E-Commerce SEO Horror Stories : How to tackle the most common issues  at scale and avoid an SEO nightmare - #Mozcon

#ecommerceseohorror at #mozcon by @aleyda from @orainti
E-Commerce SEO Horror Stories
 
How to tackle the most common issues
 
at scale and avoid an SEO nightmare

https://www.shopify.com/enterprise/global-ecommerce-statistics
E-commerce continues to grow massively

gymshark.com huel.com allbirds.com timbuk2.com
Organic search is already one of the biggest
traffic drivers to online stores
semrush

SEO will become
even more
important with
rising cost of
advertising
https://www.shopify.com/research/future-of-commerce/future-of-ecommerce

Google is also
positioned as a
free merchant
marketplace

It’s giving
products more
organic visibility
with new search
features

And
facilitating
product
integration
with popular
platforms

E-commerce
platforms have
also introduced
more SEO
functionalities

While SEO tools
have introduced
features to
better support
online stores

A true
 
e-commerce
SEO dream
come true!

Not so fast! It’s now harder than
 
ever to do SEO for e-commerce

E-commerce site characteristics make
 
SEO challenging
A high number of
pages due to
product volume
Complex
categorization
Dynamic inventory
causing constantly
changing URLs
The same product
info as other sites

This slows down the SEO process and
 
causes real horror stories
Internal search
results cannibalizing
categories
Noindexing
categories pages
with search
potential
Lack of unique
commercial content
in categories
Product pages
with poor
 
unique descriptive
content
Product pages
with traffic
 
but inconsistent
status
Seasonal pages
with traffic
 
but inconsistent
status
Overlooking
informational
content and
resources

With nightmare SEO consequences,
 
even when you think things are great
Scary Dip

Let’s see how
to avoid these
and maximize
 
e-commerce
organic search
growth

Internal search results
 
cannibalizing categories

This can cause
you to rank for
non-relevant
or even
spammy terms

Which is not so qualified traffic that
 
you’ll eventually lose anyway

Or rank poorly
with internal
search result
URLs rather
than relevant
facet pages

This SEO
horror story
happens when
indexing
internal search
results to
attract traffic

Also allowing
crawling
without
constraint

Generating content duplication with
 
meant-to-rank categories or facets

That end up cannibalized in Google
 
search results by these other pages

Don’t feel bad if you’re doing it,
 
it’s thankfully easy to solve

Some
canonicalize
internal
search URLs to
indexable
alternate
facets

But it’s
important to
point to actual
alternate pages,
not the home
page

You can also
 
301-redirect
internal search
result URLs to
relevant
indexable facets

Or even avoid
these URLs
suggesting
categories or
products when
searching

While
monitoring your
internal searches
to identify
categories or
facets to create

There are many ways to solve this issue,
 
and avoid an SEO horror story in the making!

Noindexing subcategories
 
& facets with search potential

Many online
stores noindex
facets by default,
losing their high
traffic potential

Some sites canonicalize all their sub-categories
 
or facets to their main categories by default

Or even block them from being crawled entirely

Others also noindex and obfuscate links to avoid
 
thin content or duplication & control crawl budget

However, subcategories and facets can connect with
popular searches with high commercial intent

If your subcategories or facets can’t rank,
 
your product pages will, but worse

But product pages will have inconsistent rankings
for these queries, cannibalizing each other

Main categories will also rank,
 
but have poorer conversion

Should you index a sub-category or facet page?
Index
Noindex
No
Are there enough
products at the sub-
category/facet level
to satisfy the user
need?
No
Yes
Yes
Demand
Supply
The sub-category/
facet has enough
search volume to
compensate their
optimization
It’s critical to
validate
supply and
demand of
each facet to
index

Assess search
volume and
intent related
to each query

Validate
number of
unique
products per
facet to satisfy
demand

If demand & supply compensate for subcategory
and facet optimization, index and optimize
>

While allowing crawling and linking
 
effectively through canonical URLs
Don’t do
this

Yes, there’s little point to index and optimize
 
them if you won’t internally link to them

Lack of unique commercial
 
content in categories

Categories
and facets
connect with
a long tail of
popular
commercial
searches

But many only
feature links to
products, without
any descriptive
text, making them
hard to rank

