How to Master Ecommerce SEO and Focus Keywords for Your Website

If you’re looking to grow traffic to your site and increase sales, then ecommerce SEO is crucial to master. While many companies look to paid advertising to bring users into their site, organic optimisation can be the key to sustained growth without the cost.

At Clear, we’ve helped many ecommerce sites grow their online presence organically over the years, so, using that expertise, we’ve created this guide to help SEO-beginners get a grip on best practices and actionable strategies.

Read on to discover how ecommerce SEO differs from traditional SEO, how to tailor your keyword strategy and site structure for maximum visibility, and tips for on-page and technical behind-the-scenes improvements you could be making.

What is Ecommerce SEO?

Ecommerce SEO is a method for improving your online store’s organic traffic by gaining visibility on search engines, such as Google and Bing. The higher your page appears on a search engine results page (SERP), the more traffic you’re likely to see, which means everyone is fighting for that top spot on page one.

While pretty much all websites benefit from SEO, ecommerce SEO covers a specific set of practices that general SEO doesn’t delve into. This includes optimising product pages, using product-focused keywords and schema, and making sure the site structure is easy for both users and crawlers to follow.

Why Search Engine Optimisation for Ecommerce is Essential

Making sure your ecommerce site is optimised for search engines raises your visibility and competitiveness in crowded markets. Getting your store to appear higher in the rankings will lead to more users clicking into your site and starting their customer journey. As a clear site structure is essential for good ecommerce SEO, your site will also benefit from improved user experience which can increase conversion rates. All of this is without the costs associated with paid advertising, leading to longer term growth at better value.

At Clear, we’ve achieved some great organic results for ecommerce sites via key SEO strategies. For example, Holloways of Ludlow has seen organic users up 10% and revenue 5% over the last six months of working with us, while NatureSpy has seen an 18% increase in organic traffic and 13% increase in revenue over the same period.

Keyword Research for Ecommerce SEO

Keyword strategies form the basis of SEO for ecommerce websites, and these all begin with keyword research. This is the process of finding key words or phrases users are searching for that match your product offering. Without keywords, you can’t begin to optimise your pages, so this step really is crucial.

There are a number of helpful tools you can use to find keyword ideas. Our preferences include:

• Google Search
• Amazon Suggest
• Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool

Let’s dig into these. The most obvious and easiest method to use is Google Search. This involves typing your product name into Google and seeing what suggestions come up, as well as what other keywords are being used on the SERP and in the related searches area. A similar method to this involves entering your product name into the Amazon search bar and looking at the suggestions it provides. As Amazon is the largest online retailer in the world, this provides valuable information about popular search queries and products.

While both of these methods offer data from real world users, this can be time consuming if you stock a wide range of products. This is where Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool comes in handy. This clever tool generates thousands of keyword ideas based off a search term you enter. It also provides data on the terms, such as the search intent (commercial, informational, transactional, etc.), the search volume, and Semrush’s keyword difficulty score.

You’ll find Semrush generates a range of highly relevant terms, as well as some that aren’t relevant at all. You can use the keyword group menu on the left-hand side to help narrow down the research and find the terms that are most appropriate for your site.

Once you have a list of keywords from these tools, we recommend running everything through Google Keyword Planner to check search volumes. This will help you discard any keyword that’s too niche or too broad.

At this point, with your list of keywords in hand, it’s time to identify your focus keywords and map these onto your product and category pages. A focus keyword is the main term you want a specific product page or category on your site to rank for. It should be a highly relevant term with strong search volume that represents the core topic users are looking for on that page. Each focus keyword should be assigned to a specific page to avoid cannibalisation between terms.

On-Page SEO for Ecommerce Websites

Now you know which keyword is assigned to each page, you can focus on optimising the on-page aspects, such as copy, headings, metadata, and images. It’s vital to have unique content on every page to avoid the pitfalls of duplicate content and cannibalisation. For categories and collections, having some keyword-rich text at the top of the page is great for crawlers like Google. Adding in semantically relevant content lower down on the page below the products helps categories rank higher without forcing the user to scroll to see the product listings.

For product pages, there are some key elements to include that will benefit both search engines and users considering a purchase. These include:

• Distinct product name: be specific when naming products and try to add in your focus keyword.
• Short description: write a short description that highlights the key features of your product. Be unique here, especially if you’re selling products stocked by competitors.
• List features: include a bullet point list of features, details, or benefits that your product offers. Users will often scan lists quickly before reading longer form copy.
• Long description: this is where you want to go into depth about the product to sell it to customers and help Google understand what the product is.

In these sections you want to scatter your keywords as well as semantically relevant phrases throughout but remember to avoid keyword stuffing! It’s also a good idea to add internal links to these high priority pages to create a link network across your site. This is both helpful to users looking for related products, as well as crawlers trying to understand your site structure.

