Low-hanging fruits in e-commerce search engine optimization (SEO) are easy-to-fix issues that offer high returns (a greater impact on search engine rankings) for minimal effort. Addressing these areas of improvement is crucial for getting quick wins which can boost morale and build momentum.
The quick fixes for an e-commerce website make it faster and more user-friendly by improving its crawlability for the search bots.
In this article, let’s look at what low-hanging fruits are and how mending them makes it easier for search engines to go through e-commerce websites and rank them higher.
1. Broken Links and Internal Redirects
Broken links take your visitors to non-existent product pages (404 errors), which can frustrate users who are looking to make a purchase.
Internal redirects take users from one URL to another within the same website, increasing the load times.
For large e-commerce websites, broken links and internal redirects are common due to frequent updates, product removals, and changes in URL structures.
When search engine crawlers encounter these issues, it leads to crawl errors and wasted link equity.
Lots of dead pages and internal redirects (slow site) signal the search engines that the e-commerce platform isn’t being maintained properly. Consequently, pages from these sites are ranked lower to ensure that shoppers get a better experience on the web.
If the problems persist, e-commerce websites can go from being poorly ranked to being completely de-indexed from the web.
A team of e-commerce developers can tackle this challenge by using a high-performance SEO crawler to identify the 404 pages and internal redirects quickly. These specialized tools speed up the whole process by going through hundreds of pages at once and generating comprehensive reports.
Consequently, teams can quickly spot which pages are throwing 404 errors for the end users:
Source: JetOctopus
Once the list of dysfunctional pages is ready, e-commerce companies can repair them one by one. It can be beneficial to segment the faulty pages to prioritize them based on their impact on traffic and sales.
Moreover, crawling can help you find other low-hanging fruits in e-commerce SEO such as duplicate content, thin content, and slow-loading pages. Let’s dive into the content issue first.
2. Optimize for Mobile
Mobile devices add convenience to the online shopping experience due to their portability and ease of use.
Features like touch navigation, personalized notifications, and secure payment options enhance the e-commerce shopping experience, making it seamless and efficient.
Furthermore, last year’s predictions suggest that the mobile e-commerce traffic will be valued at more than US $2.5 trillion:
Source: Statista
It is essential for e-commerce brands to capitalize on this opportunity to engage deeply with their customers.
One of the ways e-commerce companies do that is by having dedicated smartphone applications. Big e-commerce businesses like Amazon leverage mobile apps to deliver a delightful e-commerce experience.
At the same time, web applications can also be optimized for mobile browsers.
This offers a much faster and cost-effective way to reach customers. Here are three simple ways e-commerce SEO teams can optimize their websites to deliver that experience:
- Responsive design: An e-commerce website that provides a consistent experience across desktops, smartphones, and tablets, eliminates the need for separate sites. The layout and elements should be touch-friendly, minimalistic, and scannable.
- Fast load times: Mobile-friendly sites should respond to user interactions and load appropriate content much faster. Compress images, fix JavaScript errors, adopt a CDN, and use browser caching to reduce load times. Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights can help identify areas for improvement.
- Optimized checkout process: The number of steps required by your customer to complete their purchase and make a payment should be as few as possible. Many e-commerce businesses consider providing digital wallets for one-tap checkout.
3. Compress Images and Implement Lazy Loading
E-commerce pages often feature numerous high-quality images to showcase products, but these images can significantly slow down page loading times, and ultimately poor ranking. Compressing images can optimize the loading speed of e-commerce product pages by reducing bandwidth usage.
SEO teams can consider tools such as TinyPNG, Kraken.io, and Smush to compress the product images on their e-commerce site without compromising quality.
Additionally, software like Smush offers bulk compression, streamlining the workflow even further.
Lazy loading is another effective strategy that can enhance the snappiness of e-commerce websites.
This technique prioritizes the loading of content that is currently being viewed by the viewer. In other words, the images will load when the user scrolls or swipes onto them.
Source: Imperva
This saves bandwidth, enhancing overall site performance. To implement lazy loading, e-commerce SEO teams can use plugins like Lazy Load by WP Rocket, which defer the loading of images until they are in the viewport.
4. Update Existing Content and Meta Details
Updating existing content and meta details can appear complicated and daunting, considering large e-commerce websites often have tens of thousands of pages.
Even small to medium-sized e-commerce platforms can have pages in the thousands.
However, in reality, they are, too, low-hanging fruits that require minimal investment from online shopping brands and make a big impact on the rankings. The 3-step checklist below can make this process faster:
- Identify the priority pages that need an update
- High-traffic pages
- Category pages
- Best-selling products
- Spot the areas of improvement
- Perform keyword research
- Check titles and descriptions
- Examine meta details
- Make the relevant edits
- Include relevant keywords wherever applicable
- Use AI-powered tools for efficiency
The nature of content updates on e-commerce product pages depends on various factors — current relevance, keyword optimization, and audience feedback.
It is beneficial to determine the action items based on those factors.
Semrush’s comprehensive on-page SEO checklist mentions all the areas of content improvements that e-commerce teams can consider while freshening up their pages:
Source: Semrush
Although the process is straightforward, it may be time-consuming, depending on the scope of updates for each page. Leveraging the above checklist and using AI to generate updated content can help make the process faster while maintaining quality consistency.
Professional ecommerce seo services can help online retailers implement these strategies effectively, improving their site's visibility and performance in search results.
Wrapping Up
Large e-commerce businesses looking to rise through the rankings of the search engine results pages (SERPs) should begin with plucking the low-hanging fruits — quick, inexpensive fixes that have a high impact.
Start by fixing the broken links and internal redirects. Adopting a high-performance SEO crawler can speed up the process significantly as these tools can go through hundreds of pages per second.
Then, update the content and meta details of the pages. Based on the importance of the pages (in terms of traffic and revenue) segment them. This will make this process more organized and less error-prone.
Images are essential to help online shoppers make a purchase decision.
E-commerce SEO teams should compress them and implement lazy loading to ensure their loading speed increases, which will ultimately lead to higher SERP rankings.
And finally, keep in mind that shopping on mobile is convenient and seamless. The quickest way to get there is by ensuring your website has a touch-friendly design and the layout is optimized for speed.
Author Bio
Lucy Manole is a creative content writer and strategist at Marketing Digest. She specializes in crafting engaging content on digital marketing, e-commerce, and the broader SaaS landscape. Beyond writing and editing, Lucy enjoys devouring books, whipping up delicious meals, and exploring new destinations.
