So what if Black Friday and Cyber Monday are already in the rearview mirror? There is still plenty of online shopping to be done. Your sales won’t slow down until the big day arrives, so you’ve still got time to make the most of your ecommerce tools. Perhaps the hardest to understand and most powerful is the Search Engine Optimization of your site. Before you take off an hire someone to boost your SEO rankings, you should take a look at a few things on your own. You might be surprised how easy a quick cleanup can be.
Change Those Product Descriptions
By using the bare minimum provided by the manufacturer, you miss out on huge chances to lead people to your site. The product descriptions provided will be available to any other online store that sells those goods, which means you’ll be filtered right out of search results, along with all the other ecommerce companies that didn’t change the product descriptions.
Google loves unique content. Those who take the time to create new, informative, and fun product descriptions will be mightily rewarded in the search engine results. If you don’t have the time to create new content for your inventory, you may want to use a “No Index” meta tag to keep those from being searched by search engines. Your real goal is to get those new product descriptions searched, and you can’t do that if Google is pulling up and discarding all those items with duplicate content.
Also, resist stuffing those product descriptions with keywords. Not only does it make for a very awkward reading experience for your customers, but it also makes you look bad to Google. Keep it natural, creative, and most of all, informative.
Not only will search engines like your product detail pages better if you have unique product descriptions, your visitors will as well. Let's face it; manufacturers aren't renowned for writing the world's most compelling and entertaining product descriptions.
Avoid Duplicate Content
Even if you have several products that are similar, you should be careful to create separate product descriptions for each. Doesn’t matter if the only difference is color. Google will smack your hand and filter your site out of search results. The same goes for any additional information, instructions, and disclaimers. A copy and paste job might get your work done more quickly, but you’ll suffer in the long run.
Add User Reviews
One great way to get unique content that’s sure to mention your products is a user review section. By asking buyers to contribute their thoughts about your products, you receive in return honest feedback, answers to potential buyers’ questions, content featuring product names for search results, and above all, content that won’t be duplicated elsewhere. What’s more, a majority of shoppers search for reviews of products before making a decision. By providing that information on your site, your users won’t need to visit a third-party site.
Use Keyword Friendly URLs
You’ve seen the links before with strings of irrelevant numbers, letters, and symbols. Not only do these point to the possibility of spammy links, they also don’t help your SEO at all. Instead, use URLs that easily spell out what can be found on each particular webpage. You’ll give your SEO a boost and also inspire more trust from potential customers who’d rather not click the links that don’t a hint to where they’re going.
Just a few simple things can really get your ecommerce site in shape for holiday shopping. If you get started now, you can make the most of the season.
If you've alreayd done those things and are ready to do more, download our ebook on advanced ecommerce SEO:
Originally published Dec 11, 2013 10:00:00 AM, updated January 18 2023