If you want your ecommerce product pages to show up for critical queries, you need a great product page SEO strategy that helps them rank higher and grab attention in a sea of competitive pages on the SERPs. Ranking a product page isn’t the same as ranking a regular landing page. If you apply the same tactics, you may miss critical traffic-driving factors! But don’t worry — in this guide, we’ll be going over the various components that play a role in product page SEO so you can maximize their search visibility.
Importance of SEO for Product Pages
Product page SEO involves optimizing individual pages of your ecommerce website to rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). It can increase the visibility of your products on SERPs and make it easier for potential customers to find them. Effective product page SEO can help improve website traffic, user engagement, and sales revenue to help you reach your business goals.
How To Assess Your Competition’s Product Page SEO
Not sure where to start? Assess the product pages of your direct competitors. First, simply take a look at your competitors’ pages. How are they laid out? What kind of information do they provide? Do they offer videos and reviews? Basically: What do they have that your pages don’t?
Next, run a competitor’s product page URL through the SEO tool of your choice, such as Semrush or Ahrefs. See what keywords they’re ranking for and how well their pages are performing. You may find that an individual page isn’t ranking well, but the category page is. For example, when I searched “Coleman camping stove,” I easily found the category page, but there were no individual product pages in SERPs.
This is fine, though, because by optimizing their product page and using Google Merchant Center, they’ve made it more likely that they’ll appear in Google shopping results.
(In fact, they’re the first ones.)
For pages performing better than yours, identify any elements on their pages that yours lack. For example, maybe they display reviews more prominently or have a video of the product in action. Maybe their copy does a better job of using semantic keywords and important search terms.
Understanding what top-ranking competitors are doing well is helpful for identifying potential opportunities on your own pages. You don’t want to copy the competition — you want to pinpoint the factors helping their rankings and improve upon them.
Key Components of Product Page SEO
Let’s talk about the unique elements of product page SEO and what to keep in mind as you plan, structure, and optimize your pages.
Keyword Research
Keyword research is the process of finding and analyzing search terms users have entered into search engines like Google to better optimize your web content. Keyword research can help you better understand your audience and optimize your pages to rank for relevant searches.
Product Page Keyword Research Tips
- Identify keyword gaps. Competitor research is a highly effective tactic for your keyword strategy. Tools like Semrush and Ahrefs are both excellent for researching direct competitors’ product pages. These tools can allow you to see which product-focused keywords are ranking highly on competitors’ pages and show you how your keywords compare. Use competitor research to identify gaps in your keyword strategy, and be sure to add any keywords you’re ranking low for (or may have missed entirely).
- Identify long-tail keywords. It’s also important to target long-tail keywords, which are more specific and descriptive search terms. These generally have lower search volumes. However, the individuals who use these longer phrases tend to be ready to buy. An example for a camping stove might be “best 2 burner camping stove with griddle.”
- Focus on high-intent keywords. Be sure to identify and include high-intent keywords, which are search terms that indicate the user is more likely to take action. For your product pages, target keywords with transactional intent. Examples of this include phrases like “get [product],” “buy [product],” “price of [product],” and “purchase [product].” By targeting these keywords, you’ll have a greater chance of attracting consumers looking to make a purchase.
You can use the keywords you find to optimize existing content. Simply create a keyword strategy and use keyword mapping to determine which pages should be optimized with particular keywords. You can also work with a keyword research service to identify optimal keywords.
Technical SEO Considerations for Product Page SEO
Technical SEO refers specifically to the technical aspects of your website that can impact search engine rankings. This includes URL structure, canonical tags, and schema markup. By optimizing these elements, you can improve your product pages’ indexability and make it easier for search engines to understand the content of your website.
Here’s a breakdown of some of the different SEO technical considerations for your product pages.
Site Structure and Navigation
The way your website is structured — and how efficiently users can navigate it — affects your site’s overall SEO rankings. Google tends to favor sites that have a simple structure. Learn more about website architecture here.
Site Speed
Page load time and overall site speed play a huge part in the online shopping experience — they must be quick if you don’t want to drive away potential customers. Properly optimizing images, leveraging browser caching, and minimizing server response time are all effective ways to improve site speed and keep your site visitors happy. We share more tips here.
Mobile Friendliness
Over half of all website traffic comes from mobile devices, with about 6.6 billion smartphone users worldwide. Because of this, you’ve got to make sure your site is mobile friendly. This means making sure your website functions well and is accessible on all devices. Mobile usability also plays a factor in search engine ranking. Due to Google’s mobile-first indexing, a poor mobile UX can hold back your site from ranking well.
International Targeting
Does your ecommerce site have an international audience? If so, make sure search engines know it!
If your ecommerce site happens to serve or target several different countries and languages, implement hreflang tags to help search engines understand and serve the correct language or regional URL to users. Otherwise, Google may not show your business to consumers in particular regions, which could cause you to miss a large pool of potential customers.
On-Page Optimization
In addition to technical SEO, you’ll want to optimize your product pages with on-page SEO best practices.
Quality Content
When you visit a product page, what do you want to see? What’s going to convince you that you’ve found the right product for your needs?
Having quality content that shares the features and benefits of the product is critical for helping potential customers understand the value the product will bring to their lives. Help them imagine what it will be like to own your product.
Your product descriptions should include:
- The brand of the product
- The name of the product
- The model number
- Product specifications, like the size or measurements
- Unique features
- Accompanying accessories
- Benefits of owning the product
Don’t copy and paste the manufacturer’s description — create your own unique description that follows your brand guidelines and engages the reader. Naturally include your target keywords to improve your chances of ranking.
