How To Optimize Product Pages for Better Search Engine Rankings?

Craft Your Meta Information

Your meta description is what will push a visitor to click on your page from the hundreds of other websites on the search results page. These are essentially those title tags and meta descriptions that appear on Google search. You will need to think of SEO and user experience as you create them.

As you create the meta titles and description for the product pages, aim for a brief summary of your website and the product you are offering. The correct meta-information will convince the buyer you have what they are looking for and eventually increase organic traffic to your website.

The right metadata for your product pages will attract users to click on your pages on SERPs. Over time Google will take note of the quality search traffic and start ranking your product pages higher in the SERPs.

Related: SEO Score: A Definitive Guide for Beginners

Consider Breadcrumb Navigation

As the name suggests, breadcrumb navigation on a website helps you understand which page you are on and shows you a path to backtrack to previous pages. This path also helps you understand how the website categorizes the numerous pages. Breadcrumb navigation makes your page more user-friendly and gives visitors an easier time finding products they like, especially if you have a large website. In addition, this strategy boosts your SEO rankings because it indicates to Google that your site is well-structured.

You could choose the hierarchy-based, path-based, or attribute-based breadcrumbs to use on your ecommerce site. However, it wouldn’t be wise to use breadcrumbs for a single-level site or one without groupings. It would also be wise to ensure breadcrumb navigation remains a bonus feature rather than allowing it to become your website’s primary navigation mode.

Ensure Your Product Pages Load Fast

Generally speaking, the average acceptable load time for webpages is 3 seconds. Your ecommerce or website users are impatient and will bounce off your product pages if they take too long to load. Google also announced a ranking factor known as core web vitals that heavily depends on your website’s load speed. In other words, if your website is too slow, you risk losing clients and ranking lower on the SERPs.

It would help to take note of anything that slows your page down, like large images and unnecessary redirects. You can compress your documents and minify your code.

Tip: Optimize your website for mobile phones since most clients use them for browsing online. Statistics reveal that most websites load 87% slower on smartphones than on desktops.

Write Detailed Product Descriptions

As an online business, your clients don’t have physical access to the product until they purchase it from you. Writing detailed product descriptions is an excellent way to boost your search engine rankings and convince more customers to buy from you. Ensure you include the key features, benefits, and unique specifications.

For instance, if you are selling running shoes for women, you could highlight the flexible rubber sole, the spongy insole that makes the shoe comfortable, and the fact that the shoe is lightweight and easy to run in. However, going overboard and writing an entire essay wouldn’t be a good idea.

Tip: Do keyword research and infuse the right keywords into your product descriptions for SEO.

Use A Good Url Structure

The structure you choose for your URL will determine how accessible your content is to visitors and the search engine. First and foremost, it would be wise to serve your product URL over the HTTPS domain and the www. subdomain over a secure connection.

If you have a URL without the www domain and a case-sensitive typo, you can add a 301 redirect to the other variant and vice versa to avoid duplicate content. Also, ensure your URL is short, in lowercase, descriptive, and easy to read.

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Use Descriptive Headings

Headings tell the users, and Google, what they should expect when they click on your page. These headings appear in a specific hierarchy, from h1, which contains the most important information, to h6. A quick scan of all your headings should give anyone perusing the results page a clear idea of who you are and what you offer. You could use the h1 heading for the product name and h2 for important features you think they would like, reviews, FAQs, and technical specs. When you include keywords in your headings, there is a high chance Google will rank you higher in the SERPs.

Invest In Quality Links

Search engines hold external and incoming links in very high regard. Google tends to favor a website with more quality backlinks. The ranking algorithm will rank you higher because it considers your site authoritative, relevant and helpful to other readers searching for similar information.

However, sourcing for backlinks can be easier said than done. Taking a shortcut and settling for Blackhat link building techniques like spammy links that can hurt your website rankings. You should go for White hat techniques like getting bloggers to review your products on their site, giving you backlinks.

Here is a good guide on how to outsource link building. The key is to get quality backlinks for your product pages. You can work with a top agency which will generate the best links to boost your link building ROI and increase traffic to your website.

Related: Top SEO Practices To Optimize Your eCommerce Store

Deal With Problematic Product Variants

Imagine a scenario where you are selling women’s running shoes in eight sizes and seven colors. In total, you will have 56 product variants. It wouldn’t be wise to create separate pages for each shoe color with its unique product description. Google will recognize the content duplicate and canonicalize the page they see fit.

