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Ecommerce SEO Checklist

Run this Ecommerce SEO Checklist on a monthly basis or before any new content or product is launched on your site.

Introduction to Ecommerce SEO Checklist:

Enter your basic information

Ensure your site is optimized for Google

Keywords:

Find appropriate keywords

Include keywords on your site

SEO on-page audit:

Check headers and HTML

Check alt text is optimized

Ensure meta descriptions are properly formatted

Block unnecessary pages from being crawled

Optimize time-on-page

Ensure you have enough content

Optimize the scannability of content

Optimize page loading time

Optimize URL structure

Enable customer review process

Ensure your site is mobile-friendly

Review:

Note any changes made to the SEO of your site

Notify team members of changes

Sources:

Related checklists:

Introduction to Ecommerce SEO Checklist:

SEO is one of the best ways to generate traffic to your site and revenue for your business.

There is a lot to consider when optimizing and fine-tuning a page's SEO; from HTML tag optimization and proper formatting to meta descriptions and image alt text.

This Ecommerce SEO Checklist is built to make the process of SEO analysis as straightforward as possible. Use this checklist before every new piece of content is released or any new product launched.

Before you get stuck in, here is a little bit about us:

Process Street is super-powered checklists. It’s the easiest way to manage your recurring tasks, procedures, and workflows.

Create a checklist template and run individual checklists for each member of your team. You can check tasks off as you work through them, set deadlines, add approvals, assign tasks, and track each team member's progress.

You can also connect to thousands of Apps through Zapier and automate your workflows even more.

Let's get started.

For a recap on all things SEO watch the Youtube link below:

Nathan Gotch: How to Actually Learn SEO.

Enter your basic information

Use the form fields below to note down basic information.

You can use the 'Assign Members' dropdown to assign this checklist to someone within your Process Street organization. If you plan to run this checklist yourself then either leave it blank or assign it to yourself.

Your full name

Today's date

Assign checklist (if applicable)

Ensure your site is optimized for Google

Today’s consumers rely on search engines to help them find everything from online boutiques to the best workflow software.

This means that your target audience is most probably searching for products or services like yours on search engines like Google.

Complete the subtasks below to ensure that your site is optimized for Google.

(Subtasks)

1

Ensure Google can find your site
2

Ensure Google can crawl your site
3

Ensure Google can index your site
4

Ensure Google can rank your site

Remember: If search engines can’t find your page, then they can’t crawl it; if they can’t crawl a page, then they can’t index it; if they can’t index a page, then they won’t be able to rank it.

Keywords:

Find appropriate keywords

Find the most optimized keywords for your ecommerce business by focusing on the following:

1. Search Volume: How many people search for a given keyword? If you’re stuck between two related keywords — say, “buy pink dress online” or “pink dress online store,” check the search volume for each.

2. Intent: What is the reason behind the searcher’s query?

3. Relevance & Keyword Difficulty: Do your chosen keywords match your core products/ service and offerings?

Would you like more information on the keyword research process?

1

Yes
2

No

We have used the tool Ahrefs, an SEO and keyword research tool to exemplify search volume and keyword difficulty (KD).

Pro-Tip: One common SEO trap is to fall for a keyword solely because of its high-volume without considering whether it actually relates to what your business does/sells. Or even more frequently, the keyword is simply too broad and competitive (has a high KD).

Ecommerce SEO Checklist: Keyword Difficulty

If you would like to perform in-depth keyword research then check out 'SEO Checklist: Extensive Keyword Research' below:

Keywords: link research

Include keywords on your site

Include keywords in the right places on your page.

Keywords should not just be included on your page, they need to be in the right places.

Use the sub-checklist below to guide you in optimizing keyword usage throughout your page.

Pro-Tip: Start with your most important pages, likely your homepage and top-5 category and product pages. Make sure each page targets a unique keyword.

(Subtasks)

1

Title tag
2

Meta description
3

H1
4

Subheaders (H2, H3, etc)

A brief recap of the categories above:

Title tag: This appears on the search engine results page and in your browser tab.
Meta description: This is not a ranking factor, but can have a massive impact on click-through rate as it shows up in a Google query underneath your title tag.
H1: Every page should have one H1 (main header tag).
Subheaders (H2, H3, etc): Use subheaders.

SEO on-page audit:

Check headers and HTML

The title tag of any page is one of the most important considerations for a good on-page SEO.

Generally, the closer the keyword is to the beginning of your title, the higher preference the search engine will give it.

Check the steps below to be sure that you're getting the most out of your page title:

(Subtasks)

1

Check page HTML to make sure the H1 tag is relevant
2

Check keyword is in the first 100 words of text
3

Make sure the H1 tag only appears once
4

Check subheading structure is formatted correctly
5

Ensure related keywords are placed as early as possible in the H2 and H3 headings
6

Ensure H2 and H3 tags appear in order of importance
7

Make sure all headlines are grammatically correct and make sense

Title tags should be structured following the rule of progressive hierarchy: H1s followed by H2, then H3, H4 ... and so on.

