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Product Page SEO: 11 Effective Tips for Better Sales

Improving product page SEO is vital if you want to make more sales online.

According to a recent survey, e-commerce sales are expected to account for 15.5% of worldwide retail sales. As more and more businesses strive to build their presence in the digital space, the number will only grow in the coming years.

This is both good and bad news for you. The good news is, more consumers will be shopping online. You’ll have more opportunities to turn first-time website visitors into paying customers.

The bad news is, you’ll be competing with hundreds of businesses who offer the same products.

Making sure your product pages are optimised could mean the difference between getting the top spot for your target keyword or barely making it to the Top 50.

In this blog post, we’re going to discuss 11 product page SEO tips you can implement for better sales.

Let’s get started.

GET TO KNOW YOUR TARGET CUSTOMER.

You’re optimising your product pages to find more potential customers, but these people can’t be an amorphous blob in your imagination.

A sixty-year-old executive may use different keywords from a twenty-year-old intern, so you need to breathe life into your business’s ideal customer. Get to know them and determine exactly how they’ll find you online.

Start by creating an ideal customer profile, and answer the following questions.

• How old is your ideal customer?
• Where are they located?
• What do they do for a living?
• How much do they make in a year?
• Where do they spend most of their time online and offline?
• What are their most pressing pain points?
• How does your product resolve or minimise these pain points?

The answers to the above questions will serve as a guide for the rest of the steps we’re about to discuss. The more you know about your ideal customer, the more you’ll increase your chances of making the right SEO decisions.

FIND THE RIGHT KEYWORDS.

Now that you’ve identified your ideal customer, you can start finding which keywords to use.

Keyword research is the act of finding keywords that your website can target. It involves the following factors.

• Keyword Volume – This is the number of times a keyword was used during a given timeframe.
• Keyword Difficulty – This is how difficult it is to rank for a specific keyword. Usually, the higher the keyword volume, the more difficult it is to rank for.

In an ideal world, you would find plenty of keywords with high volume and a low level of difficulty, but the Internet is becoming more competitive than ever. Most high volume keywords are usually occupied by huge corporations or brands that have been around for years, making competing with them quite difficult.

Not to worry.

You still have other options at your disposal.

Before we proceed, we need to define a couple of terms first.

• Short-tail keywords – These are keywords that are made up of three words or less. They usually receive huge amounts of search traffic. Examples of short-tail keywords include “pomodoro timer”, “fruits”, and “time management”.
• Long-tail keywords – These are keywords that are made up of four words or more. They usually receive less search traffic than short-tail keywords. Examples of long-tail keywords include “tips for better time management”, “italian restaurants near me”, and “foods that boost the immune system”.

Long-tail keywords don’t bring in as much search traffic as short-tail keywords, but they do give you more information about the searcher’s intent.

There are four common types of search intent.

• Informational Intent – Users are looking for answers to their questions. For example, they want to know how to play badminton.
• Navigational Intent – Users already have a specific website in mind. For example, they want to go to Twitter.
• Transactional Intent – Users are ready to make a purchase.
• Commercial Investigation – Users are researching before making a purchase. They’re most likely comparing prices and getting other relevant information.

Keeping search intent is important when doing keyword research. For example, a user who used the keyword “iphone 11 vs samsung s20” may not be ready to make a purchase yet. They’re trying to determine which phone model is better.

On the other hand, a user who entered “buy iphone 11 online” is most likely ready to make a purchase.

There are plenty of free tools online that will help with your keyword research. Most of them show you the keyword difficulty and keyword volume and provide additional keyword ideas.

Popular paid tools include SEMRush and Ahrefs. Ubersuggest is a free keyword research tool developed by digital marketing expert Neil Patel.

If you use Google Chrome, some extensions can help with this step. You may want to consider reading this blog post for more information.

ADD ALT TEXT.

Alt text is an HTML attribute that gives search engines more information about an image. They also appear when an image fails to load, letting users know what image they should be seeing.

Search engines are smarter than ever. For instance, Google can now identify the content of an image, but it isn’t 100% accurate. Adding alt text lets search engines index your images more accurately.

It’s also another opportunity to use your target keyword, especially when you use product photos that are unique to your business.