Many add text
at the bottom
to improve
relevance
without hurting
conversion

But too often this
content isn’t useful
and doesn’t connect
with user intent

This can cause confusion regarding page intent
 
“Our algorithms sometimes get confused …
when they have a list of products on top and
essentially a giant article on the bottom”
John Mueller
https://bit.ly/3OZESqM

Instead, show as
many products per
page as viable,
with longer
descriptions
Product 1 Product 2
Product 3 Product 4
Product 5 Product 6
CATEGORY A
Pages: 1, 2, 3… 100
Product 1 Product 2
Product 3 Product 4
Product 5 Product 6
CATEGORY B
Pages: 1, 2, 3… 60
<
Product 7 Product 8
Product 9 Product 10
* Explain why you’re
in the best place to
buy these products

* Clarify common
doubts of
customers when
buying these types
of products

This format will
connect with
commercial search
intent

Also identify
commercially-
driven queries
to address
customer
doubts
Moz, SEMrush, Sistrix

Use keyword
and content
optimization
tools for
suggestions
based on
content nature
Frase, Surfer

From FAQs to Facts, these can be integrated
 
within categories/facets pages to support sales
Reassure users
that the products
they’re seeing are
the best for their
scenario
Mitigate any
doubts around
the use and
characteristics of
the products
Show why
they’re in the best
place to buy these
products
…

And blend with the
products listing design
to make them visible
and helpful to users

Establish patterns to generate these at scale while
leveraging content automation tools to help writers
FAQs:

• Are these boots made
from real leather?
 
• Do these boots have a
good transpiration
system?
 
• What are the best pants
to wear with knee-high
boots?
 
 
Surfer, NeuralText

Now you can tackle categories/facets content
optimization at scale!

Product pages with poor
 
unique descriptive content

Product pages target the longest tail of queries
 
that can end up generating most of your traffic

Users love
sharing product
pages,
attracting
backlinks and
direct traffic, too

But product URLs
can show little
unique content
and Google tends
to leave them out
of their index

Unique
descriptions
Comparisons
Instructions
Images
Complementary
Products
Similar Products
Product pages should feature specific,
 
descriptive information
Reviews and
Q&As
Specifications

Products should
give compelling
reasons to buy with
descriptions,
images, videos,
reviews,
comparisons, etc.

This is even more important if you’re not the only
vendor of the product! What’s your USP? Feature it

Use unique, descriptive, persistent URLs
 
for each variant you want to index
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/ecommerce/designing-a-url-
structure-for-ecommerce-sites#how-google-understands-urls-for-product-variants
Avoid showing
the same
products through
different URLs
Minimize the
number of
alternative URLs
that return the
same content
Use descriptive
product variant
names in URLs
Avoid
temporary
parameters, such
as session-IDs,
tracking codes,
user-relative
values

Title & meta
description
with version
and color
Product
description
with version
and color
Product
heading with
version and
color
VS
Differentiate similar products and variants using
their unique characteristics in the metadata
Product
heading with
version and
color
Title & meta
description
with version
and color
Product
description
with version
and color

Leverage
automated
content
generation
tools to
accelerate the
process
Neural text, Frase, Surfer and Copy.ai

Remember this is to support copywriters,

not to replace them

Use your own support insights and leverage
keyword tools to create product Q&As
Alsoasked, Neural text, Frase, Surfer and Copy.ai

Incentivize users
to leave reviews
on product
pages with
discounts/offers

Use product structured data to specify their
characteristics and improve their SERP snippet
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/product

But what if you have many identical or very
 
similar products with a very short lifespan?

Consolidate on
aggregator pages
for product names
while avoiding
indexing
individual URLs

Note that adding
many product
variants (like
colors) on a single
page makes it
ineligible for
product rich results
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/ecommerce/designing-a-url-
structure-for-ecommerce-sites#how-google-understands-urls-for-product-variants

There are challenges, but it’s possible to differentiate
your product content to rank and sell better

Product pages with traffic
 
but inconsistent status

Some product
URLs can have a
very short
lifespan and end
up generating
errors

These don’t only affect the site crawl health,
 
but the rankings & traffic attracted by these pages

It’s common when checking product URLs to find
not only HTTP errors but redirects with issues

It’s then critical to
establish inventory
rules & workflows
to manage product
crawling & indexing
https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/shopify-plus/flow2/
reference/triggers/inventory-item-deleted

Don’t worry if you haven’t set them yet,
 
let’s go through a few rules to follow

When doing a product “pre-launch”, use the same
URL that the product page will have when launched

