The success of an e-commerce store can be determined by whether it generates enough quality traffic that ultimately turns into sales. SEO can effectively drive traffic for all websites; e-commerce, however, presents unique challenges.
Avoid the most common pitfalls of SEO for e-commerce by learning what those pitfalls are and how to prevent costly mistakes in the future. Our favorite tactic is to turn these weak spots into strengths.
This article will discuss how to identify a few of those issues, along with our best tips on how to make them work to your advantage.
Tip 1: Avoid keyword cannibalism
Though it aptly sounds like the subject of a TV horror show, keyword cannibalism is much more insidious than your average ghost haunting.
If multiple pages on your website feature responses to the same search query, they will compete against each other in search engine results, and you will lose control over which will show for the desired keyword.
E-commerce makes this issue especially tricky to work around—particularly if you have many similar products.
Avoiding keyword cannibalism calls for attention to detail; you’ll need to research unique long-tail keywords for which to optimize each of your products:
- Group together and cross-reference similar product pages. Assign each its own keyword to optimize for.
- Avoid obvious duplicate-content problems by using canonical links.
- Track that your site is properly implementing the correct canonical links and unique title tags. There are many tools available for doing so (such as Website Auditor).
Tip 2: Create informative out of stock pages
Imagine you’re shopping online. You’ve found the perfect product and you’re ready to buy—but it’s out of stock! As a customer, what are your options?
You can…
- Either leave that specific store to try and find it elsewhere
- Or forget about your decision to buy and drop the whole ordeal
Your mood, budget, and how much time (or patience) you have will all play a role in whatever choice you make. Those are all variables that the e-commerce store manager has no sway over.
Don’t give up yet. By putting yourself in the customer’s shoes, you can deduce the best ways to prevent either of these behaviors from happening by offering more appealing options.
If the Item Is Out of Stock
When an item is only temporarily out of stock, you should list when it will be available again. There are four main ways to save the sale:
- If your item is unique or offered at a special price, knowing when it will be available again lets them choose whether it’s worth the wait.
- Offer a way to subscribe to a notification when the item is available again. It could be email or text, and it would remind them of their decision to purchase later on.
- When you know the item is coming back soon, enable a pre-order option. Doing so enables you to take advantage of their current “yes” so they can purchase now. Now is always best.
- List similar options. Providing similar products creates a second opportunity to satisfy their immediate needs with a product currently in stock.
If the Item Is Discontinued
When the item will no longer be available ever again, you have two options to maintain the SEO benefits:
- Keep the product page, but add clear messaging to let viewers know that it is entirely discontinued. Capture the decision to purchase by listing similar products.
- Send the product page to its parent category with a 301 redirect. That keeps the SEO juice flowing while offering similar products to…
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