Everybody makes mistakes. Making and then finding mistakes help you to learn and plan for improvement. However, some eCommerce SEO mistakes will take a significant toll on your business and, as a result, must be avoided at all costs.
When your eCommerce website isn’t producing the desired results, it’s time to sit down and carefully fix any SEO blunders. Because of the complex mechanism of eCommerce SEO and constantly changing search engine algorithms, technical or human mistakes are likely to occur now and again.
7 Common eCommerce SEO Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
Here are seven typical eCommerce SEO mistakes to consider and steps to avoid them.
1. Not Monitoring Any Technical Changes to Google’s and Bing’s Search Algorithms
This may cause a sharp decline in your website’s visibility and ranks. It should be emphasized that Google and Bing occasionally make technical modifications and notify audiences via their social media accounts. Numerous eCommerce SEO research and reporting websites also publish information about search engine algorithm updates, which is worth following.
For instance, Google modified its search algorithm in July 2022 to give review sites more prominence and then again in August to focus on helpful content. Although not always directly related to eCommerce websites, the review modification is aimed at the increasingly popular long-form product review websites. As a result, many review sites full of subpar and incomplete content will be significantly impacted. Therefore, you should examine similar updates for eCommerce sites and cooperate with modified algorithms.
The helpful content update will impact many websites, eCommerce included, especially those that use content marketing to help drive awareness and engagement. However, missing the key directions of these updates can put your site behind the curve regarding what Google values and rewards in search engine results.
2. Failing to Optimize Your Website for Mobile-Friendliness
Many users prefer browsing on their mobile devices, so sites need to be optimized for mobile-friendliness. Since 2015, Google’s ranking algorithm has prioritized mobile friendliness and responsive website design. Therefore, website owners must make site component changes if necessary and continuously ensure compatibility with mobile devices.
A few elements that greatly aid and improve mobile-friendliness for eCommerce websites include:
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- Calls to action
- Streamlined navigation
- High-quality and helpful thumbnails
- Simplifying guest checkouts
- Image optimization,
- Related product suggestions
- Geo-location consideration
- Easily accessible support and contact information
3. Not Working With Core Web Vitals Parameters
Core Web Vitals (CWV) are essential for site rankings in search engines (particularly Google) but are often disregarded by inexperienced website owners. If you want your audience to have a seamless experience on your eCommerce site, understanding CWV is crucial. Key elements such as page performance and page loading speed are measured in CWV.
Properly adjusted Core Web Vital metrics have key benefits such as:
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- Faster website loading times
- Browser assistance to enable quicker responses to user input
- Lessening the dominance of content that takes a longer time to load on a browser
In addition, Core Web Vitals give you precise, quantifiable datasets to enhance your website’s overall user experience. For example, users with a better website speed experience will be more inclined to revisit and shop generously. If more support is needed for adjusting Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), there’s also the option to request help from a specialist.
That image-heavy post you created years ago about beautiful birthday cakes may have done well for you in the past. Still, without proper optimization, those images will create significant page load slowdowns that could hurt your site.
4. Using Reproduced and Plagiarized Content Across Categories and Products
An eCommerce site is vast, and as a result, several categories and products may develop over time. Unfortunately, as new content is added, website owners often take shortcuts using copied or plagiarized material, even if it’s not intentional. After all, you’ve been given the product description from the manufacturer, so why not use it? While it seems like a quick solution, duplicated and poor-quality content seriously harms an eCommerce website in the long run.
According to current SEO trends, original content is critical for good SEO results, more website visitors, and higher rates of conversions. Professional content writers and copywriters are qualified to produce search engine-friendly original content, which is why you should hire them (particularly for creating category and goods descriptions)
5. Not Optimizing URLs and Internal Linking Structure
If your internal content linking is poor, your content and web page will likely not rank in search engines. So, how do you optimize your URLs and content properly?
Creating relevant content and pages help with content linking. To enhance internal linking, anchor text linking is also essential. You should include internal links to the author’s bio, bookmarking links, help and support links, and other informative content.
4 Steps To Optimize Your Ecommerce Website URLs
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Fix Your URL Slug
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Your URLs can be made simpler by eliminating extraneous words and capital letters. To separate words, SEO specialists employ hyphens in URL slugs. The primary goal is to keep the URL slug readable, and it’s crucial to include relevant keywords in the slug.
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Integrate Mobile URLs to Sitemap
Search engine algorithms are constantly changing. Nowadays, it can be told which web pages are mobile-friendly or not by adding mobile URLs to the sitemap. As the usage of mobile devices skyrocketed, such mobile URLs appeared to rank better in SERPs.
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Utilizing Canonical Tags
Search engines use canonical tags to recognize URLs with higher authority. This is important to keep in mind if your website has duplicate content, as it might result in Google disqualification (especially if the tag is missing or ignored).
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Using 301 Redirects
All websites with internal linking and content benefit from 301 redirects. This assists search engine bots in diverting traffic to alternative URLs when the original URL or page is no longer accessible.
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6. eCommerce SEO-based Websites Need Content on a Vast Scale
The king of SEO is content, and eCommerce is the king of all commerce. Therefore, an eCommerce site should include a variety of subjects–in addition to the product description–like “Top Selling Products,” “How To Get Help or Support,” and “How to Avail Discounts,” for example. Providing visitors with information or content that meets their needs is always a good idea.
Furthermore, great content generates quality organic traffic while increasing brand recognition and loyalty. You should be aware that well-curated content is also necessary for off-page SEO. By creating content for both on-page and off-page SEO, you’ll increase traffic and, as a result, the number of transactions that appear in your eCommerce dashboard.
7. Your Site Is Missing an SSL Certificate
Even if your website doesn’t feature a checkout page, login pages, or any other data-specific field, an SSL Certificate will help your site rank higher in search engines (according to digital marketing professionals and security specialists).
An SSL Certificate is a crucial ranking consideration because it guarantees the security of customer data. Private information–such as a credit card number–is more likely to be breached and misused if your e-Commerce platform lacks an SSL Certificate.
Wrapping Up
While it’s crucial to prevent these seven eCommerce SEO mistakes, it’s no secret that eCommerce sites commonly encounter design and SEO errors. So keep these common mistakes in mind and, if necessary, seek the assistance of eCommerce SEO specialists for an extra layer of support.
