Webinar: Common challenges with e commerce seo optimisation

Common challenges
with e-commerce SEO
optimisation

© Copyright 2019 Builtvisible. All rights reserved. Private and Confidential
The importance of Content and SEO
Maria Camanes | Technical SEO Consultant | maria@builtvisible.com | @mariacamanes

Google’s Panda Update
• First introduced in February 2011
• Originally it was run approximately
once a month, it is now baked into
core algorithm as a continuous
process
• Last big update happened only a
month ago
• Intended to stop sites with low
quality and duplicate content
from ranking well

Through the eyes of a robot…
• ‘Duplicate content’ simply refers to URLs meeting the following
criteria:
o Return a 200 OK HTTP response status code, indicating that
the requested resource exists
o Are indexed
o Return content that is available via other URLs (duplicate),
or that offers no value to users (thin)
• Can be intended maliciously – e.g. doorway pages – but can also be
accidental

Our goal
To consolidate or eliminate all duplicate, thin or legacy
content.
Every request made by Googlebot should be for a
valuable high-quality resource at its correct and unique
location.

Ecommerce sites have extra challenges to fight with
duplicate content.
Some of the most common issues are…

The same exact page is resolvable via more than one URL
https://www.example.com/browse/category/makeup
https://www.example.com/category/makeup
https://www.example.com/category/makeup/
https://www.example.com/category/Makeup
https://www.example.com/category/make-up
https://www.example.com/category/anything-can-go-here

Same product accessible via different paths
https://www.example.com/category/colour/size/product-name
https://www.example.com/category/size/colour/product-name
https://www.example.com/category-1/product-name
https://www.example.com/category-2/product-name
Solution: enforce a specific facet order for URLs to prevent
a same page being accessed through different paths.
This will prevent from exponentially increasing the number
of URLs created by different facet combinations.
https://www.example.com/category-1/
https://www.example.com/blog/category-1/

Product listing pages with only one or two products
https://www.example.com/category-1
https://www.example.com/category-1/product-name-1
https://www.example.com/category-1/product-name-2
The problem
A number of PLP with only 1 product on them competing with
the product page itself; search engines saw these pages as very
thin/low quality.
The solution
• Don’t create category pages for less than 4 products.
Consolidate categories when possible
• If they have to exist, noindex them
• Improve the category page templates with relevant
content

Promotional pages competing with products & categories
https://www.example.com/c/laura-mercier-caviar-stick
Title: Laura Mercier Caviar Stick
https://www.example.com/p/Laura-Mercier-Caviar-Stick-Matte-Eye-Colour-164g
Title: Laura Mercier Caviar Stick Matte Eye Colour 1.64g

Too similar product pages
This site had 2,690 product pages causing duplicate issues
https://www.example.es/cuentas-corrientes/bancos/novobanco/cuenta-
nbprivate-desde-3000-y-hasta-50000
https://www.example.es/cuentas-corrientes/bancos/novobanco/cuenta-
nbprivate-desde-3000

URL Parameters such as SortBy
www.example.com/discover/devices/sony?SortBy=price
Parameter
Make sure the URL has a clean version that’s linked through the site
Reordering parameters and parameters that are not changing the page content should be
noindexed and blocked in robots.txt

Competing size pages (or colours)
Solution: a strategy should be put in place to consolidate size pages into one strong product page
• Having multiple pages for products in different
sizes presents a challenge for strategically mapping
keywords
• Users rarely search specifically for a size of product,
meaning that more general – and most valuable –
keywords cannot be attributed to one page only
• These pages then compete with one another, with
ranking power diluted between them
• Used at scale, this also creates a bloat of pages,
which will absorb search engines’ crawl budgets
and reduce the frequency of pages’ appraisals

Here are a few other common examples of pages that often have thin
content with little or no added value:
• Automatically generated content
• Product descriptions that are taken from a feed than can be found on
many other sites
• A page that has a little content on it other than elements like the
navigation (e.g. forms, checkout pages, etc.)
• Content from other sources. For example: scraped content or low-
quality guest blog posts
Other common examples to watch out for

What are the issues with duplicated content?

