Woo Commerce SEO – 14 Tips To Rank Your e-Store Faster

For newbies, WooCommerce is an open-source e-commerce plugin for WordPress. With just a few clicks, drag and drop(s), you can have a fully functional e-commerce website ranging from customer engagement tools to manage inventory to order tracking to tax settings. It offers everything a professional e-commerce store needs.

Now, there are an estimated 12-24 million e-commerce sites worldwide. If these numbers make you giddy, do not worry. Only 1 million of these sites make $1000/year, signifying a massive growth room. When you decide to sell products or services online, you are probably left with two options. 

Either to sell on a marketplace or to create your own website/store. If you are reading this, we assume you have chosen the latter one, and we appreciate you. Launching a WooCommerce store is your first step to success. In this blog, we will make you take the next steps to reach your business goal.

Recommended: Challenges you Will Face While Setting up Your Online Store

First things first, why do you even need SEO for your business?

You could have the best user interface and state-of-the-art products with an appealing color palette and beautiful fonts. But if you are not showing up yourself, how will potential customers know you exist?

Right?

This is where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes into the picture—not with a bright blazer or anything, but with a ton of value and bonuses.

No business can survive without a strong backbone, and that backbone is SEO. In today's competitive and convenience-focused community, customers no longer prefer to dress up and step out to get the essentials. Instead, they want to sit on the couch and shop from their homes, making e-commerce a highly flexible business and buyer solution.

Here are some tricks you can use to help your site rank higher in the SERPs and make more sales.

1. E-commerce Keyword Research

Without keywords, optimizing your products or category pages is neither possible nor advisable. You wonder why?

There are 700,000 Google searches in a minute. And that is a LOT! An average browser processes 1.5M digital words daily, and how do you ensure your customers find you in the search engines?

With targeted keywords.

How do you find them?

Glenn Gabe, an SEO Consultant at G-Squared Interactive (GSQi), concluded that of the 3000 words analyzed, 93% were long-tail keywords, and only 7% were head terms.

Now you may be wondering what long-tail keywords are. Long-tail keywords are 26-40 characters typically used to get the specific version. Not only do these keywords convert, but they are also less competitive. The conversion rate of these keywords is 4.15% higher than the shorter ones.

There are numerous ways to find them. But below are a couple of our favorites.

• Google Autosuggest: The old school method. Type your keyword and let Google do the homework by providing you with autosuggestions.
• Google Related Search Suggestions: These are the suggestions you find at the bottom of any search engine results page. Type a keyword and scroll down for related searches.
• Amazon Suggest: Tap on Amazon. The biggest e-commerce marketplace in the world is the keyword goldmine. Head over to the Amazon search bar and enter a keyword you believe describes your product. When you are still typing, Amazon gives a list of suggestions around that keyword, and boom! There you go. The buzzwords Amazon recommends are highly targeted.
• Keyword Dominator: This tool helps you find the long-tail keywords a lot faster. Keyword Dominator thoroughly scrapes Amazon suggestions as for one keyword; it gives you tens of keyword ideas.
• SEMrush: SEMrush does not generate or suggest keywords with seed words. Instead, it gives you the list of keywords your competitor ranks for. And it is amazing! SEMrush will also give you sites that are similar to the ones you are looking at. You can get a lot more with its paid version.

2. E-Commerce Website Architecture

Meaning, the structure that organizes and presents the content on your website. A good site architecture means a great user experience. There are three main organizational structures: hierarchical, sequential, and matrix.

How you organize your site is essential for an e-commerce website, as you would have a considerable number of pages and do not want your audience to wander around.

A bad user flow experience hurts your audience and SEO. A user should take a maximum of three clicks to return to the Home page.

Below are a few ways to map out your website architecture.

• When you use drop-down menus, make sure you use HTML. Search engines cannot find the navigation unless the code is written in HTML. According to Moz, the maximum number of links per page is 100. Keep that in mind when planning your navigation bar.
• Step into the shoes of a browser and walk through the website. Where are you redirecting to when you click on a specific page? Were you able to come back to the place you wanted? Were you able to find what you want precisely when you land on the site? Were you able to return to home or exit quickly? Ask yourself these questions, and you will have the answer throughout your trip.
• When you are going with filters, pay attention to URL parameters.

3. On-Page SEO

We hope you have set up your site architecture by this step. If not, go to step 2 and come back.

On-page SEO is all about optimizing individual pages to make them rank higher and drive more relevant traffic. And it goes beyond tweaking title and description tags. We narrowed down the must-have on-page SEO elements that were never abandoned.

a.Title Tag: Everyone knows that we should use our target keyword in the Title Tag. But do not just stop there. Adding modifiers could help you show up in long-tail keyword searches.

mobiles under 20000 ❌

 best mobiles under 20000 ✅

b.Description Tag: You now have more room to write long phrases. Try to include terms like free shipping, overnight shipping, x% off if you purchase before midnight, etc., to boost your click-through rate (CTR).

c.Product Body Copy: Hey, do you know that we never get a second chance to make a first impression? It may sound cliche, but you need to live with it, as it could not be more accurate in SEO. Optimizing product pages is one of the most challenging things while working on e-commerce SEO. The content needs to be top-notch and deliver conversions. Here are a few tactics you can use to create eCommerce pages.

d.1000+ Words: If you work in digital content creation, you probably have heard this phrase a thousand times - long-form content ranks better in Google. This aptly sets for eCommerce pages.

