The Essential Guide to eCommerce SEO

They focus on vanity metrics instead of money metrics. Getting traffic to your “About Us” page feels good, but it doesn't pay the bills. The biggest mistake is optimising for keywords that don't convert. You want to rank for terms where people are ready to buy, not just browse. Stop chasing traffic that window shops and target traffic that pulls out their credit card.

Here's the truth nobody wants to hear: if you're starting from zero, you're looking at 6-12 months minimum for meaningful organic traffic. But here's what most people miss – you can start seeing improvements in 30-60 days if you focus on the right things first. Quick wins come from fixing technical issues, optimising existing product pages, and going after long-tail keywords with lower competition. The businesses that succeed are the ones that treat SEO like a marathon, not a sprint.

It depends on where you are in your business. If you're doing under $1M annually, hire a specialist agency – you get expertise without the overhead. Between $1M-$10M, consider a hybrid approach with an agency handling strategy and an in-house person executing. Above $10M, you need in-house talent because your SEO needs become too specific and complex for an agency to handle effectively. The key is matching your investment to your revenue stage.

This is like asking which leg is more important for walking. You need both, but here's the hierarchy: category pages are your traffic drivers, and product pages are your conversion engines. Category pages should target broader, higher-volume keywords and funnel people deeper into your site. Product pages should be laser-focused on buyer intent keywords. If I had to pick one to perfect first, I'd go with category pages because they have more ranking potential and drive more overall traffic.

You don't compete head-to-head – that's business suicide. Instead, you go where they can't or won't go. Target hyper-specific long-tail keywords, create content around your unique value proposition, and focus on local SEO if applicable. Amazon can't beat you on personal service, exceptional product combinations, or specialised expertise. Find your unfair advantage and optimise around that, not around trying to out-Amazon Amazon.

SEO has the highest ROI of any marketing channel once it's working, but it requires the most patience upfront. If they stick with it, most businesses see 300-500% ROI within 18-24 months. The beautiful thing about SEO is that it compounds, unlike paid ads, where you stop paying and traffic stops, good SEO work continues paying dividends for years. But you have to survive the investment period without expecting immediate returns.

Reviews are absolute gold for eCommerce SEO. They provide fresh, unique content that search engines love, they naturally include long-tail keywords customers use, and they build trust signals that improve conversion rates. But here's the kicker – most businesses are terrible at systematically collecting reviews. You need an automated system that follows up with every customer. One review per sale should be your minimum standard.

Only if you can commit to doing it right; half-hearted content is worse than no content. If you're going to blog, create content that genuinely helps your customers solve problems related to your products. Don't just write fluff pieces about “10 Ways to Use Our Product.” Write content that ranks for problems your products solve. The goal isn't to entertain – it's to capture people earlier in their buying journey and guide them toward your products.

Scale through systems and templates, not manual optimisation. Create template structures for different product types, use automation tools for basic optimisations, and focus your manual efforts on your highest-revenue products. The 80/20 rule applies here – 20% of your products likely drive 80% of your revenue. Perfect those first, then systematise the rest. Don't try to optimise 10,000 products manually – you'll burn out before you make a dent.

Site speed is the silent killer of eCommerce conversions and rankings. You're haemorrhaging money if your pages load more than 3 seconds. Other critical issues include duplicate content from product variations, poor mobile experience, and broken internal linking. However, the most significant technical mistake was not having proper tracking set up. You can't improve what you can't measure, so get your analytics and search console configured correctly from day one.

Voice search is about capturing conversational, question-based queries. Optimise for “near me” searches and natural language patterns like “best-running shoes for flat feet” instead of just “running shoes.” For mobile, speed trumps everything else. A beautiful mobile site that loads slowly will get crushed by an ugly site that loads fast. Focus on core web vitals, simplify your mobile checkout process, and ensure your site works perfectly on your customers' devices.

When you prove that international demand exists, you can fulfil it profitably. Don't expand internationally because you think it'll solve your growth problems – it'll just give you expensive new issues. Start with countries where you already have some organic traffic or customer inquiries. Test with one market first, get profitable there, and then systematically expand. International SEO is complex and expensive – make sure the juice is worth the squeeze before you commit.