12 Best Practices for Technical SEO

Last updated on May 19, 2020 at 06:39 pm

Technical SEO is one of the most exciting parts of SEO in my opinion and certainly one of the most crucial ones. There is a unique satisfaction you could get when you see Google indexing more and more pages of your website. At the same time, it feels like you’re walking on a field of landmines and one mistake can make your website virtually gone on search engines.

Sounds scary right? But don’t worry, this guide is written to make sure that you don’t step on a landmine.

Just because it has “technical” in its name doesn’t mean you need to have developer skills to do it but you will need assistance from a web developer from time to time. You might not realize it yet but you’re probably doing it already since technical SEO  is part of a regular SEO audit you should be doing. In this article, I will walk you through technical SEO and its best practices. 

What is Technical SEO?

Technical SEO is the process of optimizing a website to make it easier for search engines to crawl and index. Generally, it also includes any technical aspects of SEO. Not only does technical SEO guarantees your website appears on search engine results but it also highly affects your rankings.

1. Check for Noindex Tags

The noindex tag is used to tell search engines to not show a specific page on the search results. Meaning if you have a great piece of content that is ranking really well and you accidentally add a noindex tag on it, it might disappear from the search results in a few days. Make sure that all of your important pages are indexable and only use the noindex tag when necessary. To check if a page has a noindex tag on it, you could simply go to its source code and find a noindex tag or use install browser tools/extensions to make things faster. 

2. Check your Robots.txt File

The robots.txt file is used to block search engine bots from crawling URLs that are specified in the file. You could use the robots.txt file to prevent search engine bots to enter certain parts of your website for security purposes or if you want a certain section of your site to not appear in the search results.

By default, your site’s robots.txt file can be seen by adding robots.txt on your domain: “https://yourwebsitehere.com/robots.txt”.

Take note that once Google already indexes a page and you want to remove it from the search results, you should put a noindex tag on it first then block it through the robots.txt file to prevent it from being crawled again.

3. Secure your Website

Installing an SSL (secure sockets layer) certificate on your website is one of the basic technical SEO optimizations that you can do. In fact, making your website on HTTPS is one of the most known minor ranking factors. Not only does this affect rankings but it may also affect user experience. Browsers may show a warning message to a user before entering a non-secured website. This can scare away users and it’s definitely a loss of traffic.

4. Submit your Website on Google Search Console

Submitting your website to Google Search Console (GSC) should be the first thing that you need to do once your website is up and running. Verifying your website on Google Search Consoles guarantees that your website appears on the search results. There are a lot of other benefits as well. Having your website on GSC allows you to monitor your organic clicks and impressions. Google will also notify you of errors when crawling and indexing your website through GSC.

5. Have a Proper XML Sitemap

An XML sitemap file is the list of all URLs on your website. You then submit the sitemap to Google Search Console. Google treats all URLs in the sitemap as priorities for crawling. You could easily install an XML sitemap by downloading a plugin and from there, you can control what pages are excluded or included in the sitemap.

6. Optimize URL Slugs

Optimizing the URL slugs of your pages is one of the easiest tasks to do for technical SEO and it is also an important one. It can affect your rankings since it is a place where you could add your target keyword and it makes your website look good for users. Optimize URL slugs by making it clean and easy to understand and refrain from using random letters and numbers.

7. Optimize Site Speed

Optimizing your website’s speed is always the way to go. Not only does it affect rankings, but also it affects user experience. You could use tools such as GTmetrix or Google’s PageSpeed Insights to check your website’s site speed and get recommendations on how you could further improve it.

For this one, you might need the assistance of a web developer on your team. But as an SEO, you could also do optimizations yourself such as compressing images, installing site speed optimization plugins, or moving to a faster hosting provider.

8. Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly

You might also need the assistance of a web developer on this one. Having a mobile-friendly website should be a top priority. Google gives high importance on mobile usability and it is known to be one of the top ranking factors. And since a large number of users come from mobile phones, it is best to make your website easier to use for them. Alternatively, you could use AMP or accelerated mobile pages to easily make mobile versions of your pages. 

9. Remove Links to Dead Pages

Linking to dead pages or 404 pages is a waste of link juice. Always be on the lookout for outbound links to 404 pages and make sure to update them and link them to live pages. If there is an internal link on your website to a page that you deleted or does not exist, search engines might be confused and you might see coverage errors on your GSC report. Use SEO crawlers to find links to dead pages and update them immediately.

