7 E-Commerce SEO Mistakes & How to Fix Them #DeepSEOCon

#ecommerceseo at #deepseocon by @aleyda from @orainti
7 E-Commerce SEO
Mistakes
 
… and how to Solve Them

Organic search is the bigger traffic driver to
online stores, even well known ones, after direct
amazon.com ebay.com etsy.com bestbuy.com target.com homedepot.com
semrush

The biggest e-
commerce platforms
acknowledge this
and have started to
provide more SEO
related
functionalities..

However, e-commerce sites characteristics
 
make them challenging to optimize for search…
A high number of
pages due to
products volume
Complex
categorization
Constant URLs
changing status
due to dynamic
inventory
Same products
information than
other Websites

… as they generate fundamental SEO issues!
 
Crawl budget
problems
Content
cannibalization
issues
Internal linking
challenges
Poor content
pages that won’t
rank

Online stores are
great to improve
your abilities to
tackle SEO issues at
scale to achieve
results

Let’s see 7 common e-commerce
SEO errors & how to fix them

1. No-Indexed sub-categories or
facets pages with traffic potential

2. Un-linked sub-categories or facet
pages with traffic potential

Many e-commerce won’t rank for popular terms as
they’ll noindex sub-categories or facets by default…

Some sites canonicalize all their sub-categories or
facets to their main categories…

… or even block them from being crawled!

to avoid content duplication & control crawl budget,
some also noindex & obfuscate their internal links too

However, subcategories & facets can connect with
popular searches with high commercial intent

If your sub-categories/facets can’t rank, your
products pages will do it instead but worse…

.. with inconsistent rankings between many “somewhat
relevant” product pages cannibalizing each other

… main categories will also rank instead in other
scenarios but will have poorer conversions too

Should you index a sub-category or facet page?
Index
Noindex
No
Are there enough
products at the sub-
category/facet level
to satisfy the user
need?
No
Yes
Yes
Demand
Supply
The sub-category/facet
has enough search
volume to compensate
their optimization
This is why is
recommended than
rather than no
indexing by default,
to validate the
supply and demand
of each sub-
category/facet to
assess their
potential

It’s fundamental to
develop a keyword
research to identify
the search volume
related to each sub-
category/facet…

.. as well as the
number of
unique products
offered per sub-
category/facet
to satisfy the
demand

>
If there’s a demand and supply that compensates sub-
categories and facets optimization, index them!

Don’t link to
canonicalized
Category URLs
… without forgetting to allow their crawling and
effectively link them through their canonical URLs

3. Internal search results pages that
cannibalize and won’t rank well

Some e-commerce sites still index their internal
search results pages to attract rankings & traffic..

… allowing
also their
crawling
without any
constraint

The issue here
is that we can
end up easily
ranking for
non-relevant
terms..

Causing content duplication with categories/sub-
categories/facets that are indexable & meant to rank

… that end up being cannibalized in Google search
results by these other pages…

Ranking in
worse
positions than
a category/
sub-category/
facet that
feature more
comprehensive
content & are
better linked

To avoid this,
some sites decide
to canonicalize
from their internal
search results
pages to their
alternate
categories/sub-
categories/facets
…

… although the
best is to 301-
redirect internal
search results to
their relevant
categories/sub-
categories/facets
pages

Instead of directly
indexing them,
monitor your
internal searches
to identify
categories/facets
with potential to
create and index

4. Categories and sub-categories
pages with little unique
commercial content to rank

As we saw before, categories/sub-categories/facets
connect with some of the most important searches…

However, many of these
pages only feature links to
products, without any
descriptive text, which
makes them hard to rank
https://www.mariehaynes.com/john-mueller-podcast-transcription/

A common approach is to
add descriptive text at
the end of the products
listings to improve their
relevance without hurting
conversion…

The problem is that many times this content is not
really useful and doesn’t connect with user intent…
John Mueller:

Sometimes entire articles
are placed at the bottom of
the products listings, with
an informational intent, not
commercial

John Mueller:
This type of text can end up confusing Google about
the nature/intent of the categories pages …

It’s then fundamental to
develop a keyword
research to identify the
questions that are made
in this phase of the
purchasing journey to
clarify customers doubts
Semrush, sistrix

Frase
You can use
content
optimization tools
that offer relevant
suggestions
depending on
content nature

Supporting categories/facets pages to sell better too
 
Confirming
users that they
products they’re
seeing are the best
for their scenario
Clarify any
doubt around the
use and
characteristics of
the products
Inform why
they’re in the best
place to buy these
products
https://www.aleydasolis.com/en/search-engine-optimization/optimizing-content-in-category-pages-while-keeping-its-commercial-nature/

Integrating them with
the necessary visibility
within the listing to
fulfill their role with
users too

Check this Glenn’s
case study showing
how cutting “fluff”
content in e-
commerce content
impacted in better
rankings
https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/ecommerce-category-description-case-study/

5. Products pages with poor unique
descriptive content

Product pages target a very long tail of queries that
can end up generating most of your traffic

Users also tend
to share
products pages
more than
categories, so
they attract
valuable
backlinks and
direct traffic too

However,
products pages
also tend to show
little unique
content that and
Google tend to
leave them out of
their index due to
that too

This is why is
fundamental to
enhance products
pages with valuable
information, that
describe the product
and help to sell,
supporting the
customer decision
making process
Unique
descriptions
Comparisons Q&As
Reviews
Complementary
Products
Similar
Products

Title & Meta
Description
with version
and Color
Product
Description
with version
and color
Product
Heading with
version and
Color
VS
Start by differentiating similar products using their
specific characteristics within the metadata…
Product
Heading with
version and
Color
Title & Meta
Description
with version
and Color
Product
Description
with version
and color

Leveraging
automated
content
generation tools
to advance faster
as an input to
copywriters
copy.ai & neural text

If you have many identical or very similar products
with a very short lifespan..

