eCommerce SEO: Key Points
eCommerce SEO best practices are proven methods that help businesses improve their search rankings, setting them apart from competitors. These include anything from on-site optimization to keyword research and backlinking. In this guide, we’ll go over seven SEO best practices for eCommerce sites to improve your SEO strategy!
Table of Contents
1. eCommerce Keyword Research
The first and one of the most important eCommerce SEO best practices is identifying the exact search terms that potential customers are using. This is what keyword research is for.
eCommerce keyword research differs from other types of keyword research in that it looks for commercial words and phrases that show buying intent and product searches instead of “how to” informational keywords. This influences every subsequent SEO task, from optimizing product and category pages to naming product images. It also affects technical SEO, because keywords are part of site architecture and site URLs.
The easiest way to conduct keyword research is to use Google as the most popular search engine. There are several ways you can do that:
- First, Google Search’s autocomplete feature suggests relevant search queries that people are using when you start to type your query.
- The second way to conduct keyword research on Google is via related search queries. At the bottom of the search result page, searches related to the query can also be a potential source of keyword ideas.
- There is also the “People also ask” section where you can find long-tail keywords, conversational phrases, and frequently searched words in the form of questions.
- Finally, there’s the Google Keyword Planner (GKP) as part of Google Ads. This tool can offer close variations of a term but is also capable of finding entirely new words. GKP is also useful for checking search volume and commercial intent.
How To Choose Keywords for eCommerce Product and Category Pages
Here is what to look for so you can find the best keywords for your eCommerce website:
- Search volume: This is the most important keyword metric, as it shows the percentage of people searching for the word every month. Tools like Google Keyword Planner and Ahrefs will instantly give you the search volume of each word.
- Commercial intent: This metric shows how likely it is for a person searching for that word to convert to a lead or customer. Most tools that do keyword research are sure to give you the intent.
- Competition: Always check how strong the competition is for a word. A word that has a higher search volume is likely to have higher competition, meaning it will be more difficult to rank for it. Look for keywords with low to mid competition but high search volume — these are a sure winner!
2. eCommerce Website Architecture
The second on our list of most important practice to improve your SEO is the structure or layout of your website. This refers to how you set up your online store’s navigation, category pages, and product pages.
A good website architecture helps get the most relevant content in front of users and reduces the number of clicks necessary to find a page they are looking for. Since eShops tend to have more pages and categories, having a well-structured website architecture is really important. To make one, remember these rules:
- Keep the website scalable and simple.
- Keep each page at least three clicks away from the homepage.
- Your URLs should be clean, direct, and consistent.
- Have all the main services or products as part of the top-level menu. For example, here’s what our agency directory looks like:
3. On-Page eCommerce SEO
Another key eCommerce SEO optimization practice is on-page SEO. This involves optimizing category and product pages according to search intent and specific search queries for products. Why? Because someone looking for a specific product like “Altan Bottier loafers blue patina size 11” is closer to purchasing than someone who types in a general term like “buy leather shoes online”.
Here are several tips to optimize your eCommerce on-page SEO:
- Optimize your title tag
- Optimize your meta description
- Work on your page content
- Optimize your URLs
- Add more internal links
- Use Google’s featured snippets
3.1. Optimize Your Title Tag
A title tag is part of your HTML code that specifies the name of your webpage. Here is an example of a well-optimized title tag from an eCommerce website:
Sometimes, title tags can have an added modifier and click magnet. These are additional words that can make users click on the link and improve organic CTR — an important ranking metric.
Modifiers help your page rank for long-tail searches, while magnet words reel on more buyers. For example, adding terms like “free shipping” or “lowest price” when searching for “men’s leather shoes” is a surefire way to generate more traffic and increase click-through rates (CTRs).
Some examples of click magnet words are:
- X% off
- Sale!
- Last items in stock!
- Guarantee
3.2. Optimize Your Meta Description
The most important thing about meta descriptions is to align them with what’s actually on the page. Focus on offering customers exactly what your business provides while using your main keywords.
You can also include longer click magnet words and phrases. Unlike meta titles that have a length of 50 – 60 characters, a description has a length of 150-160 characters.
Some ideas you can use in your product page meta descriptions are:
- Get the best prices on ____ now!
- Get free shipping on all _____ today!
- Click here to see all of our exclusive deals on _____.
