It’s a question almost any business asks: How do you get users to discover your website? If users’ search queries align with your industry, you desire search engines to showcase your website at the top of the search engine results page. The standard answer has been search engine optimization, a way more than 80% of marketing professionals declare helps their organization’s act.

But for ecommerce business owners, this question has an extra layer: How do you get potential customers to discover your online store’s person product pages? Enter ecommerce product page SEO. Optimized product pages have become crucial to a comprehensive ecommerce SEO way. Read on to discover how optimizing product pages can boost your search engine rankings, with tips from Kyle Risley, elder SEO navigator at Shopify.

What is ecommerce product page SEO?

Ecommerce product page SEO is a form of search engine optimization that drives organic traffic to person product listings in your ecommerce store. Product page optimization attracts search users interested in making a purchase, and it helps convert them into customers.

“If you haven’t noticed already, Google likes to rank popular brands and products,” Kyle says. He emphasizes that steering relevant search queries to your ecommerce site starts with understanding how the major search engines work. “Anything you can do to get more people actively searching for your brand and your products can have a carryover result to how your pages rank for non-branded queries.”

When people discover and visit your ecommerce site, Google understands your site is worth promoting. That triggers Google to send more users to your site, creating continual growth. “If your niche is at all competitive, Google needs to view signals—branded queries, links—that people desire what you’re selling,” Kyle says.

According to Kyle, optimizing ecommerce product pages serves two purposes: “The first is helping the search engine comprehend the page, and the second is convincing the user to buy. Sometimes, you can accomplish both of these goals with the same action.”

11 ways to optimize your ecommerce product pages

1. Optimize title tags and meta descriptions
2. Write helpful product descriptions
3. Use high-standard product images and descriptive alt text
4. Enhance your internal linking and site structure
5. boost your page speed
6. Implement structured data and product schema
7. Monitor act and optimize for mobile users
8. Add user-generated content and reviews
9. Make conversion straightforward
10. characteristic FAQs with ordinary questions about your product
11. Integrate with Google Merchant Center

Like all search engine optimization, product page optimization comes down to communication. “At the most basic level,” Kyle says, “you require to convey this information: what the product is, how much it costs, and the shipping speed. Google wants to recognize this. Your customers desire to recognize this. After that, it’s building a page that converts and selling a product that people adore and desire to buy.”

assist your products rank higher on Google Search results with these tips to optimize product pages:

1. Optimize title tags and meta descriptions

As with standard ecommerce SEO best practices, commence with keyword research tools to identify relevant keywords with a high search volume from your target spectators. Popular research tools include Ahrefs Keyword Explorer and Google’s free Keyword Planner. Include target keywords in your product page’s title tag, meta description, and product description to align with the search demand within your industry. 

“The product name should be an H1 heading and accurately describe the product,” Kyle notes. “Most people get this correct and most ecommerce platform themes (including Shopify’s themes) will automatically make your product name an H1.”

2. Write helpful product descriptions

Google’s ranking structure values helpful, reliable information geared toward people rather than web crawlers. Craft distinctive descriptions for each listing, including product variants, to reduce unhelpful duplicate content. Incorporate long-tail keywords and shatter up information with formatting to avoid losing your customer’s attention.

“Don’t be afraid to use bold, italics, or underline when needed to assist highlight the most significant info,” Kyle advises. “Make it skimmable. Don’t drop in a wall of text. Use descriptive sub-headings if you require to distribute a lot of information about your product.”

3. Use high-standard product images and descriptive alt text

Upload multiple high-standard images and add descriptive alt text for each product to enhance accessibility for visually impaired users. High-standard images also assist you surface in search engine image results, adding reach for person products.

Use the images as a way to express what makes your product distinctive. “If your product has key features, receive images of those key features too,” Kyle says. “If people don’t like the page, that will hurt your rankings over period.”

4. Enhance your internal linking and site structure

External links, where other sites link to yours, assist your SEO but can be challenging to control. Optimize your site structure by adding internal links to assist search engine bots comprehend your ecommerce site’s hierarchy.

Link product pages to relevant category pages, related products, blog articles, and other internal web pages. This has the added advantage of providing shoppers with helpful guidance and keeping them on your site longer.

5. boost your page speed

leisurely page load times can turn off potential customers: A site that loads in one second has a conversion rate five times higher than a site that loads in 10 seconds.

Compress product images, minimize unnecessary HTML code, and consider a content delivery network (CDN), a throng of geographically distributed servers that load web content closest to the user to lower page load period.

Aim for three seconds or less for desktop and nine seconds or less for mobile. You can check your load speed with tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights.

