Back in the maiden days of WordPress, the CMS was mainly used for creating and managing blogs. Soon, plugins entered the scene and improved the functionalities of the platforms. But most of these plugins were either incomplete or buggy.
In 2011, popular creators of Woothemes.com developed WooCommerce. WooCommerce was an instant hit and attained almost immediate success, reaching over ten thousand downloads within the first months of its introduction. Today, over 6.5 million websites use WooCommerce, with the plugin downloaded over 211 million times. The plugin has matured and is now used by prominent websites such as Mikasa Sports USA, Nalgene, Garantla, and Certified Comic Shop. Regarding market share, WooCommerce takes the biggest share at 23%, with Shopify coming second with 19%.
What is WooCommerce SEO and Why Does It Matter?
WooCommerce SEO refers to a set of practices wooCommerce businesses use to attain more organic traffic through search engines. This definition appears a bit vague, and for a good reason. The reason is that WooCommerce SEO can be achieved in several ways and has changed dramatically over the past years.
Despite its generalized definition, all branches of WooCommerce SEO serve a common purpose: helping eCommerce stores engage with customers.
WooCommerce SEO Tips For High Rankings
eCommerce operates in a highly competitive landscape. For your eStore to stand out from the competition, you must optimize it for SEO. Search engine optimization is itself an ongoing process. Below is a WooCommerce SEO Tips you should implement to rank your store.
Migrate from HTPP To HTTPS
We live in a world where cybercrime has proliferated to extremes, and taming them is no longer child’s play. How often have we heard of so many eCommerce stores being brought down to their knees by relentless attackers that go for big and small eCommerce stores in equal magnitude? These cybercrimes greatly hinder Google’s attempt to establish a secure internet. And it is even more alarming to note that some of these threats are self-inflicted.
You are probably scratching your head hard, wondering what site security has to do with SEO rankings. There is a big connection between site security and SEO. Google rewards secure websites with high rankings in the SERPs and relegates insecure websites with rock-bottom rankings. In 2015, Google announced that websites operating on the HTTPS protocol would receive higher SEO rankings than the HTTP protocol.
And then comes the next big question- how to migrate from HTTP to HTTPS. And the answer is quite simple and complicated at the same time. Simple because all you need to migrate is an SSL certificate. When you migrate the site, the search engine deems it as new and indexes it properly under security protocol. Visitors will see your site as secure and would like to visit the site.
SSL certificate is a broad concept, and there are so many SSL certificates (mediocre, average, and top-class), and choosing the best SSL certificate might be a bit hard. Nevertheless, EV SSL certificates are the most reliable SSL option for WooCommerce stores. If the WooCommerce store has unlimited subdomains, a low-priced or cheap wildcard will do a great job for a small eCommerce store.
Keyword Research
No single SEO strategy can be complete without the mention of keywords. Knowing the right words, terms, and phrases that relate to the subject matter you can use to rank your website content. The good thing about this SEO strategy is that there are so many effective third-party tools, such as Moz Keyword Explorer, Google Keyword Planner, Semrush, QuestionDB, and Jaaxy, which you can use for your keyword research.
Keywords matter because they are what your users will use to locate your web content. Captivating website content has no value unless you attach relevant keywords. Although different people agree on different criteria for appropriate keywords, I will propose three major elements to help you circumnavigate keyword research and boost your ranks for your WooCommerce store.
- Long-tail keywords
- Specificity
- Realistic terms of search
Long-tail keywords entail adding some information to your primary keywords. For instance, you can add location-based information or some short description that defines the scope of your business or content to make it easy for search engines such as Google to filter out content.
The specificity element requires WooCommerce store owners to avoid using extremely generic terms, as getting rankings using such keywords would be impossible. For instance, assuming you run an eCommerce store selling cars. You won’t sell anything if you only use ‘cars’ as your keyword since it appears very generic. You will need to add some phrases so that your keyword appears, like “the best cars for 2023” or “the best cars to buy in America.” Such keywords cover both the elements of long-tail keywords and specificity.
From a realistic search point of view, it is best to use keywords that your WooCommerce store owners are more likely to use. You must have a clear picture of the questions they ask and provide the perfect answers to their questions. Adhering to such keyword best practices will boost your rankings in search engine results pages.
Write SEO-Optimized Titles and Product Descriptions
The game does not just end with optimizing your blog content for SEO. You must also optimize your WooCommerce products to stand a better chance of outranking your competitors. Remember, although some web visitors are after reading your blog posts, most are interested in buying your products, which is certainly your primary goal.
Writing SEO-friendly product titles can go a long way in helping you attain the top pages in the SERPs. As a best practice, you must include product titles in the browser’s title bars. The AIOSEO plu gin is an excellent plugin that will help you write effective product titles optimized for SEO.
Additionally, you must ensure you write SEO-optimized product descriptions. The descriptions will appear below the product titles. The descriptions provide a perfect ground for you to provide compelling reasons for users to click, view, and buy your products.
- Enable BreadCrumbs
Breadcrumbs appear on top of pages and allow your webs visitors to return to their previously visited pages. They are like roadmaps that show your web visitors their specific locations on your WooCommerce site and where they have been. Besides providing directions to your web visitors, search engines like Google use breadcrumbs to determine your website structure. Breadcrumbs also impact your position in search engines.
- Write Proper Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions play a significant part in enhancing click-through rates. They appear under the search results in entry titles and are a great way to entice searchers to visit your website.
While writing meta descriptions, you should consider using motivational words, deals, keywords, and calls to action. Again, it is important to remember that meta descriptions should not exceed 160 characters. This is why you should only focus on what is vital and avoid junk and unnecessary elements. All In One SEO plugin has an effective meta tag generator to help you create proper meta descriptions.
Conclusion
WooCommerce SEO is an important aspect you must know about. There are so many SEO factors that you can consider to boost the ranks of eStore. But the five explained in this article and self-executable and guarantee immediate SEO benefits. There are more SEO practices we will cover in our subsequent blogs. Stay tuned!
