WooCommerce SEO: The Definitive Guide For Your Online Store via @sejournal, @coreydmorris

In the satellite of ecommerce platforms, plugins, and buying carts, determination are a batch of exertion options. WooCommerce for WordPress leads the mode successful presumption of market share.

All of the assorted ecommerce platforms person their ain pros and cons successful presumption of features, contented management, and wide integration with your business.

Many of the benefits of WooCommerce travel from the information that it is simply a plugin for WordPress, which is besides the astir fashionable website level exertion successful the satellite arsenic well.

My website squad utilizes WooCommerce with WordPress for the enactment we bash for clients, and we proceed to put successful our processes centered astir that exertion for integer selling and driving income for our clients’ businesses.

We’ve utilized it for implicit a decade, and portion different fashionable platforms person emerged, we find that it has the flexibility and opportunities we request to instrumentality the SEO tactics we request successful alignment with our broader SEO strategies.

Why Does Any Of This Matter?

You whitethorn already beryllium utilizing WooCommerce oregon different ecommerce platform.

I’m each for immoderate level works champion for you. There are definite SEO ceilings that you’ll deed successful what you tin bash connected antithetic platforms.

WooCommerce volition person ceilings, too, if you aren’t leveraging however you tin acceptable it up, however you grip your WordPress optimization arsenic a whole, and however your wide SEO strategy is defined.

I anticipation that if you’re successful WooCommerce oregon are deciding which level to take and person SEO successful mind, this nonfiction volition assistance you connected that journey.

What Makes WooCommerce SEO Unique

WooCommerce SEO is unsocial due to the fact that it is wrong WordPress. Much of what you’ll bash to optimize a WooCommerce ecommerce tract falls successful enactment with what you’d bash for a WordPress tract overall.

Overall, SEO-friendly benefits of WooCommerce wrong WordPress retired of the container oregon with airy configuration include:

• Analytics: WooCommerce has extended analytics and connects easy to Google Analytics, truthful you tin blend archetypal and third-party visitant data.
• Content: Easily premix WooCommerce’s ecommerce functionality with WordPress’ contented management.
• Organization: Easily signifier and negociate merchandise categories, tags, and attributes.

Best Practices

Most WooCommerce and WordPress champion practices align with broader ecommerce SEO champion practices.

That includes managing the technical, on-page, and off-page aspects of ecommerce SEO wrong an wide strategy and astatine a tactical level.

If you’re caller to SEO oregon privation to guarantee you’re not missing anything, I urge checking retired SEJ’s SEO intro guide.

Getting Started

Before you optimize, you’ll privation to guarantee you’re ready.

I highly urge moving connected processing your enactment program and goals earlier you start.

Knowing your existent show and researching what keywords and topics you privation to people are large parts of both.

WooCommerce Analytics

I urge utilizing Google Analytics (GA4) arsenic your superior analytics information root and level for WordPress.

Going deeper and specifically into ecommerce analytics that you tin integrate into GA4 from WooCommerce, the GTM4WP plugin is simply a large mode to get that data.

Don’t skip retired connected measuring the information you privation and request from your tract for your SEO and broader selling extremity tracking.

I urge prioritizing information earlier you get heavy into optimizing truthful you tin seizure baseline information to measurement against if you don’t already person it successful a bully place.

Transactional Emails

Another foundational happening you’ll privation to bash is acceptable up transactional emails. Several email platforms integrate with WordPress and WooCommerce.

A favourite of my team’s for easiness of usage and doing the occupation good is Mailchimp’s transactional email functionality.

It was formerly called Mandrill and tin grip post-purchase email communications similar bid and shipping confirmations.

Mailchimp tin besides beryllium utilized to make automated email campaigns based connected lawsuit travel oregon buying behavior, specified arsenic cart abandonment emails, triumph back, etc.

Functionality similar this is indispensable to get the astir retired of our SEO investment, and for traffic, you enactment hard to thrust to the tract and into the buying cart.

Keyword Research

Knowing what words, phrases, topics, and presumption are related to the taxable substance you privation to fertile for is critical. Beyond that, validate that radical searching for those topics are your imaginable desired audience.

There are galore large third-party assemblage and keyword research tools similar Semrush, Moz, and Ahrefs.

They are paid tools with varying subscription levels but are leaders. They person their respective strengths successful helping you probe topics that align with your content, products, and categories and dive heavy into the close targets for your SEO plan.

Build your lists, representation them retired to your content, and usage them arsenic discourse arsenic you enactment done the optimization champion practices to follow.

Technical SEO

Like with immoderate site, and to travel broader UX champion practices, you privation your tract to load quickly, beryllium indexable, and not person thing holding it back.

Several circumstantial method factors you request to consider, configure, and show tin clasp backmost oregon unlock your accidental for rankings compared to adjacent sites.

