While adding e-commerce functionality to a website can have a positive impact on search and SEO, it’s not a magic bullet and Google doesn’t inherently favor sites simply for having it. The key is how well the e-commerce is implemented and integrated with SEO best practices.
Written By Tommy Wrenn, Lead Strategist + Creative Director for ArmoredGate.com + TommyWrenn.com
Here’s a breakdown of how e-commerce can boost SEO and the importance of site scores:
How E-commerce Can Positively Impact SEO:
- Increased Content Depth: E-commerce sites naturally have more content in the form of product pages, descriptions, and potentially customer reviews. This provides more opportunities to target relevant keywords and attract organic traffic.
- Improved Site Structure: Well-structured e-commerce sites with clear categories and navigation make it easier for both users and search engines to find what they’re looking for. This improves user experience and can lead to higher rankings.
- More Internal Linking Opportunities: Product pages can be linked to category pages, blog posts, and other relevant content within the site, improving site navigation and distributing link equity.
- Potential for Backlinks: High-quality product pages with unique descriptions and images are more likely to attract backlinks from other websites, which is a strong ranking signal for search engines.
- Enhanced User Engagement: Features like customer reviews, product ratings, and related product suggestions can increase user engagement and time on site, which can indirectly improve SEO.
The Importance of Site Scores: 400 is the goal:
I mentioned “perfect 400 sitescores.” It’s important to clarify that there’s no single “sitescore” that Google uses, and 400 isn’t a target, its a term I use to indicate that I have fixed everything according to Google.
There are various tools that provide website scores based on different metrics, such as:
- PageSpeed Insights: Measures site speed and provides recommendations for improvement.
- Lighthouse: An open-source tool for auditing web pages, focusing on performance, accessibility, best practices, SEO, and PWA.
- SEO audit tools (e.g., Semrush, Ahrefs): Analyze various SEO factors and provide an overall score or health check.
These tools use different scoring systems (often out of 100), and a good score generally indicates a well-optimized website. However, focusing solely on achieving a specific number is not the right approach. Instead, focus on the underlying metrics that these tools measure, such as:
- Page speed: Faster loading times improve user experience and are a ranking factor.
- Mobile-friendliness: Websites must be accessible and user-friendly on mobile devices.
- Site security (HTTPS): Essential for protecting user data and building trust.
- Crawlability and indexability: Search engines must be able to access and understand the website’s content.
- On-page optimization: Proper use of keywords, title tags, meta descriptions, and header tags.
- Technical SEO: Addressing issues like broken links, redirect chains, and XML sitemaps.
In Conclusion:
Adding e-commerce to a website can be beneficial for SEO if done correctly. It’s not about simply adding a shopping cart; it’s about creating a well-structured, user-friendly online store with high-quality content and strong technical SEO. Focusing on the core SEO principles and improving the metrics that contribute to a good “site score” will ultimately lead to better search visibility and organic traffic.
