Online shopping is a cornerstone of modern commerce.<\/p>\n
Shoppers are increasingly likely to turn to the internet before heading out to their local shopping center. This has opened up a massive opportunity for ecommerce businesses.<\/p>\n
Ecommerce business owners willing to put the work in to optimize their website will benefit most from the opportunity.<\/p>\n
But where do you begin?<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a list of 16 unmissable ecommerce best practices we\u2019ve put together to guide you.<\/p>\n
Convincing potential customers of your credibility is an essential first step to converting them into buyers.<\/p>\n
Build trust with users by making your online business website appear trustworthy. That means using consistent branding, high-quality product images, and modern web design.<\/p>\n
To really make an impact, use established online trust signals. These are visible elements on your site that customers associate with credibility.<\/p>\n
For example, a site-wide\u00a0SSL certificate<\/strong>\u00a0reassures your users that their personal data and credit card information are safely encrypted.<\/p>\n Websites with an SSL certificate display a lock icon in browser search bars.<\/p>\n Security indications build trust. They can also boost your visibility. Google factors security into its assessment of a website\u2019s\u00a0search engine optimization (SEO)<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how:<\/p>\n The encryption provided by an SSL certificate allows URLs to use the\u00a0HTTPS protocol<\/strong>\u2014a confirmed Google ranking signal\u00a0since 2014<\/a>.<\/p>\n Customer reviews, testimonials, and case studies are another type of trust signal. They act as social proof, showing potential customers that the site isn\u2019t a scam.<\/p>\n Amazon, one of the biggest ecommerce sites, puts reviews front and center on every product page.<\/p>\n Other common trust signals for ecommerce sites include:<\/p>\n Good product images can make a big difference in ecommerce performance, influencing customers\u2019 purchasing decisions.<\/p>\n They\u2019re one of the most important elements of product pages.\u00a050% of online shoppers\u00a0<\/a>say images help them decide what to buy.<\/p>\n The right product photos can show off quality and features that are hard to articulate in writing.<\/p>\n The screenshot below shows the top image results for \u201cred men\u2019s t-shirt.\u201d Each result is a high-quality image from a retail brand\u2019s product page.<\/p>\n A great image opens these vendors up to new traffic from searchers browsing image results instead of the regular website links.<\/p>\n Best practices for producing images that help convince people to buy include:<\/p>\n On-page SEO<\/a>\u00a0boosts visibility, driving more organic traffic by making it easier for potential customers to find your site.<\/p>\n On-page SEO involves optimizing webpage elements to increase search engine rankings. It focuses on commercial or transactional keywords\u2014types of keywords<\/a>\u00a0people search when they\u2019re researching products or want to make a purchase.<\/p>\n Those keywords appear in elements like the page text, headers, and image descriptions. (This is different from off-page SEO, which focuses on optimization that happens outside of your website.)<\/p>\n The category and product pages that make up the bulk of most ecommerce sites are both great places to rank for these crucial keywords. Because these are the pages that meet users\u2019\u00a0search intent<\/a>\u00a0of finding and buying products.<\/p>\n Boost your chances of ranking for target keywords with these on-page SEO steps:<\/p>\n Get Keyword Suggestions<\/p>\n with the Keyword Magic Tool, the Biggest Keyword Database on the Market<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The On Page SEO Checker dashboard shows you areas of weakness across your site. Plus recommendations for strengthening performance in each area.<\/p>\n Optimize your website for user experience (UX) factors to increase traffic, maximize user retention, and boost sales.<\/p>\n UX factors determine how easy and enjoyable your site is to use. This, in turn, determines how long people spend on your site.<\/p>\n The longer users spend on your site, the greater the chance they\u2019ll buy something from you.<\/p>\n There are countless UX design factors to consider. Look at those that streamline the experience for your website visitors. Like intuitive store navigation or easy payment options.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also important to consider factors that\u00a0Google\u2019s search ranking algorithm<\/a>\u00a0takes into account. These include:<\/p>\n The report will show you results for both mobile and desktop devices. And provide suggestions on how to improve your scores.<\/p>\n Optimizing how fast your website pages load can both increase your keyword rankings and boost user retention.