Search engine optimization of a webshop – Where to start?
When creating a new webshop, we need to pay attention to a number of key factors in order to optimize the new web store for online advertising, to attract relevant organic search traffic, and to increase the webshop visitors’ willingness to purchase.
Proper search engine optimization not only affects the performance of organic visitors, but also the performance of paid online advertising.
What do we need to pay attention to get the most relevant and largest possible organic search traffic for our new web store from Google Search?
In this blog article, we will show you the basics of search engine optimization for a webshop.
Step 1: Do a thorough keyword research
Just like before creating a new website, you need to do a comprehensive keyword research before developing a brand new webshop as well. The starting point for keyword research is knowing the planned product range, the attributes and the positioning of the webshop, and last but not least, you need to map all search terms used by similar webshops or direct competitor webshops.
The key phrases or terms found in the initial keyword research have to be used in both your product names and product descriptions, urls, and other descriptive content on the website (such as blog content).
Because the behavior of real users and the phrases they use are changing dynamically, it is worth repeating and updating the relevant elements of the webshop based on a recent keyword research regularly.
To perform the initial keyword research, we recommend using the following – free or paid – tools:
- SEO tool: e.g. Semrush (subscription needed)
- Google Search: automatic search suggestions (finding frequently used terms), free
- Amazon search – free
- Google Trends: Google’s free tool for mapping current search trends and changes over time – free
- Google Ads Keyword Planner – Free, but requires a Google Ads account.
Step 2: Creating a user-friendly webshop
Google’s so-called “Page Experience update” algorithm evaluates aspects for organic search positions that were previously used for paid online advertising (“the landing page experience”).
As of today, we also need to pay attention to these aspects if we want to appear in an excellent position on Google’s organic search results list. Our webshop should offer seamless, easy navigation and we should also use the CTA elements that are mandatory for webshops.
As for the “page experience”, our webshop must perform well in the following areas:
- Be mobile-friendly – meaning your website should be responsive and easy to use on a mobile device
- Provide a secure browsing experience (https, or SSL certified)
- While browsing products, do not confuse users with pop-up banners
- Core Web Vitals: fast page loading
Step 3: Proper url structure in the webshop
Building the right url structure, the right url hierarchy is more important for a webshop than you might think! This is the typical element that is important for both organic search traffic and certain types of online ads (e.g., Dynamic Search Ads).
Creating the right url structure for a webshop is important not only for Google but also for the visitors. Breadcrumbs for example, not only help users navigate – by stepping back on your webshop, like following the breadcrumbs – but also improves the search engine optimization of the webshop, and the right url structure is paramount even for social media shares.
The so-called hierarchical url structure, like breadcrumbs, is of paramount importance to both users and Google search engines. A clear and hierarchical url structure helps Google crawl the webshop properly, so it helps to perform much better in organic search results.
Many widely used webshop engines (eg Woocommerce, Shopify, Shoprenter) have a system-wide “built-in” url structure error that maintains the hierarchical url structure from the product main category through the product subcategories to the lowest level subcategory, but when you reach the product page, the hierarchy disappears. Make sure that this is not the case in your webshop!
For example, in the case of a hierarchical url structure, the url of a product page looks like:
/webshop/shoes/women/high-heels/cecyl-silver-high-heels/36
In the case of a non-hierarchical url structure, the url of a product url looks like:
/webshop/cecyl-silver-high-heels/36
Google helps you with free tips on how to build the right url structure for your webshop here.
Step 4: Optimization of the product pages
The essence of a webshop are the products that can be purchased through it. It should be clear, how important it is to optimize our product pages properly for search.
If we think about what is required to run so-called Dynamic Search Ads for your webshop, we’ll see right away why it is a problem if our product urls are missing informations about which main category, subcategory, sub-subcategory the product belongs in. If this information is not included in your product url, it will be very difficult for Google’s engines to crawl your products, whether we talk about about paid ads or organic search results.
To optimize our product page, we need to pay close attention not only to the product url, but also to the other components of our product page! Create product descriptions that contain the main keywords, add the necessary CTAs (e.g., Add To Cart) and pay attention to product reviews and customer reviews as well (after purchasing, don’t forget to ask customers to rate the purchased product in an automated message).
Your product names – and our product urls – should not be a set of numbers, but should include the main keywords for the product – the ones that you discovered in the keyword research:
- Product attributes (e.g. for street)
- Product name (e.g. shoes)
- Product brand (e.g. Hanuca)
Product images are an integral part of optimizing our product page. We should pay attention to the following:
- Provide more than one unique, quality product image
- Pay attention to the optimal image size (sufficient but not excessive resolution)
- Enter alt-tag text for each image
- Add keywords to the names of the image files, pay attention to the spelling
Step 5: Use a so-called schema markup
The so-called structural data or also known as schema markup is a set of hierarchical microdata that we can add to our webshop in order to show the right information to search engines. The necessary information can be placed and marked in the html code.
If we mark the required information properly, it can also appear in the organic search result, thus highlighting our webshop from other similar results, enriching our search appearance with additional information.
For webshops, you may want to select the Products option within Google Webmaster Tools, in which case you may want to highlight the following information about the products:
- Product name
- Product Reviews
- Product price
- Availability
- Video
Use Google’s free Structured Data Markup Helper to create the right schema markup!
Step 6: Have quality backlinks
Quality backlinks can effectively support the search engine optimization of your webshop. The reason for this is that links – not ads! – that lead to your webshop from other websites that are perceived to be high quality by Google, suggest to the search engine that our webshop is also of high quality. It is important to emphasize that paid links do not improve the organic positions of our webshop! So strive for quality link building and avoid purchasing paid links, because Google will eventually realize that they are paid links and therefore of low quality, so Google can penalize not only you, but also the website that sells these links.
It’s easy to say to get quality links, but how to do it? For example, by following these link building best practices:
- Produce quality content that others will share
- Offer guest articles for other busy blogs or websites
- Offer a free product to a micro influencer to write a product review
- Ask the product manufacturer to include your company among the resellers on their website with a link to your webshop
- Earn free online media appearance with interesting content, even by producing fresh research and surveys
Extra tip: Use so-called long-tail keywords
If we are serving the needs of a sub-market or a special group of customers as a new entrant, it can be a great choice to use so-called long-tail or long-term keywords for search engine optimization.
By targeting the right long-tail search terms, you can reach a much more relevant audience and successfully avoid the fierce competition from the general, high-traffic keywords for both organic searches and paid online search ads.
In the case of a new webshop, the more special, more relevant, so-called long-tail keywords are more likely to appear in a better position both in organic searches and search ads compared to when using more general, short, but also more competitive keywords. And of course with more relevancy, you can expect a higher conversion rate if you use long-tail keywords that have enough search volume.
Summary
Building a brand new webshop is no small task. In order for the new webshop to be able to generate the right revenue and then the expected return on investment in the future, it is worth paying attention to the key elements that will greatly determine your future success already in the planning phase of your new webshop.
One of the keys to the success of a webshop is proper search engine optimization. Conduct your initial keyword research, don’t forget about long-tail keywords, build an optimal url structure, optimize your product pages, and finally: create a user-friendly webshop! You can seek the help of an expert online marketing agency to provide any of the critical components.
In order to be successful, you will definitely need online advertisement for your webshop – e.g. Google Shopping Ad with or without a CSS Partner – and proper briefing of the performance marketing agency is especially important for this. You can find our tips for agency briefing here!