How to Conduct an Ecommerce SEO Audit and Drive Organic Traffic?
How can you conduct an effective ecommerce SEO audit and increase organic traffic? What are the secrets to grabbing all the search engine attention and discovering hidden opportunities? This article explores conducting an ecommerce SEO audit and is packed with tips, tricks, and strategies that can help you rank higher in search results!
Key Takeaways
- Regular ecommerce audits are essential for boosting online visibility and organic traffic.
- These audits entail various assessments: technical, on-page, off-page, local SEO, user experience, and brand/trustworthiness audits.
- Technical SEO issues, like flawed site structure or inconsistent navigation, can hinder ecommerce site performance in SERPs.
- Enhancing keyword usage and unique content differentiation can elevate site rankings. It also helps deliver outstanding user experiences and enhances brand loyalty.
What Is Ecommerce SEO?
Ecommerce SEO refers to the strategic process of enhancing an online store's visibility and performance in search engine results pages (SERPs). The main goal is to get more people to visit your site, which can lead to more sales and money.
A well-executed ecommerce SEO strategy in online shopping can mean the difference between success and failure.
For example, imagine two stores that sell unique handmade bags. One store has optimised its website with necessary keywords like "handmade leather bags" and "sustainable fashion accessories," while the other hasn't. Doing this, the first store could be more successful than the other.
Ecommerce sites are particularly complex because their many product pages require special attention for effective optimisation. With a well-organized website with easy-to-use navigation, search engines and users can find and understand your content better.
Types of Ecommerce SEO Audits
There are many types of ecommerce SEO audits: technical, on-page, off-page, local, user experience, and brand and trustworthiness.
1. Technical SEO Audits
Technical SEO audits ensure that your website is optimised correctly for search engines.
It makes it easier for search engines like Google to find and understand your website. To do this, check for sitemaps, redirects, and website structure.
One example of technical SEO audits is optimising your website structure and URLs. Implementing HTTPS instead of HTTP contributes to more secure browsing experiences.
2. On-Page SEO Audits
On-page SEO audits involve evaluating elements on each webpage that affects its ranking in search results. It looks at each page on your site to see how well it's set up for search engines. This includes title tags, meta descriptions, and keyword usage.
3. Off-Page SEO Audits
Off-page SEO audits look at external factors of your ecommerce websites that can affect its rankings in search engines. This includes backlinks from other websites, social media, and online reviews.
4. Local SEO Audits
Local SEO audits are crucial for ecommerce sites targeting specific geographic markets or regions. It helps your site rank higher in searches for local businesses. It is important for stores that want to be found by people in their area or region.
Local SEO audits include checking the following:
- Local listings and citations
- Google My Business optimisation
- Ensuring consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone) information across directories
5. User Experience Audits
User experience audits focus on ensuring your site is easy and enjoyable. This can mean checking website navigation, search functions, and how fast pages load.
UI/UX elements that can be audited include:
- Navigation
- Site search
- Page loading times
- Structured data markup.
You can analyse how visitors interact with site searches. It helps identify ways to make your products more discoverable.
You can improve the UX by providing intuitive filters. Add autocomplete features to help customers quickly find what they need.
6. Brand & Trustworthiness Audits
Brand and trustworthiness audits look at how solid and well-known your brand is. Reviews and a good website reputation can help your site rank higher in search engine results. Establishing a solid brand presence builds customer loyalty. It helps to gain credibility and increases the site's authority.
Online reviews play a crucial role in building trust with customers. Having a review profile across different platforms such as Google My Business, Yelp!, TripAdvisor, or Trustpilot is essential.
One metric commonly used for measuring website trust is Domain Authority (DA). DA is based on multiple factors. It includes backlink count from high-quality domains compared to overall links pointing to the site.
When to Conduct an Ecommerce SEO Audit?
It is essential to do an ecommerce SEO audit regularly. This helps make sure your site works at its best. You should do an audit when you make significant changes to your website or if there is less organic traffic.
Large ecommerce sites may need to do audits every month. Smaller ecommerce sites may only require quarterly or bi-annual audits.
How To Perform An Effective Ecommerce SEO Audit Checklist
To do a good audit, you should get your SEO tools ready. Then you need to check your analytics setup. After that, you can look at different types of audits, like technical, on-page, off-page, local, user experience, and brand & trustworthiness audits.