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s why:<\/p>\n Loading speed directly impacts\u00a0bounce rate<\/a>. This metric measures the percentage of users who leave your site without interacting with it.<\/p>\n The probability of a user leaving your website before it loads\u00a0increases dramatically after three seconds<\/a>.<\/p>\n PageSpeed Insights<\/a>\u00a0can identify slow-loading pages on your website. You can run URLs through it to get a comprehensive report including:<\/p>\n All of that information is contained in one report dashboard. Like this:<\/p>\n The report makes diagnosing and fixing any site speed issues simple.<\/p>\n PageSpeed Insights lets you run a report for one page at a time. For a complete overview of your website\u2019s overall page speed performance, use a tool like Semrush\u2019s\u00a0Site Audit<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you haven\u2019t\u00a0set up a project in Semrush<\/a>\u00a0yet, start by entering your website\u2019s URL in the search bar. Click the \u201cStart Audit<\/strong>\u201d button.<\/p>\n You\u2019ll see this dashboard when the audit completes:<\/p>\n For information on your site load times, click on the \u201cView<\/strong>\u00a0details<\/strong>\u201d button in the \u201cSite Performance\u201d box.<\/p>\n This will open a summary of technical performance. Including a breakdown of page speed across your entire website.<\/p>\n Click on the \u201cX issues<\/strong>\u201d button next to \u201cSlow page (HTML) load speed.\u201d You\u2019ll find out where your page speed is lagging and get suggestions for how to fix it.<\/p>\n Find and Fix Technical SEO Issues<\/p>\n with the Site Audit Tool<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Around\u00a070% of ecommerce website traffic<\/a>\u00a0comes from users on mobile devices. Make the most of your biggest traffic source by prioritizing a great mobile customer experience.<\/p>\n Further reading:<\/strong>\u00a0Get data and insights on mobile strategies in Semrush\u2019s latest ecommerce report,\u00a0Futureproof Your Business With Ecommerce Market Insights<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Your content should be easy to read and interact with on smaller devices. This means you should pay attention to things like:<\/p>\n The best way to ensure your site is mobile-friendly is to use a\u00a0responsive design<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n What does this mean?<\/p>\n Responsive design is a website development technique that automatically reformats content to suit different screen sizes.<\/p>\n You can manually tweak your website design to be responsive. Or pick one of many templates available from site-building tools and designers to do the work for you.<\/p>\n Google also pays attention to responsiveness. A responsive design indicates to the search engine that you\u2019re applying its\u00a0mobile-first best practices<\/a>. Meaning more visibility for your site.<\/p>\n Tailor your website navigation so users can find what they\u2019re looking for quickly. This will prevent them from getting frustrated and visiting a competitor instead.<\/p>\n Website architecture<\/a>, or the hierarchy of pages and how they\u2019re connected, can be complex for ecommerce sites.<\/p>\n The more categories, subcategories, and product pages your site has, the harder it is for users to navigate through. And a disorganized site structure only makes things more difficult.<\/p>\n Offer the best user experience by focusing on a simple and intuitive website structure. Starting with a well-organized page hierarchy.<\/p>\n You can do this with URL subfolders so that each page sits beneath its parent page.<\/p>\n But you should reinforce that URL structure with intuitive navigation options.<\/p>\n How do you achieve that exactly?<\/p>\n By making sure every parent page has at least one link to every subcategory or product page that sits beneath it. Every subpage should have a link back to its parent page.<\/p>\n This doesn\u2019t just affect user navigation. It also ensures that Google can find every important page when\u00a0crawling your website<\/a>.<\/p>\n That means Google can store those pages in its index, which is necessary for them to rank for their target keywords.<\/p>\n Internal links are links from one page on your website to another. Include them to make it easy for users to get to the pages they\u2019re looking for.<\/p>\n Internal links provide an alternative to the search bar. They also prompt users down new paths, presenting them with more opportunities to explore your ecommerce website.<\/p>\n There are four main internal link types to use on an ecommerce site:<\/p>\n There isn\u2019t much room to get creative with the main navigation menu. Most ecommerce sites use it the same way: as an overview of all category pages.<\/p>\n But you can find plenty of opportunities elsewhere.<\/p>\n For example, a banner on your homepage to put a spotlight on new category or subcategory pages as they go live.