The more you share with the customer, the more Google recognizes what your product/service is all about. Understandably, you cannot write a thousand words for every product, which is a tad boring. In these cases, focus on writing in-depth content for your top 20-40 products and category pages.

e.Keyword Insertion (3-5x): No. We are not talking about keyword stuffing. Once you finish your copy, make sure the description has the keyword a handful of times to help Google understand what it is all about.

4. Internal Links

Internal link building is an absolute necessity, and it is done automatically. But strategic link building gives you results—link FROM high-authority pages TO high-priority product pages.

Here are a few options

• Breadcrumb Navigation: These website links enable users to track where they are and how far they are from the Home page. You can easily find them either on the top of a web page or just right under the navigation bar.
• Related Products: Much like related Google search results, you can show these thumbnails at the bottom. By just showing up, you could upsell other products.

Develop your internal link-building strategy to provide value instead of tricking Google. Build it for users but get results from SERP

5. Technical SEO

If you run an eCommerce business with WooCommerce stores, technical SEO will be on your calendar forever. It is no longer about meta tags or site maps. Below are a few ideas for you to win the SEO game.

• Heads up: Schema Markup is a piece of code you place on your website to help search engines provide more relevant information to users.
• Product Schema Mark-Up: Product Schema is structured data about your product that you publish with your search result. In other words, it displays your product information in a structured way in Google SERPs. 
• Review Schema Mark-Up: There are two types of mark-ups here—aggregate ratings and individual reviews. The aggregate ratings give users information about overall rating value, count, best and worst rating, etcetera. On the other hand, an individual review gives a review date, reviewer, review value, review body, etcetera.
• HTTPS>HTTP: When you are running an e-commerce business, odds are you would ask for customers' credit card numbers, passwords, addresses to ship, contact numbers, and much such sensitive information. With HTTPS, you are adding layers of security using SSL to keep the data encrypted. Sites with SSL certificates also often rank higher in the results.

6. Create compelling product titles

Product titles are the most important aspect of your product page. They are often the first thing customers see and will judge whether or not they are interested in your product. A good product title is concise and catchy and provides a sense of what the product does or at least what it is for. The key is to make it as descriptive as possible and ensure it's not too long. For example, a good title for a makeup brush might be Sephora Professional Makeup Brush

The title is the most critical aspect of a product. It can make or break your chances of selling that product. These tips will give you some suggestions for creating compelling product titles. 

• Be Unique - Instead of Best Mop Ever, be more specific and say, The Best Mop with Rotating Head. 
• Use Keywords—When people search online, they often use keywords, so include those in your titles to help them find your product more easily. For example, try something like Beach Towel—Softest and Most Durable On the Market instead of just Beach Towel. By being creative, you can develop compelling and descriptive titles that are easy to read and get your customers excited about purchasing! 
• Edit Wisely - Think carefully before putting a product title live on your website. It might be tempting to put a cute little joke or pun into it, but if it isn't very descriptive of what's going on, don't do it! While it might seem clever at first, eventually, Google will see through it and not rank you well for that keyword because no content supports its purpose. Make sure to edit titles before putting them out into your shop so you don't lose sales or traffic from poorly titled products.

7. Use targeted keywords in your product descriptions

Targeted keywords in your product descriptions will make your WooCommerce store more visible to your customers. While there are many ways to do this, choosing the right keywords and inserting them naturally in product descriptions is an effective way to increase visibility. 

Below are a few tips for including targeted keywords in your product descriptions. 

1. Before you start writing, think about what type of products you’re selling. Then, find similar products on Amazon that have high customer reviews (look at their keywords). 
2. Next, try to find out what people are typing into search engines when looking for items like yours. For example, if you sell winter hats, words like winter hats or winter headwear could be potential phrases to include in your description. 
3. Once you have those words down, it’s time to write! Whenever possible, insert those terms naturally into sentences describing the product. If your hat is made of 100% wool yarn, it’ll keep you warm all winter long! 

8. Optimize your product images

To boost your search engine optimization, you should invest in high-quality product images. 

Product images are one of the most essential parts of a retailer's online presence and can account for up to 80% of the time spent on the site. But getting good product images is no easy feat, especially if you're not a professional photographer or designer. 

Here is how you optimize your product images:  

• High-Quality Images—A lower-resolution image will affect your page's ranking in Google, so it is important to use original, high-quality images. 
• Use Large Photos—Go big or go home! By this, we don't just mean making the photos huge but also using multiple shots of different angles so customers can see what they're buying. 
• Offer Alternate Views. Showcase products from different angles to give people more choices about what they see before buying. 
• Make Sure The Camera Is Centered—Make sure that you center your camera when taking photos of products. Otherwise, this could result in skewed results when using these photos as stock photography elsewhere, like social media sites. 
• Provide Useful Descriptions of Your Products in Your Images—A picture may say 1000 words, but sometimes, those words need clarification; provide descriptions next to each photo to ensure customers know exactly what they are purchasing when they come across your listing.