1. Gather Your SEO Tools
Make sure you have the right tools before doing an audit. You will need different tools for different audits. For example, use SEMrush or Ubersuggest for keyword research in on-page SEO audits. These tools will help you find long-tail keywords that help people see your site.
2. Check Your Analytics Setup with Google Search Console
Checking your analytics setup is essential for a good ecommerce SEO audit. Make sure the data you get from tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console is correct and works well.
Review your site's crawl stats in Google Search Console to find issues like slow-loading pages or server errors. Also, keep track of organic traffic trends to see how your site is doing.
I. Technical SEO Audit
In a technical SEO audit, you must look at the following aspects:
- Mobile-friendliness
- Site indexing and crawling
- SSL certificates.
- Site speed
- Domain redirections
1. Site Indexing and Crawling for Search Engines
Site indexing and crawling are fundamental. Site indexing is how well search engines like Google can find your pages. Crawling is how search engine bots look at web pages for content and links.
To improve indexing and crawling, you can make an XML sitemap, which lists all the essential URLs on your site. You should give this to Google Search Console. You can also use tools like Screaming Frog or Ahrefs to find broken links or 404 errors and fix your sitemaps. Doing this will help make your site more visible on the internet.
2. Domain Redirections
Domain redirections matter a lot for technical SEO audits. If you do them wrong, Google might not show your whole website. This can cause you to lose traffic and money.
When doing an SEO audit, ensure all domains connected to your site go to the right place. Use Google Search Console's URL parameter crawl tool to manage redirections.
Be careful with site search and internationalisation since they can also affect redirections. Your site may be operating in multiple countries or languages. You must include localising URLs for each region-specific version of the website you're presenting online.
3. Site Speed Check
Checking site speed is very important for a good ecommerce SEO audit. Slow websites can make people leave your site and hurt your SEO ranking. Use Google's Page Speed Insights tool to see how fast your site loads. It will give you tips on how to make it even faster.
4. Mobile-friendliness
Many people use mobile devices, so you must ensure your ecommerce site is mobile-friendly. Google likes mobile-friendly sites because they are more accessible for people to use, and they rank better in search results. Be sure your site works well on mobile devices like phones and tablets.
A site's lack of mobile-friendliness can lead to significant engagement and bounce rates issues.
5. SSL Certificate
An SSL certificate is an essential aspect of ecommerce SEO and website security. Make sure you get an SSL certificate from a trusted company. Google likes sites with SSL certificates, so having one will help your search ranking. People also trust secure websites more, which means they might buy more stuff from you.
II. On-page SEO Audit
During an on-page SEO audit, look at title tags, meta descriptions, and canonical tags to ensure they suit search engines and people.
1. Title Tags and Meta Descriptions
Title tags and meta descriptions are essential for on-page SEO audits. A title tag is an HTML element that shows the title of a webpage in search results. A meta description is a summary of what the page is about.
For example, if you sell handmade jewellery made from ethical materials, your title tag might be "Handmade Jewelry | Ethically Sourced Materials | Free Shipping". The meta description could be "Shop our stunning handmade jewellery made with ethically sourced materials."
2. Canonical Tags
Canonical tags help search engines rank your site well. They tell search engines which version of a page to use so they don't think you have duplicate content. Be careful when using canonical tags since mistakes can hurt your SEO.
3. Keyword Audit
A keyword audit is essential for a complete ecommerce SEO audit. It helps you find the words and phrases people use to search for what you sell.
Look at head-term, long-tail, branded keywords, scientific and technical keywords, core topic keywords, and product-specific keywords. This will help you find new content ideas or see if different pages use the exact keywords.
4. Search Intent
Understanding search intent helps you make content that matches what people are looking for, which makes it more likely they will buy something. There are four kinds of search intent: navigational, informational, transactional, and commercial investigation.
Knowing what search people use for your products will help you create relevant content. For example, someone searching for "best running shoes" might want information about comfort and durability. You could make blog posts or product category pages that talk about those features.
III. Off-Page SEO Audit
The off-page SEO audit examines your website's backlinks and social media presence. This helps find ways to make your site better and get more people to visit.
1. Backlink Analysis
Checking your site's backlinks is essential. You need to see how many other websites link to your site and ensure those links work. Good backlinks from trusted websites can boost your ranking on search engines. But bad backlinks from untrustworthy sites can hurt your order.
To perform backlink analysis, you can make use of advanced tools such as Ahrefs or SEMrush. Another way through which you can get an idea about the backlink potential of your site is by determining its domain & page authority scores. For this, you will again need to get assistance from an online tool like DA PA Checker.