Indexing

It is indispensable to person your contented found.

That starts by ensuring you person a clean XML sitemap and robots.txt file. Plus, spell into Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, and third-party validation tools to guarantee everything is arsenic intended.

Use the Yoast plugin (or similar) to set settings for your XML sitemap and robots.txt files.

Yoast is large astatine giving you options to see oregon region from those files, truthful you don’t person to interaction the codification oregon manually set those files astatine all. You tin get the settings to your liking and past taxable them for validation done the Console/Webmaster Tools.

Image from author, November 2024

Page Experience

There are a batch of information points and champion practices connected leafage load times, tract speed, and different factors that Google looks astatine for “page experience.”

Overall, you privation to wage attraction to halfway web vitals and leafage load times to guarantee that you person fast-loading pages that don’t harm representation prime and contented richness for users.

The halfway web vitals include:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP).
• Interaction to Next Paint (INP).
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS).

I powerfully urge getting acquainted with these three aspects of halfway web vitals with SEJ’s guide.

Imagify and WP Rocket are recommended plugins for representation optimization and caching to amended leafage load times and wide tract performance.

Screenshot from Imagify, November 2024

Accessibility

Making your contented accessible to all, including those with ocular impairments, is important.

That includes coding to communal ADA standards and ensuring that alt attributes and different cues are included.

Not a plugin proposal present – I urge utilizing a third-party instrumentality similar PowerMapper.com to audit pages to get the adjuvant accusation you request to set leafage elements to conscionable the modular that your ineligible counsel advises (I’m not a lawyer).

Structured Data

Using other discourse cues and opportunities to categorize, catalog, and people up your taxable substance is important. Leverage it wherever imaginable to get circumstantial accusation for your industry, particularly utilizing circumstantial merchandise attributes.

Again, you tin pat into the powerfulness of the Yoast plugin to adhd basal schema markup to pages connected your site.

I urge reading much astir Schema and however it works earlier diving into the implementation if it is simply a caller concept.

Screenshot from WordPress, November 2024

Canonical URLs And Permalinks

Web stores inherently tin person complexities and struggles with duplicate content.

Whether you person a merchandise that appears successful aggregate categories oregon are conscionable dealing with the “out of the box” mode that WordPress and WooCommerce make galore abstracted URLs for a azygous page, you request to see a azygous “canonical” mentation for the hunt engines to index, amusement successful the hunt results, and aggregate each nexus worth to.

I urge Yoast present again for handling canonicals.

I besides urge the Redirection plugin if you person pages that move, discontinued products, oregon request to permanently 301 redirect a circumstantial leafage to another.

Be mindful of however you usage canonicals and redirects, and ever validate with tools similar Screaming Frog oregon different lightweight redirect investigating tools.

You privation to debar conflicts betwixt aggregate plugins that tin nonstop the incorrect awesome to the hunt engines oregon supply a atrocious acquisition for your users (sending to 404s, redirect loops, etc.).

Screenshot from WordPress, November 2024

Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs are links connected interior pages that amusement a idiosyncratic (as good arsenic a hunt engine) wherever they are connected a tract successful presumption of the navigational way oregon depth.

They let users to spot however acold they are drilled down into a circumstantial merchandise category, blog category, oregon different interior conception and a mode to click to spell backmost upstream.

They are typically coded into your WordPress tract taxable arsenic a default element. The Yoast plugin is large for adding schema markup to them for WordPress/WooCommerce.

Screenshot from WordPress, November 2024

On-Page SEO

On-page ranking factors and SEO aspects for ecommerce SEO that you’ll privation to person covered successful your WooCommerce tract include:

URLs

Beyond the method aspects of implementing canonical tags and trying to negociate duplicate contented to get the hunt engines to scale and fertile a azygous mentation of your pages – including categories and products – you don’t privation to miss the accidental to see important contextual keywords successful your URLs.

Use WordPress’ autochthonal leafage naming conventions and tools to enactment meaningful keywords (without going overboard oregon stuffing) into the URL string.

Tags

Like immoderate SEO plan, you’ll privation to person an optimized customized title, meta description, and heading tags connected each page.

Like immoderate ample oregon endeavor site, if you person galore products, find ways to standard tag instauration with data-driven contented wherever possible.

Use Yoast to make customized titles and meta descriptions connected each page.

Much similar transcript and URLs, though, besides look astatine however the defaults are acceptable up to propulsion successful dynamic elements and acceptable immoderate that you tin use.

That way, you tin physique formulas for however the tags volition beryllium created that don’t necessitate you to constitute customized tags for each leafage to scope your unsocial tags per leafage goals.

Screenshot from WordPress, November 2024 

Copy

A unique, optimized transcript tin beryllium a situation for ecommerce sites.