Keep the following in mind when adding alt text.

• Use your target keyword.
• Be specific. For example, include both the product’s brand and model number.

Adding alt text is quite easy if you use WordPress. Whenever you upload an image for a web page or a blog post, you’ll see a field that lets you add alt text.

USE THE RIGHT TITLE TAGS.

A title tag is a title that is shown in search engine results pages. It’s the same title that users see when looking for information about your product or business in general.

Bloggers are encouraged to make their title tags attention-grabbing without resorting to clickbait.

But how exactly do you make the title tag for a product page interesting? An effective title tag for a product page should include three elements.

• The target keyword – This is necessary for better search engine rankings
• The brand name – This is necessary for better search engine rankings. If you have a good reputation, brand recognition may also help.
• A feature you’d like to emphasise – This helps convince users to click on your link instead of your competitor’s.

Your title tag should be formatted like this: Target Keyword | Brand Name | Feature. Here are some examples of effective title tags:

• Sleepwear Sets for Women | Sydney Sleepwear | Online Deals
• Best iPhone 11 Prices | iPhones Sydney | Free Shipping

We highly recommend keeping your title tags under 60 characters. If you exceed that number, search engines may cut off the rest of your title tag.

If you use WordPress, there are plenty of plugins that let you easily edit title tags. Yoast and All in One SEO Pack are two of the most popular plugins.

To install a plugin, log into your website and go to your dashboard. Click on Plugins in your sidebar and select Add New. Search for the plugin you’d like to install and click on Install Now.

If you install Yoast or All in One SEO Pack, you’ll automatically see a box where you can enter a target keyword, a title tag, and a meta description underneath the editor for web pages and blog posts.

You won’t have to learn a single line of code, and you can finish updating the required information in a matter of minutes.

USE HEADINGS STRATEGICALLY.

Heading tags show search engines how your web page is organised. They include H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, and H6. They also make it easier for users to scan and quickly read your content.

H1 tags appear as the primary heading of web pages and blog posts. They’re often confused with title tags. The main difference is, title tags appear in search engine results pages while H1 tags appear on the web page itself.

We highly recommend including target keywords in the H1 tags of product pages. You can also use related keywords and terms in H2 or H3 tags.

For example, you could use the product name and model number in the H1 tag. You could cite the features of the product in H2 tags and break down the benefits of each feature using H3 tags.

Your web page structure could look like this:

• H1 – Product Name and Model Number
  • H2 – Feature
    • H3 – Benefit
    • H3 – 2nd Benefit
  • H2 – 2nd Feature
    • H3 – Benefit
    • H3 – 2nd Benefit

For example, in this blog post, we used an H1 tag for the title, H2 tags to highlight the tips, and H3 tags for other information we’d like to highlight.

MAKE YOUR COPY UNIQUE.

Are you using product descriptions provided by the manufacturer?

If you are, hundreds of businesses who sell the same product may also be doing the same thing. This is called duplicate content and could result in your pages not getting indexed by Google.

Duplicate content is content that can be found on more than one URL. Google officially doesn’t penalise you for duplicate content.

However, the search engine doesn’t see the point in showing users several pages that contain the same thing. They’ll choose the “original” version and only index that specific URL. Your page may not get seen in search engine results pages at all.

You can check if other websites are using the same product descriptions using Copyscape. Go to the website, enter your product page URL, and click on Go. You will then see all the web pages that contain the same copy.

How do you write an effective product description?

Writing unique product descriptions is the best way to ensure your product pages are indexed and shown by search engines.

Here are some things to keep in mind:

• Remember the ideal customer profile we discussed in a previous section? Write your product descriptions with that person in mind. Use words and a tone of voice that will appeal to them and that they can relate to.
• Discuss both features and benefits. Features are the qualities of your product. Benefits are how those features can make a user’s life better or easier.
• Use bullet points. Most users don’t read the entire product description. Make it easier for them to scan your content and find the information they need.
• Use target keywords. Include them in your product descriptions organically. Don’t try to use them over and over.

The length of your product descriptions may differ depending on your product. Some products will be familiar to most users and won’t require much explanation. If your product is more unfamiliar to users, you may need to anticipate and answer questions users will ask.

