Your products are invisible in Google because of Product SEO!
Product SEO is going to be the main way you’re going to attract organic traffic to your online store’s products through search engines like Google. In this post, you will learn what product SEO is, how to apply it, the benefits, and learn examples. If you get through this whole blog post, and you’re like “man, I already do this but I’m still not ranking #1 on Google” or “This is too much work for my liking“, it may be time to hire an SEO Marketer to do it for you and help you see results faster!
Table of Contents:
What is product SEO?
Product SEO is when you’re adding keywords to your product’s meta data and product page in order to give Google enough information to display your product in related search results. However, the key is to use keywords with a high search volume, low competition. After you find those keywords, you have to make sure they are placed strategically in places that Google search crawlers scan to index (understand) information about your site.
Hopefully that was a simple definition!
What is the benefit of optimizing my products for search?
When you have an online store, one of the main goals you should have is to make product sales. In order to make product sales, you have to attract website traffic. Now, you can have several website traffic channels bringing awareness to your products. However, if you want your products to be found organically, without you having to market your products consistently on social media, you’re going to want to opt to attract organic traffic from search engines like Google.
When you do product SEO for all the products on your site, you increase the chances of attracting new visitors to your brand through Google. To put it simple, let’s say your ideal customer doesn’t know your brand even exists but they are searching for a product you offer.
Let’s say you are a swimwear brand for toddlers. Your ideal customer goes to Google and types in “cute swimwear for girl toddlers”. Now, Google spits out the top results and this is a place you want your products to show up. Front and center, within the first 10 results, but better in the number 1 result.
Here's some amazing benefits of optimizing your products to rank #1 on Google search engine results pages
Increased visibility: Product SEO can help your products appear higher in Google’s search engine results, making it easier for ideal customers to find your brand and products.
Improved credibility: When your products appear at the top of search engine results, it can give customers the impression that your online store is reputable and trustworthy. Plus, brands that are ranked as #1 gets 39.2% of the click through rate (CTR).
Better user experience: Product SEO involves optimizing your website’s product category structure and content, which can improve the user experience for your customers and get them to checkout faster. This can lead to higher engagement and increased sales.
Cost-effective marketing: SEO, in general, can be a cost-effective way to market your products compared to running ads. Once your online store is optimized for SEO, you can continue to generate organic and relevant traffic without paying for ads.
Increased sales: By optimizing your online store’s products for SEO, you can attract more targeted traffic to your website, which can lead to increased sales and revenue.
7 Tips to optimizing your store's products with Product SEO
- Use descriptive and unique product titles
- Write high quality product descriptions
- Optimize your images
- Use structured data
- Include customer reviews
- Use internal linking
- Optimize for mobile
1) Use descriptive and unique product titles
We all want to be creative when it comes to naming our products so that we stand out from other competitors. But, did you know this could be impacting your visibility through Google Search? The key to product SEO is to first make sure your product tiles are relevant, unique, and descriptive (using keywords).
The truth is, no one is going to Google and typing in “The Maisy Top” and Google doesn’t understand what “The Maisy Top” even is.
In order to attract your ideal customers through search, you want to understand the voice they use, keywords, that relates to what you sell because that’s what they are typing in.
The more niche the product title the better because you’ll be swallowed by competitors who have a higher domain than you.
An example of Product SEO
For example, if you are a clothing brand selling women’s fashion, one of your products may be a black bodysuit. The keyword black bodysuit has a search volume of 33,100 and an SEO difficulty of 83. Which means it’s going to be very hard to show up on the first page of Google for this broad keyword. Many people are searching for this keyword but, a lot of brands are also using it.
The key is to be more descriptive, this is referred to as “long tail keywords“. For example, it would be better to optimize the product title for “long sleeve v-neck women’s body suit”
And hey, if you want to get creative, it’s totally find to give your product a name as long as it’s still descriptive. So you can take this product title and change it to “The Maisy Long Sleeve V-Neck Body Suit”
*Remember | Don’t use the same product title that your vendor uses!
*Remember | Make sure your product page’s url has your keyword in it so it would like like this:
www.myonlinestore.com/shop/long-sleeve-v-neck-body-suit
The url slug is one of the first words Google’s search crawlers scan.
2) Write high quality product descriptions
Next is your product description. You want to make sure you optimize your product description using the same keyword you set for the product title.