10. Look for Orphaned Pages

Orphaned pages are pages that are not linked from other pages of your website or are not part of your website’s link ecosystem. This makes it hard for search engine bots to crawl and index these pages. You could use SEO crawl tools like Screaming Frog and Netpeak Spider to look for orphaned pages and check if these pages have any value.

11. Implement Structured Data Markup

While structured data doesn’t affect rankings directly, it certainly helps search engines have a better understanding of your website and its contents. Having the right structured data markup enables your website to have rich snippets in search results and boost your click-through rate. You could use Google’s structured data testing tool to make sure that the markup you implemented has no errors and is accepted by Google.

12. Check your Canonical Tags

Canonical tags are known to be an advanced SEO strategy as it requires careful implementation. Like the noindex tag and robots.txt, improper canonicalization of pages in your website can massively affect how Google crawls and indexes your website.

A canonical tag is used to denote that a page has the same contents as the page it is canonical to. By default, all pages should be self-canonical. For example, this post: https://seo-hacker.com/google-may-2020-core-update/ should have the code <link rel=”canonical” href=”https://seo-hacker.com/google-may-2020-core-update/”> in it.

Should you want to set a different canonical to a page, you could use tools like YoastSEO or you could ask your developer to implement the code on different pages. In my experience, canonical tags are mostly used on e-commerce websites as they tend to have multiple product listings with minimal differences with each other.

Take note that if you want to check if Google is reading your canonical tags correctly, you can use the URL inspection tool on Google Search Console, click on Coverage and it will indicate the user-declared canonical and Google-selected canonical. Google always follows the user-declared canonical but in some cases, Google’s bot would select its own canonical because it may find similar pages on your website. 

Key Takeaway

And there you have it! Thirteen best practices for technical SEO. I hope this guide made you realize that technical SEO isn’t as hard as it seems but is definitely essential and must be done thoroughly and with care. A technically sound website can be the difference between your SEO success or failure. Make sure that you follow these best practices and improve your website rankings.

12 Best Practices for Technical SEO posted first on https://seo-hacker.com

The Best Way to Find 404 Pages and How to Fix Them

Last updated on May 14, 2020 at 06:15 pm

There are a lot of tools available in the market today that enable webmasters and SEOs to find broken pages inside their website. But not one of them can show you the most important broken pages that users still enter. This means that the broken page where users go to, if not fixed immediately, will make you lose valuable traffic in the long run. 

However, there is an easier and faster way to find these important broken pages and be able to fix them immediately. The surprising part about this is possible through a tool that ALL webmasters and SEOs use (and the tool is absolutely free). So, what’s the best way to find important 404 pages?

Use Google Analytics to Find 404 Pages

Simple enough, Google Analytics can show you the broken pages that are garnering traffic from your users. And it’s easy enough that anybody can do it as long as they have access to the website’s Google Analytics account. Here’s how to do it:

• Go to your Google Analytics Account
• Click the Behavior drop-down Button > Click on the Site Content drop-down button > Then click All Pages.

• In the list showing your top pages, choose Page Title as the primary dimension

• Use the search bar to search for 404 pages. They commonly have “404” or “Page Not Found” as their Page title

• After searching, you’ll be able to click on the result that contains all the URLs that have a 404 status code

• Click on the result, compile the list of broken pages

• Fix the pages you found.

How to Fix 404 Pages

Now that you’ve found the most important 404 pages, it’s time for you to fix them to not lose all this valuable traffic. You can do it in two ways: If you have website development knowledge, fix it immediately, or contact your developer and ask them to fix it as soon as possible. Once you fix it, the page will serve its purpose, and hopefully, be able to give the user what they’re looking for.

The second way is to redirect the broken page to a relevant but working page. This enables you to save the user from bouncing but this does come with the risk of them still bouncing if the page you’re redirecting them to does not give them what they’re looking for.  

Key Takeaway

404 Errors are one of the most common problems websites experience. It doesn’t matter if its a newly-established website or a well-known, high-traffic website, all of them are susceptible to 404 errors. The easiest way to resolve these issues would be to redirect them but there will also be times when redirection is bad for SEO. So, keep this in mind.

Now that you know the best way to finding 404 errors and how to fix them, you’ll now be able to retain the traffic that you were losing while the 404 errors existed. Do you have any other way to find 404 errors inside your website? Comment them down below!

