Welcome to PageGenie, where we specialize in helping eCommerce businesses optimize their websites for search engines. In this article, we will explore the importance of conducting an BigCommerce SEO audit and provide you with a step-by-step guide on how to do it effectively. By the end of this article, you will have a clear understanding of the benefits of improving your site’s performance and generating more sales and revenue. Let’s dive in!
- Learn why SEO is crucial for eCommerce businesses
- Discover the key differences in conducting an eCommerce SEO audit
- Understand the steps involved in conducting an effective audit
- Evaluate data findings and make informed decisions
- Uncover the importance of technical SEO for eCommerce stores
- Take action and optimize your eCommerce website
- Consider the role of SEO agencies in achieving optimal results
Understanding the Difference in eCommerce SEO Audit
When it comes to conducting an SEO audit, eCommerce websites have unique considerations that set them apart from other business types. In this section, we will explore these differences and highlight the specific areas of focus for eCommerce SEO audits. By understanding these distinctions, you will be better equipped to optimize your product landing pages and category pages, and improve your overall website performance.
Comparison of eCommerce SEO Audit with Other Business Types
While the processes of conducting an SEO audit are similar across different business types, the performance focus differs for eCommerce websites. Instead of analyzing blog posts, eCommerce SEO audits require evaluating product landing pages and category pages. These are the pages that directly impact your sales and revenue.
Additionally, eCommerce SEO audits place a greater emphasis on SEO analytics and technical SEO. Factors such as load speeds, canonicalization, domain security, mobile-friendliness, and the number of indexed pages play a vital role in the success of an eCommerce website. By understanding these differences, you can tailor your audit approach to address the unique needs of your online store and solve some common problems.
Focus on Product Landing Pages and Category Pages
When conducting an eCommerce SEO audit, it’s essential to prioritize the optimization of your product landing pages and category pages. These are the pages where potential customers make purchasing decisions, and they need to be optimized to drive conversions. By analyzing the performance of these pages, you can identify areas for improvement and implement strategies to enhance their visibility.
Consider factors such as keyword usage, on-page optimization, user experience, and conversion rate optimization when evaluating your product landing pages and category pages. By optimizing these key pages, you can increase your chances of attracting qualified traffic and generating more sales.
Emphasis on SEO Analytics and Technical SEO for eCommerce Sites
SEO analytics and technical SEO are crucial components of an eCommerce SEO audit. These aspects focus on the technical aspects of your website that impact its visibility and performance in search engine rankings.
When conducting an eCommerce SEO audit, it’s important to analyze data from tools such as Ahrefs, Semrush, Google Search Console, and Google Analytics. These tools provide valuable insights into your website’s rankings, keyword performance, organic traffic, and other key metrics.
Technical SEO is another critical aspect of an eCommerce SEO audit. This involves reviewing your website’s technical infrastructure, including domain security, SSL certificates, site indexing, crawling, and domain redirections. By addressing any technical issues, you can ensure that your website is optimized for search engines and provide a seamless user experience for your visitors.
Now that we understand the differences in conducting an eCommerce SEO audit, let’s dive into the step-by-step process of conducting an effective audit in the next section.
In summary:
- eCommerce SEO audits focus on product landing pages and category pages, which directly impact sales and revenue.
- Emphasis is placed on SEO analytics and technical SEO, including factors like load speeds, mobile-friendliness, and indexed pages.
Steps to Conduct a BigCommerce SEO Audit
Conducting a BigCommerce SEO audit is a systematic process that involves gathering and interpreting data, and setting up an action plan.
Step 1: Gathering and Interpreting Data
The first step in conducting a BigCommerce SEO audit is to gather the necessary data and interpret it effectively. To do this, you will need to utilize various tools that can provide you with valuable insights into your website’s performance.
Some of the essential tools for effective data collection include:
- Whatagraph: A powerful reporting and monitoring platform that allows you to consolidate data from other tools. This will help you analyze and interpret the data more effectively.
