Everybody wants to profit from the higher-than-ever amount of online spending. But the competition is intense. If you miss out on SEO opportunities, your competitors will gladly grab your prized position in Google's search results.
A common misunderstanding in eCommerce is that customers initially land on the homepage or a category page and only then move on to products. This presumption is misleading. Product pages often receive a lot of organic traffic from customers who are ready to make a purchase. You're losing out if your product pages don't take the lead in your SEO strategy.
Keep reading to find out how to improve your product page SEO and increase conversions.
First of all, you should have a clear idea of what a good product page looks like. Here are the key elements of a healthy product page:
Product names should be clear, concise, and relevant to the product. If Google detects any inconsistency, your page rank can be devalued.
Additionally, each product name should be optimized for product-specific queries, not only for brand or brand + product category ones, as you don’t want product pages to compete with your categories.
No product page (that has any chance of ranking) can exist without prices.
Reviews are as important as pricing. If the page doesn’t specify prices but there are reviews on it, Google will classify it as a product page anyway.
According to Google’s latest content update, high-quality reviews are as important as ever.
First and foremost, reviews should be authentic and cover a customer’s experience using the product in detail. Uninformative reviews like “Great product,” “Cool stuff,” etc., are now considered thin content, and Google can de-rank the page for such reviews.
A good review should include:
It should be noted that pros and cons are the most important part of the review, as Google now considers them to be part of the product structured data.
Google can use this data to identify low-quality product reviews. Even pages that didn’t get devalued after previous updates could drop rankings.
In contrast, if a review is substantial and fully covers the product, the page can be rewarded with a better rich snippet:
Reviews also help other people make a decision to purchase the product, and that’s what Google keeps a close eye on:
Displaying shipping information is also an industry standard. Missing out on this type of info will adversely affect behavioral factors, and ultimately, page rankings.
Shipping information includes:
You should also add info about payment methods (credit card, Paypal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc.) and the terms of return. If customers can pay for the product after they have examined it, make the option clear. The customer is less likely to drop out of the sales funnel to search for this information if you have it on the page.
Good product descriptions convince customers to make purchases. However, don’t write an essay, as no one will be interested in that. Instead, make descriptions short but engaging and discuss the product benefits.
Additionally, you can include low-competition, closely related keywords that you wish to rank for here. But don’t go overboard!
A clear URL structure makes it easier for users and search engines to grasp the layout of your website. Furthermore, when a visitor sees a URL that corresponds to their search query, you are more likely to get more clicks on your snippet in Google.
Both the title tag and the meta description are considered to be “metadata” in the context of SEO. In terms of how your product page ranks and is displayed to searchers, both are crucial.
A good title:
The same holds true for an effective meta description (except that its length should be up to 160 characters).
It’s likely that conversion rates will increase if you provide high-quality product photographs and videos that display the products in context and detail.
If you have a vibrant community, you can incorporate a moderated Q&A section on your product pages. This way, people can ask and answer each other’s questions and you will probably rank for even more queries that people are searching for.
Alternatively, you can include traditional FAQs about the products you’re offering. You know your customers, so you are aware of the types of inquiries they might make. By addressing these, you create content that is more entertaining and worthwhile and you’ll get fewer support requests.
Now that you know what functional elements a product page should include, let’s take a look at a few crucial points you should (and some you must) consider to make the product page rank and convert better.
Lately, Google has rolled out another update reconsidering its guidelines for page quality. We’ve already touched upon this issue when talking about reviews. But reviews are not the only type of content you should focus on. According to Google, the whole page should comply with the E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) concept.
Google once again repeated that the level of E-A-T the page requires depends on the purpose and the topic of the page.
This means that the content should be consistent and relevant to your business. A simple example: if your website is all about granite countertops and you make a page about granite cookware, your site can be devalued.
In May 2022, Google announced that page experience signals would be included in Google Search ranking. These signals measure how users perceive the experience of interacting with a web page and contribute to Google’s ongoing work to ensure people get the most helpful and enjoyable experiences from the web.
In layman’s terms, the faster the page loads, the better the user experience, and that’s what Google deems appropriate for page rank improvement.
It should be noted that the majority of users use mobile devices for online shopping, so you should pay special attention to mobile versions of your product pages.
In an online store, there are no queues, and you can’t see other buyers. It can create a feeling that nobody buys from this store. Social Proof services fix this problem. For example, over the last hour, this product has been bought X times, or the product is running out of stock, with only X products left.
A good call to action (e.g., Add to Cart) on every screen (sticky CTAs) increases the chances of converting.
Here’s an example of a right-structured product page:
Bottom line: we created a checklist summarizing how your product pages should be structured and what guidelines you should follow to ensure the pages have people-first content, as well as useful page optimization tips and tricks.
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