As the e-commerce industry grows, so does the competition. If you want to survive in the market, you must make sure that you’re the first platform people think about whenever they need to buy something online. For that, your best bet is to invest in search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. 

Here are five things you must remember before doing SEO for an e-commerce website. 

1. Focus on Specific Keywords for Specific Products

Let’s say you have 10,000 products on your e-commerce platform. Each of these 10,000 products will have its own product page. That means you must optimize each product page and, by default, optimize the content on those pages for the products. 

The keywords you use for these products will also be different to some extent. Of course, there will be a few keywords that overlap, mainly because the products belong to the same category. 

For instance, you have three types of baby formulas on your platform. All three fall under the ‘baby formula’ category. In that case, they’ll all have a few similar keywords used on their respective pages, like ‘baby formula,’ ‘baby food,’ etc. 

However, for specific keywords, focus on the specialty each product offers. For instance, one of the three types of baby formulas is the cheapest baby formula around. In that case, this particular product page should contain additional keywords like ‘cheap baby formula’ and ‘cheapest baby formula.’ In doing so, you’ll get to optimize the product pages in a much better way.

2. Prioritize Local SEO

You can work with a local SEO agency to ensure that you’re using keywords and strategies that cater to your local or regional crowd. This is especially important if you’re running a business that’s mostly targeting people in a certain region.

For instance, if you run an e-commerce store that operates only in Austin, your priority should be to increase visibility in search results for the people living in Austin. 

For that, you can work with an agency or digital marketing experts who offer services related to SEO in Austin and can provide you with the necessary SEO services that will better optimize the platform for Austin locals. This can be achieved through local keyword research, highlighting locally popular products, and so on. 

3. Optimize Your Images Too

Just ensuring SEO for your website text won’t do. You must also optimize the images. Each and every product image that you publish on the e-commerce website needs to be optimized for better search engine rankings. 

This optimization needs to be done following a few steps. These are pointed out below. 

• Start by optimizing the size of the image. Many online tools can help you compress the image without compromising on the image quality. 
• Next, make sure the image filename is clear and accurate. An image of a soda can needs to have a filename that includes the term ‘soda can’ and the brand name. 
• Finally, all of your website images should have alt text. The alt text is basically a sentence or two that describes what the image is. In the case of a soda can, it can be something like ‘ a can of soda from the brand XYZ’ or ‘XYZ brand’s soda can.’ Alt text is important for ensuring better web accessibility, another key factor that can impact your SEO rankings. 

4. Ensure Web Accessibility

Web accessibility is one of the biggest factors in 2023 that will determine how well your platform will rank on search engine results. With AI-generated content almost everywhere, search engines are now focusing on a lot of other factors, including web accessibility, to determine how high they’d rank a certain website.

For your e-commerce platform, start by adding alt text to all your product images. Follow it up with several web accessibility features on your site, like a screen or text reader, image enlarger, text-to-speech feature, etc.

5. Put Your Business up on Google Maps

An e-commerce business might not have a physical store, but it should have a base of operations or an office where everything takes shape. That should be your business location on Google Maps. 

Having this geolocation will help you receive customer feedback and reviews on Google. The better these reviews are, the higher Google is likely to rank your website. At the same time, geolocation also allows you to add additional information about your business that can further improve your digital presence. 

If you’re getting into the e-commerce business or are planning to improve on your existing one, these tips can help you go a long way, especially by ensuring better online visibility through efficient SEO strategies.