.

If you sell internationally, optimising your e-commerce site for multiple languages is non-negotiable. Brands like H&M have different versions of their website optimised for local languages and search engines in various countries, allowing them to rank higher globally. They use hreflang tags to tell search engines which language and country/region your content is targeting.

To implement hreflang tags, you need to add specific codes to your website’s HTML or XML sitemap. Each version of your page should have a hreflang tag indicating the language and country.

With regular audits, you can ensure that your e-commerce site is free from errors that could hinder its ranking. Here are some issues an SEO audit can help you spot and fix:

For e-commerce stores selling through platforms like Etsy or Amazon, regular audits are equally important. Focus on optimising product listings by ensuring that titles, descriptions, and images are high quality and accurately reflect the products. Check for keyword usage in your listings to improve visibility on those platforms. Additionally, monitor customer reviews and feedback, as positive testimonials can significantly boost your rankings within these marketplaces. Just as with a website, maintaining an error-free, well-structured store on these platforms will enhance your SEO and user experience.

If you're considering building your own e-commerce website, be sure to check out our blog on How to Make a Website with WordPress.

SEO isn’t something you set and forget. It’s important to track your efforts to see and fix what’s working and what isn’t. Fortunately, there are many beginner-friendly SEO tools designed to help you stay on top of your e-commerce website. Here are the best tools with some of their key features to help you with your SEO strategy:

Google Search Console is a powerful tool from Google that helps you understand your website's performance in Google Search. It provides actionable insights to improve your visibility and attract more relevant traffic.

Semrush’s SEO Toolkit is packed with over 20 tools and reports designed to support every step of your website’s SEO journey. With access to the largest keyword database, you’ll have everything you need to boost your rankings.

Google Analytics is a must-have for tracking the performance of your e-commerce site. This platform collects data from your website to provide valuable insights into your business.

Ahrefs is an all-in-one suite of SEO tools that helps improve your website's visibility in search engines.

If you’re using WordPress for your e-commerce site, Yoast SEO is an essential plugin to have.

Google’s AI shopping experience also brings a major benefit: product descriptions will include up-to-date reviews, ratings, prices, and images, thanks to Google’s Shopping Graph, which pulls from over 35 billion product listings. To stay competitive, your product information must be accurate, relevant, and engaging, ensuring it stands out in these enhanced search results.

Be patient and consistent with your efforts, and you’ll start to see improvements over time.