The Best Way to Find 404 Pages and How to Fix Them posted first on https://seo-hacker.com

A week into Google’s May 2020 Core Update

Last updated on May 12, 2020 at 05:27 pm

Before the May 2020 Broad Core Update was released, there have been talks about it among the SEO community. “Surely Google would not release an update during this time,” but lo and behold they have announced it on the 5th of May that left some of us dumbfounded on the results that they have received. The announcement has kept us on our toes as most updates go, they usually roll out during the first or second week of implementation.

With this in mind, I have constantly monitored my sites and my clients as well to see if any of them came out strong or if they have been hurt by the update.

Winners and Losers in the May 2020 Update

Before we get into the personal side of things, let’s look at the volatility of the search results since the update.

Cognitive SEO Signals

Accuranker Google Grump

SEMrush Sensor

As you can see, the volatility of the search results is wild. Fluctuation is prevalent among sites and this has enjoined webmasters to stay vigilant on how to maintain steady traction or to recover from their losses. This is the perfect time to work on website fixes to see if you can hit that sweet spot that the algorithm will honor in the weeks to come. Since the update is still fresh and will not be fully rolled out until its 2nd week, this can buy you time to see what works and what doesn’t.

Anyway, I have told you that I have seen the effect on some of my client’s sites and I have found that winners are recipe sites, automotive industries, and e-commerce sites. For the health and news sector, there has been a dramatic drop. Before we discuss the winners and losers from this update, I would like to throw it out there that if your site has been affected by the update, it does not mean that your industry is targeted by the algorithm. This simply implies that updates have been magnifying their evaluation of sites continuously optimizing for search intent and relevance for search queries.

Moving on, here is what the data dictates for the sites I am monitoring:

Winners

This e-commerce client has been enjoying a ton of traffic and is one of the testaments that this lockdown is viable for digital marketing efforts’ contribution to businesses. It is now strong in terms of online visibility with results going as far as a 100% increase in traffic but with the core update, it is showing even more signs of an increase.

Recipe sites are also one of the winners during this core update and the site I am handling that mainly deals with recipes for their content has been positively impacted by the update. Compared to the previous period, there has been a 35.75% increase in users and 29.14% in sessions. This has solidified its place as a winner from this core update. However, there are some webmasters that are not so lucky, with some of them saying that their rich snippets have been removed resulting in a drastic drop in traffic.

The automotive industry has also shown significant results when it comes to traffic increase. Here in the Philippines, modes of transportation are at a standstill and this event affects user behavior in terms of looking for alternative ways to get around their location. Be that as it may, the update has been favorable to the sites for this industry. As you can see from the noticeable spike in traffic on May 5th, this site has also enjoyed a favorable appraisal from the algorithm broad core update.

Losers

We are moving over to the unfortunate few who have been hit by the update. The drop in traffic shown on these sites may be attributed to the core update, ranging from health sites to industry news sites. Let’s look at these losers from the May 2020 core update.

For a health site, it seems that it has been drastically affected by a significant amount of traffic shaved off during the first week of May. Traffic started slipping on May 5 and has not recovered since then. This is in comparison to the previous period wherein the site has experienced a steady stream of users going into the site. With the search algorithm clamping down on content pertaining to the pandemic, this may be another way for Google to evaluate the quality of health sites.

An industry news site is also affected by the update. The site maintained its strength in traffic up until May 9 when it started dipping and hasn’t increased since. Although the lost traffic is just a little over a thousand, it is still a significant loss for this site. 14% of traffic slipped away compared to last week.

Key Takeaway

The Core Update affects health sectors the most as Google continues to pay attention to news concerning the pandemic. It seems this is an urgent call to uphold the standard when it comes to search queries and remains faithful to giving the right answers to it. If people are looking for scientific explanations for information dissemination on the coronavirus, chances are, Google will honor content that is highly-reputable for this purpose. We are living in a time when misinformation can cost a life, so it is only admirable that the algorithm is constantly evolving to help champion this cause.

So far, have you seen the effects of the update on your site? Do let me know in the comments below.

A week into Google’s May 2020 Core Update posted first on https://seo-hacker.com

Soon Done Review: Free Powerful Email Outreach Tool

Last updated on May 7, 2020 at 05:20 pm

Link building is one of the most tedious tasks in SEO. Prospecting and outreach take so much time and automating these tasks is always the way to go. There are a lot of tools out that are available out there but what if there is a tool that could help you out with all of these for free?

Yeah, you read that right – Free!

These days, it’s hard to come by free email outreach and prospecting SEO tools that are useful and reliable. If you opt for paid tools, on the other hand, the more prospects you search and the more emails you send, the more you pay. 

Let me introduce you to Soon Done.  