- Ahrefs or Semrush: Both of these tools are great for analyzing your website’s SERPs position and keyword rankings.
- Google Search Console: A classic choice for any type of SEO audit. It provides valuable data on your website’s performance in Google search results.
- Google Analytics: This tool is essential for gathering data on your website’s organic traffic, user behavior, and other important metrics.
Step 2: Setting Up an Action Plan
Once you have gathered and interpreted the data, the next step is to set up an action plan based on your findings. This involves laying out the steps that you and your team need to take to boost your website’s performance.
Consider the areas of improvement identified during the data analysis phase and prioritize them based on their potential impact on your website’s SEO. Develop a roadmap that outlines the specific actions you will take to address these areas and improve your website’s overall performance.
Step 3: Establishing a Standard Operation Process
Running an eCommerce SEO audit is not a one-time task. It is a relatively frequent task that should be conducted regularly to ensure that your website remains optimized for search engines.
To make the audit process more efficient and streamlined, it is essential to establish a standard operation process. This involves defining the steps, tools, and guidelines that will be followed during each audit.
By having a standardized process in place, you can ensure that the audit runs smoothly and consistently, saving time and effort in the long run. It also allows for easier collaboration with team members and ensures that everyone is on the same page when it comes to conducting the audit.
Now that you understand the steps involved in conducting an eCommerce SEO audit, it’s time to move on to the next section, where we will discuss the evaluation of your data findings and how to make informed decisions based on benchmarks and thresholds.
Evaluating Data Findings in a BigCommerce SEO Audit
Now that you have gathered and interpreted the data from your eCommerce SEO audit, it’s time to evaluate the findings and make informed decisions about your product and category pages. In this section, we will explore the importance of benchmarks and thresholds in the evaluation process and discuss how they can guide your optimization efforts.
Importance of Benchmarks and Thresholds
Benchmarks and thresholds play a crucial role in evaluating the performance of your product and category pages. They provide a reference point for determining whether your pages are meeting your business goals and expectations. By setting benchmarks and thresholds, you can establish clear performance targets and track your progress towards achieving them.
For example, let’s say you are selling shoes online, and you have set a benchmark of 11 purchases per month for a specific pair of shoes. If the product page for those shoes has been visited approximately 1000 times and ranks 7th on the search engine results pages (SERPs), and these numbers meet your business needs, then you have reached your approximate baseline.
On the other hand, thresholds represent the desired performance level for a particular item. Using the same example, if you want to sell 25 items of the same pair of shoes and attract approximately 2000 visits to the product page, those numbers become your threshold for a well-optimized page.
Using Benchmarks and Thresholds to Make Decisions
Once you have set benchmarks and thresholds for your product and category pages, it’s time to review each page individually and determine the appropriate course of action. Here are some considerations to keep in mind:
- Leave as is: If a page has met or exceeded your threshold for performance, it may be best to leave it as it is. These pages are already bringing in enough traffic, sales, and ranking well on the focus keyword.
- Delete: If a page falls significantly below your benchmark and threshold, it may be necessary to delete it. Deleting underperforming pages can help streamline your website and improve overall performance.
- Optimize: For pages that are close to meeting your benchmark and threshold but fall slightly short, optimization may be the best course of action. This could involve improving keyword targeting, enhancing on-page optimization, or enhancing the user experience to drive more conversions.
Consideration of Hiring an SEO Agency for Professional Assistance
Conducting an eCommerce SEO audit and optimizing your website can be a complex and time-consuming process. If you feel overwhelmed or lack the expertise to handle the audit on your own, it may be worth considering hiring an SEO agency for professional assistance.
An SEO agency specializes in optimizing websites for search engines and can provide valuable insights and recommendations based on their expertise and experience. They have a deep understanding of Google’s search algorithms and can help you navigate the complexities of eCommerce SEO.
