SEO Checklist Strategy for eCommerce Sites

1. Site and Product Page Speed
   Remove unnecessary plugins and applications to enhance the loading speed of your site’s pages.Employing GZIP compression for pages that have larger html size.Speeding up your site’s loading process will strengthen your visitors’ mood that can lead to conversion. Search engine crawlers also give high scores for this site’s usability aspect that can help boost its search rankings.
2. SEO Friendly URL's
   Include your pages’ targeted keywords on the URL. Search-friendly URLs signal search engines that the page is relevant to the search query.  The best way to create optimized, search-friendly URLs is to include the primary keyword in the URL.
3. Unique Title Tags
   The benefits of optimized title tags with keyword phrases are twofold.  First, the keyword phrases help the search engines understand what the page is really about.
4. Unique Description Meta TagsMake use of description Meta tag; this gives search engines and users a summary of what the page is about.
   
5. Unique Product ContentGoogle actually penalizes sites that use duplicate content and nothing will drop your rankings faster than copying and pasting manufacturer product descriptions.  In Google’s eyes, unique content represents an authority site.  In the eyes of your visitors, unique and compelling content is often the deciding factor in converting them into customers.
6. Product ReviewsA great strategy for guaranteeing unique content is displaying user generated content from your customers. Allow customers to review products they’ve purchased or comment on one’s they haven’t.
7. Internal Contextual LinksSite navigation links don’t tell search engines very much information about the page. Within a paragraph of text, link to a relevant page using keyword rich anchor text.
8. Create a Product RSS FeedCreate a product feed and submit it to relevant content aggregators. Google Base accepts an XML like product feed and displays your results for Google Base searches. Product feeds can be a great way of picking up free backlinks directly to your product pages.
9. Crawl-able NavigationAvoid JavaScript or css based navigation structures that don’t allow spiders through. If you’re stuck with one, at least duplicate your navigation in the footer of every page with normal hyperlinks. In additional, don’t rely on form based navigation such as drop down lists since the SEs can’t follow them.
10. Optimize your ImagesPlacing alt tags in images is a simple yet commonly overlooked strategy to improve search engine optimization.With images now popping up in the regular SERPs, every image on your site should be optimized. Make sure all your product images contain unique alt text attributes. By simply populating the alt text with the product and brand name, I’ve seen a huge increase in traffic from Google Image search. In addition, you’re making your site more useable for the vision impaired.
11. Blog for Content UpdatesFor content freshness and linkbuilding.It allows your site to generate more organic traffic as blog posts have good chances of getting higher search rankings for long tail keywords related to your industry. Can certainly improve the site’s internal linking structure, in which it can be advantageous for the site in ranking for more relevant search terms.
12. Product Compare OptionProduct Compare Option for user.Comparing your top products will help your visitors in making wise decisions in purchasing and it also generates highly relevant internal links to your top products.
13. Create Brand Landing PagesAvoid Session IDs in URLs.If your site sells branded products that customers may be searching for, setup an optimized landing page for every brand.
14. Product TaggingWith the advent of social media, customers have become accustomed with the concept of tagging. Allow your customers to tag products with their own keywords. When you allow users to tag your products, you’ll likely start ranking for slang keywords that you would have never thought of on your own.
15. SitemapsWe need XML and HTML Sitemap.Every eCommerce store with more than 100 items should have an HTML and XML sitemap. It should automatically update as you add or remove products.
16. Keyword-rich internal linksUse internal power of the website for your categories and product pages. If the first link pointing to your category is an image, insure that this image has an appropriate ALT text.
17. Trust indicatorsWell optimized about, contact and support (email ticketing) pages.Presence of physical business address and local numbers.Photos of business founder(s) and staff members.Privacy policy, terms and agreement, disclaimer, disclosure and user testimonials page.Certificate badges from associations and/or organizations.
18. Video sitemapAdding a video sitemap to your site is very efficient, since it can help your site generate traffic through universal search as videos posted within your site can improve its own search rankings for highly competitive keywords.
19. Weed out duplicate contentsFix URL canonicalization of the site, wherein the site must only direct to one preferred URL version (non-www or www. version), since this can cause duplicates within your site if both version are showing up when looked up.
20. Regularly updated section on homepageInclusion of recent blog posts or twitter updates.
21. BreadcrumbsBreadcrumbs are the small text navigation that shows where you are in the eCommerce hierarchy. They often look like this:Each word should be a link back to its category or sub-category page.
22. Page SizeYou want to keep your pages loading as quickly as possible. Use good sized images, but don’t serve a 1000×1000 pixel image and display it at 300×300 using CSS or HTML. Keep external scripts, images, CSS, and other elements to a minimum.
23. CheckoutBlock everything from the shopping cart into checkout and completion from being indexed using the nofollow tag. It serves no value in a search engine.
24. Social Sharing ButtonsSocial sharing buttons on product pages are a good idea. The goal of a product page is to get someone to buy, not to get them to tweet or like the page. Sure these social signals can help, but personally I’d rather not distract people from buying my product. Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, Linked-in.
25. Q & A ContentAnother big opportunity for eCommerce websites is the integration of question and answer content focused on products. As mentioned above, eCommerce websites have always had the problem of getting unique content onto product pages on scale. Question and answer content can help solve this problem and gives you great scope to get user generated content onto lots of your product pages.
26. Product VideoI’ll admit that this is a tough one to execute, but it is one that I feel is very worthwhile for eCommerce sites. There are many websites already adding videos to their product pages, but they are not always doing it in the most optimal way. A great example of the right way to do this is Zappos who now have over 50,000 product videos.
27. Rich SnippetApply Rich Snippet in product page. Review, Rating, Price that is boost SREP and also product selling.
28. Mobile SiteAn impact a mobile optimized website can have on the conversion rate of your store.

If this all seems like a daunting task, feel free to give us a call at Whirl Wind Web & Design Studio.  We would be happy to sit down and take a look at all your eCommerce and Search Engine Optimization requirements.