WooCommerce is an open source and SEO friendly plugin that allows you to create an e-commerce website with the WordPress CMS. It is very popular with webmasters because of the many customization and optimization possibilities it offers. In this guide, you will discover some practical tips to optimize the SEO of your WooCommerce online store. Even if you plan to hire expert help to handle your SEO and ranking, this article will help you understand exactly what you’re paying for.
SEO: Why is WooCommerce ideal for SEO and ranking purposes?
The WordPress WooCommerce plugin currently powers nearly 30% of all e-commerce sites on the web. The vast majority of digital marketers prefer this open source plugin over its competitors, as it is natively SEO Friendly. Its advantages in terms of natural referencing are multiple:
- Optimized source code
- Compatible with several SEO plugins available on WordPress
- Flexible solution and easy customization
Like WordPress, WooCommerce is designed with SEO optimized code. The plugin’s fluidity and simplified architecture mean that the merchant websites it powers have no trouble being crawled and indexed by search engine bots. The extension also does not affect the technical performance of the platforms it runs in terms of loading speed, accessibility, etc…
In addition to being itself very suitable for SEO, the WordPress WooCommerce extension can easily be combined with other SEO plugins that allow a number of technical optimizations. One such plugin that fits perfectly into the WooCommerce ecosystem is Yoast WooCommerce SEO but you can also use RankMath or All In One SEO. It offers many interesting features including XML Sitemap file optimization, structured data configuration and breadcrumb management…
Finally, WooCommerce and WordPress make it very easy for website managers to create articles, modify content, configure URLs, fill in meta tags and all the other optimization actions necessary to boost the natural ranking of pages (product sheets, categories, etc.). The ease of use of the interface also makes it accessible to all, even to the most inexperienced in SEO.
WooCommerce: How to Optimize the SEO of Your E-commerce Site
To get the most out of the WordPress WooCommerce extension and achieve your visibility objectives on search engines, it is necessary to perform some technical and semantic optimizations after the actual creation of your e-commerce website. These actions include: page titles, meta tags, text content, URLs, images, customer experience, website navigation…
Optimize your page titles for SEO
The title (title tag) of a web page is very important for SEO. Indeed, it is one of the elements on which search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo …) are based to identify what is discussed on the page analyzed. This allows the search engines’ algorithms to classify the information in the right categories in order to present it to the users who need it. The title tag also helps to inform users, as it is what is displayed in blue in the SERP when a web page is ranked among the search results.
So, in order for your WooCommerce store to generate traffic and conversions, you need to pay special attention to your page titles. To be SEO friendly, each product page must have a title tag that describes its content as clearly and succinctly as possible. Respect the 65-character limit so that your titles are not truncated on the search engine results pages. It is also advisable to integrate keywords in your title tags to optimize them from a semantic point of view. However, keep in mind that it must remain readable for users.
Create an attractive meta description
Like the title tag, the meta description is important for SEO, as it serves to inform users about the content of the page. Located just below the blue link in search results, it influences the click-through rate and organic traffic of a web page. That’s why its writing must be optimized. In 150-160 characters maximum, you must provide an engaging description that will encourage users to access your product page. Your main keywords must therefore be present in this short meta description and the sentences turned in a marketing way. For more effect, you can also integrate an effective call-to-action at the end of the paragraph.
Integrate unique product descriptions and listings
The fundamental principle of quality SEO copywriting on a WooCommerce website is originality. Each product you offer on your website must have a unique and rich description. You should not repeat the descriptions of manufacturers, because it could be considered as duplicate content by the Google algorithm and penalize your SEO.
Think of integrating keywords in your product sheets to enrich them semantically. Descriptions must be coherent and pleasant to read for users. Finally, you should also think about structuring your content properly with Hn tags (H1, H2, H3…) and put the main ideas in bold if necessary. The use of bulleted lists in the articles also allows to air the content and to facilitate its reading for the visitors.
Last but not least, this is extremely important to add a proper shema.org and data structured for all your products. It will allow the search engines to better indexed all your listings. We advise using Schema.pro to integrate it on all your website.
Configure your product URLs correctly
By default, the WordPress WooCommerce plugin does not offer an SEO-optimized URL structure. You can change this on the WordPress dashboard in Settings > Permalinks. To optimize your WooCommerce website’s SEO, opt for custom short links with keywords. You can also set up links so that the title of each page is automatically embedded in its URL. This will ensure a consistent SEO structure across the website with siteweb.com/product-name type links.
Optimize the internal link structure of your e-commerce
To optimize the SEO of your e-commerce website that runs under the WordPress WooCommerce plugin, you need to set up a good internal linking. This means integrating internal links in each product page that point to other items in your catalog. It is important to ensure that the recommendations of other content remain consistent and relevant. From an SEO perspective, you can also link from the blog section of your WooCommerce store to product pages. Internal linking ensures that the SEO juice is well distributed, thus boosting the visibility of all your important web pages on search engines equally.
Add alternative text to your images and videos
Whether on social networks or on your website, visuals (images and videos) are essential to illustrate your articles and show how to use them. But they can also be an SEO lever for your online store created with the WordPress WooCommerce plugin. To do this, add alternative text (a very short description with keywords) to your visuals by filling in the Alt tag.
The main purpose of this feature is to indicate the content of the images to the visually impaired, but it is also used by Google for the referencing of visuals in Google Images. Your WooCommerce store will therefore be accessible from this section of the search engine.
Display the breadcrumb trail on your e-commerce site
To help your customers easily navigate your WooCommerce store, consider displaying a breadcrumb trail at the top of your pages. This navigation tool makes it easier for visitors to remember the paths that lead to the product pages they are interested in. You can use the Yoast WooCommerce SEO extension to implement it. Search engine spiders pay attention to user behavior on your website and therefore consider the presence of a breadcrumb trail as a positive signal for the user experience.
Simplify and optimize the customer experience
Simplification and improvement of the user experience are at the center of Google’s concerns. As a result, the search engine is increasingly highlighting websites that guarantee a good browsing experience for users. Your WooCommerce store must be easy to navigate and intuitive if you want to optimize its ranking in the SERP. Customers should be able to find the products they are looking for in a few clicks without getting lost in the platform’s tree structure. The integration of faceted filters to your website navigation will be a great help in this sense. You should also consider implementing an internal search engine when the products offered are very numerous. Choosing an SEO-friendly WordPress theme will also be useful for optimizing the interface.
Need Some Expert Help?
SEO can get complicated, and it can cost you more time than it’s worth to develop the knowledge to do it yourself. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the concepts of SEO and ranking and need expert advice, don’t hesitate to reach out to us to schedule a free consultation.
