Getting discovered on the first page of Google search results is an uphill task for most e-commerce websites. One latest data reveals that there are 12 to 24 million e-commerce websites in the world. Many of them do their best to rank on search engine result pages (SERP) but only a handful of them make it to the first page.
Are you looking to improve your online shopping website’s rank on Google SERP? Look no further. At PeddleWeb, we have helped many e-tailers get their websites to rank prominently on the world’s largest search engine. The key is to comply with Google’s e-commerce SEO best practices.
In this blog post, we have detailed the best practices for online shopping websites in Google search that will help you in getting your e-commerce site found on Google. Read on to know more.
- Know the channels where the e-commerce content will appear on Google
Google has six main channels where it can display e-commerce products. They are:
- Google Search
- Google Images
- Google Shopping tab
- Google Lens
- Business Profile
- Google Maps
Crafting relevant e-commerce content on a specific channel can display an e-commerce website and its products to target users and prospective customers.
- Create the right type of e-commerce content for specific customer needs
Crafting the right type of e-commerce content can enable an e-commerce website to cater to specific customer needs. Apart from product data, other types of information can be valuable for customers.
- Business story: The story behind the company’s creation and its purpose will enable customers to know the reason behind the business’s existence as well as its mission and vision. It can provide customers with a reason to make buying decisions.
- Product descriptions and catalogs: It will provide in-depth information about the products listed on the website. Adding relevant keywords in the catalogs and PDs will also match the search queries that customers use while looking for similar products.
- Category descriptions: Include category descriptions to match generic search terms that customers use while looking for related products.
- Special offers: These are crucial to show the offers and deals that customers are looking for. This will help customers to find out the best deals and
- Customer and merchant product reviews: Accept reviews from customers and merchants to display social proof and enable visitors to know the products better.
- Education opportunities: Businesses can share lessons and tutorials or can inform about workshops. This is crucial to enhance engagement with visitors and target customers.
- Customer support touchpoints: As an e-commerce company it’s crucial to emphasize customer service points and create necessary return and shipping policies.
- Share product data with Google
Google uses structured data to show the most accurate and appropriate results. Developers can share e-commerce product data with the search engine by adding structured data to the product pages of their websites as well as by submitting product feeds to Google Merchant Center (a free Google service that has an in-depth understanding of commerce data). Structured data can help the search engine know what a product page is all about and show it as a relevant result. The more structured data a product page has the higher its chance to get displayed for the related search terms.
- Roll out the e-commerce website
The next step is to roll out the e-commerce website. Google enables e-commerce businesses to choose from its four rollout types, which are listed below.
- Grand reveal: This launches the complete website to the public and the search engine simultaneously.
- Homepage launch: Only the homepage is accessible to the public and the search engine.
- Launch without product availability: In this, the entire site is live to the public and the search engine but the products are out of stock
- Soft launch: Before it’s officially live, the entire site gets an early launch as soon as it’s ready.
To ensure the search engine gets access to your site during the launch, take the following steps.
- Verify site ownership using Google Search Console.
- Enable the site available for indexing and monitor how the search engine indexes it.
- Provide all key business details to the search engine.
- Sign up for Google Merchant Center.
- Collect and publish product reviews
Google announced its first version of the product review update in April 2021 and since then it has launched two more updates, the latest being March 2022 Product Reviews Update. It intends to promote reviews on the search engine result pages. To enhance the visibility of the site, gather high-quality product reviews and publish those on product pages. If possible, give additional social proofs such as images, videos, audio, and URLs.
Also, while recommending some specific products add proofs to back the claims. Leverage affiliate links to reward the review creators after customers go through the reviews and use the link to make a purchase decision. Credible and high-quality reviews can enable customers to know more about a product and help them choose the right products for their budget and requirements.
- Streamline the URL structure for your web pages
A streamlined and well-optimized URL structure enables search engine bots to crawl and index the website efficiently. There are several ways to streamline your e-commerce site’s URL. First of all, make sure that each page has the least number of alternate URLs. It’s best to use a single URL for the same content and ensure a uniform case for the entire text. After that, use a self-referencing canonical tag and add a canonical product URL on variant pages.
- Optimize the site structure
After streamlining the URL structure for each web page, optimize the site structure. The search engine can determine a website’s most effective content by studying the internal links and understanding how one page is related to another. An e-commerce website’s navigation configuration, which includes cross-page links and menus, can affect its site structure. Therefore, it is crucial to optimize it by making some necessary modifications. Focus on internal linking and ensure that the site navigation is crawler-friendly. To enable the search engine to know the importance of your products on the site promote the best products and categories.
- Handpick the best user experience for your e-commerce website
Google rolled out Google Page Experience Update and made the user experience a major ranking signal. To enhance visibility and rank high on the search engine’s result pages, you need to select the best user experience pattern for your e-commerce website. Google offers three UX patterns.
- Pagination: This enables users to navigate between pages by clicking on page numbers or cues and links such as “first” and “last” or “previous” and “next.”
- Load more: This enables users to see more results on a web page.
- Scroll: This enables users to get more results as they scroll on.
To Conclude,
By implementing the best practices you can help Google to crawl and index your e-commerce website effortlessly and efficiently. The products and the content will feature prominently when customers enter the relevant search terms. At PeddleWeb, we have helped many e-commerce businesses in enhancing their websites’ visibility and rank. If you want to know how we can help, feel free to connect with our team of SEO experts today.
