Shop SEO

Shop SEO optimizes online shops for search engines: Unique content instead of manufacturer texts (to avoid duplicate content), fast loading times, good usability and navigation, as well as clean meta-data, internal links, and backlinks.

The term Shop SEO refers to search engine optimization for websites in the e-commerce sector, namely online shops. Like all other forms of websites, these also benefit from on-page and off-page optimization. Considering the high competition in e-commerce and the interchangeability of many products, Shop SEO is even very worthwhile.

Meaning and goals of shop SEO

Online shops face specific challenges: On one hand, the number of shops is very high, often regardless of the market segment; on the other hand, duplicate content and "lack of space" are "chronic issues" in e-commerce. Specifically, this means that many only use the manufacturer descriptions for their products, which—if every operator does this—inevitably leads to duplicate content, which is undesirable by search engines. At the same time, there is a lack of space on individual product pages to provide detailed descriptions and possibly enrich them with additional information, images, and videos. It is crucial to provide potential buyers with information across various channels and formats, which allows them to make a purchase decision within the online shop and not have to look for the needed information on other portals. This includes guides and blogs as well as reviews, test reports, and customer support.

This involves a high effort to create unique content, which seems almost insurmountable for many shop providers, especially considering that a product range (generally) does not remain constant. Added to this are "danger zones" such as the usability of the online shop (e.g. ordering processes), navigation (e.g. categorization), as well as technical aspects like loading times and similar issues. At this point, the importance of shop SEO or an experienced agency becomes clear, because exactly these and many other aspects (keywords, meta-data, backlinks, internal linking, etc.) must be taken into account for an online shop to sell successfully.

How is the success of shop SEO measured?

While traditional websites—such as those for service providers—can achieve conversions through various means (such as contact inquiries, newsletter subscriptions, etc.), online shops have only one goal: to sell goods, preferably without returns. This means their success-measuring conversion rate is the number of items sold. An increased conversion rate is therefore also a sign of success for shop SEO. This usually requires regular adjustments of various aspects to be able to respond to changing conditions as quickly as possible.