Crawling efficiency: search engines have to crawl more pages on your website.
Pages disappearing from results: in the given scenarios, search engines will be
inclined to remove one of the pages from search results.
Link equity dilution and lower quality score: authority and relevancy (‘SEO benefit’)
is split over several pages.
Penalties and filters: these can be triggered in extreme circumstances.
Cannibalisation: multiple pages competing for the same keyword, resulting in lower
rankings.

How do we tackle duplicate and thin content?
• Canonicalisation
• Noindex tags
• Crawl directives (robots.txt)
• Google Search Console parameter setting
• Is it discoverable via direct links?

Category pages
Optimising category pages for search engines and users

Missing content boxes below product category assets
Range headers on category pages should contain
the most relevant keyword for that department (or
the brand name for brands pages). E.g. ‘Burberry
Face Makeup’ would give search engines more
information than ‘Face’.
Add additional content beneath each range box to
further optimise the pages. E.g. ‘Browse Burberry’s
luxurious range of foundations, primers and
powders for a flawless look’.
This increases the contextual relevancy and allows
more internal linking from the category and brand
page to subcategory pages.
Using unique copy and long tail keywords will help
you to rank higher up the page.

• It can be done below the image or with
‘hover-over’
• Make sure it can be read and indexed (not
image-based)
• Page example:
http://www.debenhams.com/beauty/clarins
Real world solutions

Ideal category page structure
H1 (containing the main targeted keyword).
E.g. ‘Burberry cosmetics’
If you need to template these, just use the
category title for category pages. If you’ve done
your homework correctly, these should also be
keyword-focused.
Make sure there’s only one H1 on each page.
Make sure the H1 is unique to each page.
H2s (containing the linked-to page’s
main targeted keyword). Also linkable.
E.g. ‘Body care products’
H3s – product
snippets (including
the brand name
when relevant)

Banner text non-readable
As search engines read pages from top to bottom and left to right, this banner is the first component
they will read, so it would be better to include readable html content as well as an image.

Descriptions/content snippets on category pages
• Add a description on category pages and ensure
that search engines are crawling this content
• It should be unique (not a duplicate of the brand’s
own ‘about us’ page) and relevant (contain brand,
category and product keywords)
• As well as being an introduction to the
category/brand, this content should give search
engines a good indication as to when they should
land users on this page
• Good for users too, as it tells them more about the
category or products they’re viewing
Include unique descriptions and content snippet at the top of category pages

Prioritise the most important pages
Prioritise:
• Pages that already rank in the top 10
for at least one keyword
• Top-revenue generators
• Most profitable
• Products and categories
approaching seasonality peak
Add links to related categories /
subcategories
Tips:
• Include your primary keyword
• Sprinkle in some of the long-tail
keyword variations (where
appropriate)
• Include action words (e.g., buy,
click, learn, sale, free, etc.)
Add links to related categories / subcategories

How to overcome design limitations
Challenge: link to subcategories at the top of the page without disrupting the user’s journey

Top products or bestsellers
Highlight your top products and most viewed items in each
category, subcategory and brand page

Cross-link contextually relevant categories
• Will allow you to include
more links outside of the
breadcrumb trail
• Increases the link equity
coming through to these
pages (which will ultimately
increase their rankings)
• Increases the relevancy of
these pages and signals the
relevancy between them
“Related categories” snippet at the bottom of each category page (or sidebar)

Allow customers to see the products on a ‘quick view’
• Allow customers to see the products on
a ‘quick view’ without having to leave
the page
• Customers like to make the comparison
between many products quickly right
on PLPs
• They wish to take a glance at several
products before they decide visiting a
product page
• It costs time to load new pages, which
makes customers feel inconvenient and
impatient
• E.g. Debenhams

Enrich category pages and increase CTR
• Rating stars
• Available colours
• Available sizes
• Save for later
• Discounted price
• Offers
• Signal new arrivals
and low stock

Show availability
• Show stock availability as early as possible, to make obvious which products are/aren’t available and stop
customers becoming frustrated (by clicking through several options to choose a size before finding it is out of
stock)
• Keep temporarily out-of-stock product pages live. You don’t want to frustrate users with a 404 page, and
search engines will consider those as broken links
• Just leave page as is and specify its status. Introduce other related products
• Add an “email me when back in stock” message

