A recent study reveals that less than 10% of websites receive organic traffic from Google, meaning a staggering 90% get none at all. Content optimization for ecommerce goes beyond just using the right keywords—it’s about crafting the highest quality content possible.
In this guide, we’ll cover the key elements needed to build a highly effective ecommerce content optimization strategy, focusing on the following areas:
We’ll dive into each of these areas in detail throughout this guide with actionable examples to help you optimize your storefront.
Before exploring specific areas in your eCommerce store where you can implement content optimization strategies, it’s important to first understand the main categories of content optimization:
The first step of content optimization is maximizing organic search traffic. Ranking organically on search engines like Google is highly beneficial because it offers a cost-effective and sustainable method for both building brand awareness and increasing sales.
Before trying to maximize your search traffic, merchants need to know how to accurately track it. The most popular tool is Google Analytics, where you can access insights such as users, new users, bounce rate, page sessions and more. Navigate under the Acquisition tab to get access to organic traffic channels and keywords. Below is a screenshot by Azadvertising.
Here are factors that influence your organic search traffic:
Optimizing conversion flow focuses on reducing friction throughout the buying journey and smoothly guiding users from browsing to checkout. This streamlined experience is achieved through clear calls to action (CTAs), an intuitive UI/UX, and a seamless checkout process, all of which contribute to higher conversion rates.
Online drinkware retailer Larq does an amazing job with CTA buttons that stand out and help guide the user to checkout. It’s not hard to see that they offer free shopping because it’s mentioned in their CTA button, “Get Free Shipping.”
It’s crucial to A/B test various page layouts and CTAs to determine which design drives the highest conversions. This comprehensive guide on A/B testing provides all the insights you need to get started.
Website speed is crucial for a positive user experience, and search engines reward it accordingly. In fact, since May 2021, Google has prioritized faster-loading websites in its rankings, making page speed an essential factor for both user satisfaction and SEO success.
According to Think with Google, websites that load in up to 3 seconds provide the best user experience. Anything longer than 3 seconds increases the likelihood of website abandonment.
To ensure your store loads quickly, optimize your image sizes, enable browser caching, and minimize server response times.
Making your product or category page more relevant for your search terms is essential for ranking on Google. Use keywords that perfectly represent your products and strategically place them throughout the product titles, descriptions and alt image text.
High-quality blog posts that are informative and engaging play a major role in ranking on Google Search. When people find your content relevant and shareable, search engines take notice. So the key isn’t to stuff your blog posts with keywords, but rather to focus on creating content that positions your brand as a leader in your niche.
Shogun’s keyword analyzer tool audits your entire domain and shows you the keywords that you already rank for. This tool also segments your keywords into clusters (ex., men’s watches and watches for men go into the same cluster). Then you can upload a blog post through this tool, where it adds all the keywords for you.
Long-form content (2,000+ words) tends to rank higher in search engine results. In fact, the top 10 positions on Google are typically occupied by articles exceeding 2,000 words.
Google ranks high-quality long-form content not just because of the word count but also because of the greater probability of getting backlinks.
Below is a graph that Hubspot created that depicts the correlation between word count and backlinks:
Tips for blog content for merchants:
Every piece of content you publish on your online store serves a single purpose: converting visitors into customers. You can strategically incorporate CTAs in your blog to achieve various goals, whether it’s driving email subscriptions, encouraging SMS sign-ups, or boosting sales with showcasing products through product boxes.
Online hydration blend brand Hydrant promotes a popup CTA in their blog posts encouraging visitors to leave their phone number by incentivizing them with a $5 discount.
A great example of strategically positioned CTAs is the online fitness apparel brand Gymshark. In their blog posts, they place a CTA at the beginning of the article to encourage shopping for their products and another at the end to prompt users to download their app.
One of the most popular ways to drive sales is to actually showcase your products within the blog post. Skincare brand Heydey showcases their products within their blog posts to educate visitors with acne how to build a tailored skincare routine.
Visitors can purchase products directly from the blog post, making it a powerful way to boost conversions while simultaneously addressing a specific pain point.
Adding product boxes in your blog posts is easier than ever with Shogun. Here are the following steps to use Shogun product boxes:
Product pages are the core of ecommerce websites. By optimizing them effectively, you can significantly see the impact of search engine traffic and its effect on conversions.
Optimizing your product pages for search engines starts with keyword research. In a study by Ahrefs, it was found that 68% of online experiences start with the search engine. Using keywords in your product titles, descriptions, meta tags and URLs is essential for ranking. Shorter sentences can greatly enhance readability. Tools like Yoast also help optimize your content for SEO, particularly when it comes to refining your URLs.
Solo Stove excels at optimizing their product pages by using short, concise sentences that clearly convey the product’s value. Their hero section is filled with high-quality images that showcase people using the pizza oven to make delicious pizzas, accompanied by a compelling call to action.
67% of consumers agree that high-quality product images are important for making purchasing decisions. That’s why it’s essential to use multiple images that showcase your product from different angles, highlight its key features, and demonstrate how it’s used in real-world environments.
