When it comes to the success of an online store built on WooCommerce optimizing your site for users and especially search engine is imperative to drive the right organic traffic and bring in more conversions.
You should know WooCommerce SEO plays a significant role in improving your rankings in search engine results and website visibility. If you wish your WooCommerce thrives in this highly saturated digital marketplace then implementing the right SEO strategies is important.
In this blog post, we are going to explore valuable techniques and tips on how to optimize your WooCommerce store for users and search engines alike.
Whether you’re managing your WooCommerce store in-house or getting professional woocommerce website development services, these useful insights will help you to stand out among the rest and maximize your e-commerce success.
So without any further delay, let’s get started.
What is SEO and Why it is Important for Ecommerce?
SEO also known as Search Engine Optimizing refers to the general technique of optimizing a site to improve its search engine rankings and visibility.
In the context of WooCommerce, marketers believe SEO plays a significant role in improving their performance and enhancing their online presence. If you implement the right and effective SEO strategy which is specifically tailored for WooCommerce and its products then online businesses can increase brand visibility, and bring more traffic which will ultimately boost conversion rate.
Furthermore, implementing SEO for WooCommerce products is vital because when potential customers search for a product or services related to your offerings, a well-optimized WooCommerce store will appear in the search engine results.
How? Well, there are many answers to this question like using relevant keywords, compelling descriptions, high-quality images, and user-friendly URLs. This not only helps in gaining more potential customers but also established credibility and trust because users tend to buy products/services from a store that ranks higher and appears more relevant in search engine results.
To support the above statement we researched and found studies according to which 98% of people use search engines monthly. Plus, 3.5 billion searches are performed on Google by users daily.
To put it in simple words, when the potential for success in the digital marketplace is growing at lightning speed, optimizing your WooCommerce store for SEO becomes an essential step in order to capitalize on the potential.
Expert WooCommerce SEO Tips to Boost Your Online Store’s Visibility
If you want to climb to the top of the search engine results then you need to SEO optimize your WooCommerce store. Below are useful tips to try out:
Write Captivating Meta Descriptions
In improving click-through rates, meta descriptions play a significant role. They pop up under the search result title and give out the necessary details. It’s a great way to entice the searches and lure them to click.
By default, Google pulls out the lines of the opening paragraph from the text uploaded on your web page if you don’t provide specific meta descriptions.
This can be a bit problematic because at times writers don’t start to talk about the topic in the beginning and the content will look irrelevant to the users. This is why we recommend every marketer to provide meta descriptions because use can make them appealing but using useful adjectives, motivational words, discounts and special deals, and strong CTA.
Adding values like current day, month, and year or custom fields is also quite useful. You don’t have to update meta descriptions every now and then.
For instance, take the above meta description written by Tesla. In just 22 words it has told everything including what the company manufactures, represents, its ambitions, and brand value. It is also a great example of copywriting.
Create Valuable and Insightful Product Descriptions
These bite-sized bits of content have the unique power of boosting the conversion in a terrific way but many fail to see it. Product description is the type of content that describes the primary functions and functionality of a product.
But a well-written product description has more to offer. Apart from telling specifications and functionalities, it truly captures the essence of the product and evokes the right emotions. Moreover, it highlights all the unique selling points and the persuasive language keeps the customers engaged.
A well-crafted product description contributes greatly to optimizing your store for SEO. Incorporating the right and relevant keywords in the description helps the search engine to clearly understand your products which on the other hand increases the chances of appearing on the top of the search engine results.
This epic product description example is something every brand should copy. Take a look at the product description provided by Firebox. In a couple of sentences, they have given out all the necessary information. It is devoid of any superfluous, redundant, and hard-to-understand words and sentences.
Enable Breadcrumbs
Do you know what can be more exhausting than cluttered layouts? Finding their way! Yeah, of course, they can click on the back button to jump to the previous page but they are often unsure on which page they might land on.
Adding breadcrumbs helps visitors to return to the previous pages of the site. It also shows their journey so they can know where they are now and where they have been. This improves user experience, reduces bounce rates, and encourages visitors to explore more content. But here’s a main question ‘how it helps the SEO?’
Breadcrumbs play a crucial role in SEO by enhancing website usability and providing clear navigation paths for both search engine crawlers and users. Breadcrumbs provide search engines with contextual information about the website’s structure, improving crawl ability and indexing.
Ensure Your Permalink URLS are D1escriptive but Short
Quite a lot of marketers are not aware of this fact but permalink URLs play a significant role in improving the SEO of a website. First and foremost, they enhance the user experience to a great extent by creating readable and concise URLs that are easy to understand and memorable.
