The WooCommerce SEO Guide For New Stores

If you have a Woocommerce or any online store that sells products or services on the internet, you have to make sure that customers can reach your website as easily as possible.

According to the Content Discovery and Engagement Report from Outbrain, using search engines, such as Google, for shopping is still the number 1 method, beating all other methods by miles!

Simply put, no matter how well designed and fancy your online store is, a few people will get to find your store if you’re not on the first page in Google!

That’s where SEO hops in for the rescue! By making your website more search engines friendly, you’ll rank higher on the results pages, which drives more traffic to your website.

In today’s article, we’ll guide you to do SEO for new online Woocommerce Stores, so you can improve and expand your business. So without further ado, let’s dive in!

What is SEO and Why Do You Need It?

SEO or “Search Engine Optimization” is the scientific and methodical practice of increasing the quality as well as the quantity of your web page traffic through the use of search engines, such as Google.

The folks at Google design their search engine to provide the searcher with what they need as quickly as possible.

That’s why they’ve implemented a lot of techniques and complicated algorithms to automatically find and showcase the most relevant and reliable answers in descending order.

This means that the first result is usually considered Google’s best possible one, according to what you’ve searched.

In other words, by optimizing your site, you’ll be able to rank higher and appear in the first page of Google results whenever a person searches for a product or a service that you sell!

So why should you care? Well, statistics show how critical it is to rank your web pages higher in a search engine!

According to Bright Edge’s 2019 report, almost 68% of all the website traffic through the trackable internet starts from using search engines, including searching for products on online stores.

Couple that with the fact that only 0.78% of all Google searches actually click on the second web page, and you’ll know how crucial it is to have your website rank as high as possible!

How to Do SEO for a Newly Launched Online Store

Now that you know how critical it is to have your web page featured on search engines’ first pages, it’s time to know how to actually do this!

Here’s a brief overview of SEO and how to do search engine optimization for your newly launched online store:

1. Make Sure Your Website is HTTPS

The first and most underrated step to do for SEO is to make sure that your website is HTTPS rather than HTTP.

Since payments on your WooCommerce website will usually include collecting personal details from the buyers, such as their credit card numbers and names, you have to make sure that all information shared is encrypted and secure.

Keep in mind that making things secure isn’t just good for your customers, but also for being search engine friendly.

In fact, Google already stated that websites that use HTTPS encrypted connection get a slight SEO ranking boost!

You can do this by getting a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate. Luckily, most web hosts offer this feature either for free or for a very small fee.

2. Index Your Website’s Pages with Sitemaps

One of the most critical steps to have your website featured on google is to check if your site is actually indexed by the search engine in the first place.

To put it simply, if you’re not in Google’s index, you won’t appear in the search results no matter how SEO-friendly your content is.

You can easily check this step off your like by generating a sitemap of your online store and submitting it to google.

You can use various tools to generate and submit your sitemaps, such as WebCEO’s Sitemap generator.

Once you click “Create from Scratch” on the tool’s settings, it’ll start scanning your site and provide you with a downloadable file with your sitemap.

You’ll then need to upload this file to your website. Click on the “Submit the already existing sitemap file to search engines”, and you’ll now have each page of your website indexed by Google and other search engines.

One thing you should know is that results might not be immediate for sitemap submission. It may take a few days before your web pages are indexed by google.

3. Do a Keyword Mapping for Each Page

If you want to ramp up your website traffic and optimize your pages, getting the right keywords should always be where you start!

This should be one of your primary objectives while creating any page on your website. People usually search for specific words, so make sure that you do in-depth research to find those phrases and add them to the web page content.

Also, make sure that even your URLs contain the real keyword rather than some numbers or codes.

You should keep in mind that the main keyword isn’t the only thing you should care about. You have to also look for related keywords and long-tail variations of that keyword and include them in the web page as well.

Moreover, relevant keywords should also extend to your anchor links. Instead of using common phrases like “chick it out” or “click for information”, incorporate the main keyword in there.

This also saves you the trouble of repeating your anchor text throughout your website results, which can reduce your chances to make it to the first page.

This way, Google will know that your web page contains the most beneficial content regarding this keyword and put your web page ahead of others.

4. Prioritize Your Web Pages Optimization

In some cases, optimizing all your web pages might not be the most suitable way to get a better SEO ranking.

In those situations, prioritizing your most important pages and working on getting them to search engines’ first pages should be the best route to take.

