The e-commerce field is really very competitive. If you want to increase sales then have to constantly come up with unique and creative ideas.
Having a well-designed e-commerce website is not enough. If you want to survive in this field you should wisely use the power of SEO. But make sure you are not doing any silly mistake that can affect your website online presence.
In this article we’ll show you the top 10 critical e-commerce SEO mistakes that you should avoid :
Mistake 1 – Not Using SSL Certificate
SSL Certificate makes your website secure by encrypting the connection between a browser and server. Yes, all the information will be encrypted and “The man in the middle” (hacker) can not fetch this information. Encrypting information includes Credit/Debit card details, Login credentials, and user’s personal information.
Not using a valid SSL Certificate in an e-commerce website is a critical problem. Every e-commerce website should use a valid SSL Certificate. Switching your website from HTTP to HTTPS also boost search ranking.
Google loves encrypted websites. You can read “Importance of SSL Certificate in 2018“.
Mistake 2 – Not Using Rich-Keywords in Product Title
If you are not placing important keywords in your product title then probably you are losing an opportunity to rank this product on search engine results. All your products in your e-commerce store should be well optimized.
The best way to find out the useful keywords is Amazon’s website. You can find trending keywords in any product you want. Some quick points to keep in mind :
- Your product title tag should be 50-60 characters long.
- Use hyphens instead of underscores in URLs.
- No Duplicate URLs.
- Don’t do “Keyword Stuff” your title tags.
- The title must describe page content.
Mistake 3 – Blank OR Duplicate Product Description
Content is very important on any page. Not writing unique product description is your one of the biggest mistake.
Each product in your e-commerce store should have a unique and keyword-rich description. Also copying content from another big e-commerce store (like Amazon) is not good at all.
You can write short and crisp product descriptions that your customers can understand. that’s okay. But leaving it blank is not a good idea.
Mistake 4 – Not Using Search Engine Friendly URL
Always put rich keywords in your product title tags. Focus on creating a search engine friendly URL, so that it can surely benefit you in getting more traffic and sales. Some quick tips:
Have a clean URL:
It means to use a clean and professional URL with some good keywords. for example:
Good URL – https://www.example.com/accessories-for-man/watches
Bad URL – https://www.example.com/product/id=11?cat=5
Don’t use too many keywords in your product URL:
Good URL – https://www.example.com/women/flip-flops-slippers
Bad URL – https://www.example.com/collection/women/beautiful-women-flip-flops-puma-under-2000.html
Avoid duplicate keyword:
Don’t use the same keyword again and again. Avoid keyword duplicacy in product URL.
Mistake 5 – Being Dependent on PPC Only
Yes, PPC and social media ads campaigns might help driving traffic to your website. But don’t be entirely dependent on PPC only. Use proper SEO efforts also to get some organic search traffic.
Let’s have a look on this screenshots. This is the screenshots of Google search for the keyword phrase “buy iPhone online UK”.
In this screenshots, Google is showing some PPC ads at the bottom of the page. above that, you will see natural search results. Yes, you will get non-lasting traffic while using PPC ads campaign for your website. But this traffic will only last long till you’re using the ads campaign. When you stop using these campaign your traffic will be gone.
It’s not like using PPC ads is bad, but it depends. The ideas here are using PPC ads along with proper SEO efforts.
Final Analysis
There are some more SEO mistakes that you should avoid in an e-commerce store like:
- No Schema markup
- Not having a blog
- Not promoting products on social platforms
- No product reviews
- No image alt text
- Slow website loading
And the list goes on. You can also read “SEO Trends in 2018. How to boost your business sales.”