Make sure to add the keyword within the first sentence of the product description copy. It should sound natural and enticing for the customer to get them closer to buying.
Your product descriptions should be unique, descriptive, and informative. It’s best to format your product description using bullet points and headings, making it easier for potential customers to read.
When it comes to product SEO, it’s very important you don’t duplicate your product description with other products in your store, even if the products are similar. This is called duplicate content and Google does not like that and this alone can hurt your Google ranking.
Also, same with the product title, make sure you’re not copying and pasting the same description from your vendor over on to your website. You know how many brand owners are lazy and do that? It ends up costing them being on Google’s good side!
3) Optimize your product images (also they should be high quality)
For product SEO, the image makes a huge difference as well. First, it should be a high quality product image. Please don’t use vendor images! Use your own.
Next, you want to make sure your images have keywords within the alt text. Alt text is a description that tells readers what the image is. This is mainly used for those who are visually impaired. So, even though it’s a great place to put keywords, please make sure it makes sense to someone who is visually impaired.
Optimizing your images this way is the best way for your actual product to show up in Google Image search with rich data attached to it.
4) Use structured data
Structured data markup helps search engines, like Google, understand the type of content your page is. So for example, if you’re creating a blog post, the structured data type would be “article” and Google will know this is an article.
Google isn’t 100% smart and sometimes you have to tell it what type of pages are on your site.
There’s plugins that can do this for you or I recommend using the JSON-LD Markup tool.
You can also use Google’s Schema Markup Tester to make sure Google understands the structured data on your site.
on your product pages to help search engines understand the content of your page. This can also help to display rich snippets in search engine results.
5) Include Customer Reviews
Yes, including customer reviews on your product pages can help to improve your search engine rankings. Even though it doesn’t deal directly with product SEO like the previous steps, it helps to increase conversions and trust with your customers.
Make sure to respond to customer reviews as well! And don’t hide the bad ones. As a brand, you can learn a lot from your customer’s reviews and they’re helpful to a potential customer. Hiding bad reviews hurt you as the brand and the customer who’s thinking about purchasing.
6) Use Internal Linking
Think of internal linking like a map. It’s how Google search crawlers navigate and understand the most important pages on your site. It’s also how users navigate your site.
Internal linking is an SEO factor Google takes into consideration when ranking your brand or products on the first page of Google.
When it comes to internal linking for product SEO you want to make sure you’re linking to other relevant pages on your site. This is what internal linking it. It builds a new pathway for users and Google search crawlers to follow. When it comes to product pages, add an internal link to the product description that leads to a relevant blog post. This is perfect for visitors who aren’t yet ready to buy.
Plus, internal links keep people on your website longer. Which is good for decreasing your bounce rate, which sends a signal to Google that people are loving what’s on your site.
7) Optimize for Mobile
Everyone is on their mobile devices these days, especially when they are shopping online. You would think it’s common sense by now but most brands do not optimize their site for smaller screens. This can easily ruin the user’s experience if words are too small, images look blurry, they can’t navigate well, etc.
Ensure that your product pages are optimized for mobile devices which will help to improve the user experience and search engine rankings.
Are your products invisible through search?
Product SEO is going to be a life saver when it comes to organic visibility. The fact that your ideal customer can go to Google and type in a product that you sell and see your product pop up as #1 is an amazing achievement. I recommend as soon as you have search engine optimization down, you learn more about conversion rate optimization. Because SEO gets your ideal customers to your products but your website has to do the rest of the work.
Product SEO | Frequently Asked Questions
Product SEO, or search engine optimization, refers to the process of optimizing a product page on a website to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) and attract more organic traffic.
Some common mistakes to avoid in product SEO include using duplicate content across multiple product pages, using generic or non-descriptive product titles and descriptions, neglecting to optimize images and multimedia content, and neglecting to include customer reviews and ratings on your product pages.
You can measure the success of your product SEO efforts by tracking your website’s search engine rankings, organic traffic, and conversion rates. Tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console can provide valuable insights into these metrics and help you identify areas for improvement.
It’s a good idea to periodically review and update your product pages for SEO, especially if you’ve noticed a decline in search engine rankings or organic traffic. However, the frequency of updates will depend on your specific website and industry, as well as your overall marketing strategy.
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