A few other things to bear in mind
• Follow a keyword mapping strategy to avoid cannibalisation issues between category
pages
• When creating category ranges, you need to consider what search terms you want each
page to rank for and optimise it to target those
• Avoid creating unnecessary ‘thin’ pages, for less than ~4 products
For a category page to exist and be indexed it should:
1. Have enough products assigned (something above 4 is OK in most cases)
2. Have unique meta data and content
3. Answer search demand (if there are no searches, doesn’t have an SEO purpose)

Site architecture

Site architecture (or how the pages on your site are organised and arranged) is
an important SEO consideration for ANY site.
But it’s doubly important for ecommerce sites - because average ecommerce
sites tend to have significantly more pages than other sites.
With that many pages, it’s critical that your site architecture makes it easy for
users and search engines to find all of your pages.

Site structure (and internal linking strategy) is an art in itself.
It should be based on extensive keyword research and
audience profiling

Best Practice
• You want your category and product pages to be as easily-accessible to visitors as possible
• That’s why the general rule is that pages should be no more than ~3 clicks away from your
homepage
Good structure = homepage > categories > subcategories > products
But while this is a good
rule of thumb (especially
for smaller ecommerce
sites), it’s not always
possible.… especially
with large sites.
Make sure none of your
IMPORTANT pages are
more than three clicks
from your homepage

But how do you find deep pages on your site?

Authority flows through the links on your website
Most of the links that point to ecommerce sites point to their homepage

When you have a “deep” site architecture, that authority is
diluted by the time it reaches your product and category pages
Pages at higher click depth (further “down” the
architecture) receive less additional PageRank,
which might mean they’re crawled infrequently
(if ever).
This reduces the likelihood of a new page being
discovered (which contributes negatively to the
long tail traffic driving performance of the site
overall).
It also reduces the likelihood a product page
being recrawled.
The pages might rank, but at a threshold far
below the 10 to 20 positions unlikely to drive any
meaningful traffic at all.
Pro Tip: If your site already has a less-than-ideal setup, don’t start moving
pages and around until you’ve consulted with an SEO pro and a developer.
They’ll make sure that old pages redirect to new pages…

Why internal links are important?
• Lead your customers from one page to another
• The more link juice that a page receives, the better
for SEO
• They build authority and relevancy between linked
pages
• They help establish a hierarchy on the site and also
give context to search engines
• Through optimised anchor text we can help page
become more relevant for targeted queries
All of this seems obvious but internal linking represents one of the
biggest challenges for ecommerce sites.
This is due to the size of the sites, along with CMS and page
templates limitations.

*
Organic visibility for related keywords increased sharply after links were added
Internal linking can will lead to positive changes

Link to high priority pages
• Use strategic internal linking to boost your high priority pages’ rankings
• You want to internally link FROM authoritative pages TO high-priority product and
category pages
• E.g. you have an informational piece of content that has hopefully attracted a fair
few links. Internally link from that content to one or more pages you want to boost
Make sure you’re linking to
relevant internal pages ONLY
Link to a product or category page
(these are the pages you’re
ultimately trying to boost, as they
directly convert to revenue for
your business)

Link to your deepest (product) pages too
Deep links to internal
pages on the site
(product pages)

Use breadcrumbs
• They help robots and spiders to find their way back to your homepage
• They also help users track where they are on your website and gives them a sense
of direction when navigating from one page to another
• Place them at the top of the page, below the header area
• People expects them to be there
• Content lower in the page is devalued
They’ll show a string of webpages, from your homepage to the current page you are currently viewing

Link to related products on your product pages
Misguided use related categories, and popular styles links to
improve their category level architecture.
• Add a section that recommends related
products to your customers, to crosslink
products that share the same theme
• Not only it helps generate backlinks, it can
also boost your sales
Real world examples:
• Popular products in this category
• Related (complimentary) products and
accessories
• Related category links
• Users who viewed this item eventually
bought
• Top rated / recently reviewed items
• Frequently searched items / categories