Although this tip might not sound like too much, you’ll sometimes find yourself in situations where prioritizing your web pages is a much wiser step than spending all day and night optimizing every single page you have on your website.

5. Submit to Google Webmasters Tool

When you or your website team publish a new web page or update an already existing one with new content, you can easily request google webmasters tool to crawl and index this specific URL through Google Search Console.

To do that, you’ll have to visit the Search Console and log in. If you haven’t already created an account, now is the time you do!

After that, select the website that has the URL that you’re uploading. Next, access your “URL Inspection” report from the top of the sidebar menu or by typing the URL in the search bar.

It should take a few seconds and a pop-up reading “retrieving data from google index” will appear.

Once the report loads, you’ll click the “test live URL” option to double-check your web page content then click “Request indexing” to submit to Google Webmasters tool.

Similar to sitemap submission, crawling the pages with webmaster tools might take a few days as well.

6. Optimize the Meta Descriptions and Headers

A meta description, also known as “meta tag”, is a search engine element that summarizes or gives a description of the content shared in the web page.

In google, the meta description is the text found below each result, which is usually gray by default.

If you check different web stores, you’ll find that most of them use a static template or formula for the meta description on every single page of their website, missing out on a huge chance to offer a unique and personal approach to the customer.

Since it’s also a pretty daunting task to write a unique meta description for every single product you have, optimizing your meta description to buff up your SEO score is your way to go!

As previously mentioned, prioritizing and optimizing your pages is critical, so you spend some time creating a unique and catchy meta description for your most important pages, then opt for a generalized approach for the rest of the pages.

If you can’t write a unique meta description for every product you have. You can create a different one for each category or brand.

The best way to rank higher in the search results and attract customers at the same time is by including the primary keyword along with a long-tail keyword variation if appropriate. Also, mention your unique selling points, such as warranty policy or free shipping.

Similar to meta descriptions, H1’s must be used once on each page and feature the main keyword.

A pro tip here is to do A/B split testing to try out different variations of headers and meta descriptions and see which one ranks higher on search engines and get more click-throughs.

7. Write Unique Product Descriptions

As the name suggests, the product description is the part responsible for letting the customer know more about the item they’re checking out. However, it also helps search engines understand what your page and product are all about!

According to research conducted by OneSpace, 87% of consumers rate the description of a product as an extremely essential aspect of their buying experience.

If you sell products without providing any product descriptions, the algorithms and robots scanning the website might not give your product enough justice.

A lot of eCommerce website owners simply copy and paste the description provided by the manufacturer on their website.

Unfortunately, by doing this, you’ll put yourself in competition with tons of other online stores that do the same trick, which inhibits your page from standing out.

That’s why you should always consider writing a unique description for each of your products and categories no matter how time-consuming this can be!

Don’t worry, you don’t need to write tons of paragraphs to describe your product, a short and concise description that includes the head target keyword is more than enough to help the algorithms boost you in the ranks!

Once again, starting with the most important page is always an option if you sell a large number of products on your online store!

8. Add Schema Markup

A schema markup is originally a code that you put on your web page to guide the search engine and help it display more information about the product, providing a more detailed result snippet.

This information may include:

•       Star rating
•       Price
•       Number of reviews
•       Stock status and availability

Schema markup is always eye-catching and alerts the searcher’s brain that this snipper contains a relevant product. That’s why it’s found to increase clickthrough rates by up to 30% for some website owners.

In addition to attracting more traffic, search engines use this data to understand what your page is about, which is great for better SEO ranking.

9. Use SEO Plugins Such as Rank Math

One of the best ways to improve your SEO ranking is by using advanced tools that are designed specifically for that job.

One of the best WordPress plugins to help you with that is Rank Math. This plugin features tons of built-in suggestions that can help you improve your search result ranking significantly.

The tool helps you to customize and adjust your SEO settings and control your pages so that it appears in search pages with ease!

Once you start Rank Math, it can run a complete analysis and give you widely accepted suggestions and rich snippets in a unique and easy to use layout.

Rank Math is highly compatible with WooCommerce and offers various settings to handle eCommerce website builders and optimize URLs on your product pages!

10. Add Internal Links Strategically

Another seriously rewarding strategy to follow while designing your product pages is to have an excellent internal linking on your pages.

For those who don’t know, internal linking is when you hyperlink content from your own website in your current page.

SEO algorithms absolutely love websites that sprinkle various internal links across their page. This can be extremely beneficial in a variety of ways.