At this point, you should also be writing search optimised meta tags for your pages. The title tag is the most important for improving search rankings. Use your focus keyword as well as modifiers like “buy”, “best”, or “sale” to increase click through rates.

For meta descriptions – while Google doesn’t utilise them as a ranking factor- they’re all important to help users understand products and compel them to click. Make sure your meta descriptions are unique and enticing to searchers, include perks like free shipping, promo deals, and more to encourage views.

When it comes to images, multiple, high-quality product images shot from different angles are a must-have. Images are key to helping users understand the product visually and how it fits into their lives – whether it’s a new dress, kitchen table, or a tin of dog food. When adding images to the site, remember to add alt text too, including a brief description of what the image is. This helps both search engines and people who use screen readers to understand the images.

Technical SEO for Ecommerce

As well as on-page content, high performing ecommerce websites will have a lot of technical SEO going on behind the scenes.

First of all, making sure your site has a clear and logical structure is a key step that will help both users and search engines. Starting from the homepage, the next level down should be category or collection pages. The level after that should ideally be product pages, although sometimes subcategories will sit here. The more subcategories or extra pages you have before your product pages – i.e. the ‘deeper’ the site architecture is – the less authority your product pages will have in the eyes of Google. They may also be harder to find for users, creating poor user journeys and potentially leading to abandonments.

A great example of effective category structure can be seen on Mirror Outlet, who we’ve supported with ecommerce SEO, PPC, UX and more. This site utilises top level categories such as Shop by Style, Shop by Colour, and Shop by Shape. These categories are then broken down into subcategories such as Garden Mirrors, Silver Mirrors, or Round Mirrors. Products are easy to find in these subcategories, which provides a great user experience.

In a similar vein, the URL structure should be simple to follow. Product URLs should be plain English, not utilising SKUs or ID numbers. Folders can be used to show the categories a user has come from, but canonical tags should always be the product on its own to avoid duplication that could be created by having products in multiple categories.

Implementing schema markup can also help crawlers understand your site and help your content be featured in rich results. Key markup for ecommerce sites include:

• Products
• Reviews
• Availability

The other area to consider is site speed. A fast-loading, mobile-friendly site ensures users can browse and checkout without the frustration of long loading times. As Google works on the principle of mobile first indexing, making sure your site is optimised for mobile has become a key ranking factor.

Content Strategy: Ecommerce for SEO

While content such as blogs, FAQs, and buying guides may seem like extraneous content to the all-important products, these elements can be a powerful driver of organic traffic and authority. Quality content can help you attract customers earlier in the funnel and convert them into buyers. It’s important you create this content with real users in mind though, not just search engines. You want to offer inspiration, answer questions, and solve problems that real people are experiencing. A great way to ideate for content generation is to research user generated content around your products. Checking out Reddit, review sites, and social media platforms can help you explore what questions customers have.

As part of your ecommerce SEO strategy, blogs can also target long-tail keywords and informational queries related to your site. It’s important to make use of internal linking in these areas to point both users and crawlers towards relevant pages.

Measuring and Improving Ecommerce SEO

To show your strategy is delivering effective results, it’s essential to track key metrics such as keyword rankings, traffic numbers, conversions, and revenue. Tools like Google Analytics (GA4), Google Search Console (GSC), and SEO Tools like Ahrefs and Semrush can help track KPIs and offer valuable insights into user behaviour. It’s worthwhile having these set up on the site as early as possible, so that you can track improvements in your key metrics as your strategy is implemented and begins to show results.

The other thing to consider is that SEO isn’t a one-time task; it requires continuous optimisation with regular audits, tweaks, and improvements as you adapt to the competitive market, changes in Google’s algorithm, and user behaviour.

Conclusion

With this guide you should have a clear idea of where to start with SEO for ecommerce websites and how to move forward with your strategy. From the fundamentals, such as keyword research and mapping, to on-page optimisation and technical SEO, to the importance of content generation, this guide will help you boost your organic presence, leading to sustained growth and improved conversion rates.

Key Takeaways:

• Ecommerce SEO is essential for driving long-term, cost-effective traffic and boosting online sales.
• Keyword research is the foundation: use focus keywords tailored to product and category pages to avoid overlap.
• On-page SEO must include unique content, optimised metadata, and internal linking to support visibility.
• Technical SEO focuses on site structure, fast loading, mobile responsiveness, schema markup, and duplicate content handling.
• A strong content strategy, including blogs, buying guides, and FAQs, can attract new users earlier in the funnel and help with search engine authority scores.
• GA4, GSC, and SEO tools should be used to track KPIs like traffic, conversions, and rankings.
• SEO requires ongoing optimisation to respond to changing user behaviour, competition, and search algorithms.

As experts in SEO for ecommerce and lead generation, we’re here to answer any questions on the above, or provide support if strategies aren’t working out. Let’s talk SEO.