3 Best SEO Ranking and UX Practices for eCommerce Excellence

How do you get a slice of the multi-billion-dollar industry called eretail? An expert ecommerce SEO agency combines user experience (UX) with search engine optimization (SEO) to draw clients to your platform.

This article expands on how UX and SEO can grow your business:

• The strong connection between UX and SEO
• Three tips to maximize the impact of both methods
• The role of AI in improving organic search and UX

Let’s go!

Want to learn more about the Digital Authority Partners approach to SEO? Watch this video!

SEO and UX: Why and How They Go Together

Optimizing pages for organic search is challenging for growing websites, especially with complicated ecommerce structures in play. Pages change frequently. The risks of technical errors and duplicate content are high. Given the time to optimize each page, it is understandable if businesses feel tempted to use “shortcuts” such as black-hat techniques. 

However, following SEO best practices is non-negotiable for three significant reasons:

• Algorithms change all the time.
• Consumer behavior shifts. 
• Good optimization influences user experience (and vice versa). 

Let us discuss each below.

     1. Algorithm Changes

Search engines continually update their algorithms to:

• Provide optimal results for user queries,
• Streamline complex processes with new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), and
• Encourage marketers and business owners to create valuable, helpful content. 

In fact, as of August 2023, Google has rolled out a broad-core update. It has also updated E-A-T guidelines, released spam policy changes, and improved the helpful content system over the past months. These guidelines all work against black-hat techniques that websites may use to boost their rankings such as keyword stuffing. 

Ecommerce websites have little to no control over the effects of these algorithm updates. However, sticking to tried-and-tested techniques softens the blow of declining traffic and ranking. They often recover faster than their competitors and see less impact on SEO performance at the start. 

     2. Shifts in Consumer Behavior

Consumers nowadays are less predictable than they were in the past. A 2022 Pew Research study revealed interesting results about American shoppers, and not just what might be expected. 

The number of people buying online has increased. Most used a smartphone, while 28% did it with a laptop or desktop PC. Surprisingly, 57% of survey participants still preferred to shop in-store despite the convenience of ecommerce. Only 38% wanted an online-only experience.

Based on this data, an ecommerce site can optimize their shopping experience if it is accessible through various marketing channels and practices the “buy online, pick up in store” (BOPIS) approach. Both require seamless integration of various platforms, such as customer relationship management (CRM) software, clear checkout instructions, and mobile optimization.

     3. Interrelationship of UX and SEO

The last reason to follow SEO best practices is the close relationship between SEO and UX: both impact each other. 

UX is one of Google’s ranking signals. Adhering to its best practices usually means a first-page position that translates to high organic traffic and clickthrough rates (CTR). Many studies also show that a positive customer experience boosts the bottom line, especially revenues and retention. 

Meanwhile, good SEO ensures that well-crafted UX reaches its intended audience. If a website meets user needs, they are more likely to engage, share, and return. These actions amplify the site’s reputation, recognition, and authority. 

Three Solid Tips to Use UX and SEO for Ecommerce Success

Digital Authority Partners (DAP) has shared a comprehensive ecommerce SEO guide with ten tips to get you started. The ideas below expand some of the strategies and introduce new ones.

     1. Prioritize Pages to Optimize 

Before pages can rank, search engine spiders need to crawl and index them. However, with thousands of sites published daily, Google or Bing must allocate the right crawl budget to these sites. 

Ecommerce sites often have a complex structure, with many categories and hundreds of product pages, links, articles, and media assets such as photos and videos. This is a lot of pages to index. 

Unless search engines know what and where to crawl and index, bots will attempt to visit all the pages and follow the links. The site might exhaust the crawl budget before spiders reach the essential pages. If not, they index pages that are irrelevant to your audience.

An ecommerce SEO agency avoids this problem by using data to identify the pages to prioritize. Usually, these are the homepage, product categories, and high-converting product pages. It also does the following: 

• Add a robots.txt file for URLs and content that should not be indexed, such as chatbot conversations.
• Build silos, XML sitemaps, and product schema to help crawlers understand the content relevance better.
• Work with web designers and developers to include user-friendly features such as an internal search, drop-down menus, and filters for specific product pages. 

     2. Use Conversational Pages 

Using chatbots, conversational interfaces, and other interactive methods to engage customers during their shopping journey makes the experience more personalized, immersive, and intuitive. 

These virtual agents can answer basic questions, guide customers through next steps, and direct them to the right department. They can also provide order status, suggest products, and inform buyers of discounts and promotions.

These chatbots help you build a strong brand identity, customer loyalty, and online trust. 

     3. Maximize AI to Improve Conversion

Ecommerce sites can use AI beyond integrating chatbots. Google’s 2023 holiday guide offers some suggestions. For instance, use Product Studio to create and edit images that can increase impressions by 76% and clicks by 32%. 

Digital marketing firms specializing in PPC can incorporate AI-designed videos into Performance Max campaigns to increase conversions by 12%.  

AI also helps remove or reduce shopping barriers that often lead to a higher bounce rate, poor UX, and lower revenues.

• Analyze a customer’s browsing history, past purchases, and search queries for personalized product suggestions.
• Adjust prices in real time based on demand, inventory, user behavior, and other market factors.
• Forecast future demand, trends, and consumer needs and preferences.
• Optimize ecommerce platforms for voice search.
• Use augmented and virtual reality to let customers “try on” items virtually.
• Determine customer sentiments more accurately by gathering and interpreting customer feedback.
• Detect fraudulent transactions and reviews.
• Retarget dormant accounts or those who did not complete the checkout process.
• Conduct A/B testing.

Summing Up

Most consumers expect ecommerce websites to be as approachable and accessible as physical stores. They want the convenience of online shopping without sacrificing the tactile and immediate experience of browsing in a brick-and-mortar location. Combining these two demands can be complicated.

These three strategies help you use good search optimization and UX to bridge the gap. However, if you want a more distinct brand identity and to scale your efforts quickly, work with an ecommerce SEO agency. 

Contact Digital Authority Partners and book a free consultation today.