First, these internal links let the search engines know more about your page’s hierarchy and what your most important and frequently linked pages are.

This can significantly improve the SEO ranking of your internally linked pages too! Additionally, it shows Google that your website has a strong background regarding the service or products that you’re trying to sell.

Moreover, it should also be extremely profitable to you that you keep your customers engaging with your website by traversing across multiple pages of your website.

This is known as “dwell time”. The more time consumers take on your page, the higher the chance they’ll make a purchase, and the more search engines recommend your results!

However, you should make sure that you don’t add too many internal links to your pages because search engines usually have a limited number of internal links per different keywords.

For that reason, including 3 to 5 valuable and interesting internal links can help you boost your SEO significantly!

11. Create Inbound Links

Another way to let Google and other search engines know that you offer relevant content is through inbound links.

An Inbound link is where other websites link to pages of your website in their content. Keep in mind that the quality of the inbound will have an impact on the SEO ranking of your pages.

You should always get inbound links from websites that have high authority, SEO ranking, and relevant content.

Spreading your links in many low-quality sites can actually do more harm than good and can put you in risk of getting penalized by Google.

Consider submitting content that is relevant to your products on high authority pages or request influencers and reviewers to write reviews on your products. Also, use a variety of pages of your website rather than using the same page every time.

12. Pick the Right External Links

Adding internal links is usually easy to digest by most website owners. However, a lot of them miss out on linking to other websites for the fear of losing their potential customers.

External linking is a very effective way to boost the SEO ranking of your website using a straightforward method.

By adding a bunch of high-quality related links from highly authoritative sites with excellent SEO ranking, you’ll improve the credit score of your website.

It lets the SEO algorithm know that your website contains relevant content that can help the searchers.

Similar to internal and inbound links, the quality and quantity of the links have a strong impact on your SEO rating.

Adding too many links will make Google suspicious of you and may get you penalized. Also, adding poor-quality links, such as spam links, can hurt your site.

13. Don’t Forget About Image SEO

Image SEO is criminally underrated in various fields of web content. However, they’re extremely essential for eCommerce websites.

Having proper product images isn’t only critical for SEO, but also for helping customers make a purchase because people usually want to see photos of what they’re adding to their cart. Clean images without distracting backgrounds are a must for website usability.

First, make sure that you choose high-quality images to let the search engines know that you offer a clear view of what the product you’re selling looks like.

In addition to image quality, you should also help the SEO algorithms find and understand what your image is about.

This is known as ”image SEO optimization”, and it’s extremely helpful because assisting the SEO robots gives you a huge ranking boost!

Keep in mind that images’ descriptions and tags should include suitable keywords while also relating as much as possible to the main keyword and long-chain keywords.

14. Optimize Your Website for Mobile Browsing

Nowadays, a lot of people search and browse the internet through their mobile phones rather than desktops and PCs.

If your website doesn’t support mobile browsing, you’ll miss out on loads of traffic from customers shopping on their phones.

Additionally, Google optimizes its searches to incorporate websites that support mobile browsing first.

Luckily, it’s pretty easy to make your website mobile browsing-friendly depending on the website builder you’re using.

Remember to use a responsive design that allows for easy browsing of the products or services you’re offering with large fonts that are easy to read, as customers prefer not to zoom in and out frequently while browsing.

Also, make sure that the redirecting is pretty quick and saves the customers’ time if you have the mobile version on a separate URL.

15. Add Your Products to Google Shopping

Lastly, a great way to get your product seen by potential customers is by adding your products to Google Shopping.

By doing this, your products will show up above the results when customers search for products with a relevant keyword.

To do that, you should create a free seller account on the Google Merchant Center and upload product data from your website to Google’s database.

Also, remember to optimize the product data by adding as many details and information about that product as possible.

Also, include a high-quality image for the product and follow google’s guidelines for the image to have your product showing up on the first page!

Wrap Up

There you have it! A complete guide that walks you through extremely valuable tips to improve SEO for new online WooCommerce Stores.

Optimizing your web store to get your pages to rank up in Google searches is a sure way to gain large traffic, and consequently, make more profits!

One last thing you need to know is that search engines are in continuous development and implement new updates and changes based on user reports and experiences.

This means that as search engines advance, the SEO ranking algorithms will consider different aspects to help searchers find what they need.

The best advice here is to make it a habit to keep a vigilant eye on new updates and changes while implementing variation tests to find out your most successful formula!