8 Practical SEO Tips for eCommerce Websites

Barry Adams © by sk8geek

SEO for eCommerce is particular important because there is often little content on the site. While the search engines don’t particular dislike sales sites, they do value original and unique content that adds value to readers. For that reason, on site SEO for eCommerce sites is extremely valuable. Here are a few tips to help optimize your eCommerce site for search engines.

1. Place keywords in your title tags

Keywords are undoubtedly the single most important on site attribute for SEO. Keywords in your title help the search engine and your prospective customers understand what the page is about. Ideally, you’ll never want to use a word more than twice, keep it between 3 and 8 words, and use your most important keywords first. It’s usually also a good idea to place your web site or brand name at the end of the title.

       2. Use keywords in the URL structure

This is similar to the reasoning above. Keywords in your URL structure signal to search engines that your page is relevant to the searcher.

        3. Use custom product descriptions.

Nothing will kill your SEO faster than copied manufacturer product descriptions or poorly written content. It remains important to use keywords but it’s most important that it’s unique. When content is unique, it helps establish a site as an authority. However, don’t just write for the search engines. You’ll also have to remember that your trying to convert your visitors into customers so make sure the descriptions really Wow!

         4.  Allow Product Reviews from Users

Google loves reviews. It signals that you are allowing others to leave non biased reviews. It also will aid in Google crawling your site more frequently because they’ll be looking for updates to those reviews. Additionally, customers are far more likely to buy a product that has reviews, even if they are less than favorable.

         5. Use Alt Image Tags

While this is not the most important on page element, it should be utilized. Google and other search engines cannot read images so they look to the alt tag. It’s a relatively easy tag to implement also

         6. Use Social Media

Social media is helping to transform the web and SEO as we know it. While social media is not enough to help a site rank on its own, it does help in indexation and brand awareness. Encourage your prospective customers and paying customers to share your content, images and links. Doing so will help create authority and an active role in the online community.

These are just a few tips to help your site rank better. What other things do you do to improve rankings and/or get new customers?

Joe operates a TheBuyFly, a site that offers iPhone 4 and iPad cases as well as various mobile accessories. He also frequently writes at Entrepreneur Addict, a business resource site. He does SEO for his own sites and serves as a marketing consultant for The Blechman Foundation.

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