Ecommerce SEO Audit Checklist – Here's What You Need to Know
Paid search marketing aids in the growth of your eCommerce website's traffic. However, combining SEM campaigns with search engine optimization (SEO) may significantly expand your website's reach.
Nowadays, just building a website is insufficient. You cannot expect people to discover you merely by building a website. If you want to drive organic traffic to your website, you must regularly review it and make the required adjustments to make it more user-friendly. Therefore, before launching a new website or updating an existing one, it is vital to optimize your website's content and structure.
If you own an eCommerce business, you need conversions in addition to internet visitors. To do this, you must conduct an SEO assessment of your website.
Continue reading to learn about the critical components of an eCommerce SEO audit plan and how they may affect your search engine results. In addition, this article will teach you how to conduct an eCommerce SEO audit in order to increase traffic and conversions.
Why Is an Ecommerce SEO Audit Necessary?
Nowadays, 80% of consumers purchase online to save time. Individuals benefit from additional offers and discounts when they are buying online.
If you own an SEO marketing agency and an eCommerce business, you must compete with eBay, Amazon, and Flipkart, among others. These websites are internet behemoths. Generally, you will find it quite tough to deal with them. If you want to rank on Google's first page, you must focus on acquiring the best SEO services. You may compete with them by implementing a sound approach.
To develop a solid SEO plan, you need to grasp which aspects of your website require development. Conducting an eCommerce SEO audit is the proper technique to ascertain such factors.
Tips for Maintaining Ecommerce SEO Audit Checklist
1. Conduct Keyword Research
It is the critical first step in optimizing your organic search results. It would be best to do keyword research to ascertain the most frequently searched phrases and concepts associated with certain sectors.
This insight may be used to decipher search queries and incorporate popular keywords into your eCommerce SEO website. As a consequence, more people will see your optimized content.
To begin, perform SEO keyword research to determine search traffic and competitiveness. It's best to choose keywords with a lot of search volume but little competition, meaning that the average number of searches per month is large, but the number of people competing to rank for those phrases is low.
One such tool to conduct keyword research is Ahrefs. It is used to undertake SEO and competition research, link building and backlink analysis, keyword and topic analysis, and eCommerce SEO audit, among other things.
2. Optimization of the Product Page
You can optimize your product page by using long-tail keywords and using CTAs whenever possible. Let's discuss these briefly.
· Use long-tail keywords
While every eCommerce marketing agency strives for high-volume keywords, those with less expertise sometimes ignore long-tail keywords. It is because they believe that their low monthly search volume will result in no traffic.
Long-tail keywords consist of three to four words and sometimes more. Even though they're less popular, these keywords help you surpass your rivals since they're narrowly focused on the audience at the bottom of the sales and marketing funnel. One good example is Amazon, which derives 57% of its revenue from long-tail searches.
· CTA
Throughout the client journey, various CTAs perform differently. It doesn't matter whether they click the "add to cart" button, "make a purchase," or "share" button on your site; CTAs represent the ideal result for visitors.
These practices will maximize CTAs on product pages.
- Make it entertaining
- Mobile CTAs should fill the width of the screen
- Experiment with various forms, sizes, and colors
- Use imperative words
- Make it plain and provide supportive information
- Keep it basic and uncluttered
- Include security seals
- Include elements of urgency next to it
3. Utilize Distinct Title Tags for Each ECommerce Website Page
Regardless of the eCommerce sector, you must include relevant title tags on every page. Additionally, your title tag should consist of the same word that consumers search for.
Your links should take people directly to the sections of your website where they may find the items and services they were looking for when they clicked on them.
Your title tag should follow this format: Primary Keyword, Secondary Keyword | The Name of Your Brand
Relevant title tags may significantly boost your website's exposure and click-through rate in organic results.
4. Make Use of Keywords in the Heading Tags
An H1 header denotes the most important material on a web page. Therefore ensure that each H1 on your website is distinctive to the page's content.
Experts from the best SEO services suggest using keywords in the H1 and H2 tags and a few times throughout the page's content. Additional keywords in headers are redundant and may potentially harm your results. Therefore, bear in mind that you do not want to overdo keywords to make your material understandable.
5. Avoid Repetition of Content
Google is always encouraging original, high-quality material, and websites that replicate it will suffer the consequences. For example, if 60% of the information on one page resembles another, Google marks it as duplicated.
If you sell the same item in multiple colors or sizes on several product pages, those pages may be considered duplication from an eCommerce perspective.
Consolidating all of these choices into a single page not only addresses this problem but also ensures that your site is user-friendly and responsive.
6. Make Keyword References in Your URLs
URL is the first thing that Google and users notice. A simple-to-read URL assists both humans and search engines in comprehending the context of a website.
By including keywords in your URL, you may improve your eCommerce website's organic seo ranking . However, it's critical to keep in mind that keyword stuffing might negatively affect your rating.
Avoid reusing terms in URLs. Additionally, avoid extraneous words such as "the" and "and" in URLs. If a human being can comprehend the content of a webpage without utilizing these terms, then Google can as well.
7. Increase the Authority of Your Website and Brand
Technical and on-page SEO alone is insufficient to create a comprehensive SEO strategy and eCommerce SEO audit. Additionally, it would help if you took action to optimize your off-page SEO. By establishing links to your site and increasing client familiarity, you may use off-page SEO tactics to establish authority for your brand. Here are a few ways to do that:
· Create social media profiles for your shop.
Not only does a social media presence provide credibility to your business, but it also aids in the development of digital credibility for your website. Each profile that you establish must include a backlink. These connections inform search engines that your site is a well-established well-known brand
· Create directories.
As with links on social media accounts, linking on business directory listings may convey favorable signals to search engines about your website. Create high-quality, industry-relevant profiles on company directories and listing sites
· Look for websites that connect to your rivals.