SPEED UP YOUR WEBSITE.

Back in 2018, Google rolled out its Speed Update. The update made page speed a major ranking factor in mobile search engine results.

If your website is slower than your competitors’, they may have better chances of ranking higher in search engine results.

Start speeding up your website speed by determining where you currently stand. Test your website speed using PageSpeed Insights. It is a tool developed by Google, and it uses data from Google Chrome users.

Enter your web page URL and click on Analyze. It will then scan your website and score your website speed. You’ll see different scores for mobile and desktop users.

The tool will also provide improvement suggestions. Some common improvement suggestions include:

• Resizing images. – The product photos you’re uploading might be too big and could slow down your website. You could resize them without affecting the image quality.
• Minify code. – Each line of code consumes space and requires resources to download. This step will compress the code, letting your website load faster.

For more steps, you can read this blog post.

ADD PRODUCT REVIEWS.

Reviews are the digital version of word-of-mouth. It’s no secret that consumers trust the opinions of other people more than ads. In fact, according to a recent survey, 82% of users read reviews for local businesses.

They play an important role in the purchasing process, especially for users who are still deciding whether they’ll make a purchase or not.

Product reviews can also help your business from an SEO standpoint.

Every time a user leaves a review, your website is updated with fresh content. This tells search engines that your website contains fresh information that other users may find valuable.

Reviews also help with E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). It’s a ranking factor that ensures users are shown accurate information from trusted sources.

TEST FOR MOBILE RESPONSIVENESS.

As more and more people surf the Internet using mobile phones, it’s no surprise that search engines are focusing on websites’ ease-of-use on mobile phones. They want to provide users with accurate information quickly no matter what device they’re using.

Start by checking how mobile responsive your website is. Google has a free tool called the Mobile-Friendly Test. Enter your website URL and click on Test URL. It will then scan your website and tell you if it’s mobile-friendly or not.

You can also view how your website looks on different devices using Responsinator. Enter your URL and click on Go. You can then navigate your website using a variety of both Apple and Android devices.

Most WordPress themes are now responsive, which means they adjust based on the device used to view them. If you’re unsure, give one of the tools mentioned above a try.

SUGGEST SIMILAR PRODUCTS.

Let’s break down a couple of things first.

Your bounce rate is the number of users who leave your website without clicking on another page. A high bounce rate tells search engines that your content is unhelpful, not entertaining enough or both.

In a nutshell, the lower your bounce rate, the better.

But how do you make users stay longer on your website?

You can start by showing users similar products whenever they visit one of your product pages. Even if the product they initially found didn’t quite capture their interest, you can encourage them to stay longer by showing them alternatives.

To suggest similar products, you’ll need to take different steps depending on the platform you’re using.

• If you’re using WordPress, there are several plugins you can install. Popular options include Customer Related Products for WooCommerce and Related Products for WooCommerce.
• Shopify also has several apps that serve this purpose. You can try Relatify and Recom.ai.

USE RICH SNIPPETS.

Rich snippets are Google search results that show extra information.

Google search results usually show you the URL, webpage title, and the meta description (a brief description of the content).

If you use rich snippets, users can see a product’s average review rating, price, and whether it’s in stock or not. They draw the eye more than normal search results and improve the chances of a user clicking on your website instead of your competitor’s.

To implement rich snippets, you will need some coding skills. You can find all the required guidelines at Schema.org. According to their website, they’re “ collaborative, community activity with a mission to create, maintain, and promote schemas for structured data on the Internet, on web pages, in email messages, and beyond.”

CONCLUSION

Product page SEO doesn’t end at finding the right keywords. It’s a continuous process that involves plenty of research, trial and error, and ensuring users find the information they need as quickly as possible.

If you need help optimising your product pages, we’d love to help. Cornerstone Digital is an SEO agency in Sydney that can help you find your ideal customer via SEO. Call us on (02) 8211 0668 or email us atinfo@cornerstone-digital.com.au.

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Darlyn Herradura

A self-professed book and digital marketing nerd, Darlyn Herradura focuses on building trust between customers and businesses with the written word. She understands that creating valuable content is the best way to get found online and happily spends her time doing that.