It’s better to
consolidate them
in “static"
products
aggregator pages
that offer the
different products
of the same type,
brand,
characteristics of
different sellers

6. Products pages with backlinks
and traffic that generate errors or
are inconsistently redirected

Some products
URLs tend to
have a very
short lifespan
and end up
generating
errors…

.. these don’t only affect the site crawl health, but its
rankings and traffic attracted by these pages

It’s common when analyzing products URLs to find
not only HTTP errors but redirects with issues..

This is why is fundamental to establish rules and
criteria to manage their crawling and indexing…

Before creating
a new URL,
establish
validations to
verify if the
product existed
in the past, and
use the old
URL…

When doing a product “pre-launch”, use the same
URL that the product page will have when is sold…

Remember to list products in the relevant and
indexable categories/sub-categories/facets ….

Don’t link to
canonicalized
Product URLs
… and link to them using their canonical URLs,
avoiding canonicalized ones

https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/product
Use product structured data to specify their
characteristics and improve their SERP snippet

https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/7439058?hl=en
Create and send products feeds through the
merchant center to maximize their visibility

When a
product is out
of stock,
eliminate its
inclusion in
listings, XML
sitemaps and
feeds

If it’s a temporary
status: the product
page should be
kept indexable,
allowing users to
be notified when is
back to stock,
offering similar
products

The product structured data and feeds should be
updated and show their out of stock status too

If it’s permanently out of stock, and the product has
 
a new version, 301-redirect towards it
301 redirect to new
product page, while
alerting users.
 
 
Update internal links, XML
sitemaps and product
feeds

Add a
notification
explaining to the
user why it’s
being redirected
… if there isn’t a new product version, but the page
has backlinks, traffic, rankings: 301 redirect to category

Don’t do
this
Avoid
302 temporary
redirects that
don’t pass the
former page
popularity and/
or redirect to a
non-relevant
category page
Don’t do
this

Don’t show 404 http errors for out of stock products
with backlinks: you’ll lose value + is bad experience

Personalize
the error
page offering
alternatives to
make it usable
You can use 404s/410s in pages out of stock that
don’t have traffic, rankings, nor backlinks

Al internal links, search pages, XML Sitemaps & feeds
should eliminate these unavailable products URLs

Establish rules in your store platform for each of
these scenarios, to configure accordingly
https://www.aleydasolis.com/en/search-engine-optimization/ecommerce-seo-issues-how-to-fix/

ryte
Set recurring automated crawls to identify still
existing issues and solve them too

Use real
time monitoring
systems to
perform this
identification
much more
quickly,
receiving alerts
too
Little Warden & Content King

You can integrate
traffic and ranking
data to only get
alerts of those
pages with a
minimum value
Little Warden & Content King

7. Not establishing a full Web
structure allowing to connect
through all customer journey

There is high traffic potential beyond categories
pages in the buyer journey: brands, comparisons, etc.

Many e-commerce sites don’t feature Web areas &
content that allow to rank for more relevant queries
Brand hub Model comparisons Gift Cards

It’s key to
develop a keyword
research and content
audit, that allows to
map all the different
queries types during
the buying journey
with a relevant areas/
content type that
satisfies their need
Guides/articles
Brand page
Comparison page
…..

To help, I’ve created this reference for e-commerce
sites, to avoid forgetting relevant queries types…
https://www.aleydasolis.com/en/search-engine-optimization/keyword-mapping-cheatsheet/

… you can also see examples of known online stores
for each and copy/paste from Google sheets
https://www.aleydasolis.com/en/search-engine-optimization/keyword-mapping-cheatsheet/

Really?

Following the previous advice is how you’ll minimize
these most common issues..
Crawl budget
problems
Content
cannibalization
issues
Internal linking
challenges
Poor content
pages that won’t
rank

…

and maximize
your organic
search results
results to
achieve your
sales goals

www.orainti.com
Thanks! Questions?
orainti.com
I’m Aleyda Solis

* SEO Consultant & Founder at Orainti

* SEO Speaker at +100 Events in +20 countries

* Author “SEO. Las Claves Esenciales.”

* Crawling Mondays Video & Podcast Series Host

* #SEOFOMO Newsletter Wrangler

* Maker LearningSEO.io

* European Search Personality of the Year in 2018

* remoters.net Co-Founder

7 E-Commerce SEO Mistakes & How to Fix Them #DeepSEOCon

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