E-Commerce SEO: 7 Valuable SEO Measures for Your Online Shop

1. 7 SEO measures for successful e-commerce in Google
2. 1. Progressive Content Audit 
3. 2. Keyword analysis 
4. 3. Optimization of Search and Rich Snippets
5. 4. Optimization of H-Tags 
6. 5. Indexing optimization
7. Screaming Frog
8. GZip helps to reduce the transmission size by compressing files when they are delivered from the web server. This compression has the strongest positive influence on the PageSpeed. 
9. Link Research Tools (LRT)

When users are searching for a specific product, service or information, the first thing they probably do: Google it. This is also reflected in the numbers, because: Google records 5.6 to 8.5 billion search queries daily. The results that then occupy the top spots in the search engine results are clicked most frequently. This means that even the 2nd page of the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) offers poor chances. 

But how do you manage to get your online store into the top 10 of the SERPs? One way besides SEA (Search Engine Advertising) is SEO (Search Engine Optimization), that is, search engine optimization. SEO is indeed a lengthy process, but sustainable and cost-effective. 

To help you maneuver your online store without Paid Ads into the top 10 of the search engine results, this article shows you 7 SEO measures that should not be missing for successful e-commerce SEO. These 7 measures help you to improve organic rankings, generate more traffic and increase sales. 

7 SEO measures for successful e-commerce in Google

When creating an SEO strategy a lot has to be thought about, so that the online store appears in the top search results and stands out from other competitors. This can be achieved with the help of technical, content and structural SEO. To be successful with an online store, especially the following 7 SEO measures must not be missing when implementing the e-commerce SEO strategy: 

1. Progressive Content Audit 

Before measures for e-commerce search engine optimization can be taken, the company must first know the status quo of the website. With the content audit, an inventory of all content is carried out and all on-page and off-page factors are reviewed. This can reveal weaknesses and potential optimizations. 

A progressive content audit can go even further. It is worth looking beyond the consideration phase of the customer journey within the progressive content audit for your online store and paying attention to the awareness phase of the customer journey. Unique and topic-relevant content that creates awareness contributes to a better ranking and improves the user experience. The company should ask itself the following questions during the progressive content audit: 

• Are there inspiration and content hubs on the page in the shop?
• Does the online shop have a magazine that can be aligned for SEO?
• Are there terms in need of explanation within the online shop?

A topic hub, a magazine or even terms in need of explanation can be filled with SEO content that creates awareness and positively contributes to the ranking. Within this content, the company can make a link with the shop. This can be achieved by using CTAs and links to the product pages or category pages. Thus, the reach generated by the content does not only stay in the awareness phase and the users are led to the consideration phase. 

2. Keyword analysis 

With a keyword analysis, key or search terms for certain topics can be identified that are most often used by the target group for searching in search engines. The definition of the keywords enables contents to be semantically prepared in such a way that the website achieves a good ranking with these keywords and contents in search engines and thus increases its visibility. Which search terms do potential customers use and what content do they expect in the search results? It is important to meet the user intent, that is, search results must correspond to what users expect from their search. 

The keywords are divided into various types, so they can be used for SEO content topics or can be redirected to transactional landing pages:

With awareness phase keywords, the probability of a conversion is not very high, however, with these keywords and the content tailored to these keywords, traffic can be significantly increased, because: Awareness keywords often have a high search volume. 

Generic keywords and information-driven keywords fall under keywords with a low intention to buy, but with high traffic potential. Generic keywords are all search queries for a product or a brand, such as "curtains" or “lamp”. 

Information-driven search queries often include the W-questions, such as “How can I clean curtains best?”. For the online shop, it is worth considering the following for these keywords: 

• Are there synonyms for the generic keywords, for which the shop should also be found?
• What do users have questions about products that the shop sells or about the brand itself?
• Which questions can the shop answer competently?
• Which pages or sub-pages should be found by the shop when certain questions are searched?

Keywords, which are often associated with a purchase intention and usually have a very high conversion rate are e.g. brand keywords and commercial keywords. Brand keywords include the keywords that contain the company's name. If users are already searching for the exact company, they usually also want to come to the offers and services. The users are already beyond the awareness phase. Commercial keywords are spoken of when a purchase intention becomes clear in the search query, such as with the keyword “buy curtains”. For these keywords, online shops should ask themselves the following questions: 

• For which search terms is the online shop not in the top 3 of the SERPs? 
• Is the online shop found in the SERPs for all brand and commercial keywords? And if not, why is that?

3. Optimization of Search and Rich Snippets

On the basis of the targeted content audit and the keyword analysis, meta tags, i.e. meta-title and descriptions, can then be built and revised. This ensures a clear focus on selected, important keywords for the online store. The optimized meta tags appear as search snippets in the search engine results and provide information about a website or an online store and its products. 

However, to gain even more attention within the search results in addition to the optimized meta tags, rich snippets are helpful. 

In order to receive rich snippets, the product information must be semantically marked using schema.org. Schema.org can mark products, their customer reviews, prices and availability information. Search engines like Google can better perceive, integrate and present these data. 

This way, the snippet in the SERPs can be enlarged to a rich snippet, as it is equipped with this product-related information. This allows retailers to attract a greater attention within the search results. 

But not only for category pages and product pages do rich snippets recommend themselves. They are also suitable for content-packed pages, such as guide pages.

Rich snippets enable online shops to be found through "information-driven queries”. By selecting questions with the help of Schema.org, which are then answered within the guide or expert article. 

Another possibility is to build FAQs directly into the articles or content pages. Thus, these questions along with the answers appear in the search results and immediately catch the users' eye. An effective method to generate attention and an important measure for e-commerce SEO. 

4. Optimization of H-Tags 

The H-Tags serve to structure the contents on the website. The heading tags such as H1-H6 help to correctly mark the headlines. This way, both users and search engines can grasp the contents easier. Furthermore, valuable relevance signals can be transmitted to Google via the H-Tags. In order for the H-Tags to be correctly interpreted and optimized, there are a few things to consider:

• Double H1 tags must be removed. Only the title may be marked as H1, all other subheadings must subsequently be marked with H2-H6.
• H-Tags should be aligned to the exact target keywords of the respective subpage. Thus, both the focus keyword and the secondary keywords (if present) should be used in the (sub)headings. 
• The subheadings should be assigned to a meaningful hierarchy. 

5. Indexing optimization

The next measure for e-commerce SEO is the optimization of indexing. To check and control the indexing of all pages in general, the XML sitemap can be best used. The sitemap provides all the information about its website to the online store. 

Here, all URLs of the website are listed in machine-readable form. In this way, search engines can crawl and index all contents, from product page to category page to content pages. However, it often happens that Google only takes a fraction of the contents provided for indexing. 

This creates a typical indexing problem for online shops: because each page that is not indexed is a lost chance to generate traffic for the website and thus sales. Therefore, the goal should be to get at least all traffic and sales-relevant pages into the index. For this to succeed, there is the possibility of indexing control. 

With the help of Screaming Frog SEO SpiderScreaming Frog

the status quo of indexing can be derived and above all indexing errors can be uncovered. These can then be corrected via the XML sitemap in the Google Search Console. 

Screaming Frog is a popular crawling tool for search engine optimization with many application possibilities. Among other things it offers indexing control and also functions such as Custom Search, Custom Extraction and the connection to the Google Search Console and Google Analytics API.Google Search ConsoleWith Custom Search, you can search for contents within the source code and extract the contents from a website with Custom Extraction. In addition, the connection to the Google AnalyticsGoogle Search Console and Google Analytics

API enables traffic data to be taken directly into

Screaming Frog in order to make prioritizations of contents. Another problem that online shops quickly have to deal with when it comes to indexing and where Screaming Frog can help is “duplicate content”. That is, similar or even identical content under different URLs. 

The simplest way to avoid this is to structure the website in such a way that duplicate content is not created in the first place. This can be achieved by using the meta-robot tag “noindex”, the canonical tag or also the robot.txt. This way, website operators have influence on which pages Google uses to evaluate the website. Another possibility is to change the content of the page in such a way that Google perceives it as unique. 

If duplicate content has already been created, Screaming Frog can help to quickly and easily identify sources for

duplicate content

. For example, duplicate meta-titles and descriptions can indicate duplicate content. To get an overview of all duplicate meta tags, only the pages that have also been indexed by Google should be crawled with Screaming Frog. Pages that are already on Noindex can contain duplicate content without problem, because Google does not recognize this as such, meaning these pages have no impact on the evaluation of the domain of the online shop. Once Screaming Frog has crawled the indexable pages, you get comprehensive data from which you can exactly read which meta-titles and descriptions currently appear twice. 

Another way to discover duplicate content with

Screaming Frog

is the hash value, which is determined from the respective source code. If the contents of the pages are identical, the hash value is also identical. In online shops, duplicate content occurs especially due to product texts being used multiple times. Here, too, Screaming Frog can help, with the Custom-Extraction function. With this function, contents can be completely pulled out of the site and then checked for duplication. This way, it is very easy to check product texts for duplications.6. PageSpeed 

• The PageSpeed is a fixed part of search engine optimization and especially important for online shops and thus e-commerce SEO. At the same time, PageSpeed optimization brings quite a few challenges for online shops. Why the optimization of the PageSpeed
• is still worth it, the following arguments show: Impact on Google ranking

: The PageSpeed affects the ranking in two ways: On one hand directly as a ranking factor of Google and on other hand indirectly through positive user signals, as a fast loading time can improve the usability and thus the user experience. 

Impact on the Conversion Rate

: With the improvement of the user experience, the conversion rate also increases. 

But how can the PageSpeed be improved? 

1. Step: Status analysis

Here the Google PageSpeed Insight Tool comes in handy. With the help of the tool, it is possible to determine a PageSpeed value for each website. This value is on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 standing for the optimal value. 

All values are divided into “bad”, “neutral” and “good”: from 0 to 64 is “bad”, from 65 to 84 is “neutral” and from the value 85, Google gives a “good” rating, 

Based on these values, optimization measures to improve the PageSpeed can subsequently be taken, which the tool additionally indicates separately for mobile and desktop. This way, the online shop can be optimized and a better page load time can be achieved. 

2. Step: Carry out optimization measures

The biggest optimization levers suggested by Google for neutral to negative values ​​are the following:

Optimize JavaScript and CSS rendering

JavaScript and CSS files must be correctly positioned in the source code, otherwise it can happen that the rendering (the page structure) is blocked. If the rendering is blocked, it could happen that the user-visible area (above the fold) takes longer to build up. Users may first see a white page and only after that will the contents be loaded bit by bit from top to bottom. This interferes the user experience significantly. 

To fix this, the rendering path must first be analyzed to then consider optimization possibilities.

Purpose of the optimization measures: To speed up the display of the user-visible area (above the fold). With an analysis of the rendering path, the files responsible for the “above the fold” area can be loaded preferentially. That is, these files should be loaded directly in the head of the page. Other files, which are not responsible for this, can be moved to the end of the source code or even loaded asynchronously.

However, this process can only be implemented with major technical challenges and should be well planned. Because: All javascript and CSS files have to be taken apart and checked precisely. 

Using Browser Caching

In the cache (intermediate storage), the browser saves the page and all its resources when visiting a page. If the page has not changed on the next visit, the browser loads the page directly from this cache. That way, the server does not have to request the resources anew with every site visit and it can save file requests (HTTP requests) that impair the PageSpeed. 

You can quickly and easily activate the browser caching for the .htaccess. So with little effort the PageSpeed can be improved for returning visitors. 

Optimizing images 

Images are some of the biggest resources that a website has to load. So images offer a great potential for optimizing the loading time. For this to work, images must always be optimized and saved and used in the best possible file sizes.File size can be saved on one hand by saving images in the image dimension in which you will use them later. On the other hand, by choosing the right image format you can save file size. The most common image formats that are used on the internet are JPEG and PNG. Both image formats have advantages and disadvantages and it should always be well considered which image format is necessary. Another possibility to save file size with image formats is image compression. Here, the original image is compressed while maintaining the best possible quality in order to save as much file size as possible. 

• Especially important for the online shop are also the following measures of image optimization
• :Lazy loading

: With this technique, images can only be requested from the server when they enter the “above the fold”, i.e. in the visible area of ​​the users. This is worthwhile for pages with many images, such as a grid page with different categories in an online shop. 

Use of WebP

: WebP is an image format developed by Google. With this image format, you can save file size without sacrificing image quality. However, WebP only works under Chrome and Opera. 

Activate compression (GZip)

GZip helps to reduce the transmission size by compressing files when they are delivered from the web server. This compression has the strongest positive influence on the PageSpeed. 

Activating GZip allows the web servers to send the file to the browser in a packed version. The file is then unpacked and opened by the browser. But caution: Files that are already compressed like e.g. images should be excluded from the GZip compression to avoid additional effort.7. Offpage optimization 

SEO and also e-commerce SEO consist of on-page and off-page optimization. On-page optimizations include all optimization measures that can be taken on the website, so technical, structural and content improvements. This also includes the previously mentioned measures for e-commerce website SEO. Another important measure for the SEO of an online shop is now the off-page optimization. Off-page optimization includes all improvement measures that take place outside the website. 

With

• off-page SEO
• above all strong off-page signals should be sent. This can be best achieved with backlinks. With backlinks, external sources link to your own website. Backlinks are an important ranking factor of Google and are therefore an integral part of e-commerce search engine optimization.
• With a backlink analysis, websites can look at their backlinks closely and filter out and answer the following questions: 
• What are bad links and does the website have bad links?

Are the backlinks relevant to the content of the website? Where do the backlinks come from? Are the sources trustworthy and high quality? AhrefsIn the LinkResearchToolsbacklink analysis different SEO toolsSemrush (Jetzt kostenlos testen) can help, among them especially

,

and LinkResearchTools are recommended. Ahrefs enables an extensive and clear backlink profile and establishes a Domain Rate (DR).

Based on this rate, it can be identified how valuable the domain and thus the backlink is. The rule of thumb is: the higher the quality of the domain and the backlink, the better. Because the better search engines like Google value the external source and consequently the backlink, the better these backlinks have an effect on the ranking. 

If the backlink comes from an untrustworthy site that links to your own website without added value and content reference, it is worth checking and considering tearing down the link. Various tools can help to check the quality of the backlinks and the domain. For example, the tool

Link Research Tools (LRT)

creates a list of all harmful backlinks. 

But before it comes to tearing down the link, you should consider further criteria for a decision, because: Backlinks are, as already mentioned, an important ranking factor and the tearing down of a link is an intervention in the link profile. In order to get qualitative and high-quality backlinks, you can generate them strategically through proactive content seeding campaigns. Here, you should only make sure that the off-page measures always appear natural. Conclusion

For e-commerce SEO, you need a well-thought-out strategy and some measures in order to achieve the goal of appearing at the very top in the SERPs. The SEO measures