9. Set up a Google shopping feed

Google Shopping is a new way to increase your visibility on Google. When people search for products on Google, they will see product listings from merchants in the Shopping section of their results page. 

The best part is that these products are indexed and ranked by relevancy, so you won’t have to worry about pay-per-click fees or other advertising costs. 

To get started with Google Shopping, you will need to set up your WooCommerce store on Google Merchant Center and do a few other things, like creating a merchant center account and linking your store to it. 

After that’s all set up, it’s time to set up your feed so that all your products show up correctly in the system. As mentioned before, make sure that everything is synced between your online store and Google Merchant Centre to ensure there's no confusion. 

Remember, if anything has changed in your WooCommerce site since the last update or changes were made on an item without being updated on GMC, it'll just throw off everything. 

Creating some custom rules for products might also be necessary using Variations, Attributes and Taxonomies. In addition, features such as Lightbox images or A+ content might not be fully compatible with Google Shopping's requirements, leading to problems when submitting feeds. 

Fortunately, there are plugins that can help resolve those issues easily without too much trouble.

10. Implement schema markup

Schema markup is a way to add structured information to your website. It can help search engines understand your site's content and organization and may also improve its display in certain search results. 

You can implement different schema types, and each type has different rules for implementation. The two common types of schema markup that should be implemented on WooCommerce sites are breadcrumb markup and Product markup. 

The breadcrumbs markup tells Google that your site's breadcrumbs are organized. 

To do this with WooCommerce, go to Appearance > Menus. Click on WooCommerce Menu Manager to ensure all products are listed under a category. You'll notice the breadcrumbs at the top of your screen automatically update to reflect what categories you have set up in your menus.  

The product markup shows which categories a product belongs to on a website using an attribute. The attribute tells search engine crawlers which parts of the text represent product data and which don't. 

To use this schema markup, find out what attributes are necessary for each product by clicking Edit Product Attributes from the drop-down menu next to any given product in WooCommerce.

11. Take advantage of social media

Creating a social media presence is not just about being on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. These are other places to market your store. Below are some social media tricks that you may not know about but will help in your WooCommerce SEO efforts:

1. Posting images with captions will get more engagement than text-only posts on Instagram and Pinterest. 
2. Including hashtags with your posts will help other users with similar interests or businesses see your content. 
3. Repurposing old blog posts into an infographic can be a great way to share information and create new content for your followers. 
4. Highlight products from your shop during significant holidays like Christmas and Halloween to increase sales. 
5. Run contests where people vote for their favorite product in exchange for a discount coupon code or a gift card.
6. Encourage customers to leave reviews so they feel invested in your business.
7. Invite customers to share photos of themselves using your products.
8. Use visuals as much as possible (pictures, videos, infographics). 
9. Share discounts on your social media platforms; this has been shown to boost conversion rates.

12. Use review sites

You also need to get your products reviewed on review sites. This will help you boost sales and increase your visibility. 

It's also important to get people talking about and reviewing your products on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. User-generated content is one of the best ways to attract traffic, so make sure that you're encouraging customers to post pictures and videos of themselves using your products! 

Also, video content has a much higher conversion rate than other forms of media. So, if you want to reach more people and drive more sales, this is definitely something worth investing in. 

Besides that, YouTube videos rank high in search engine results pages (SERPS) thanks to Google's recent change. 

But note that if you use a platform like Amazon or eBay to sell your products, keep an eye on your feedback ratings. These companies can't monitor every product sold through their platforms, so sometimes things slip by - such as counterfeit products being sold as originals.

The last thing you want is somebody returning after they've bought an item and claiming they never got it or realized it was fake when they tried to return it!

13. Use link-building strategies

Link building is an important aspect of any online marketing strategy, and it's no different for WooCommerce. 

There are three main strategies that every eCommerce site should utilize: 

• Internal Link Building, 
• External Link Building and 
• Product Links. 

By strategically using these strategies, you can increase your Google rankings and improve the visibility of your products.

However, be careful when choosing sites to link to. You should only link to authoritative sites. Avoid linking to websites with security and SSL errors.

14. Take advantage of free tools

When it comes to optimizing your site, you have a lot of tools at your disposal. It’s not always the most intuitive process, but fortunately, some great free SEO tools can help. These tools include Google’s Keyword Planner, SEMrush and Moz Pro. 

Here is how to use these tools to boost your WooCommerce SEO efforts:  

1. Optimize your homepage with keywords that are relevant to your product or niche. Search for the right keywords using SEMrush.
2. Ensure you don’t miss any pages when using a crawler like Screaming Frog.
3. Use Schema markup to provide extra information about products.

Conclusion

We hope you get much value from this short guide to leverage your rankings on the search engine results page. Now, it is your turn to implement these strategies and tactics. Which step do you think will benefit your WooCommerce e-store? Is there anything else you think I should have elaborated more on?