If a product can
be featured in
many categories,
don’t include
them in URLs to
avoid duplication
https://paulnrogers.com/how-to-change-the-product-url-structure-in-shopify/

Create and send product feeds through the
merchant center to maximize their visibility
https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/7439058?hl=en

When a
product is out
of stock,
eliminate from
listings, XML
sitemaps, and
feeds

If it’s temporary,
the product page
should be
indexable, offering
notifications when
back in stock

The product structured data and feeds should be
updated and show their out of stock status, too

If the product is permanently out of stock,
 
and has a new version, 301 redirect towards it
301 redirect to new
product page, while
alerting users
 
 
Update internal links, XML
sitemaps, and product
feeds

Add a
notification
explaining to
the user why
it’s being
redirected
If there isn’t a new version, but the page has
backlinks, traffic, rankings: 301 redirect to category

Avoid
302 redirects not
passing former
page popularity
or redirecting to
irrelevant URLs
Don’tdo
this

Don’t show 404 HTTP errors for out of stock
products with backlinks

You can use 404s/410s for out of stock product
pages that don’t have traffic, rankings, or backlinks
Personalize
the error
page offering
alternatives
to make it
usable

Internal links, search pages, XML sitemaps, & feeds
shouldn’t include unavailable product URLs

Use this flowchart to establish these rules
 
through the product inventory lifecycle
https://bit.ly/3yKag7h

Set recurring
automated crawls
& alerts to detect
 
remaining
product URLs
with issues to
tackle
Ryte, Sitebulb, Screaming Frog, Botify

Use
real-time SEO
monitoring
tools with your
top products
to address
issues fast
Little Warden, ContentKing

You can integrate
traffic and ranking
data to only get
alerts of those
pages with a
minimum value
Little Warden, ContentKing

Monitor performance, rich results, and product
carousel inclusion to identify more opportunities
Advanced Web Ranking

Say goodbye to the scarier product SEO horror
stories with a product inventory validation

Seasonal pages with traffic
 
but inconsistent status

Seasonal
campaigns sales
are huge for
 
e-commerce sites
https://www.emarketer.com/content/us-holiday-shopping-2021

Don’t
waste the
popularity of
your seasonal
pages by
changing their
URLs

You should leverage these pages through the years,
so don’t add the year in their URLs, only metadata

It’s important to
reuse them as
they’ll increase
in popularity and
rankability

When
the season
campaign is not
on, keep them
indexed, you
can use them to
refer other deals

If you need to modify URLs, 301 redirect, and
update links and XML sitemaps

It’s always a good
time to make the
most out

of your favorite
holidays

Overlooking informational
 
content and resources

In e-commerce, we focus on ranking for the most
popular commercial and transactional queries

But established e-commerce sites have grown
 
their traffic targeting the whole search journey

Some online
stores don’t see
the value of
informational
queries, but they
help to establish
authority with our
audience

You can’t expect users to purchase from you if
 
they haven’t seen you at the awareness stage
To attract
this…
You also
need to target
& establish
yourself here

REI does this with
their Learn section,
establishing
authority while
attracting top-of-
the-funnel traffic

With useful complementary guides and resources
for existing and potential customers

Commercial queries also have some informational
intent and are ranked by resources

It’s about addressing some of the most common
questions and doubts when buying your products

WHO

Is your target
audience &
competition
WHAT
 
Is your audience
looking for
WHEN
 
Are they
searching? At
what stage in the
journey are they?
WHERE
 
Do you need to
take them to
satisfy their
needs
HOW
 
Do you need to
be shown to
maximize
visibility
WHY
 
Ranking for these
queries is going
to help goals
Profitable
Queries +
Relevant Content
Use the 5 Ws and H to ensure high relevance, intent,
and profitability through the user journey

Identify
and map queries
with different
intent to relevant
areas for content
optimization or
creation
Guides/articles
Brand page
Comparison page
…..

