Today’s “Ask an SEO” question comes from Taha from Chicago.
My question is about e-commerce SEO. Currently, I am working as an SEO Executive for an e-commerce brand. The site has no content and a total backlink profile of around 1,000 links (none compared to competitors).
To rank your category page, what areas should you focus on first? Should you optimize your content and on-page to compete with your competitors’ profiles, or create backlinks? should?
That’s a great question.
Simply put, you should start with content and on-page optimization.
So let me give you a long answer. This goes beyond the category pages you mentioned.
Start with on-page SEO
We know that backlinks are important and part of the ranking algorithm.
However, you need to optimize your website content so that search engines know what to rank your website for.
Below is a quick checklist of what to look for when it comes to on-page optimization before spending time building links.
1. Decide on keywords and themes
If you haven’t already done so, spend some time identifying your keywords.
When creating your list, go from broad to narrow. But remember that relevance is the most important consideration.
However, even if you identify broad terms, they should still be targeted and relevant to your category or product.
When doing keyword research, first brainstorm, then use tools like Semrush, SE Ranking, SpyFu to grow your seed list.
Once you’ve created your list, you’ll typically prioritize three categories: Priority 1, Priority 2, and Priority 3.
You need to assign keywords to the pages of your website. This is called keyword mapping and can help you avoid keyword cannibalization.
After this process is complete, optimize your page.
Note that it’s common to use 2-3 primary keywords and a few secondary keywords per page.
2. Optimize your page
When optimizing your pages, pay attention to alternate attributes for title tags, heading tags (especially H1), body text, and images.
Meta descriptions don’t affect rankings much, but they should be optimized.
There are best practices to follow when optimizing. For this, see our complete guide to on-page SEO.
Pro Tip: Use Google Search Console to see if search engines already know the page for relevant queries.
The Google Search Console performance report shows the queries for each page.
If any of these queries look like good keywords, or they might already be on your list, keep an eye on them when optimizing relevant pages .
You can update your page title and H1 to include your keywords.
You can also look for opportunities to weave keywords into the body text, but don’t stuff it with keywords. Content should read naturally.
3. Add related content
Adding optimized content is important no matter what kind of website you have. E-commerce is no exception.
Since the question mentioned category pages, I’ll focus on recommendations for that type of content.
First and foremost, know that category pages give you plenty of opportunities to add text.
However, many businesses are hesitant to add too much text to their category pages because they think it detracts from the shopping experience.
Luckily, there are creative ways to add non-intrusive and optimized text.
Target.com is a good example.
Below is a screenshot of the baby gifts category.
Scroll to the bottom of the page to see optimized text and expandable options (i.e. show more).
Screenshot from Target.com, June 2022TheCompanyStore.com provides another example of category content that also includes FAQs.
Screenshot from TheCompanyStore.com, June 2022In both examples, website visitors can easily scroll through the products as they move down the page.
The content included at the bottom of the page is good for optimization purposes, but also useful for your visitors.
Review + Improve
One last thing: After optimizing your page, always look for opportunities for improvement.
That’s where the pro tips I provided come in handy.
Get in the habit of monitoring page performance and updating as needed.
Other resources:
Featured image: Andrey_Popov/Shutterstock
Editor’s Note: ask SEO is a weekly SEO advice column written by the industry’s top SEO experts, curated by Search Engine Journal. Have a question about SEO? Please fill out the form. You may find the answer in the next #AskanSEO post!