Moreover, placing the primary keywords in the URL is an excellent strategy to increase your search engine visibility. Also, the higher the keyword density is the easier it will be for the Google search engine algorithm to comprehend.
Moreover, descriptive URLs provide valuable context to both users and search engines about the content of the page, improving its visibility and relevance in search engine results. By optimizing permalink URLs with relevant keywords, websites can enhance their SEO efforts and increase the likelihood of higher rankings and organic traffic.
Choosing the Right and Relevant Keywords
Imagine, you own a WooCommerce store that sells mountaineering gear. If you used the keywords like ‘gear’ or ‘useful gadgets’, you will attract a broad range of searches and most of them will leave your website as soon as your main page will load.
This will not only impact your conversions but your bounce rate as well leaving a negative impression on the search engine algorithm. But instead, if you make use of all the relevant keywords such as ‘climbing equipment, ‘mountain climbing apparel and accessories, or ‘mountain expedition gear’, you will attract only the relevant traffic which will boost your conversion rates massively and improve search engine rankings as well
Avoid Using Duplicate Content
The term ‘duplicate content’ in itself is very confusing. Many people copy-pasting content from other resources is duplication. Yes, that’s right but there’s more.
If the content of two web pages is similar, this cannibalized content practice harms the search engine rankings of those two pages as they become each other’s competitors. This also goes for web pages belonging to different websites.
Let’s take an example, you own two WooCommerce stores – one sells scented candles while the other sells diffusers. You might end up with a blog post on the difference between scented candles and diffusers. Those blogs can harm each other.
In this case, more established websites will outrank you in no time. This is why we highly advise creating original, relevant, and useful content. First, look out for similar content using any SEO product like SEMrush then write unique and original content.
Don’t Forget the Alt Text in Images
For readers and SEO, alt text plays an imperative role. You should know not everyone has great vision, some searches have limited vision or are visually impaired. Adding alt text to images helps these types of visitors to know what is in the image.
Your alt tags should be concise and clear. They should give accurate information about images. For more optimization, add one or two keywords to it. But you should each piece of your description is audience-centric.
Alt tags even show up when a searcher is restricted to visit a website or when the image is not loading properly. And even if you don’t get to see it, search engines do see it all the time.
Plus, keep them specific and relevant as much as possible. For instance, a house picture alt tag should just say a house. It should describe what type of house it is, the color, its location, and other important details.
The ideal length of the alt tag as per SEO guidelines is 100 to 140 characters. According to Grand Valley State University, most screen readers quit reading after 140 characters.
Keep the Site Navigation Map Clean and Simple
Plenty of steps can be taken to reduce the bounce rate and increase the time spend on your site and a straightforward navigation map is one of them.
The more time a visitor spends on a website, the higher the website will rank on search engines. Here’s a fun fact, there are at least 3 to 4 pages on every website that users don’t open but Google will crawl every indexed page.
This is why the main navigation is placed on the homepage along with the links to other important pages. Take a look at Kindly’s site map to understand why we are emphasizing to keep navigation maps clear and simple. You can also keep your navigation maps like them to provide an excellent user experience.
Optimizing All Page Titles
Page titles give information to the user and search engine about what your page is about. We have seen ecommerce stores have different types of pages like product and category pages.
Both pages have different functions. The ‘category page’ helps the searcher to know what you’re offerings and help them to know the different types of products available on your website and product pages are individual pages inside those category pages.
Let’s take a real-life ecommerce store example. Storiarts has a huge list of categories and ‘Book Scarves’ is one of them. But, the interesting part is that it has ‘sub-categories’ as well.
In the category of ‘Book Scarves’ you will find different sub-categories like Infinity Scarves, Lightweight Scarves, Ribbon Scarves, and Custom Scarves.
The Key Takeaways
Implementing effective SEO strategies on your WooCommerce store is essential to increase brand awareness, boost conversions and improve search engine rankings.
We believe using SEO for WooCommerce plays a quite significant role. All the WooCommerce SEO tips such as optimizing meta tags, product descriptions, URLs, page content, etc. can enhance the visibility and success of your online store.
All in all, by leveraging the power of SEO for the WooCommerce store you can establish a robust online presence and secure long-term success in this highly competitive digital market.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is WooCommerce good for SEO?
WooCommerce is considered good for SEO as it offers various customization options, SEO-friendly URLs, and integration with popular SEO plugins, enabling effective optimization of product pages and overall site structure.
Do product tags help in WooCommerce SEO?
Product tags in WooCommerce can contribute to SEO by organizing and categorizing products, making it easier for search engines to understand and index the content, potentially improving visibility and search rankings.