What is Soon Done?

Soon Done is a completely free prospecting and outreach tool founded by Ray McNamara, a solo entrepreneur from Dublin. Compared to other outreach tools, Soon Done uses Google search. Once you make a search using Soon Done, it records the first 100 results. It then scans for emails on each website that you visit and you can send outreach emails directly from the tool.

How To Download Soon Done?

If you want to try it out, all you have to do is go to the Soon Done website and fill up a form. They will reach out to you and send a document about how to install the tool and a full guide on how to use it. Also, take note that the tool is only available for Mozilla Firefox so if you’re using Google Chrome, you might have to wait for a new version before you are able to try it (or just download firefox).

How Does Soon Done Work?

Once you’ve downloaded and installed the tool, fire up your browser, and go to Google. You’ll immediately see the interface of the tool in the lower right of your screen.

To look for prospects, you could use Google search operators. In this example, I’m trying to look for travel blogs that are accepting contributors. So I entered “travel blog” + “write for us” in the tool and clicked Search Google.

Once I clicked on “Visit Websites” the tool opened the first search result and automatically scanned for emails. 

Right from the tool, I could easily send an outreach email. The tool sends an email from the one registered on it so if you might need multiple accounts to send from different email addresses.

After sending an email, there is an option for me to move on to the next website. This saves time since I don’t have to go back to the search results or open multiple tabs on my browser.

Clicking “Next Website” brought me the second search result. Again, the tool scanned the site for email addresses, and right after, I could send my outreach email to them.

The “Return to Search Mode” button allows me to search for another query. This time, I looked for SEO blogs that are accepting contributors. Making another search didn’t clear my previous search and progress. As you can see, there is still an option for me to visit the travel websites and go back to where I was. This is really useful if you’re running different campaigns in different niches.

The tool also has other features such as using email templates or setting up goals allowing you to automate more and track things better in your campaign. If the tool is unable to find an email address, you could manually add one in the tool if you know the email address.

My Thoughts on Soon Done

Soon Done might seem like a simple tool, but it really packs a punch. In my opinion, depending on how you use the tool, it can be on par with other known paid email outreach tools. Those tools are good; you could find thousands of prospects in an instant and send templated emails in a few seconds. The problem is, sometimes credits are wasted on websites that are inactive or are not even relevant to your website. Soon Done allows you to view websites first before sending emails so you would know if a website is relevant or is fit for collaboration. While you could use templates in the tool, you could still personalize and customize your emails which I love because it makes it easier to connect and build relationships with the webmasters I reach out to.

It saves time, it’s easy to use, and it’s free! And I can’t ask for more than that. It’s perfect if you’re a freelancer or a small business owner and you’re looking for free tools but it’s also useful for agencies and large companies running medium to large scale link building campaigns.

Right now, I believe that Soon Done has lots of potential and room for improvement. I would love to see more features added to it in the near future.

Let me know what you think

I spoke with Soon Done’s founder and he is very much open for feedback and suggestions. He’s continuously working on how to improve the tool and you can support him by letting him know your thoughts on the comments below.

Soon Done Review: Free Powerful Email Outreach Tool posted first on https://seo-hacker.com

Google Officially Releases May 2020 Core Update

Last updated on May 5, 2020 at 05:42 pm

It’s the time of the year again where Google releases its core update. However, times are different now because of the ongoing pandemic and we won’t know if this core update will negatively affect us. Being on top of everything right now is important since a lot of businesses are opting to go digital because of the ongoing pandemic. These give us SEOs and digital marketers a massive opportunity to bring quality services to more people who need it. But with core updates, success in the search industry is uncertain since unexpected variables and factors are constantly added in the SEO game. 

Google announced the May 2020 Core update through their Google SearchLiaison Twitter account a few hours ago. A follow-up tweet was made an hour after the original announcement that informed everyone that the May 2020 Core Update is now live and is rolling out steadily although it could take up to two weeks before it’s fully rolled out. 

What’s included in the May 2020 Core Update?

Google did not specify which changes the May 2020 core update and this is understandable since core updates do not focus on individual factors, rather they focus on the algorithm as a whole. Google once again referenced their blog post about what we should know about their core updates.

There are three possibilities that could happen once the core update has fully rolled out: 

• It positively affects your site rankings and traffic
• It negatively affects your site rankings and traffic
• It doesn’t affect your site rankings and traffic

We’ll just have to wait and see how the core update affects you. But if it does negatively affect you, I’ve written a post on how to recover from being hit by the core update. 