Make sure to optimize your images alt text with specific keywords so they can rank on Google as well. Here’s what comes up when we search for denim shorts:
Complementing these with videos adds even more value, offering a dynamic view that can engage customers and boost their confidence in making a purchase.
Fashion retailer ASOS does an amazing job at offering videos alongside images to showcase how their clothing looks in real life. This not only showcases the fit but also the fabric.
Adding personalization tailors your content to become even more relevant to individual customers based on location, past interactions or behavior. This ultimately increases the likelihood that they will make a purchase.
For example, you can recommend products based on what your customer has previously searched for or viewed. You can optimize your product pages using Shogun’s personalized experiences feature.
Merchants can create personalized experiences in minutes by following these steps:
Collection pages serve as the gateway to your products, making it essential to optimize them for maximum impact. Mastering this optimization is key to driving significant improvements in both user engagement and conversion rates.
To drive organic search traffic, collection pages need to be SEO-friendly. These pages are crucial for guiding customers who are at the start of their buying journey and are searching for broader terms.
These shoppers may not know the exact product they want, but they have a clear idea of the category they’re interested in. By optimizing collection pages for relevant keywords, you can capture this audience and guide them toward making a purchase.
Precious metals retailer JM Bullion understands that many visitors want to buy gold but may not know the specifics. To address this, they’ve created a “Gold” category, where they showcase various gold collections, making it easy for customers to explore and choose the right product.
Positioning your products strategically on your collections page has a high impact on sales. Placing your best-sellers and most popular items at the beginning of your collection page ensures more customers see them.
A highly effective strategy to ensure your next product launch sells out is to create a “Coming Soon” collection. Fashion retailer Fashion Nova boosts sales by offering an additional discount for preorders, encouraging consumers to commit to purchasing before the official launch.
A recent study by Salesforce found that 73% of customers expect to be provided a personalized experience. Makeup retailer Sephora utilizes user behavior to build collections based on trends and consumer preferences. They create seasonal collections in demand with trends to meet customer preferences while also boosting sales.
56% of customers report that they are more likely to become repeat buyers after receiving a personalized experience from a brand.
Shogun’s personalized experiences feature can significantly impact your store’s online shopping experience. You can create dynamic, personalized collection pages to achieve the same results. This level of personalization can increase your overall sales by 10% or more, according to McKinsey.
Your homepage makes a lasting impression on visitors, so it’s essential for merchants to focus on optimizing it to encourage conversions.
Personalizing the homepage offers the best possible experience for your visitors. A great example of homepage personalization done right is Nike, which uses data-driven marketing based on customer behavior, past purchases, past products viewed and other data to offer a personalized experience.
Online sports apparel retailer Dick’s Sporting Goods leverages personalization in its search bar by displaying top-selling women’s shoes based on users’ previous search history. For example, if a customer has previously searched for women’s shoes, the search bar will automatically highlight popular options in that category.
Effective SEO combines your brand name with your target keyword. This is why homepage SEO shouldn’t be overlooked. It can position your brand as the “owner” of your target keywords, which is every merchant’s dream.
A great example is the fashion brand Patagonia. When you type their brand name into Google, you can see that it is optimized for certain high-value keywords.
In order for merchants to optimize their homepage content for SEO, they need to focus on the following:
Popular products mean one thing: they already have buyers. Showcasing them on your homepage will only help merchants boost their sales.
Eyewear brand Jacques Marie Mage features their most popular eyewear as “The Icons” on their homepage.
An optimized help center can guide your customers to answers without opening tickets or calling customer support. Zappos has optimized its help center content to offer instant answers to its most common questions to help solve issues effectively.
When building landing pages, it’s extremely important to optimize the content to be laser-focused on your visitors goals.
The key difference between a product page and a landing page is their focus: a landing page is specifically optimized for conversions, while a product page is designed to inform and educate customers about the product.
A landing page should contain the following:
The most effective way to optimize your landing pages for higher conversions is through A/B testing. Check out this comprehensive guide for detailed insights.
Google penalizes duplicate content, so it’s important that your landing page (and all of your other pages) contain original content.
Google also penalizes identical URLs, treating them as duplicate content even if the landing page content is unique. Remember, URLs are case-sensitive, so slight variations can make a difference.
Another issue to avoid is having multiple URLs direct to the same page, which can occur due to a misconfigured server. Ensure that each page has a single, unique URL and implement 301 redirects for any additional URLs that point to the same page. This helps prevent duplicate content issues and maintains your SEO integrity.
Creating unique landing pages for targeted marketing campaigns is the biggest driver of conversions. If you want to take it one step further, you create dynamic landing pages that adapt based on referral URLs or UTM parameters.
This approach ensures that the content of your landing page fully aligns with the user’s intent. Merchants can achieve this level of personalization using Shogun’s Personalization feature, which allows them to create dynamic landing pages that highlight products specific to each marketing campaign. This way, they’ll be able to deliver a more targeted and effective message and increase their ROAS.
Merchants can portray who they are, what they stand for and why they do what they do on their About Us page. Many customers become loyal to brands that share the same value as them. When optimizing your About Us page, consider the following steps:
