Search engine optimization is a trick used by webmasters across the world to help increase their websites' ranking in a search engine's organic search results. There are two different ways that a website can be listed on a search engine results page, either with paid search or organic search. Paid search is all about paying the search engine company to have an ad linking to your site displayed in a special area designated for advertisements. Organic search refers to listings of websites that appear naturally when a user searches for a relevant term. SEO only helps to improve your organic search results. Unlike paid search, the results are not instantaneous, but you will discover that it's very beneficial for your site in the long run.

Unlike other sites, e-commerce sites are considered the most difficult to optimize for in the search engines. This is caused by an inefficient amount of unique content. Search engines focus on sites with a lot of content that is both original and detailed. Ecommerce sites are the exact opposite of that, they are composed primarily of product images and do not offer a great deal of detailed descriptions. For online shoppers, a picture is worth a thousand words and they are more likely to make a purchase based on how the product appears. Product descriptions generally lack detail, it's common practice for most e-commerce sites to simply use the manufacturer's description when describing a product. In addition to that, the internal linking structure is weak and more focus is placed on the backend as most e-commerce sites use a shopping cart application to place their products online. As a result, online stores are not usually ranked very high in the search engines.

If you already have an e-commerce business or plan on starting one, don't lose faith, there is still hope. There are actually many e-commerce SEO techniques that can help improve the search engine ranking of your website. Listed below is a breakdown of all the different techniques you should use if you want to have a well optimized, search engine friendly online store.

E-Commerce SEO Meta Tags

Meta Title - the title that only the search engines can see, it can either be the same as the on page title or different, but must have the most relevant keywords describing the product

Meta Description - the description that only the search engines can see, it can be the same as the on page description or different, make sure it is detailed and describe exactly how the product looks like and how it functions

Meta Keywords - the keywords that only the search engines can see, it's used as tags to describe the item, use only the most relevant keywords

E-Commerce SEO URLs

Dynamic Static HTML Pages - these are pages that have relevant keywords in the urls rather than generic numbers or product id, make sure that each of your product pages, category pages and content pages have their own unique and descriptive urls

Canonical Tags - these are tags which are used to remove duplicate content that may have been created by having multiple versions of the same page

On Page E-Commerce SEO Elements

Header Tags - use these tags when writing page or product titles, it highlights the keywords to help let the search engines know that they are important

Keywords - use relevant keywords on all the pages so that you are able to describe exactly what is on the page

Unique Description - make sure you have unique content that can't be found on any other online store which is selling the same exact product

Alt & Title Tags - add these tags to all of your images so that not only will you be discovered through regular search results but also on image search

Other Important E-Commerce SEO Factors

Breadcrumb Navigation - on page text navigation that adds internal linking structure that should be used for an e-commerce site

Google XML Sitemap - shows Google each and every page on your website and alerts them of new content so they don't forget to return and crawl your site

It's crucial that you make use of all of these e-commerce SEO techniques throughout your online store. Some of these little changes can go a long way and edge you ahead of your competition so do not overlook their significance. It is a long term strategy that will gradually help to increase your traffic and revenue.