The Importance of Technical SEO for Ecommerce Stores

Enhancing the site structure involves two main aspects: 

• dividing the store into categories (building its architecture)
• and creating descriptive and keyword-rich URLs

Site structure is similar to categorizing catalogs or products in a brick-and-mortar store. It helps the target audience find the desired goods in several clicks. Plus, it allows search engines to crawl your site more efficiently. A logical site structure looks like this:

• Categorization: Use clear, logical categories and subcategories. For example, an apparel store may create distinct categories for men, women, and accessories
• Hierarchy: It should be simple. Main categories should branch out to subcategories, leading to individual products. It’s what people are used to, and search robots can understand without using up more of the crawl budget than necessary

The reason why it’s good for SEO is that site structure improves the user experience. People stay longer on the page, explore other sections, sending positive behavior signals to search robots.

Pro tip: Your eCommerce website will benefit from implementing breadcrumb navigation. It’s a row of internal links at the top or bottom of the page that allows users to track their path from the homepage to their current location. 

Screenshot taken on the official Ralph Lauren website

This little guide:

• Makes it easier for visitors to browse your website without getting lost
• Reduces the number of actions visitors must take to return to a higher-level page
• Enhances the ability of search engines to understand the website structure

As far as URLs are concerned, they should tell both users and search engines what to expect on a page. For example, a URL like www.yourstore.com/mens-casual-shirts is far more informative and SEO-friendly than something like www.yourstore.com/productid=12345.

The following strategy may not be the most obvious one, but it’s crucial. Get to know SSL certificates. SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificates encrypt data, acting like a testament to your security and reliability. Protecting an online store equals earning customer trust. And if people trust you, they’ll return to your business.

How SSL certificates work:

1. A customer’s browser verifies the validity of your SSL certificate when they access your SSL-secured website
2. If successful, the browser and the website establish an encrypted connection (information like credit card details exchanged between them is secure)

Protected websites leverage an HTTPS protocol, which is also a Google ranking factor. If your website URL starts with HTTPS rather than HTTP (or has the padlock symbol, indicating a secure connection), it also boosts your credibility.

Screenshot taken on the official Kendra Scott website

Many web hosting platforms provide SSL by default, and its implementation is straightforward. For example, all Shopify plans contain SSL certificates, which should be of great comfort to those who manage stores on this CMS.

While all platforms matter, you should put a special emphasis on mobile-friendliness. Mobile optimization, apart from being a technical eCommerce SEO factor, also determines the user experience.

Have you ever tried to shop on a phone from a site that’s not mobile-friendly? Pinching and zooming to read product descriptions isn’t exactly what you want to do when buying.

As a significant portion of people browse and shop on smartphones, Google and other search engines favor websites that have:

• rapid loading speed
• responsive design
• simplified navigation

Just keep the user in mind when planning your mobile version:

• Layout, images, and content should fit the device they’re being viewed on
• Due to the smaller screen space, don’t try to cram all the elements into one viewport
• Adopt a mobile-first approach, creating a mobile version as an independent solution rather than a shrunken desktop layout

Waiting for the content to appear on the page is the last thing shoppers want to do. Speedy sites keep visitors engaged and reduce bounce rates. Search engines also give fast-loading websites a ranking benefit. Here are some actionable tips for improving site speed:

• Optimize images: We understand that large, high-resolution photos can present your products better. However, they can be a speed killer. Compress them without sacrificing quality with tools like TinyPNG
• Leverage browser caching: This lets visitors’ browsers store certain parts of your site so that it loads faster the next time they visit
• Minimize HTTP requests: Every piece of your store (images, scripts, CSS files) creates an HTTP request. Fewer components mean faster loading, so streamline them
• Use a content delivery network (CDN): CDNs distribute your content across multiple servers worldwide, reducing the distance data travels to reach users, which speeds up loading times
• Minify and combine CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files: It entails removing unnecessary formatting, whitespace, and code to reduce the size of these files
• Optimize for mobile: Mobile users often face slower internet speeds, so optimizing for smartphones is crucial. This ties back to our earlier point about mobile-first design
• Check your hosting: Ensure it can handle your site’s traffic and content
• Regularly monitor speed: Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to keep an eye on the site’s speed and make ongoing improvements

The page content is considered thin when it delivers very little or no value. And Google doesn’t like it.

Duplicate content is another eCommerce technical SEO issue, especially with similar product descriptions or shared content across multiple pages. It makes it harder for search engines to understand the priority page, impacting your SEO efforts.

To eliminate thin and duplicate content problems, consider the following pieces of advice: 

• Create unique product descriptions instead of copying and pasting manufacturer texts
• Use canonical tags to tell search engines which page version to index
• Regularly conduct an eCommerce technical SEO audit to remove or improve thin content
• Use the rel="canonical" link element to set parameters in URLs
• Leverage blogs or advice sections to share unique and useful information on the store

Let’s move on to the next technical SEO eCommerce strategy—setting up XML and HTML sitemaps and the robots.txt file. Sitemaps aren’t necessary elements of an eCommerce website. However, adding them benefits SEO.

An XML sitemap targets search engines and lists the critical pages of the website. HTML sitemaps serve people and provide a clear, accessible structure of the store, allowing users to find the needed links faster.

Submit them to search engines. Regularly update these sitemaps with new pages or content changes and ensure clarity.

Robots.txt is a file in the website’s root directory that tells search engines whether or not they can crawl certain parts of a site. For example, it prevents them from indexing PDFs and irrelevant or private pages, such as login pages. What for?

First and foremost, it saves the crawl budget. So, search engines don’t waste time crawling unneeded stuff, which is critical for larger stores. Only the content that matters gets the spotlight. It’s also a remedy for the duplicate content issue mentioned above.

Structured data is a piece of code providing search engines with information about a page/product in a standardized format. It may not be the most effective strategy for technical SEO in eCommerce. Yet, it improves click-through rates and distinguishes you from the rest of the search results.

Online stores may use structured data to display product information, prices, availability, reviews, etc.

Screenshot taken on Google

To implement structure data, use Schema.org to find what schemas different search engines support. 

Screenshot taken on the official Schema.org website

Integrate structured data directly into your HTML or with the help of various tools and plugins. It’ll simplify the process. Lastly, test it with tools like Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool and update it when the product status changes.

An HTTP status code is a communication tool between your server and the visitor’s browser. A user sends a request to the browser, which in turn responds with a specific code, such as:

• 200—everything is fine and works correctly
• 3xx—redirection codes used to notify users that the page has been moved temporarily or permanently and send them to another address
• 4xx—client error status messages, such as 404 Not Found (the link is broken, the address doesn’t exist)
• 5xx—internal server errors. This error indicates a server-side issue preventing the request from being handled completely

If you’ve identified 4xx and 5xx issues during the eCommerce technical SEO audit, addressing them should be your priority.

The crawl budget represents the number of pages the search robot will analyze within a certain timeframe. It’s limited, so duplicate content and illogical site structure may prevent the most important pages from indexing, stealing search robots’ attention from them.

Here are some tips for maximizing crawl efficiency:

• Prioritize high-value pages (like best-selling products). It entails easy access to them and no crawl errors
• Fix broken links and transform them from dead ends into opportunities to continue the purchase journey