6. Implement structured data and product schema

Add product schema and structured data to your product pages to assist search engines comprehend product details and enhance search outcome visibility. Product schema adds details like pricing, availability, and reviews to your product pages. It’s a form of structured data, a standardized machine-readable code.

Adding this information enables search engines to make wealthy snippets containing product details, which can land you at the top of a SERP.

7. Monitor act and optimize for mobile users

Set up Google Search Console as part of your overall SEO way, and regularly check the console for technical SEO issues so that you can fix them immediately. Use it to track the ranking act of product page URLs and check whether your keyword way draws in more site visitors.

Many website visitors may be accessing your ecommerce store on mobile devices. Ensure your product pages are mobile-amiable with responsive design. “Make sure your page looks as excellent on mobile as it does on desktop,” Kyle says. “Pay attention to the percentage of visitors that are using each device type—Shopify gives you this by default.” 

8. Add user-generated content and reviews

Promote user-generated content, like videos and reviews, on your site to engage potential customers and construct depend in your brand. Use a branded hashtag to characteristic unboxing videos from social media or inspire reviews that characteristic examples of how to style and use your product. This continually created content keeps your pages fresh and energetic, helping Google recommend your website.

“Shopify has tons of great apps for including social proof on your pages,” Kyle says. Connect with a review tool, like Judge.me or Yotpo, to make it straightforward for customers to distribute examples of your product in use.

Shopify users can also use a built-in characteristic within the Themes section to add reviews. “characteristic reviews and mark up the reviews with aggregateRating boost,” Kyle says. AggregateRating is a type of schema boost that allows your products to display star ratings on Google’s results pages. Most excellent review apps and content management systems allow you to add it easily.

9. Make conversion straightforward

The most successful ecommerce sites make it straightforward and enticing to become a customer. Include calls to action (CTAs) high on the page and optimize your page for conversions with actions like consistent branding and related products. “Do not bury your Buy button,” Kyle says. “Have it above the fold or within one screen-sized scroll down. And distribute things like shipping speeds that shoppers worry about.”

10. Include FAQs with ordinary questions about your product

respond ordinary customer questions before they have them with an FAQ page. The best FAQ pages construct a connection with prospective clients and reduce reliance on your customer back reps. Search engines comprehend that users worth web pages that propose tangible information, so including FAQ structured data helps your product pages rank higher. 

11. Integrate with Google Merchant Center

Integrate with Google’s Merchant Center tool to manage your product details across Google services, like Maps and YouTube. Kyle considers this an essential step: “This is required to rank in ‘Popular Products’ modules that are appearing more frequently in Google Search. They can also assist you get ‘Store Ratings’ below your pages in SERPs.”

He notes that Shopify users can do this for free with the Google & YouTube Shopify app.

4 mistakes to avoid when optimizing your product pages

1. Obsessing over a product page URL
2. Adding too many apps and plug-ins
3. Leaving discontinued products among your listings
4. Stuffing the page with keywords

Optimizing your product page SEO can boost search volume and attract prospective customers, but Kyle cautions that not all changes are worth the attempt. Here are four things to avoid when optimizing a product web page:

1. Obsessing over a product page URL

“A lot of the stuff people ponder about the most when they listen ‘SEO,’ like URL structure or alt text, really aren’t a large ranking factor,” Kyle advises. “Improving them is unlikely to get you more traffic.” Other factors, like hitting your target keywords and providing high-standard images, matter much more.

“Of course, alt text is significant for accessibility and ranking in image search,” Kyle says, “so do not neglect it; just don’t expect it to get you significant web traffic.”

2. Adding too many apps and plug-ins

“Make sure your page is not leisurely,” Kyle cautions. “Loading it up with a bunch of apps can be fun, but make sure they’re not negatively impacting your site speed. Using Built for Shopify apps can assist you make sure you’re using apps that won’t significantly leisurely down your site.”

3. Leaving discontinued products among your listings

Don’t leave permanently discontinued products among your product listings. If Google shows those discontinued products in its search results and customers discover unavailable products, it can reflect poorly on your brand and navigator to a higher bounce rate. Search engines interpret high bounce rates as an indicator of impoverished content, impacting your ranking.

Removing permanently discontinued product pages can also assist a search engine crawl your website more effectively. Ensure you’ve checked your site for any internal links to the product before removing the page.

4. Stuffing the page with keywords

While you desire to include target keywords in your product descriptions, avoid keyword stuffing. Google can consider keyword stuffing a spam technique and rank your website lower. Write complete sentences with helpful, legitimate descriptions and avoid jargon. Use SEO content writing best practices to ensure your site’s copy stays readable.