Trending seasonal links calendar
Quick win: improve revenue without having to increase rankings
• Link to your most searched for products &
categories
• By gathering search volumes and impressions data
through the year, you can create a seasonality peak
calendar for when your categories & products are
most searched for
• Create a ‘trending seasonal links calendar’ and
make sure these are linked ahead of their peak
season
• Prioritise top revenue generators & most profitable
• They’ll convert better during their peak time, so this
is a quick way to improve revenue without having to
increase rankings
• Not only for SEO, but other channels too!
Maria Camanes | Technical SEO Consultant | maria@builtvisible.com

Other things to consider for internal linking
• Use the target keyword(s) of the destination page as the anchor text of the link (but
don’t over optimise!)
• Avoid non-descriptive anchor text such as “more info” or “click here”
• Optimise but vary the anchor text of these links
• Link placement is also important: top vs bottom, copy vs sidebars, etc.
• Try to include some links to
related pages in the body copy
of other pages
• Videos can have links too
• Avoid having orphan pages

Product retirement strategy

• Seasonal products/categories and
recurring events (e.g. Christmas,
Black Friday, etc.):
• Out of stock products: products
which are not available - either
temporarily or permanently, which
should be treated differently:
• Discontinued
products/brands/categories
• Temporarily unavailable
Several types of products
How to manage different types of out of stock product varies

• Plan this in advance, before any season starts, because ranking in organic results will take time
and you’ll need to make sure any new pages are optimised, with proper keyword research,
keyword targeting, etc.
• Any hub page URLs for these events should be left live and indexable, so you are able to retain
their ranking value
• If you redirect them elsewhere (or remove them) you will lose the rankings and next year you’ll
have to start all over again
• For this reason you shouldn’t have years in URLs (e.g. www.example.com/black-Friday-2018)
• Any past event page URLs should be redirected to the hub page for that event, so you don’t
confuse search engines as to which page to crawl and rank
Seasonal products/categories and recurring events
High competitive products/categories that are for only a specific period of time. E.g. Christmas, Black Friday

When products are discontinued, the status is usually changed to NLS (No Longer Show) or
dormant which will remove it from the site (no internal links pointing to them any more).
You’ll also need to (by order of priority):
• 301 redirect to relevant products
• 301 redirect to parent category
• 301 redirect to homepage
• Apply 410 Status Code that notifies search engine bots about the deletion of the page – if no
backlinks only
Products which are not available permanently
Discontinued products/brands/categories

Don’t delete, redirect or replace the page. Keep all the links to this page too (including the main menu and category
pages)
For users:
• Put a clear message that the product/category/brand will arrive soon and display some related products
• Add an email form that can notify the visitor once the stock is back
For search engines:
• Add a noindex tag to the page, until products are back to stock. Put some rules that will automatically add this tag
to the relevant pages:
• After 30 days of a certain product/category/brand being empty, set to noindex automatically
• If, after 30 days more (so 60 in total), product is not available or category is still empty, 301 redirect it to the
parent category page
Temporarily unavailable
This time stamp has worked for previous clients but might not be suitable for your site (e.g. products might take more than 30 days to
come back, in which case, the time stamp should be extended accordingly).
Noindex tag recommendation doesn’t apply to highly competitive terms (e.g. ‘Christmas’ or ‘Black Friday’) which will fall into the first
group (seasonal products/categories and deals).

Internal linking inconsistency can have a really high impact, as removing the link means:
• No link equity flowing down to the page
• Which will eventually loss its authority
• When the product is back in stock, this page will have to acquire it again
• This will hold back performance of product pages
Recommended approach:
• Display the product in the category
page (including the link to the product
page) if it’s going to come back at some
point and mark it down as “Out of
stock”
• Out of stock products could be moved
to the end on the category page if you
don’t want to disrupt user’s journey
when too many products are sold out
Why you should keep the link

Resources
5 essential ecommerce rich snippets for your store – Moz
Ecommerce category pages SEO – Reliablesoft.net
Product page optimisation for SEO – Builtvisible
What online retail marketers need to know to succeed in SEO
(whitepaper) - Builtvisible

Thank you!

Webinar: Common challenges with e commerce seo optimisation

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