Welcome to Parcelconsulting
Welcome to Parcelconsulting
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a complicated, ever-shifting beast. It seems like whenever you finally land a coveted page-one spot on Google, the rules change yet again, and you must work your way back to the top. What doesn’t change, however, is that there are some timeless tactics to improve ecommerce SEO.
E-tailers who are looking to boost their search rankings and revitalize their online stores overall, this one’s for you. Improve your ecommerce SEO with these seven tactics.
Breadcrumbs aren’t just what you find in the toaster—they’re a useful ecommerce SEO tool as well. Yoast, the SEO plugin for WordPress sites, defines breadcrumbs as, “a small text path, often located at the top of a page indicating where the user is on the site. On yoast.com, for instance, the path to our Yoast SEO plugin page is Home > WordPress Plugins > Yoast SEO for WordPress. This breadcrumb trail immediately shows you where you are.”
By using breadcrumbs, you simplify shoppers’ navigational experiences by showing them where they are within your site’s hierarchy. This saves them from having to dig through a ton of complicated URLs. Breadcrumbs also clue Google in to how your site is structured, and a well-organized site gets more recognition from the search engine than a messy one.
BigCommerce, 3dcart, Shopify and marketplace sellers (on Amazon and eBay) benefit from having breadcrumbs built into their platforms. WooCommerce and Magento sellers, however, are advised to utilize plugins to add and fully optimize breadcrumbs using keywords and design elements. WooCommerce Breadcrumbs and AheadWorks are widely used options.
Many online retailers make the mistake of duplicating product descriptions to save time or because they were not feeling creative now. While there are no dire consequences like your site getting penalized by Google, your site’s pages will likely get ignored by the search engine. They certainly will not be indexed.
This is because Google craves unique content and will rank pages with it higher than those with content that has been scraped from other websites. Original content is perceived to have the greatest value, so it will be boosted accordingly in search results.
All these rules apply to product pages, as e-tailers come to learn. Before launching your newest product, remember these ecommerce SEO tips:
If you put in the effort to create unique content for your online store, Google will reward you with a 70% uplift in visibility and search rankings. Even better: Customers will reward you with sales.
When your goal is to sell products online, starting a blog is probably the last thing on your mind. It’s yet another task to add to your already-full plate, but it has endless SEO benefits. Blogging gives Google the unique content it’s searching for, and it gives you something else to market. You can even become a thought leader in your corner of the industry, which will attract like-minded consumers who can be turned into customers.
Here’s what else you can do with a blog to benefit your business:
Don’t forget to follow SEO best practices—we listed a few in the section above—when publishing your blog posts.
If you think press releases are only for the ecommerce behemoths and other business tycoons, think again. These short media statements are great ways to make any sort of announcements about your brand, and distribution sites will do the heavy lifting for you. All you must do is meet their style requirements and pay a one-time (or subscription) fee. PR Web, Globe Newswire and PR Wire are the big names in press release distribution, but there are plenty of smaller services as well.
How do press releases improve your online store’s SEO? Let’s dive in.
Product reviews are priceless for online retailers. Studies show up to 92% of consumers will read product reviews before making a purchase, and the reviews will influence undecided shoppers. Even poor reviews can be helpful by steering a shopper away from a purchase, saving you the hassle of a return in the future. This will also inform your inventory planning, so you can make room for products that perform better.
From an SEO standpoint, product reviews provide consistent updates to your product pages. Just like with press releases, this shows Google your site is relevant and has value. The reviews also count as unique content, which you now know is Google’s favorite kind.
Nobody wants to shop on a slow website, no matter how great the products may be. Similarly, Google bots don’t want to crawl a slow website because it takes too long. Long load times not only kill conversions but also hurt SEO efforts. That’s why Google started factoring in mobile page speed in 2018. The best practice back then was to make sure your pages would load in four seconds or less, but the faster, the better. Page speed also affects user experience, so it’s in your best interest to get those load times down to two seconds.
Research shows that 47% of site visitors will bounce after two seconds, and 7% more will bounce each second after that. Look out for plugins that add unnecessary bloat, and perform regular site speed tests to ensure you’re meeting the standard. A fast website is a valuable website. Just ask Google.
Social media started to share text and media with friends, but it has turned into an invaluable tool for e-tailers and marketers. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok let you reach millions of users at once, and you can do it for free. Brands build dedicated followings every single day, and the results are powerful. Posts are shared to users outside your network and can result in exponential growth.
Each social share is another signal to Google that your online store is relevant, and you can build your site’s backlink profile along the way.
Parcel Consulting was started with a simple mission in mind: Connect end shippers with the best carrier and rate strategy for their needs and the best software options to streamline, automate and improve the accuracy and efficiency of the daily pick, pack, and label-printing process for their business.
We work with many different carriers and software partners, so that we can recommend the best solution based on more than a decade of actual experience with all these providers.
Most people, even those experienced in shipping and logistics, are surprised to find out how many new and innovative carriers and software options exist now.
We have been tracking, comparing and evaluating them objectively for more than 10 years and we freely share our personal review of your shipping needs by simply scheduling a phone call or video conference with one of our experienced shipping consultants.
We’ve been preparing for this for more than a decade and we’re here to help! Give us a ring to discuss your options at: 833-PARCEL-1 (833-727-2351).
