Technical SEO For E-Commerce Websites: A Complete Guide


Technical SEO involves making changes to your site that are read by search engine spiders and indexed by search results. It simplifies how search engines read your site. You can't have a successful e-commerce SEO plan without including technical SEO services. The primary objective is to enhance the framework of a website.

Technical Search Engine Optimization Advice For Online Stores

Search engines give more weight to sites that have solid Technical SEO. Here is a checklist of things you can do to boost your website's technical SEO and bring it up to par with search engines.

Broken Link

A broken link and an HTTP status code of 404 are the effects of a missing resource. Too many broken links may have a detrimental effect on search engine rankings. Yet, this does not reallocate link equity and results in a bad user experience. This is a problem for many websites, but if a customer visits your eCommerce site seeking a specific item and is sent to a 404 page, it might be disastrous for your business.

You may prevent this by checking for broken links and fixing them so that they go to relevant, indexable sites with a 200 status code.

Site Maps In XML

You may provide an XML sitemap to help search engines explore your site. It just lets search engines know which pages you consider the most crucial to your site. Thus, all active landing pages conforming to the right XML protocol must be included in the XML sitemap. Each page must be the canonical version of itself and respond with a status code of 200.

Verify The Organization Of Your Website

A well-structured website helps consumers find what they're looking for and facilitates crawling and indexing by search engines. Sites with more intuitive structures tend to perform better. You may need to rethink your site's menu structure to boost Technical SEO.

Create a sitemap using a tree structure to see whether the pages of your website are logically connected. You should also examine the URL and permalink structures, menu structures, category and product pages, and internal linking.

Develop a Mobile-Optimized Website

Seventy per cent of Americans' time spent consuming digital media occurs on cell phones. Mobile devices now account for almost $3 of every $4 spent online. In addition, starting this year, the mobile version of your e-commerce site will serve as the basis for indexing and establishing SERP rankings as Google has transitioned to a mobile-first index.

Structured pages, compressed graphics, and canonical data are best practices for websites that work well on desktop, tablet, and mobile devices. Remember that mobile devices have a different interface than desktops, so pop-up advertising that functions well on desktops may frustrate mobile users.

Site Maps In HTML

Google recommends using an HTML Sitemap to improve website accessibility. Simply put, it's an HTML page that links to the most important live landing sites to please both search engines and human visitors. Users may get confused when your e-commerce site grows, and you add more pages for items and categories.

Robots.txt

A web admin may restrict the pages that a certain search engine crawls and indexes by using the Robots.txt file. For eCommerce sites to make the most of this technology, essential pages mustn't be prevented from being crawled and indexed, while less useful pages are not allowed to waste crawl funds.

Unclaimed Pages

E-commerce sites must arrange internal linking in advance since new pages are often created. In any case, what are Orphan pages? Simply said, these pages are cut off from the rest of your site since no other sites connect to them. Search engines won't be indexed if they can't discover those pages.

We recommend checking for Orphan pages on your site and adding internal links to other useful content.

Distinctive Pathfinding

E-commerce sites often use faceted navigation since it aids in the user search. Nevertheless, faceted navigation may harm SEO since it creates a new URL for each filtered search (often by adding parameters), which can lead to duplicate content. Best practices should be adhered to to prevent frequent problems −

  • Delete parameters with no values

  • Always use the same sequence of arguments in your URLs.

  • Use the robots.txt file to block the crawling of parameterized URLs.

  • URLs with canonicalized parameters

  • Links to the filtered pages inside your site should use the Nofollow meta tag.

Canonical Labels

Sitewide duplicate content problems may be avoided with the use of canonical tags. Think about your eCommerce site's category and product pages; they likely share similar material. Search engines may penalize you for having duplicate content on many pages. In practice, canonical tags specify to search engines which page should be prioritized. Guidelines for proper canonical tag use are as follows −

  • Self-referential Identifiers that are considered canonical

  • To designate the authoritative version of a page, use a self-referencing canonical tag.

  • Inspect Canonicalization in Real Time

  • Domain-hopping canonization

Circular Referencing

The importance of internal links cannot be overstated. Not only do they aid search engines in indexing your site, but they also aid people in finding their way through your site and finding the information they need. The quality of an e-commerce site's internal linking structure is crucial to its success since it affects customer retention and income.

Finally, remember the importance of using SEO-friendly anchor language when creating internal links. If you want to get the most out of your anchor text, try using the following −

  • Brief but elucidating

  • Make sure your link wording is as brief as feasible.

  • Associated with the related page

  • Keywords used effectively

  • Don't stuff your content with irrelevant keywords; use just the proper number.

Pictures Should Be Optimized For Technical SEO

Google uses alt text (image description) to interpret images. Google picture search results may be improved with proper optimization. Please be as clear and precise as possible when describing images.

If you have a photo of a dog, for instance, you should specify the breed rather than simply calling it a "dog." Technical ecommerce SEO benefits greatly from a focus on keyword optimization, of course. Furthermore, remember to reduce the file size of your images to make them load more quickly.

Conclusion

When carried out correctly, technical SEO—a subset of eCommerce SEO services—provides possibilities to convey pertinent information to potential buyers. Yet, we can assist you if you lack Technical SEO knowledge or expertise.

Updated on: 20-Apr-2023

133 Views

Kickstart Your Career

Get certified by completing the course

Get Started
Advertisements