When choosing an SEO agency, look for one with a proven track record of success in optimizing eCommerce websites. Consider their portfolio, client testimonials, and case studies to ensure they have the necessary expertise to meet your specific needs.
While hiring an SEO agency may involve additional costs, the benefits of their professional assistance can outweigh the investment. They can help you save time, optimize your website more effectively, and ultimately drive more traffic and sales to your eCommerce store.
Conducting a Technical SEO Audit for Your eCommerce Store
When it comes to optimizing your eCommerce website for search engines, conducting a technical SEO audit is a crucial first step. In this section, we will explore the importance of a technical review and provide you with a step-by-step guide on how to conduct a comprehensive audit.
Importance of Conducting a Technical Review
A technical SEO audit is essential for ensuring that your eCommerce store is optimized for search engines and provides a seamless user experience. By conducting a thorough review of your website’s technical infrastructure, you can identify and resolve any issues that may be impacting its visibility and performance in search engine rankings.
Steps to Follow in a Technical SEO Audit
When conducting a technical SEO audit for your eCommerce store, it’s important to follow a systematic approach to ensure that no critical issues are overlooked. Here are the steps you should follow:
Step 1: Checking for Domain Security Issues
Start by checking if your domain is secure. Enter your domain into a search engine and try different variations, including “domain.com,” “www.domain.com,” “https://domain.com,” and “https://www.domain.com.” If all variations lead back to your main domain, it means your domain is secure.
Another way to check domain security is by using the following search queries:
- Enter into a search engine: site:domain.com inurl:www. If no pages show up, it means your domain is secure.
- Enter into a search engine: site:domain.com inurl:https. If you see multiple pages showing up, it indicates that your domain is secure.
Ensuring domain security is crucial for building trust with both search engines and website visitors. It also helps improve your website’s chances of ranking higher in search results.
Step 2: Implementing SSL Certificates for Enhanced Security
An SSL certificate is essential for encrypting internet traffic and verifying your server’s identity. It enables your website to move from HTTP to HTTPS, making it more secure. Search engines prioritize websites with SSL certificates due to the security they provide.
To implement an SSL certificate, you can obtain one from a trusted third-party certificate authority (CA). These authorities digitally sign your certificate with their own key, allowing your device to verify it. While some CAs charge nominal fees for SSL certificates, there are also options for trusted CAs that provide SSL certificates for free.
Step 3: Ensuring Proper Site Indexing and Crawling
Proper site indexing and crawling are essential for search engines to discover and understand your website’s content. To ensure that all your pages are correctly indexed, perform a manual check by entering the following search query: site:domain.com.
Compare the number of results shown in the search engine with the actual number of pages on your website. If there are discrepancies, it indicates that some pages may not be properly indexed. To address this issue, you need to introduce a robot.txt file that allows search robots to crawl through your site and find relevant keywords and information.
In addition to the robot.txt file, you should also introduce an XML sitemap to your eCommerce site. The XML sitemap guides search engine crawlers to the relevant pages on your website, ensuring that they are properly indexed and included in search results.
Step 4: Dealing with Domain Redirections
Domain redirections can impact your website’s SEO performance if not properly managed. To check for domain redirection issues, you can use tools like Google Search Console or Ahrefs as a secondary third-party tool.
If you notice discrepancies between the indexed pages and the actual number of pages, it indicates that some pages may not be properly redirected. To address this issue, you need to submit your website for a crawl using Google Search Console. This process may take some time, but it will help ensure that all your pages are correctly indexed and accessible to search engine crawlers.
Take Action and Optimize Your eCommerce Website
Congratulations! You have reached the end of our comprehensive guide to conducting an eCommerce SEO audit. Throughout this article, we have covered the importance of regular audits, the unique considerations for eCommerce websites, and the step-by-step process of conducting an effective audit. Now, it’s time to take action and optimize your eCommerce website for improved performance and increased sales.
Discover our database of knowledge, check out our latest article: Integrating Social Media and SEO: Strategies for BigCommerce Stores.