The last core update was released in January 2020. This might seem like just a short time difference between the 2 updates, but I believe the May 2020 Core Update might have something to do with the massive changes in search behavior due to the pandemic. 

SERP Volatility

Lastly, I checked tools that included SERP volatility just for the sake of ensuring that there’s nothing major happening right now. Here’s what they looked like:

CognitiveSEO Signals

Around the end of April and the start of May, there was a spike with SERP volatility, but it went down during the past few days.

 

Accuranker’s Google Grump Rating

Compared with cognitiveSEO’s graph, Accuranker’s Google grump rating shows that the spike happened today. This could possibly be the result of the core update, but we still need a few days and more data to finalize this assumption.

 

SEMrush Sensor

Unlike the other two tools, SEMrush sensor isn’t showing signs of massive spikes and volatility. 

 Key Takeaway

In conclusion, SERP volatility tools are not showing conclusive signs of the core update affecting the SERPs as of this moment. However, there is a high chance for this to change in the one or two weeks that is needed to roll out the full core update.

We just have to be ready to adapt to the situation and I believe if we know for ourselves that we’re not doing anything that’s worth penalizing, we shouldn’t worry about the occasional core updates that Google releases. What do you think about this core update? Comment it down below and let’s talk.

Google Officially Releases May 2020 Core Update posted first on https://seo-hacker.com

How the Google Call Ads Update Can Maximize SEM

Last updated on May 1, 2020 at 02:49 pm

Starting out to advertise on Google is not easy. When you have finally decided on the course that you are going to take with your Search Engine Marketing (SEM), you have to take it upon yourself to maximize the space that Google has given you. This is also a cost-effective way to advertise because you can make sure that your budget will not burn without cause.

Recently, Google has announced that they have added website links to Call Ads. This ensures that your customers have options to engage with your business aside from picking up the phone to call. What does this mean for your SEM efforts? Find out here!

Website Links to Call Ads Update

Since the introduction of the Call-Only-Ads way back in 2015, this has given marketers the chance to segment the engagement of customers per channel that they are tracking. The call ads only extension gives your contact details in a straightforward manner for customers who would want to talk to your company instantly. This direct approach has done wonders in terms of engaging with customers since they would know how to get in touch with you immediately and in turn, your business can keep track of the conversions that your SEM effort can deliver in real-time.

Here’s the catch, since many customers can see and instantly engage with the contact detail, this proves can risk a high volume of calls. Failing to attend to the queue of calls can mean that customers will not repeat the engagement either because they have waited too long or they cannot reach you at all. Now, with the website links to call ads update coming into play, this gives them the chance to interact with your website instead of calling you up.

Here is the mock-up of the Ad from Google. As you can see it looks like the basic Call Ad format, but with the option to visit the website below. Do take note that this is optional, not mandatory to have. In terms of user behavior, you can predict that they would go into the website and find other ways to address their inquiry. With this, you would not have any bad customer experience under your belt because of calls left unaddressed.

In terms of design, the ad is just a simple one but projecting the results that you can gain from this can give you a new perspective about the way that you strategically create ads for your business.

Business implications for call ad extensions

The visibility that you can gain when you start marketing on the search engine is unmatched. With the right strategy and managed expectations for the ad, you can garner over a million impressions. If you are wondering how this can affect your ad performance and user behavior other than greater visibility, then here are some of the reasons why your business can use this type of extension to your advantage.

Immediate Engagement

The leads you get from your Google Ad can easily convert into a buyer since the visibility of this ad is capable of appearing on most smartphone devices. With this, the leads that are ready to buy will go straight to you. Having this type of ad extension is a no-nonsense approach to marketing since it is a direct approach for customers to get in touch with you.

More Quality Leads

Quality leads are those that engage with your business with a clear intention to buy. Seeing you as the authority of that industry, enough to make them call you, is a huge plus in getting quality leads. The call ad extension can help you see that the customer is willing and able to engage with your business because you already lock in their intention to buy the second they call you. For this section, Google says that “If your business relies on phone calls for new sales, you’ll get fewer accidental calls and more qualified leads.” Having a call ad will help you feel secure in the customer’s intention to buy since they would not dial your number without being interested in what you have to offer.

Increased information channels for customers

The new update validates customer intention to buy because according to Google, “you can now engage consumers who may only be interested in visiting your site, and may not have previously interacted with your brand.” On top of that, you would not fall victim to a bad customer experience because this will lessen the risk of having long hold times. Before talking with them personally, the “visit to website” option can help them browse around and get to know your business better.

