Building an ecommerce site that ranks in Google and other search engines is essential for running a profitable business. While you can use paid ads and other marketing methods, the majority of people search for products online, and the companies that show up in search results get the lion’s share of sales.

That sounds simple enough, but creating an SEO-optimized ecommerce website takes planning and a strategy. It’s not enough to generate a list of keywords and then sprinkle them throughout your site. You need to optimize every page for every product you sell and employ a handful of SEO strategies across your entire website.

Whether your store isn’t ranking or you’re just starting to build a new site, here are some pro tips for small tasks with maximum SEO impact.

1. Simplify your category hierarchies

If you sell more than a couple of products, it’s essential to create user-friendly navigation with the simplest category hierarchies possible. The more subcategories you have, the harder it will be to navigate your site. 

For example, you don’t want to force people to click five times just to find the men’s shoes category. A hierarchy like this would be difficult to navigate:

Apparel > Outdoor > Footwear > Men > Shoes

On the other hand, when you make “Shoes” a main category, people will go right to it when they’re looking for shoes. Nobody is going to search first for “apparel” or “Men” when they’re looking for shoes. This hierarchy makes more sense:

Shoes > Men
Shoes > Women

Shoes > Kids

To create your hierarchies, you need to think like your customer and determine how they’re going to think about the products they want to purchase.

Why this matters for SEO

The more categories you have, the more pages you’ll get indexed in Google. That’s usually a good thing, but let’s say your “Apparel,” “Outdoor,” and “Footwear” pages get indexed in Google. If they happen to show up in searches related to shoes, users will have a difficult time navigating back to the main “Shoes” category to look at all your products. Your additional category pages might rank, but users will bounce.

On the contrary, when you keep it simple with “Shoes” as your main category and skip the others, you can optimize that category page, and potential customers won’t bounce when they get frustrated by your navigation.

2. Implement structured data markup

Everyone knows about keywords, backlinks, and technical SEO. However, the importance of structured data is often overlooked. Structured data, also known as schema markup, helps search engines understand your content better, which enhances visibility in search results.

With schema markup applied to your products, it tells search engines everything about that product and enables rich snippets to show up in search results (like pricing, availability, and review stars). For example, you can add the price, currency, item condition, availability, product URL, rating, and even a short review.

To see how your markup will show up, use Google’s Rich Results Test. It will tell you if your markup is valid, and you’ll be able to preview it for accuracy. And if you don’t want to deal with the technical nature of implementing structured data, companies like SEO.co will do it all for you so you can focus your time and attention on other aspects of growing your business.

3. Optimize your internal links

Most people spend a lot of time and effort generating backlinks, while forgetting about internal links. Although internal links are great for helping users navigate your site, they’re also essential for SEO.

Internal links connect related items and encourage exploration, but they also tell search engines what your pages are about. For example, if you sell electronics, it helps to create internal links to your “Laptops” category page using the anchor text “Laptops.” Anchor text for internal links should be descriptive and relevant, but short and to the point. For best results, only link to a page once and stick to just a few links per page in total.

4. Collaborate with an SEO agency

Hiring an SEO agency will be your secret weapon that can propel you further ahead than you could achieve on your own. SEO agencies are familiar with ecommerce and know exactly how to craft an effective plan to get your site visible in the search engines.

DIY SEO is not easy. If you’re not trying to become an SEO guru, you’re better off hiring a professional. Your time is valuable. The years you’ll need to spend mastering SEO are better spent growing your business and generating profits.

Build a strong SEO foundation with a pro

It’s not hard to optimize an ecommerce website for SEO, but it requires a bit of expertise. Collaborating with an SEO agency ensures you’re building a solid foundation that will improve your rankings, drive relevant traffic, and get your brand on the map.