10 Magento SEO Tips for eCommerce Product Pages
Perfecting your marketing mix starts with making sure you have the level amount of search engine optimization (SEO). After all, organic traffic is one of the easiest ways to increase sales and build traffic for the long term. But how do you get your Magento website appropriately optimized and why do these things matter?
One of the most common ways you can improve your product page ranking is by undertaking a few basic SEO tasks. Here are ten of our best Magento SEO tips from our CAKE experts.
Tip #1: Always Create Unique Product Descriptions
Perhaps the easiest to integrate Magento SEO tip is to always create unique product descriptions instead of using the ones supplied by the manufacturer. The reason for this is that Google and other major search engines often provide a penalty for duplicate content. If the same description you’re adding to the product page is on the manufacturer’s website and several other competitor websites, this is a big problem. Instead, always write your own unique descriptions from scratch.
Tip #2: Add Plenty of Product Images
There are numerous reasons to add plenty of images to your Magento product pages. The first comes from a consumer standpoint. If there are plenty of photos of a particular product, shoppers are much more likely to make a final purchase. But from a search engine view, additional images give more opportunities to show up in image results searches. Thus, it is important to not only include as many photos as possible but to also include appropriate alt tags and metadata as well.
Tip #3: Include Rich Snippets
Google’s main goal is to reward websites that provide lots of engaging and informative data. In the case of your product pages, adding rich snippets is a very important way of accomplishing this. These coded pieces of data provide product information including price, availability, reviews, and more. Not only does this give you the chance at a better ranking, but it also makes the possibility of higher CTR more realistic.
Tip #4: Ensure Your Site is Mobile-Friendly
From a practical perspective, you already know that you need a Magento site that looks great to smartphone and tablet shoppers. However, that isn’t where the importance ends, as it isn’t exactly breaking news that Google prefers mobile-friendly websites. Mobile-first indexing is a factor you need to consider when you’re working to improve your search engine ranking. How do you make this happen? Think like a shopper and test on various screens—i.e. iPads, iPhones, Androids, etc. See what they see and then make changes accordingly.
Tip #5: Utilize Long-Tail Keywords
It’s also a good idea to utilize long-tail keywords. But, what are long-tail keywords? Well, these are phrases with three or more words that describe the item on your product page. The reason why this is important is that the more descriptive a person gets in a search engine, the higher the chance is that they are ready to buy. Using long-tail phrases for ranking purposes means you’re more apt to attract customers looking exactly for what you’re selling.
Tip #6: Improve Page Load Speed
Page load speed is a big deal when it comes to search engine optimization. The so-called sweet spot for page load time is right around three seconds. Any longer than this and customers are likely to hop off the page and never return. From Google’s perspective, slow loading pages aren’t nearly as helpful to searchers as those that load quickly, especially when it comes to mobile. To help combat issues, optimize your product page load times and compress product images accordingly.
Tip #7: Integrate Social Media
If you aren’t already integrating social media into your product pages, you’re really missing out. Google rankings are highly influenced by social media signals—especially those that indicate a website’s popularity and clout. By allowing shoppers to share items on social media directly from the product page, you’re indirectly helping boost the rank of that specific page.
Tip #8: Clean Up Your Navigation
Your site navigation also plays a big role in your search engine ranking position. Try to keep pages and categories as clear and easy-to-follow as possible. From a shopper standpoint, this makes sense. From a search engine standpoint, clear hierarchies and structure indicate less customer frustration and ease of finding what they are really looking for in an easy manner.
Tip #9: Allow Out-of-Stock Pages to Remain Live
Of course, no Magento SEO checklist would be complete without discussing your out-of-stock pages. Product pages build search engine ranking power over time. You don’t want to lose this simply because you no longer have the item in stock. Instead, opt to use the page to either allow customers to be informed when the product comes back or point them in the direction of a similar item.
Tip #10: Include Customer Reviews and Photos
Finally, you want to include the option for customers to add their own photos of the item and a genuine review right on the product page. Consumers see this as a way of knowing whether they are making a good buying decision, while search engines view it as new and informative content being updated on the page regularly. Both are a great thing for search engine rankings and overall conversions.
Updating your page to reflect these search engine optimization tips doesn’t have to be difficult. Our team at CAKE is here to help you implement everything we’ve mentioned here in this Magento SEO guide and more. Please contact us today to get started.