5 Most Common SEO Challenges For E-commerce Sites (and How To Overcome Them)
Do you find yourself spending an inordinate amount of time and energy on SEO efforts only to see minimal return? If so, you’re not alone – many e-commerce sites experience the same challenge. Search engine optimization is a key component for boosting organic traffic to your site and increasing sales, yet it can be a tricky skill to master. Together with New Orleans SEO Company, we’ll walk through five common issues that e-commerce website owners encounter when attempting to improve their search rankings, explore why they’re happening, and share tips on how you can overcome them. Read on if you want to discover proven methods of improving your e-commerce SEO efforts!
1. Poor Mobile-Friendliness
As mobile usage continues to rise, it’s essential to have a website that caters to mobile users. Search engines like Google take into account both the desktop and mobile versions of your site when determining rankings, so having optimized pages for all devices is critical. Marketing Agency New Orleans shares that mobile-friendliness isn’t just about designing a responsive website – it also involves making sure your pages load quickly and are easy to use on any device. If your e-commerce site isn’t as user-friendly as it should be, you could end up losing potential customers before they even get a chance to browse through your offerings.
How To Overcome: Start by testing the speed of your page loading times and optimizing images where possible. You should also make sure that all of your pages are responsive and display properly on all devices. Additionally, use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to check how easy it is for users to navigate your website. Finally, create content specifically designed for mobile users – such as product reviews and educational guides – so you can target customers searching from their phones or tablets.
2. Duplicate Content
Duplicate content is an especially common issue for e-commerce sites with multiple product pages having the same or similar descriptions. According to Thrive SEO Services, search engines view duplicate content as a potential sign of spamming or a lack of originality, which can negatively impact your rankings. The good news is that dealing with duplicate content isn’t too complicated: you simply have to find the duplicate content on your site and update it so that it is unique.
How To Overcome: The best way to avoid having any issues with duplicate content is to create original copy for each product page instead of using one description across multiple pages. You should also use a tool like Copyscape or Siteliner to scan your website and find any instances of duplicate content. If you do discover some areas that need improvement, make sure to rewrite them or add more details in order to differentiate them from other similar pages.
3. Lack Of Unique Content
Search engines favor websites with a high volume of quality, unique content – especially when it comes to e-commerce sites selling products online. Without this kind of content, it’s very difficult to rank high in any vertical, which will limit the reach of your site. According to a top content writing agency, if you want to attract organic traffic through SEO, you need to provide information that people are actually looking for online – and not just generic descriptions of your products.
How To Overcome: Creating unique content for each product page is crucial for improving your rankings. You should also consider adding educational resources such as blog posts and how-to guides on various topics related to the products you sell. Furthermore, don’t forget about optimizing your content with keywords that match user intent – this will help boost visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). Additionally, look into generating videos or tutorials describing your products in more detail; this is an effective way to get more views and engagement on your website.
4. Unstructured Data
Unstructured data can prevent search engines from accurately interpreting your content, which will reduce the visibility of your site in SERPs. This data often comes in the form of product reviews, FAQs, and other pieces of content that don’t fit into a structured format. If these types of pages are filled with unstructured data – such as images or videos – search engine crawlers may not be able to properly index them for ranking purposes.
How To Overcome: Start by making sure all of your product reviews follow a structured format so they’re easier for search engines to crawl and interpret. Additionally, make sure to include relevant keywords in your product reviews whenever possible. If you have any FAQ pages or other types of unstructured data, consider adding structured markup such as Schema.org microdata and using Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper tool to make it easier for search engines to read your content.
5. Improper Internal Linking
It’s important to properly link the various pages on your e-commerce site so that search engines can identify them and rank them appropriately. This means creating a strong internal linking structure by linking related webpages together, including information pages alongside product listings, and setting up breadcrumbs where necessary (this is especially useful for larger websites with multiple categories). Poorly managed internal linking can lead to poor user experience, which will adversely affect your rankings.
How To Overcome: Start by examining the structure of your website and look for any opportunities to add internal links. Ensure that product pages are linked to relevant category or information pages, and vice versa. Make sure you have a clear hierarchy within each page; this will make it easier for users (and search engines) to navigate your site and find what they need quickly. Additionally, adding breadcrumbs where appropriate will help both visitors and crawlers better understand the structure of your website – which means more accurate indexing in SERPs.
Summing Up
Overall, SEO is an ever-evolving process with many different elements that should be taken into consideration if you want to achieve success. When it comes to e-commerce websites, the five challenges mentioned above should be addressed in order to boost visibility and rankings in SERPs. By creating unique content, properly managing unstructured data, optimizing keywords for user intent, setting up a strong internal linking structure, and leveraging Schema markup where appropriate – you’ll be well on your way to improving your SEO performance.
However, don’t forget that SEO isn’t just about technical optimization; it’s also important to focus on providing a quality user experience by ensuring fast loading speeds, responsive design, and other UX considerations. If all of these elements are taken into account when building an e-commerce website – then you can be sure that your site will be well-positioned to perform in search engine results.