<\/p>\n You can also add a \u201crelated products\u201d’ section to all product pages, linking to the most similar product pages. This should keep users on-site if the product they want is out of stock or not quite right.<\/p>\n As your site gets larger, internal links become more important. Use them effectively to ensure every page on your website is reachable by both users and Google\u2019s crawlers.<\/p>\n Pro tip:<\/strong>\u00a0Learn how to make the most of your internal links with\u00a0Internal Links: Ultimate Guide + Strategies<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Product filters on category pages help users sort your products to focus on what they\u2019re interested in. This improves their experience (and the chances they\u2019ll stay on your page and buy).<\/p>\n Product filters are especially important for ecommerce sites that stock lots of products.<\/p>\n Individual category pages can contain hundreds or thousands of products. Filters allow users to narrow down their view by particular features or specifications.<\/p>\n What filter options to provide depends on what you\u2019re selling.<\/p>\n For instance, a men\u2019s t-shirt category page on a fashion ecommerce store might include the following filters:<\/p>\n Make sure you understand what\u2019s important to your users. Then build filters that are relevant and useful to them.<\/p>\n Good product descriptions can help increase your conversion rate and generate more revenue.<\/p>\n A product description\u2019s first and most important job is to reduce or remove barriers to conversion. It anticipates and overcomes reservations, addresses the user\u2019s pain points, and explains how it solves them.<\/p>\n What does this mean in practice?<\/p>\n For some products, it\u2019s going into detail about the quality of construction in an FAQ section. For others, it involves listing features or capabilities.<\/p>\n It might even be as simple as stating that shipping is free.<\/p>\n The product description below contains plenty of useful information for potential customers, including technical specifications.<\/p>\n Use your descriptions to encourage hesitant potential customers to purchase. How? By addressing obstacles they might be concerned about.<\/p>\n Make sure your descriptions are easy to read and present the right tone for your brand.<\/p>\n And consider the effects on SEO.<\/p>\n SEO-friendly product descriptions<\/a>\u00a0aren\u2019t just persuasive. They\u2019re also optimized around the page\u2019s target keywords.<\/p>\n Use a tool like Semrush\u2019s\u00a0SEO Writing Assistant<\/a>\u00a0to create reader-friendly product descriptions that contribute to your keyword rankings.<\/p>\n Simply type or paste your description into the main text box. Then enter your keywords in the field on the right and click \u201cGet recommendations<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n You\u2019ll get a report with insights on readability, originality, SEO-friendliness, and tone of voice.<\/p>\n The full report provides simple guidance on how to improve each factor, plus additional keyword suggestions.<\/p>\n Build and deploy a\u00a0content marketing strategy<\/a>\u00a0to boost your traffic and attract more potential customers.<\/p>\n Informational content like blog posts, how-tos, and guides can help you build trust and relationships with your target audience.<\/p>\n Educational content shows off your expertise. While brand stories make your company more relatable.<\/p>\n Content also opens up brand-new SEO opportunities for ecommerce sites. You stand a good chance of ranking for keywords outside your product descriptions.<\/p>\n First, you need to know what keywords to target.<\/p>\n Semrush\u2019s\u00a0Organic Research<\/a>\u00a0tool can be a big help in this process. You can analyze your top competitors\u2019 websites and easily identify what informational keywords they rank for.<\/p>\n Once you have topics to write about, draft your content using content creation tools to make sure it\u2019s well-optimized.<\/p>\n Find Competitors<\/p>\n with the Organic Research Tool<\/p>\n<\/div>\n SEO Content Template<\/a>\u00a0is a great place to start. Enter a target keyword, and the tool will generate an ideal content outline to use as a basis for your writing.<\/p>\n Figure out ways to target users throughout their buying journey to grow your traffic and make more sales.<\/p>\n Ideally, your website will attract users who are close to making a buying decision. But there\u2019s plenty of opportunity to generate traffic from elsewhere in the\u00a0marketing funnel<\/a>.<\/p>\n The marketing funnel has four main stages:<\/p>\n Each stage offers an opportunity to grow your online store\u2019s traffic. You can capture all of them with a diverse range of page types.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how:<\/p>\n Users in the awareness stage need information. They\u2019re typically in the process of researching a product.