Conduct competition research to see where you might earn links back to your site. Locate websites that connect to your rivals' websites to uncover potential link chances for your own
8. Optimize the Alt Text and File Names for Images
It is one of the easiest and yet most ignored factors. Google uses alt text to determine the context of a picture. Additionally, it may assist visually challenged readers by describing the picture.
While there is no silver bullet, employing alt text may assist search engines in better understanding the relationship between your photos and content.
Additionally, picture file names have a significant role in SEO ranking. If you include photographs that you shot yourself, avoid using the camera's default file names. Rather than that, try a descriptive and human-friendly title.
Assume you're running a makeup store. Renaming the photos to uniquely characterize each shot enables search engine algorithms to distinguish the different brands of the same product and may help enhance online presence.
9. Identify Potential Issues
After you've completed all of the stages in your eCommerce SEO checklist, do an eCommerce SEO audit to verify you didn't overlook any possibilities or holes in your approach.
One way of doing so is by conducting a keyword cannibalization check. You assign each keyword to a single page on your site. There is a good chance that search engines will not rank either of your sites if you try to rank them for the same term on two different pages. Therefore, you should check your website content to verify that each term is targeted on a single page.
10. Make Use of Rich Snippets
Normally, when your website appears on a search engine results page, the title tag, URL, and meta description are shown. Rich snippets enable search engines to show more information about a web page, including reviews, star ratings, pricing, and product availability.
Although rich snippets may help your organic search ranking, you should be aware that these benefits are just transitory and cannot be relied upon. Google's algorithm determines which results to show to consumers - and this engine is continually evolving.
11. Implement the Proper SEO Strategy by Using Internal and External links
In support of our next tip, you must use keyword-rich anchor text and include a reasonable number of useful and natural links for the reader.
Create an internal linking structure inside the product sheets' information for items, product categories, new arrivals, and promotions. External links are just as critical to an eCommerce firm as they are to any other website. While backlinks are necessary, prioritize those that contribute to the improvement of the brand's reputation.
It is also necessary to develop a sufficient number of internal links. For example, search engines may crawl around 150 links on each page. While this limit is rather arbitrary, it is prudent to set it to 150 to avoid losing the possibility of having further sites crawled.
Before anything else, you should analyze your present connecting sites. It is critical to determine if the sites that link to you are trustworthy and relevant.
12. Keyword-Rich Anchor Text
When a user clicks on an anchor text, it takes them to another website. Because Google and other search engines utilize anchor text to evaluate the subject of a page and how it should rank, sites with keyword-rich anchor text have a considerably higher chance of ranking well.
13. Deepen the Links
Deep links in eCommerce may directly affect conversions by making it simpler for consumers to find a category or product pages. For instance, type mother's day gift into the search bar if you're running an online offer for mother's day presents on your website and want consumers to go immediately on that part rather than the homepage.
Deep links can affect search engine results, as a website with just links to its home page seems unnatural and may be deemed spam.
14. Create Natural and Pertinent Connections
Link building is an effective off-site search engine optimization technique. Organic and useful linking is critical since the more connections you have and the higher their quality, the higher your sites will rank in search engines. Video marketing, influencer marketing, and generating shareable items are all strategies that may assist the best SEO services in establishing their brands and increasing their brand recognition and trust.
15. Evaluate Your Page Using Moz's Page Grader
Moz Page Grader offers real-time analysis and analytics to assist you in optimizing your on-page SEO. It enables you to monitor your rivals' rankings for specific keywords and aids in the improvement of your content.
You may use the on-page evaluator to see how well your page is optimized for the target term and where you can make improvements. It is an excellent tool for swiftly determining what is assisting your on-page SEO efforts.
16. Resolve 404 Not Found
Error 404 and Page Not Found degrade the user experience. 404 errors occur if you modify your website's permalink, delete material, or when your site is connected to another website through an incorrect link.
Utilize a 301 redirect to fix a 404 problem on your website. In most circumstances, the ideal approach for creating redirects on any website is a 301 redirect. For example, if a visitor enters your website's previous URL, a 301 redirect will instantly send the user to the new URL.
Ensure that you relocate the webpage permanently to avoid future issues with the connection. Finally, don't be alarmed if problems occasionally occur, as it can happen when consistent URLs are unavailable for that brand.
17. Utilize Backlinks to Improve Off-Site SEO
The most effective method of optimizing your off-site SEO is via the utilization of backlinks. Other websites' backlinks effectively demonstrate to Google that your website is trustworthy since it is "supported" by another website.
However, your website should be backed up by reputable and authoritative websites. Avoid connecting to your website from unreliable, spammy websites. When handled properly, backlinks may help your website rank higher on search engine results pages.
18. Optimize Your Website's Content on a Page-by-Page Basis
Once you have a list of keywords in mind, apply eCommerce SEO strategies to improve the visibility of each page on your site. Utilize the following SEO recommended practices to optimize your website's on-page components. As a result, it increases the likelihood that each page will rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).
· Assign each page a single major keyword.
Every page of your website should be optimized for a certain keyword. To avoid confusing search engines, you should only utilize the same term on one page of your website
· Assign two and four latent semantic keywords to one page.
Along with one major keyword, each page should include three to four LSI. These keywords are synonyms for the main keyword. They provide context to the website and assist search engines in deciphering the material
19. Avoid the Practice of "Keyword Stuffing"
Keyword stuffing happens when companies pack as many keywords onto a page as feasible. While this was a typical strategy to raise a website's ranking, Google and other search engines now will punish you for it.
Maintain a genuine tone while writing for search engines. Selected keywords must be related to your site's content to give the greatest experience for readers,
