With the highly competitive ecommerce space, it is very easy to compromise your chances of success by making mistakes that you may not even be aware of.
However, it’s not that hard to find the most common mistakes and ensure that your product pages get better search engine rankings which will attract more visitors and drive sales.
Some practical tips:
Unoptimized Title Tag
Since the title tag is an important SEO element on any product page of an ecommerce site, not including keywords in the title tag will hurt you in page ranking. It is very important that you identify keywords that are relevant to your product.
You can get a good idea of what seems to work by checking competition product reviews and by using analytic tools. It’s important that you limit the title tags that describe the page content to 50-60 characters, including spaces.
While you should include the most important keywords, don’t stuff keywords. It also helps to place a call-to-action like “buy” in the title tag.
Product Meta Description Not Optimized
Although Meta descriptions do not play a role in page ranking, they are very important in increasing the click-through rate. The meta description should consist of 135-160 characters of compelling copy incorporating all the important keywords.
The Meta Description is your sales pitch that usually answers why the product is the best, why it should be purchased from you and why your claim is credible. If you’re having trouble putting together a proper Meta description, try a professional agency like SandCrestSEO.com.
Failing to Use High Quality Images and Not Optimizing Them
Images are one of the most important references a customer has, which is why it is very important to upload high-quality, attractive images. However, you need to make sure that the photos load quickly on both desktop and mobile devices.
Your product page should always have multiple shots from different angles but in thumbnail size for faster page loading; customers can click to enlarge it.
Use software like Screaming Frog to perform site audits which will show images that are too heavy or missing alt tags.
Not Moving to HTTPS
Security is a top concern for online shoppers so all information submitted by users must be encrypted. If your store uses HTTP, you should quickly switch to HTTPS for the added level of security it provides customers and to take advantage of the improvements Google automatically delivers to encrypted websites.
Conclusion
In this day and age when most searches are performed from mobile devices, it is very important that your ecommerce site is optimized for portable devices. Ecommerce sites that display incorrectly or take too long to load are frowned upon by Gen Y users.
You should also make sure that the product description is clear while providing all the necessary details.
Jennifer Sanders runs a very popular blog on SEO. He recommends using a professional agency like SandCrestSEO.com for small business owners struggling with SEO.