Key Takeaway

For businesses that advertise on Google, the end goal is to have leads and convert them into customers. Online visibility is gaining importance now more than ever so it is vital that you maximize your efforts to secure this for your business. With the right tools and strategies, leads and conversions will come naturally to you. The best way to maximize these efforts is to keep track of these updates and see how it would work for your online presence. What are the Google Ads updates that worked for your marketing efforts? Comment down below.

How the Google Call Ads Update Can Maximize SEM posted first on https://seo-hacker.com

Top E-Commerce SEO Mistakes You Should Avoid

Last updated on April 28, 2020 at 04:34 pm

If you’re reading this article, there is a possibility that you are either starting or managing an e-commerce website and are looking for tips or you already have an e-commerce website but it’s not getting enough traffic. Trust me, I’ve been there. I’ve handled multiple e-commerce websites with different niches and it is quite a challenge to do e-commerce SEO.

Doing e-commerce SEO not an easy feat. The number of pages inside an e-commerce website can easily blow up into thousands of product pages and before you know it, you’re trying to untie a huge entangled ball of string.

There are so many ways things could go wrong on an e-commerce website that could negatively affect your rankings. You might be earning some right now but you would be surprised how much more you could make if you avoid these e-commerce SEO mistakes and further increase your rankings.

Targetting High Volume Keywords

As with any other SEO campaign, we start it off with keyword research. One of the most common mistakes of e-commerce website owners and managers is that they target high volume keywords. Sure, the big search volume looks good and can get you a lot of customers, but that’s if you are able to rank for those.

The problem with high volume product keywords is that you are also facing off with huge brands. This is a huge waste of time and effort and your SEO efforts would be better off targeting keywords with low volume but with a higher possibility of ranking on the first page. Using geotags on your keywords would also help especially if you are servicing a specific area.

Unoptimized Product URLs

Many e-commerce websites do not give much importance to the URLs of their product pages. When they upload new products, they leave the URLs of pages on automatic which would usually result in random numbers and letters in the URL.

Making your product URLs search-friendly has two benefits. The first is it is considered to be a ranking factor and it is an area of opportunity to add a keyword. Second is having a clean URL makes your website look good in the search results. Most people think about the title tag and meta description but don’t forget that users could see the URLs as well. Having random numbers and letters might be a turn off for some. 

Duplicate Content

It is common for e-commerce websites to have products that are almost identical and might only differ in color or size but are uploaded as separate pages. This could hurt your SEO and may be flagged as duplicate content around your website.

You should identify immediately all the pages on your website that have this problem, choose which page you want to be in the search results, and use the rel=”canonical” tag to fix the issue.

Slow Site Speed

Slow website site speed is bad in general but in the case of e-commerce websites, it’s much worse and you can lose a lot of money just because of this. Having a slow website does not only affects your rankings but it also negatively affects the shopping experience of your customers on the website.

The problem is, e-commerce websites are generally slower than most websites because there are a lot of resources to load but it doesn’t mean you can’t do better. You could use tools to automatically optimize the images on your website and you could also use lazy loading. Slow website speeds can also be affected by your hosting services. I highly recommend that you opt for a fully managed hosting provider and get the best hosting services for your website.

Not Optimizing for Mobile

It’s been a while since Google has switched to mobile-first indexing for all of the websites in their index. This just shows how important it is to have a mobile-friendly version of your website. Most users surf through e-commerce websites on phones. In some of the websites that I handle currently, more than 70% of traffic comes from mobile. Not having a mobile-friendly version of your website is a crucial mistake. Similar to slow website speed, it could gravely affect the user experience and would increase the chances of customers leaving than turning them into a sale.

Not Having Structured Data

Structured data is usually left out when optimizing websites because it doesn’t have a direct impact on rankings. However, e-commerce websites can greatly benefit from Product structured data.

Proper implementation of Product structured data around your website enables Google to display additional information about your product in the search results. This makes your listing visually more appealing and can possibly increase your click-through rate. It’s going to take a lot of time to implement schema if you plan to do it manually but there are a lot of tools that automate this process.

Key Takeaway

Using e-commerce to sell your products online is always a good idea as it is one of the best ways to grow your business in today’s market. If you own or manage an e-commerce website, always consider the technical aspects of your website that might affect SEO because search will be one of your top traffic sources, and having an SEO-friendly website is a must.

Top E-Commerce SEO Mistakes You Should Avoid posted first on https://seo-hacker.com