Product Page SEO Best Practices for Ecommerce

Optimizing ecommerce product pages for search engines is one of the most powerful things you can do to boost web traffic and sales. Product page SEO (search engine optimization) is often overlooked in favor of strategies like content marketing—especially if you have a large catalog of products. However, product detail pages (PDPs) are vital because they represent the bottom of the sales funnel: Customers who are looking at a product page are generally ready to buy!

When thinking about search engine optimization for product pages, keep in mind that everything you do must provide a great user experience (UX) as well as make the page easy for search engines to read and display. A search-engine-first strategy won’t work in today’s ecommerce environment and will hurt your conversion rates even if your pages do manage to rank. The good news is that product pages that are easy for customers to navigate and understand are easy for search engines to navigate and understand, too.

Top 5 Product Page SEO Best Practices

There are a lot of things ecommerce business owners can do right out of the gate to help their commercial pages rank well in search engines. According to Igor Avidon, founder of a leading ecommerce SEO agency, “Basic but proper on-page optimization will help you stand out from a sea of sellers who never bothered to learn how to optimize their online stores using standard Google-friendly practices.”

A product page should, at minimum:

• Provide a thorough, accurate description of the product
• Have several photos of the product with descriptive filenames and ALT tags
• Answer commonly asked or anticipated questions about the product
• Build confidence and provide peace of mind with genuine third-party reviews

All of this information will allow the customer to decide whether or not to buy the product and—just as importantly—whether to buy it from you or someone else. The following strategies all work to help you achieve these goals. However, the exact formula that works best for your ecommerce website will require some experimentation.

1. Select Your Target Keywords Strategically

Keywords are essential for helping search engines determine the relevance of each page for internet users. You will use your chosen target keywords in each product page URL, title tag, meta description, H1 heading, and wherever they work naturally in the body text.

Keywords are the terms, phrases, and queries that potential customers type into the search bar to perform a web search. In order for your product pages to be found, you need to demonstrate that the product page provides the item potential customers are searching for.

These keyword best practices will help your product pages rank better and attract highly relevant traffic:

• Target both branded and non-branded keywords. For example, a customer looking to buy women’s runners could search for a generic term like “white runner women’s” or a brand and model-specific term like “allbirds tree runners.”
• Include both short-tail and long-tail keywords. Customers who are ready to buy are mostly likely to search for short-tail keywords (e.g. “allbirds tree runners”). However, long-tail keywords (“how to lace allbirds shoes,” “do allbirds shoes run small”) allow you to reach customers who are still in the exploratory phase. A FAQ or Q&A section below the main product description provides a great opportunity to target long-tail terms with your product pages.
• Use keyword research tools to assess the search volume and competitiveness of each keyword before settling on a target keyword to use on each product page. It’s pointless to target keywords that no one is searching for or for which you are unlikely to rank.

2. Optimize Your URLs, Title Tags, Meta Descriptions, Image URLs, and Alt Tags

Customers and search engines use these markers to make sense of the content on each product detail page. Apply the following best practices to make your product pages easy to understand:

• URLs: Use a consistent URL structure that includes the target keyword and product details and clearly shows the path the customer followed to get there. For example:
  • https://exampleshop.com/shoes/runners/womens/white-tree-runners
• Title Tags: Start with an exact match of your target keyword and fill up the rest of the space with details such as your brand name, where you ship, and offers potential customers will find attractive (such as “free shipping”). Title tags must be less than 580 pixels in length or they will be truncated in search results.
• Meta Descriptions: Meta descriptions should include a near-match of your target keyword, be as descriptive as possible, and include a call to action (CTA). Meta descriptions should not exceed 990 pixels in length.
• Image URLs: Use a consistent structure for image URLs (as for page URLs) and make each image URL as descriptive as possible.
• Image Alt Text: Describe the image in a way that is easy for visually impaired internet users to understand. Include the target keyword if it can be worked in naturally, but don’t force it.

Important note: Title tags and meta descriptions (meta information) should be unique. Many website builders will generate these for you automatically. However, automatically generated meta information is often over the pixel length and is not designed to maximize click-throughs.

3. Use Structured Data

Structured data or schema markup is an additional layer of code that helps search engines identify key details on each page and display them to internet users as “rich” search results. Displaying the relevant information to potential customers upfront with rich results makes your results stand out in search engine results pages (SERPs) and brings only highly interested customers to your site.

