E-commerce businesses are expected to reach the market of $8 trillion by 2027. No, that is not a typographical error, trillion, with a T. As everyone is contending to take over the paid advertisement docket and social media, intelligent money is putting money in an aspect that most businesses are afraid to touch with a ten-foot pole: the SEO-optimized product pages.
This is the harsh reality; 82 percent of marketing experts have claimed that the right SEO comes straight to their performance. However, product page optimization is considered to be an afterthought by most of the e-commerce businesses. They do spend thousands of dollars on FB advertisements and yet not a penny on making their product pages work.
That is retrogressive thinking and it is costing you money.
Why E-commerce Businesses Fail (most of them) at Product Page SEO
Imagine this - You are paying ads and getting clicks and having people come to your store. All this is good on the paper. And then you look to your analytics and realize the visitors are bouncing at a rate rivaling a bad check. On Monday morning your conversion rate is less than your motivation.
It is not your ads. It is your product pages.
When they click on through to your product page they have already shown interest. They have viewed your advertisement, pressed your URL and jumped to your web page. When you reach this point you are supposed to be printing money. Instead, you are bleeding potential customers out owing to the inability of your product pages to be optimized with the aim of conversions.
Research shows that half (50 percent) of SEO professionals agree that correct optimization has a direct effect on the ranking and conversion levels. The point of interrelation is obvious: the better the SEO is, the more sales. But the majority of e-commerce companies do not believe in investing in things that are important but the ones that are making money.
There are the Six Pillars of E-commerce Product Page Optimization.
1. Descriptions and Meta Titles That Are Advertisements
Meta titles and description are the first touch point of search engines and customers learning about you. When they get wrong, you are dead in the water before you begin.
Its crawlers used by Google are advanced. They are able to see through deceptive product description after a mile. In case your meta descriptions exaggerate your products, or oversell them in any way, you will be punished. More to the point, when they hit the click option, and fail to follow in due detail to your page since it did not fit their expectations, your ratings will take an unkind beating.
It is easy, be precise, be definite and be persuasive. The meta titles you use are supposed to incorporate your main keyword and it should clearly show what you are selling. You descriptions must not be like novels but provide enough information to make the right expectations.
2. Converting Visual Content: Without Taking the Life of Performance
E-commerce does not have an option on the quality of images and videos. The first thing people purchase is with their eyes. However, most businesses get this wrong, by uploading large, un-optimized files that end up making their pages load at a snail pace.
The speed that the pages load has a direct effect on the SEO rankings and the conversion rates. Provided that it takes over three seconds to load your product images 53 percent of users will quit your site. It is not a statistic, that is money out the door.
The solution: compress your images without quality taking the brunt. Where feasible use modern formats such as WebP. Make your videos web friendly. It is important that your graphics will be clear enough to sell your products and not so rich to make them load with a delay.
3. Information and Conversion Product Descriptions
Your product descriptions satisfy two readers search engine and customers. Majority of the businesses fail at these two.
The search engines require appropriate keywords that are placed in readable contents. Customers require clarity and detailed information that would assist them to make purchasing decisions. The companies that would emerge the victors are those that would fulfill both needs in concurrence.
Write the descriptions of the product that answers all the questions which the possible buyer can ask. Put in specifications, advantages, applications and keywords. However, using the double-barreled force of keywords is not like putting stuffing into a Thanksgiving turkey. Both user experience and performance of the SEO requires natural integration.
4. Mobile-First Answered Appearance
More than 40 percent of all e-commerce sales are made on mobile which represents $534 billion of mobile purchases each year. Unless your product pages render flawlessly on the mobile, it is like telling 49 percent of your prospective shoppers to go home.
There are no options with responsive design anymore. It is a game of table stakes. Your product pages should be well-designed, should perform and load smoothly in all devices. These are features like buttons so that one can touch them, no zoom to read text, and properly scaled images.
Google applies the practice of mobile-first indexing, which implies that they prioritise ranking and indexing on your mobile site. Your SEO performance will then perform poorly on all devices in case your mobile experience is not good.
5. Optimising Page Speed That Matters
Speed of the websites is not only a question of user experience, but also a direct ranking factor. Google has not hesitated to state that pages which load quickly are favored in search results.
You can find the performance bottlenecks by using tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix. Such common problems are huge images, excessive use of plugins and plugins, bad hosting, and bloated codes. Take these up in a systematic manner poaching the largest impact elements first.
It is important to remember that in an e-commerce environment each second of load time translates into loss of customers. Optimize ruthlessly.
6. Proper strategy of Call-to-Action Placement
That is where interest translates to sales through your call-to-action buttons. They have the power to boost and or destroy your conversions and it is because of placement, design, and copy.
Do not have the CTAs at the top of your product pages the customers should be informed first before they can make a purchase. Do not hide them at the bottom too-most people do not even scroll down. The best place comes right after the description about your product and the most important benefits.
Be specific and call to action in the copy of your CTA. The button "Add to cart" is more effective than "Buy Now." Ordering today may be inferior to getting free shipping. Be specific, be clear and be persuasive.
The Compounding of E-commerce SEO
Most businesses fail to comprehend that product pages that are optimized based on SEO generate a compound effect. More optimization means there will be better rankings, which increases organic traffic, which translates to increase in sales, which can be used to optimize better.
This is not a once off exercise, it is a process that gains steam as time goes by. Companies that initiate new-fangled product page optimisation today will stand a good chance relative to their rivals that delay.
Implementation Strategy
Begin with those products that sell off the most. Maximize the pages initially and then move on to your whole catalog. Pay attention to the basics: proper meta data, high loading speed of visuals, valuable content, mobile-friendly, low loading speed and CTAs.
Be compulsive about the tracking of results. Keep track of your organic ranking, conversion and revenue per visitor. This information should help you improve your strategy and to invest more in what is working.
It is a very competitive environment of e-commerce. Businesses that are successful will be the ones who are prepared to learn the basics and the others are trying to find the bright new things. Product pages that are optimized in terms of SEO are not sexy, but they are profitable.
Don t leave money on the table. It is time to begin optimising your product pages.