To help, I’ve created this reference for e-commerce
sites, to avoid forgetting relevant query types
https://bit.ly/3wKdCTe

You can also see examples of known online stores
for each and copy/paste from Google Sheets
https://bit.ly/3wKdCTe

Use tools like Keyword Insights to develop your
topic clusters while automating keyword mapping
keywordinsights.ai

Connect with
your potential
and existing
customers to
help and
convert them

These implementations will avoid the
 
most common e-commerce SEO horror stories
Internal search
results that
cannibalize
categories
Noindexing
categories pages
with search
potential
Lack of unique
commercial
content in
categories
Product pages
with poor
 
unique descriptive
content
Product pages
with traffic
 
but inconsistent
status
Seasonal pages
with traffic
 
but inconsistent
status
Overlooking
informational
content and
resources

It’s
critical to
execute them
error free, to
avoid bugs that
will hold you
back

A high share of SEO efforts go to fixing bugs
 
rather than developing new initiatives

PRE-RELEASE SEO
VALIDATION: OK?
SEO
IMPLEMENTATION
YES
NO
YES
ON-GOING
SEO
VALIDATION
SEO RELEASE
NO
FIX
POST-RELEASE
SEO VALIDATION:
OK?
YES
NO
FIX
ON-GOING SEO
VALIDATION: OK?
YES
NO
FIX IN LESS
24H
REVERSE
IMPLEMENTATION
A well-aligned SEO execution validation
 
is fundamental, but not sufficient

Set an SEO Quality Framework to prevent errors,
rather than simply catching them
EDUCATION
 
To prevent SEO
mistakes
VALIDATION
 
To avoid launching
SEO errors
MONITORING
 
To catch SEO
incidents fast
1 2 3
ERRORS/ISSUES

WEB PLATFORM CONFIGURATION/SETTINGS CHANGES INTEGRATED VALIDATION
ORGANIC SEARCH TRAFFIC & CONVERSIONS DECREASE/INCREASE ALERTS
WEB RANKINGS DECREASE/INCREASE ALERTS
QUERIES SEARCH POPULARITY DECREASE/INCREASE ALERTS
WEB CONTENT & TECHNICAL CONFIGURATION CHANGES ALERTS
CONTENT OPTIMIZATION & TECH SEO CONFIGURATION CHECKLIST FOR COMMON WORKFLOWS
COMPANY CONTENT OPTIMIZATION & TECH SEO GUIDELINES/WIKI
ONLINE SEO TRAINING AND Q&AS FOR TECH/CONTENT/[STAKEHOLDERS] TEAMS
RECURRING / ONGOING SEO TECH/CONTENT VALIDATION PRE & POST WEB RELEASES
EDUCATION
VALIDATION
MONITORING
MENTIONS & BACKLINKS ALERTS
WEBSITE SEARCH CRAWLING ISSUES ALERTS
SPAM OR MANUAL ACTIONS ALERTS
RECOMMENDATIONS AND REPORTS FEATURING SEO CONCEPTS & IMPORTANCE TOWARDS GOALS
It
should
feature SEO
education,
validation,
and
monitoring
efforts

https://bit.ly/3P6bz5L
I share how
to set one in
this
presentation

IMPACT
EFFORT
1.

To Execute
 
Now
Don’t Do
2.

To Assess
 
& Prioritize
2.

To Assess
 
& Prioritize
You don’t need to do it all at once! Prioritize those
with high impact/low effort in your context

https://bit.ly/3akZWZZ
Use this SEO Recommendations Prioritization
 
Template in Google Sheets

Develop forecasts to assess, prioritize, and show
 
the expected ROI of the recommended SEO actions
https://bit.ly/3P9urR9 Advanced Web Ranking

SEOtesting.com, Ryte, Splitsignal
Run SEO tests and pilot projects
 
to obtain more buy-in

Create SEO
A/B split tests
for free using
Google Tag
Manager
https://bit.ly/3R6BTP3

This makes it worth it! Achievable with consistent,
 
and error-free SEO execution

While
maximizing
your organic
search results to
achieve your
online store
sales goals

It’s all about e-commerce organic search growth,
revenue, and ultimately, SEO ROI

I’m Aleyda Solis

* SEO Consultant & Founder at Orainti

* SEO Speaker at +100 Events in +20 countries

* Author “SEO. Las Claves Esenciales.”

* Crawling Mondays Video & Podcast Series Host

* #SEOFOMO Newsletter Wrangler

* Maker LearningSEO.io

* European Search Personality of the Year in 2018

* remoters.net Co-Founder
orainti.com
Thanks! Questions?
 
orainti.com

E-Commerce SEO Horror Stories : How to tackle the most common issues  at scale and avoid an SEO nightmare - #Mozcon

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