- Great selection of _____ at the guaranteed lowest price.
3.3. Work on Your Page Content
When creating and optimizing content for your product and category pages, there are two essential rules to follow:
- Include 1000+ words of content
- Use your primary keywords 3 to 5 times
Longer content generally performs better on Google search results since the engine needs to understand the content and the context of your page to offer the most appropriate results to searchers.
Using long-form content also makes sense from the perspective of user experience: in-depth product and category pages provide visitors with more value as they help them understand what the product is all about. So, if you offer thousands of products, consider writing long, in-depth product descriptions for your best-selling 50-200 products.
3.4. Optimize Your URLs
eCommerce websites usually have long URLs that include categories and subcategories within, like: https://example.com/category/subcategory/product.html
A good URL should directly tell you where you are on the website. Here is an example of a good URL for eCommerce SEO:
Remember to keep your URL below 50+ characters and if you have more category and subcategory pages, include a one- or two-word description. Product page URLs should include just the target keyword for the specific product.
3.5. Add More Internal Links
Another tip to improve your on-page SEO is to link internally. Connect your store’s authoritative pages to high-priority product and category pages.
For example, say you published a long, high-quality blog article on women’s leather shoes that generated a lot of backlinks, and you have a product page on high-end women’s leather shoes. You can add a keyword-rich anchor text link from the blog article to the product page and connect them to improve your ranking.
3.6. Use Google’s Featured Snippets
eCommerce websites have the opportunity to get one of the most eye-catching rich or featured snippets out there: reviews and product definitions.
Here’s an example:
You can get these snippets by implementing Schema markup on your eCommerce product pages. This is a special code that gives search engines a deeper understanding of your page’s content. You can manually set up Schema markup to appear in these snippets, using Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper.
4. Technical eCommerce SEO
Technical SEO is another best practice for eCommerce sites. While part of on-page SEO, it involves more in-depth SEO tasks. A technical SEO audit can help you identify areas for improvement, with key focuses on:
4.1. Fixing the Number of Pages
The number of products will dictate how many pages an eCommerce website will have. Each product will require a page of its own, with a unique URL, which may eventually lead to a ton of pages.
You can fix this issue by identifying pages that you can delete or no-index. These can be products that are no longer in stock or even those that are performing poorly. To do this, use the Pareto principle — 80% of the results come from 20% of the causes. In eCommerce, keep the 20% pages that give you 80% of your eCommerce sales.
4.2. Removing Duplicate Content
Duplicate content will negatively affect your Google rankings. Commit to making unique content for each page on your eCommerce website.
The most common causes behind duplicate content include:
- URLs for every product or category: Those URLs that describe, for instance, the same shoe but in different sizes or colors, get indexed by Google which creates a lot of indexed duplicate content.
- Boilerplate content: This is the same snippet of text that appears on numerous pages. Google will consider this duplicate content if it’s over 100 words.
- Copied descriptions: This appears on different product or category pages with the same or very similar content.
You can fix duplicate content by no-indexing pages that do not bring any search engine traffic and cause duplicate content issues. It’s also a good idea to use the canonical tag — “rel=canonical” — which tells search engines that some pages are copies or variations of the same page.
4.3. Improve Thin Content
Identify the pages with thin content on your site using tools like Raven Tools. It will crawl through your product pages and identify content with a low word count.
After you find all the thin content pages, beef them up with unique, longer content that adds quality and value to your customers. To make the process easier, create a template for product page content that you can reuse. Here’s a short example:
- Product description (50-100 words intro)
- A bulleted list of product features
- Deep dive product description with use cases, benefits, FAQs, awards, etc.
- Conclusion (50-word summary with a CTA)
4.4. Improve Site Speed
Research by Portent shows that eCommerce websites that load in 1 second have a 2.5x higher eCommerce conversion rate than those that load 5 seconds. Moreover, Google uses website load speed as one of its ranking signals.
Some reasons why your eCommerce website loads slowly are:
- Operates on platforms with excessive coding
- Uses large file sizes of product images
- Has a slow hosting plan and servers
These issues can be fixed by:
- Upgrading to a better hosting plan
- Compressing image file sizes and optimizing them for the web
- Investing in a content delivery network (CDN)
Caleb Bradley, CEO and Founder of Bighorn Web Solutions, emphasizes the value of smart backend improvements, noting that even minor speed gains can boost both SEO performance and user engagement. He explains:
"We regularly help clients shave seconds off their load time; not with gimmicks, but by streamlining theme code, compressing image assets, and auditing plugins. These backend gains show up fast in rankings and bounce rates."