Page Titles, Meta Descriptions & H1s
Each product page should have distinct page titles, h1s, and meta descriptions that include your keyword theme.
- Page titles are visible in SERP and are one of the first things searchers notice about a page. Make sure yours is clear, informative, and relevant to the product.
- The meta description is essentially a short summary of what a particular page is about, telling both search engines and potential visitors what to expect from a page. For your product page’s meta description, try making the copy as compelling and informative as possible, as this is what will convince consumers to click on your product page.
- Header tags, which help to break up content on web pages, also play an important role in product page SEO. The main role of header tags is to separate and organize content on a page. Header tags rank in order of importance, from h1 to h6. When it comes to product pages, h1 tags should be unique and specific to make it easier for humans and bots alike to decipher what the product page is about. Use an h1 heading for the product name and h2 headings for sections such as product features, FAQs, and customer reviews.
Product Images & Videos
Images can make or break a successful product page. While they don’t have the largest SEO impact, they’re critical for conversions.
Include high-quality images and videos of your product. Add useful images that show your product in context. For example, if you’re selling a camping hammock, include an image of someone lying in the hammock in a camp setting.
To optimize your images:
- Feature the product name in all image file names and alt attributes.
- Size images and videos properly.
- Compress images to decrease their size. This will help improve your page speed.
- Include images in an image XML sitemap. You can do the same with videos.
- Add schema to your videos. (I’ll talk more about this in a moment.)
Product Reviews
Product reviews are powerful tools for building trust with consumers since they create consumer confidence through social proof.
Studies show products with reviews tend to sell far more than those without them. According to one, displaying reviews for higher-priced products can increase conversion rates by 380%. In another study, 63% of consumers indicated they’re more likely to purchase products from a site that features reviews and ratings.
Here are a few great tips for getting customers to leave reviews on your product pages:
- Just ask them. Sometimes all it takes is to ask! If a customer has a great experience buying a product or service, it’s likely they’ll be happy to write about their positive experience. This can mean asking via email following a purchase, leaving a CTA on a digital invoice or receipt, or even reaching out to them on social media.
- Offer incentives. One tried-and-true tactic for getting customers to leave reviews is by offering incentives, such as gift cards, discounts on future purchases, or charitable donations on their behalf. This gives customers an additional reason to leave a review and can help turn them into repeat customers. (Note: This only works for reviews on your own website, not on other platforms since many have rules against this.)
- Make it simple. Providing an easy way for customers to leave reviews will have a strong impact on whether or not they’ll leave one. For example, email customers a product-specific review link so they can easily leave their comments about their recent purchase.
- Engage with existing reviews. By commenting on and responding to existing reviews, new customers will feel encouraged to leave reviews of their own. This goes for both negative and positive reviews alike — responding to negative reviews and attempting to resolve issues shows you care. Commenting on positive reviews shows you’re grateful and appreciative of your customers.
Make sure to markup customer reviews with review schema to increase your chance of displaying a snippet of your reviews when your page appears in search results.
Structured Data & Rich Snippets
Making use of structured data on your product page can help your product to stand out in search results and make your page eligible for rich snippets. While there’s no evidence structured data influences rankings, it can enrich your SERP listing with eye-catching information that improves your visibility and drives more clicks.
Here are some best practices for implementing structured data:
- Include only relevant structured data.
- Only use unique identifiers for products.
- Avoid any redundant information.
- Follow schema guidelines. Here’s what Schema.org says about product schema.
Complete and accurate product schema may make you eligible for the following rich snippets:
- Aggregate rating: A product’s average rating
- Number of reviews: How many reviews are displayed on your product page
- Availability: Whether or not your product is currently in stock, out of stock, or available for preorder
- Price: The specific price of your product
- Shipping information: Price of shipping and estimated delivery time
If your page has multiple FAQs or has a video of your product in action, you can also include FAQ schema or video schema.
As will all schema, use a structured data testing tool to check for mistakes before implementation. You can also keep an eye on your structured data report in Google Search Console to see what schema Google has recognized.
Read what Google has to say about product schema here.
Google Merchant Center
If you want your product to be eligible for Google shopping in Search, from images, or in handy knowledge panels like the one below, you’ll need to sign up for Google Merchant Center.
Google Merchant Center is a free platform that allows you to link product listings in certain CMSs to Google. Google then uses this information to populate its shopping searches. It can greatly increase your visibility on both mobile and desktop Google searches.
Bonus: Increase Items Per Transaction With This Feature
In a retail environment, salespeople are encouraged to recommend additional products that relate to whatever a customer has in hand. Looking at a grill? How about a nice grill set to help you make the best burgers? Want a new couch? Check out how great this coffee table goes with it.
You can do the same online by showcasing related products to customers.
These items can be hand-selected, or you can use a plugin to highlight items that are frequently purchased together. In many cases, this is extremely helpful for consumers. When you can showcase corresponding products, you make it easier for customers to get everything they need at once — and it can make it simpler to buy the right add-ons. For example, when purchasing a phone, I appreciate it when the site shows the right screen protector for the product.
Better Ecommerce SEO With a Proven Partner
A lot goes into making your product pages stand out from the crowd. Optimizing your pages for both Google and users is no small feat. However, the benefits of ecommerce SEO are huge — and if you’re ready to boost the visibility of your online business, Victorious is here to help you reach your SEO goals. Learn more about our ecommerce SEO services or schedule a free SEO consultation today.
