What Are The Most Common E-Commerce SEO Mistakes?

I’ve had the opportunity to review thousands of E-commerce sites and the majority of poorly optimized sites are making the same common E-commerce SEO mistakes…

ecommerce seo mistakes

Want to know the secret to running a successful e-commerce website? It’s traffic.

The more traffic your site has, the more sales you’ll generate. While you can always pay for traffic, however, a more cost-effective solution is to optimize your site for higher search rankings. Doing so can send tons of qualified prospects to your site at no additional cost. But you’ll want to steer clear of the following SEO pitfalls when optimizing your e-commerce site for higher search rankings.

 

No Product Descriptions

It’s not uncommon for e-commerce stores to pull product data from other sources, such as a distributor’s database. In some instances, product descriptions are automatically filled out. In other cases, they are left blank. Conventional wisdom should lead you to believe that not many visitors will purchase your products if they are missing descriptions.

 

Even if your product descriptions are automatically filled, however, it’s still a good idea to edit them so they are completely, or at least mostly, unique. So, go through your site and make sure each product has a thorough and relevant description.

Duplicate Content

Another SEO pitfall associated with e-commerce websites is the potential for duplicate content. Google has said in the past that small amounts of duplicate content won’t negatively affect a site’s search ranking. Nonetheless, it can still cause problems, as search engines won’t know which page to index.

 

Here are some tips to avoid duplicate content:

 

  • Consolidate pages with similar content together.
    (A great example would be to create one product page with options instead of a dozen product pages that all essentially look the same)
  • Use consistent URL formats.
  • Minimize boilerplate content.
  • Use 301 redirects when restructuring your site.
  • Make use of canonicalization.
  • Create unique product descriptions.

 

Page Titles Aren’t Unique

Make sure each and every page is given a unique title. According to the search marketing experts at Moz, the title tag is the single most important SEO element. Search engines display the title tag as part of their search listings, and it’s also displayed in visitor’s web browser. Create title tags that are unique while describing the page’s content and/or product. And remember, keep your page titles under 60 characters for maximum search visibility.

 

Nondescript URLs

A fourth SEO pitfall that you’ll want to avoid when developing your e-commerce website is using generic, nondescript URLs. If you have a page that sells diamond engagement rings, for instance, it’s best to avoid generic URLs like yoursite.com/?p=1889313. Granted, search engines will still crawl, and probably index, this type of URL, but it’s not properly optimized. A better solution is to base your URLs around the respective product, such as yoursite.com/diamond-engagement-rings. Both search engines and visitors will notice these descriptive URLs, helping you achieve a higher search ranking for the product name.

No Product Reviews

About 70% of buyers are looking for reviews of products on online stores or forums before making a purchase.

Reviews are a biggie, Why? Reviews provide many seo benefits such as; more content for search engines, improved ability to target those long tail keywords, and increased click through rate. Reviews are truly the powerhouse of pushing your product pages to the top of search.