Much similar tags, you mightiness person occupation doing it astatine scale. Or, you whitethorn person a batch of akin products.

Find ways to put successful the manual clip to constitute to champion practices, debar duplicate content, and standard it programmatically wherever imaginable portion maintaining precocious quality.

Images

Image record attributes are an country wherever you tin see relevant, contextual keywords describing the image’s taxable matter.

This is important for merchandise images, merchandise category-level images, and immoderate contented connected your site.

They are important successful presumption of gathering accessibility standards – and also, to the hunt engines – to recognize the discourse of an image.

Manage these successful the media halfway successful WordPress astatine upload oregon aboriginal by editing images done the media tab oregon going into the leafage and clicking connected the representation to reappraisal and edit properties.

Screenshot from WordPress, November 2024

Product Reviews

User-generated, unsocial contented tin assistance adhd contextual copy, supplementing the transcript connected a merchandise page.

Added discourse and different benignant of imaginable schema constituent tin beryllium added to merchandise reviews.

My squad leverages and recommends the stamped.io plugin for casual absorption and implementation of reviews.

However, galore large reappraisal absorption plugins are available, and they alteration successful cost, implementation ease, and complexity.

As a bonus, Stamped volition besides nonstop retired post-purchase requests for reviews.

Screenshot from WordPress, November 2024

Screenshot from WordPress, November 2024

Off-Page SEO

Ecommerce SEO, similar astir SEO, requires off-page factors to physique upon your method and on-page/content-focused tactics.

These factors are much wide and slightest tied specifically to WooCommerce, but shouldn’t beryllium near retired of your SEO plan:

Links

Seek high-quality, industry/context-relevant inbound links to your products, categories, and content.

That includes earthy associations similar manufacturers, partners, affiliates, PR-related mentions, and different prime earthy sources.

Social Media

Sure, there’s statement connected whether it is simply a direct ranking factor.

Regardless, nexus to your tract from societal media contented to physique discourse and connections and question retired areas of accidental crossed the societal media scenery to summation links and mentions.

Engagement

Seek retired different opportunities for engagement and mentions online.

Whether portion of a PR plan, influencer strategy, oregon different ways your marque gets mentioned, leverage them.

Seek them out, and look for high-quality contented to notation yours.

Popular SEO Plugins For WooCommerce

You tin boost WooCommerce with different WordPress plugins, galore of which are free.

Here’s a recap of the plugins I noted that are related to idiosyncratic items you’ll privation to optimize.

My team’s recommended WordPress plugins to usage with WooCommerce (and successful galore cases successful wide for WordPress) SEO include:

• Yoast: SEO plugin that volition make an editable sitemap and robots.txt files, assistance you alteration merchandise metadata from merchandise pages, adhd basal schema, grip canonicalization, breadcrumbs, etc.
• Imagify: For representation optimization for leafage load clip and tract velocity optimization.
• WP Rocket: For caching to amended tract performance.
• Redirection: For creating immoderate 301 redirects you request arsenic portion of an SEO strategy.
• Stamped.io (Or akin service): For managing lawsuit merchandise reviews.
• GTM4WP: Allowing you to instrumentality enhanced ecommerce tracking for Google Analytics.

The large thing, for the astir part, astir these plugins is that if you person immoderate WordPress experience, you whitethorn not request a developer to acceptable them up.

Like immoderate plugin, your WordPress infrastructure mightiness interaction your entree level and immoderate customized aspects required to instrumentality depending connected however they interact with different plugins oregon functionality.

Wrapping Up

At this point, it is astir apt beauteous wide that a batch of the large things astir SEO that we tin negociate successful WordPress besides construe implicit to WooCommerce.

And much broadly, you tin instrumentality ecommerce SEO champion practices successful WooCommerce arsenic a whole.

I made it wide that my squad uses WordPress and WooCommerce beauteous exclusively close now.

We person had plentifulness of experiences with Magento, Shopify, and different platforms that near america frustrated arsenic determination were things locked down that we couldn’t power oregon optimize.

Or, arsenic an admin oregon user, we weren’t capable to edit contented and negociate the tract arsenic efficiently arsenic we could with the much user-friendly controls wrong WordPress.

I’m not saying the different platforms aren’t close for you and your business. I would enactment each of them done an honorable trial earlier you make a caller store oregon see re-platforming.

There are decidedly pros and cons to immoderate platform, and my extremity is for you to find the close one. If it is WooCommerce, large – and blessed optimizing with the accusation I shared successful this guide!

More resources:

• 29 Must-Have Features For Ecommerce Websites
• The 10 Best Website Builders To Consider 2024
• SEO Tools For Agencies

Featured Image: world phakphum/Shutterstock