There is also a chance that your own pages fight for a higher rank in the search engine, a phenomenon called keyword cannibalization. However, you can still create separate pages for product variants if you know the search demand and the ROI is high. If the demand is low and the ROI from creating numerous pages is negative, you are better off selecting one primary variant and canonicalizing the rest to it.

Highlight Other Products Your Clients Might Like

Not all visitors to your website are 100% sure about what they will buy. Perhaps they are just browsing to get a feel of your ecommerce site and will return later to make a purchase. Based on the products they are looking for, you could display products you think they will enjoy.

Alternatively, you could also highlight complementary products that go hand in hand with the products they googled. For instance, if you are selling running shoes, you could add a link to a set of comfortable socks they could wear. When you add links to related products, you boost their SEO performance. The moment they link back to your ecommerce site to return the favor, you enjoy similar benefits.

Use High-Resolution Product Images

Your clients cannot physically touch, feel the texture or get a good 360° view of your products when they shop online. However, you can bridge this gap by displaying images that make your customers feel more confident about making a purchase. 60% of internet users are more likely to reach out to a business or visit its website when an image of what they are looking for pops up in the search results.

You could also go a step further and provide videos where the product spins on its axis and images of the full kit, so your clients know what they are getting. In addition, it would be wise to ensure your photos are high-resolution. Pixelated or blurry images make your product page look shabby and unprofessional, discouraging prospective clients from buying your products.

Use Canonical Urls For Products In Multiple Categories

As mentioned earlier, there is no need for one product in different sizes and colors to have multiple pages. However, you might have a good reason to place a product in multiple categories. For instance, women’s running shoes could simultaneously be in the women’s fitness and outdoor hiking categories.

In addition, the same product might be on sale, causing it to land in yet another category. Since it would be detrimental to have all three pages of the same product competing with each other, we suggest you choose one primary page and have the others point to it.

You could choose to redirect customers to the sales page for the running shoes, so they receive a discount on their purchase. According to Outreach Monks, Canonical URLs can also be useful for SEO. For starters, it is an opportunity for you to suggest to Google the best version of the product page you want the users to see. Google uses the pages to determine the quality of webpage content.

Mention Positive Product Attributes

Undoubtedly, numerous vendors are selling similar products to what you offer at your store. You could go the extra mile and highlight your product’s positive attributes that make it stand out from the rest. For instance, you could highlight that the women’s trainers you are selling are easy to slip on since they have no laces, making them a convenient choice.

As you mention the positive product attributes, ensure you include the brand name, model, and series the product belongs to. An excellent example you could borrow is linking the gender to which you are marketing the shoes to a page marketing similar running shoes. 

Add Q&A Section

Your SEO strategies and FAQ page share a common goal of disbursing the client as much information as possible. Sometimes, the product description isn’t enough, and the consumer wants to go a step further and find out more information about the product before they buy it. You could start by compiling a list of all the commonly asked questions about your product and answering them as comprehensively as possible.

Alternatively, you could ask your audience to participate in asking and answering questions about your products based on their experience. A good Q&A section that provides a pleasant user experience will boost your rankings on the SERPs and attract more traffic to your ecommerce site.

Related: How to Drive Traffic to Your Website? 20 Best Free and Paid Practices?

Ensure Your Products Match The Search Queries

By now, you are already familiar with popular keywords in your niche that your prospects are googling. With that information at your fingertips, it would be wise to incorporate the keywords in your product name, URL, and meta information.

For instance, if your page is called Forstars and you sell men’s sneakers, you could include forstars men’s sneakers in your product name to match some of the queries people are searching for online. Tweaking your product name to be as optimized as possible increases the chance that your audience will find you and buy from your ecommerce site.

Don’t Ignore Discontinued Products

Perhaps you discontinued a product due to low inventory, dismal demand, supply chain issues, or the manufacturer stopped producing it. However, when the world gives you lemons, you make lemonade. These products could still be of value to your business because they generate a small percentage of organic traffic, especially if they have links from other websites.

An excellent way to leverage discontinued products would be to recommend alternative products similar to the ones that are out of stock. You could also offer to notify your visitors once you restock the products so they can return and make a purchase.