Use structured data to display the following details in search results:

• Price
• Availability
• Ratings
• Reviews
• Images
• Videos
• FAQs
• Q&A
• Breadcrumbs (the path that leads from your home page to the product page)

Structured data or schema markup is typically added by a technical SEO expert after the copy for your product page has been written. Business owners with no knowledge of code can use Google’s Data Highlighter to tag the relevant information on each product page. 

Pro tip: Google does not use structured data that is used incorrectly, is outdated, or is irrelevant to the page. Always follow Google’s structured data guidelines when marking up your product pages.

4. Write Unique Product Descriptions

Product pages must have a unique product description for the best results in organic search. Writing unique product descriptions for each product may seem daunting if you have hundreds or thousands of products. Starting with the products that bring in the most revenue is the best way to maximize your return on investment. You can then move on to your moderate sellers, lower-ticket items, seasonal products, and so on. 

Important: Whatever you do, don’t lift your product descriptions directly from the manufacturer’s website. This is plagiarism and could lead to legal action.

Product Description Length

Product descriptions should generally be around 300 words in length. However, some products can be described adequately in only a few sentences.

Things to Include in Your Product Descriptions

Include details such as:

• A description of the product
• Product features
• What is included
• Technical specifications
• Ethical and sustainability information (especially for environmentally conscious businesses)
• How-to-use instructions (with or without a video demonstration)
• Care instructions
• Sizing information
• Shipping and returns information

To make the product description as effective as possible for conversions, make it engaging, confident, and persuasive, and use imagery or tell a story to help the reader imagine what it would be like to use the product. It’s also essential to keep the target audience in mind when wording each description. The following word lists provide a few examples of the kind of language you should use for specific target audiences:

• Luxury shoppers: sophisticated, elegant, bespoke, customized, opulent
• Budget shoppers: affordable, cost-effective, high quality at a low price
• Eco shoppers: sustainable, environmentally conscious, biodegradable, organic (Please note that all of the claims made in the product description must be accurate.)
• Busy shoppers: easy-wash, machine washable, no-fuss, stress-free, delivered to your doorstep, fast shipping

Remember that user experience is critical. Write the initial product description as a small block of text and present the rest of the information using bullet lists, flow charts, tables, images, and icons to make it easy to scan and digest. You could also include customer ratings and reviews, customer photos, frequently asked questions, and user-generated questions and answers (moderated) after the main product details to build trust and convince the customer to buy.

CTAs and Click Buttons

A stellar product description is only useful if you make it clear to the reader when and how to buy the product. Have a clearly marked “Buy it now” or “Add to cart” button next to or below the product description. You can also include a call to action in the text itself. Make this call to action sound confident and tell the customer exactly what you want them to do. For example:

• Buy your [product name] now
• Subscribe for monthly [product name(s)] delivered to your doorstep
• Place your order and we’ll notify you as soon as your [product] is ready
• Submit your expression of interest and we’ll notify you when this product is back in stock
• Contact our team for a quote

5. Link to the Right Pages

Product pages represent a key part of your website structure and should be clearly linked to the relevant pages on your site.

Internal links

• Every product page should contain natural links to the relevant subcategory and category pages. You can also highlight product attributes (i.e. made in the USA, recycled, etc.) and link the word or phrase describing the attribute to the relevant product filter.
• Product pages should link across to related products or another product that customers typically purchase at the same time (i.e. the matching pair of pants).
• Product roundup articles that you publish on your onsite blog should link to the relevant product pages.

Backlinks

• Link back to your product pages from your social media accounts.

Important: Products that are later discontinued can lead to broken links on your site. Use a website audit tool or hire an expert in technical SEO to find these broken links for you and update them.

A Well-Optimized Product Page Works for Everyone

Product page SEO best practices are easy to implement and can make a huge difference to your revenue. Not only do they make it easier for search engines to find and display your product pages to interested internet users, but they also ensure a superior user experience and increase the chance that potential customers will stay on your site.

Remember that it’s not only about making a sale the first time a potential customer browses a product. That same customer could come back in the future and browse other products or share a product page with their friends and family. Focus on providing a top-notch user experience and the rest will generally take care of itself.