2. Social Media Presence
Your social media presence matters for SEO too. Being active on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can improve your website's ranking. Search engines use social signals to judge the value of your content. A strong social media presence helps your brand and gives you more chances to engage with people.
IV. Local SEO Audit
A local SEO audit looks at your site's appearance in search results. It includes checking local listings and citations and optimising your Google My Business listing.
1. Local Listings and Citations
Local listings have your business information online. Citations mention your business on other websites. Both of these can affect your search rankings. If there is wrong information, it can confuse customers. Fixing this helps your site do better in search results.
2. Google My Business Optimization
Optimising your Google My Business listing helps your site show up better in local search results. Make sure you have accurate information, like your address and business hours. Ask customers to leave reviews, too. Good reviews can give you a better ranking in local search results.
V. User Experience Audit
A user experience audit looks at how easy your site is to use and how it can help visitors get what they want. It includes checking your site's design and finding ways to get more sales.
1. Site Navigation and Design
Your site's design and navigation help visitors find what they want. Your navigation elements, like the menu and site search, must work well and be easy to use. Good navigation can get you more sales. Lousy navigation can make people leave your site.
2. Conversion Rate Optimization
Conversion rate optimisation helps get more people to buy from your site. Make your product pages clear and easy to understand. Also, make the checkout process simple. This can lower the number of people who leave without buying anything.
VI. Brand & Trustworthiness Audit
In this audit, you look at what people think of your company online. You check your reviews and content to see how trustworthy your site is.
1. Online Reviews and Reputation Management
Online reviews can help your site's ranking. Positive reviews build trust with customers. Make sure to respond to feedback and fix any problems people have. A good example is Amazon's product pages. They have customer reviews and other content that helps people make decisions.
2. Content Quality and Authority
Check the content on your site for quality and authority. Good content helps build trust and gets people to buy. Harmful content can hurt your ranking on search engines. Update old content and add new pages with the right keywords. This helps your site provide better information and rank higher.
Understanding SEO Audit Results and Setting Priorities
After doing an ecommerce SEO audit, you must understand the results and decide what is essential. Look at the problems found in each audit or analysis.
Making an Action Plan and Standard Operating Procedures
- Decide what SEO issues to fix first based on how urgent they are and how much they affect your income.
- Figure out who will do each task, when it should be done, and how often.
- Make a timeline with deadlines for each task.
- Write a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) explaining each task step-by-step.
- Make a checklist to make sure all tasks are done well.
- Set up Google Analytics and other tools to see how your site does after making the changes.
- Look at your results often and make changes if needed.
Keeping Track of Ecommerce Site Performance
After doing an ecommerce SEO audit, you need to track your site's performance. This helps catch any problems early so you can fix them right away.
You can use tools like Google Analytics or Whatagraph to see how your site is doing. You can also set up automatic reports with Data export or BigQuery to look at the information more closely.
Remember, doing an audit and keeping track of how your site does will help you stay easy to find on search engines and keep up with changes and competition.
FAQs: Ecommerce SEO Audit
1. What is an ecommerce SEO audit, and why is it important?
An ecommerce SEO audit looks at an online store's website to see what can be improved for search engine optimization. It helps your site be easier to find on Google and other search engines, get more visitors, and make more money.
2. How do I do an effective ecommerce SEO audit?
To do a good ecommerce SEO audit, check keywords and competitor analysis in Google Analytics. Look at problems with site structure and technical issues like crawl errors, redirects, and broken internal links.
Check on-page optimisation, like meta descriptions and title tags, and the content of the pages. Make sure everything follows the best designs and rules for user experience.
3. What are common problems in an ecommerce SEO audit?
Some common problems found during an audit are old or bad content, unclear messages on the site, no organised data, and bad URLs.
4. When should I do my next ecommerce SEO audit?
Experts say you should do a full ecommerce SEO audit once a year if you can. You should also check your site's data and check for problems regularly. This helps you keep track of changes and stay on top of any new issues that could need more work.
Summary
Have you got everything needed to start your eCommerce SEO audit effectively? This article guides you through technical, on-page, off-page, local, user experience, and brand & trustworthiness audits. We covered tools and tips to optimise your ecommerce website.
With regular audits, you can find problems before they get too big and make sure your website is always good for organic traffic. Learn how to boost your site's visibility in search results and gain a competitive edge. For more e-commerce updates, check out our Magento news section.