<\/p>\n Target them with informational content that answers their questions. In the process, you\u2019ll make them aware of your brand. That way, they\u2019re more likely to remember you when they reach the conversion stage.<\/p>\n Users in the consideration stage are comparing different products to make a purchase decision. Target them through content that puts your product head-to-head with competitors.<\/p>\n More users captured at the top of the marketing funnel = more potential customers.<\/p>\n Barriers to conversion stop a visitor from becoming a customer. Minimizing them can increase conversions.<\/p>\n A\u00a0study by the Baymard Institute<\/a>\u00a0found that the average ecommerce shopping cart abandonment rate is 70%. The investigation revealed that the top barriers to conversion were:<\/p>\n You can only avoid some of these factors with changes to your business model. But you can address the others through simple changes to your website.<\/p>\n Here are some tips:<\/p>\n Avoid forcing potential customers to create an account by adding\u00a0guest checkout functionality<\/strong>. Like this \u201cContinue as Guest\u201d button:<\/p>\n Reverse low trust by adding more evidence of your brand\u2019s credibility during checkout. Include things like\u00a0customer reviews<\/strong>\u00a0or\u00a0industry awards<\/strong>\u00a0in prominent places on the checkout page.<\/p>\n Add payment options like\u00a0PayPal<\/strong>\u00a0to convert users who are hesitant to enter their credit card details.<\/p>\n Track site visitor interactions. So you can continue to reach out to those who show interest but leave your site before making a purchase.<\/p>\n Even the best ecommerce sites don\u2019t convert 100% of the time.\u00a0Retargeting<\/a>\u00a0tactics help you find users who drop off during checkout and reach them again.<\/p>\n One of the most popular tactics involves\u00a0tracking<\/strong>\u00a0users on your website and targeting them with\u00a0personalized<\/strong>\u00a0ads<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The process works like this:<\/p>\n \u042d\u043b. \u043f\u043e\u0447\u0442\u0430<\/strong>\u00a0is another popular channel for retargeting. In email retargeting, you contact lost users or previous customers directly through their inbox. But it first requires you to collect their email address legally.<\/p>\n The email below reaches out to previous customers. A discount code encourages them to return to the site for another purchase.<\/p>\n Both these retargeting tactics can be successful revenue drivers if you set them up effectively.<\/p>\n Retargeted users are already familiar with your brand. That means your website has less work to do here to persuade them to convert.<\/p>\n Schedule regular site health checks so you continue to acquire and convert users.<\/p>\n Ecommerce websites are particularly prone to degradation. It\u2019s not uncommon to delete discontinued product pages without redirecting them to another page, for example.<\/p>\n This can cause both UX and\u00a0technical SEO<\/a>\u00a0issues.<\/p>\n Users following links to these deleted pages get a\u00a0404 status code<\/a>. Which might lead them to exit the site altogether. Plus, the 404 pages will lose any keyword rankings they had.<\/p>\n The simple solution: Stay on top of your website\u2019s health with an automatic technical auditing tool like\u00a0Site Audit<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n
2. Use High-Quality Images<\/h2>\n
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3. Invest in On-Page SEO<\/h2>\n
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4. Prioritize a Great User Experience<\/h2>\n
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\nYou can measure these three core web vitals with a tool like Google\u2019s proprietary\u00a0PageSpeed Insights<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n5. Minimize Website Load Times<\/h2>\n
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6. Optimize for Mobile Users<\/h2>\n
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7. Make Navigation Simple and Intuitive<\/h2>\n
example.com
\nexample.com\/category-1
\nexample.com\/category-1\/subcategory-1
\nexample.com\/category-2
\nexample.com\/category-2\/subcategory-1
\nexample.com\/category-2\/subcategory-2<\/code><\/div>\n8. Look Out for Internal Linking Opportunities<\/h2>\n
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9. Build Useful Product Filters<\/h2>\n
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10. Write Effective Product Descriptions<\/h2>\n
11. Offer Valuable Content<\/h2>\n
12. Attract Users Throughout the Marketing Funnel<\/h2>\n
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13. Minimize Barriers to Conversion<\/h2>\n
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14. Create a Retargeting Plan<\/h2>\n
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15. Keep Your Website in Good Health<\/h2>\n