5. eCommerce Content Marketing
The next best SEO practice for eCommerce businesses is content marketing. To create content for higher rankings and more traffic, here are our tips:
5.1. Find Out Where Your Customers Are
Find out where your customers spend their time online to get insights into their needs and pain points. A great place to begin is on social media or sites like Reddit.
In all of these places, you will not only find your prospects but also heaps of inspiration for your future content. Pay attention to what people are talking about. What topics interest them? What would they like to know about? Consider these questions to create content that provides your audience with the most benefits.
5.2. Create High-Value Content
A good way to create valuable content is to use the Skyscraper technique. This method consists of the following steps:
- Find the best-performing piece of content by your competitors that fits within your niche and matches your target audience.
- Create your own version of the same article, but better. Add more infographics, useful videos, charts, use cases, social proofs, pieces of content, and so on.
- Repeat this process each time you create and publish new content and do this regularly and consistently.
Publishing high-value content on your eCommerce website consistently will result in better page ranking and higher volume traffic.
6. Link Building for eStore Websites
Next on our list of the best eCommerce SEO best practices is link building. This is an off-page SEO technique that entails linking other authoritative sites to your page. It includes internal linking and external.
In this section, we will cover four distinct link building methods:
- Resource page link building
- Partnering with influencers
- Broken link building
- Claiming competitors’ links
6.1. Resource Page Link Building
Resource pages are websites that have plenty of material that revolves around certain industries. These could be blog posts such as “Top X Resources for Social Media Marketing and eCommerce Managers” or directory pages that list websites that present a great learning resource on a specific topic.
An easy way to find resource pages is to use Google Advanced search operators. These are special commands that filter search results. In one article, Ahrefs listed a few examples that you can adapt to your niche:
Once you've found a resource page that has potential, you should add the URL and the site’s contact info into a spreadsheet. After a while, when you have compiled a list of resource pages, reach out to each of them for a potential linking opportunity.
6.2. Partnering With Influencers
Influencer marketing strategy can be a good way to boost your backlinks. Industry influencers who have high domain authority and are not competing with you are potentially great sources of backlinks.
Partner with them and get them to link back to your product pages or blog posts from their website or social media channels. Ways to build relationships with influencers include:
- Sharing and engaging with their content
- Recommending them to your audience
- Giving them complimentary products or gifts
6.3. Broken Link Building
This is one of the easiest and most effective link building tactics. It requires finding broken links on other relevant sites and offering to exchange them with updated links to your content.
Use tools or website add-ons to locate broken links, then contact the site owner/administrator to propose the update. While effective, this method can be very time-consuming.
6.4. Claiming Competitors’ Links
Claiming competitor links helps boost your rankings while displacing competitors. Tools like Ahrefs let you “spy” on their keywords and link sources. You can use them to generate a list of potential linking opportunities and reach out to site admins. For instance, if they’re linked in an article like “X Best Gifts For Music Aficionados,” contact the site owner and ask to be included in the article. Sweeten the deal by offering something in return, like a gift.
7. Local SEO for eCommerce Websites
The final eCommerce SEO best practice is local SEO. eCommerce sites with physical stores or regional operations can use local SEO techniques to boost nearby traffic. The most effective techniques are:
- Google My Business profile: Enter your business details on Google’s Business Profile to appear in local search results, showing your website info, working hours, address, photos, and reviews.
- Local citations: Get backlinks from local sources such as press releases, magazines, yellow pages, and news media. This impacts local SEO by showing Google that your business is popular and locally known.
- Links on social websites: Great for building domain authority and local ratings. These can include local links to regional news outlets and locally-based blog websites and associations.
Takeaways On eCommerce SEO Best Practices
The eCommerce SEO best practices we covered are often employed by top SEO companies. They ensure good ranking and visibility on search engines, high clickthrough rates, and a constant influx of high-value prospects.
With the ever-changing state of SEO, in 2025, you can’t afford to neglect the latest SEO Trends, as doing so will likely result in missing out on traffic and revenue.
