The rise of online shopping has transformed the way consumers purchase goods and services, with many businesses now choosing to create their own e-commerce websites. Building a successful e-commerce website is not only about having an attractive design and good user experience — it’s also important to ensure that your site is optimized for search engine optimization (SEO).
This means ensuring that your web pages are easily indexed by search engines so that customers can discover your products or services quickly and easily. To help you get started on the right foot, here are some key do’s and don’ts to consider when designing an e-commerce website for SEO.
User experience (UX) plays a major role in the success of any e-commerce website. Businesses have lost as much as 35% in sales opportunities because of bad UX.
A good UX design ensures that visitors can easily find what they are looking for and makes it easy to complete transactions. The design should also be visually appealing, with a clear navigation structure and well-written content.
The critical elements of a good UX are:
Usability: Make sure your website is easy to use and navigate
Accessibility: Ensure that users with disabilities can access the website and its features
Readability: Make sure the text on the page is legible and easy to read
Responsiveness: Make sure the site renders correctly across all devices, including mobile phones and tablets
As mentioned, you want to ensure that customers can find what they’re looking for in your e-commerce store. Make sure your navigation is easy to use. This can include creating categories and subcategories for products, making sure all pages are linked together properly and having a search bar that works well.
There’s a reason most websites have the same layout — it works! Too many levels of navigation or a confusing menu structure can be detrimental to your SEO and user experience. You want to follow an intuitive structure that’s familiar to customers and make sure your pages are easily accessible from the main menu.
Structured data is a way for search engines to understand your website better. An effective e-commerce website should use structured data, such as schema markup and microdata, to give the search engine additional information about the products on sale. This can help increase visibility in organic results, making it easier for customers to find you online.
A cluttered web page can be overwhelming, not just for the search engine crawlers but also for the visitors. Negative space on your website gives room to breathe and makes it easier to navigate. Make sure that all text and images have enough white space around them so that nothing looks cramped or rushed.
Additionally, make sure your images and videos complement your brand and products. You should also compress them so they load faster.
Product descriptions should be detailed yet concise, providing customers with all the information they need to make an informed decision about their purchase. Meta descriptions are snippets of text that appear below the page title in search results and should accurately describe what is on the page. Optimizing both of these elements can help improve your SEO ranking.
Having a great-looking website is important, but what’s even more important for SEO success is having an effective landing page. The average landing page conversion rate is only 26%. As such, testing different variations of your design to see which one performs the best can help you outrank your competitors. Landing pages should be highly targeted and focused on conversion optimization to maximize SEO results.
To test your landing page design, consider A/B testing different variations of your content and layout. This will allow you to identify which elements are working best for visitors and optimize accordingly. An SEO audit company in Michigan can help you with this task if you’re in the area.
FAQ pages are a great way to increase the SEO value of your website, as they provide users with easy access to the answers to common questions. This helps reduce bounce rates and encourages customers to stay on your site longer. Additionally, FAQs can help you rank better in search engine results by providing more content for Google’s crawlers to index.
This section should include questions related to the specific product or service you’re offering, as well as general questions about your company and website.
When developing an e-commerce website, it’s important to remember that the content you create should be optimized for SEO purposes. One easy way to do this is to make sure your site includes clear and visible calls-to-action (CTAs) as well as internal linking between relevant pages.
Your CTAs should be specific, actionable, and visible to ensure users know exactly what you want them to do, while your internal links help both users and search engines discover additional related content. Backlinks are also useful for helping search engines discover your content, so it’s important to remember to include some of these as well.
Your website design can make or break your success in the e-commerce industry. By following the do’s and don’ts of e-commerce website design for SEO, you can ensure that your website stands out from the competition.
Having Hierographx as your web design partner will help you create an effective, user-friendly website that will rank well in search engine results pages. We provide local SEO services in Northern Michigan and can design your e-commerce site to perform optimally in organic search results so you can bring more customers to your business.