Check alt text is optimized

Alternative image text (alt-text) or alternative description is used by search engine crawlers to better contextualize images on your webpage.

Keep the following sub-tasks in mind when making changes to your images alt text:

(Subtasks)

1

Keep the alt text below 125 characters
2

Include primary, secondary and LSI keywords
3

Remove filler words
4

Avoid over-saturating alt text with keywords

Ensure meta descriptions are properly formatted

Google will only show the first 320 characters of a page's meta description.

This 320 character limit includes spaces and also the date the page was published (providing it is available).

The following sub-checklist will guide you in writing your meta description; check off the sub-tasks as you go.

(Subtasks)

1

Include primary, secondary and LSI keywords
2

Prioritize well-written content over excessive keyword inclusion
3

Ensure there are no duplicate meta descriptions between different pages
4

Check meta description does not exceed 320 characters
5

Consider trimming the meta description to 300 characters to factor in "published on" date

Block unnecessary pages from being crawled

You don't want search engines to crawl all of the pages of your site.

You can tell the search engines not to crawl and index certain pages by using a Robots.txt file.

Click this link to moz.com for example robot Robots.txt files.

Use the sub-checklist below to guide you in blocking the appropriate pages.

*Note: you may want to block more of your site pages, depending on your preferences.

(Subtasks)

1

Account pages cart
2

Cart pages
3

Checkout pages
4

Internal search results
5

Wishlists

Pro-Tip: Ensure product pages remain live when a product is out of stock. Use an 'out of stock' pop-up so that the page continues to gain authority.

Optimize time-on-page

Include relevant and complementary high-quality images, infographics, and videos to your page.

Pro-Tip: Focusing on time-on-page can help to improve the bounce rate and how long your customers and users spend on your website. The metrics concerning your user's time-on-page are used by Google to determine page ranking.

Make the following checks on your page content:

(Subtasks)

1

Relevant images
2

Engaging infographics
3

Video content
4

Make sure multimedia formatting is standardized

Ensure you have enough content

Content is vital for improving the organic visibility of your pages.

Each page should have roughly 250 words of unique content to improve the overall quality of the site.

How you approach content depends on the page.

Follow the sub-tasks below to optimize the content of your category pages and product pages.

Category pages:

(Subtasks)

1

Write unique content for each category page describing the types of products the user will find within that category
2

Highlight any differentiating aspects of your products
3

Include your brand messaging

Product pages:

(Subtasks)

1

Write unique content for every product
2

Start first with the top sellers and highest organic traffic drivers
3

Tackle product descriptions in the same manner as meta descriptions
4

Start with the top sellers and highest organic traffic drivers, then work your way through the remaining products

Optimize the scannability of content

Make sure the prime content of your page is laid out as clearly as possible.

As well as adding high-quality multimedia content, you can also work on the text of your page.

Follow the sub-checklist below to guide you in optimizing scannability.

(Subtasks)

1

Break text up into smaller paragraphs
2

Use headings and subheadings to break up text and make navigation easier
3

Remove filler words and phrases
4

Include bulleted lists
5

Use bold text to highlight key points

Optimize page loading time

Keep your website running optimally.

Try the following to sub-tasks to assess how fast your page loads:

(Subtasks)

1

Clear your cache
2

Open the page up and note the load time

If the page is loading slowly, then try the following sub-tasks to try and speed things up:

(Subtasks)

1

Enable browser caching
2

Optimize images (.JPEGs instead of .TIFFs)
3

Prioritize visible content
4

Get rid of unnecessary plugins

You could also check out our web optimization checklist pack to look more closely at optimizing your page.

Optimize URL structure

Include keywords in your URLs to optimize on-page SEO efficiency.

Properly structured URLs that contain appropriate keywords can help your site to sort itself into neat categories for easier crawling and indexing.

Major search engines like Google place high importance on the following criteria when looking at how a URL will affect SEO performance.

Check off each point in the sub-checklist below to optimize your page's URL:

(Subtasks)

1

Include keywords in the URL structure
2

Make sure the URL is easily readable
3

Replace any underscores with hyphens
4

Ensure URL formatting is consistent throughout your site

Enable customer review process

Including reviews and ratings helps to increase the quantity of content on each of your pages and can allow for organic visibility on new keywords.

Use the form fields below to record information concerning customer feedback.

Does your page allow customers to review and comment?

1

Yes
2

No

Customer feedback information

Ensure your site is mobile-friendly

Being mobile-friendly is important for Google's ranking algorithm includes a focus on mobile-friendly content.

If you haven't done so already consider implementing Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) to optimize your site for mobile pages. To read more about AMP check out this blog post by semrush.com.

The following sub-tasks should be checked off as you test your page on a mobile device.

(Subtasks)