Nowadays, in the eCommerce world, SEO and customer experience are connected.

As we all know, Google plays a massive part in SEO and online branding because it allows the audience to trust its value.

Trust is synonymous with customer experience. In today’s blog, we will discuss three SEO tactics that will help you develop your customer experience: website speed, unique content and mobile experience.

A successful eCommerce store is structured into many dynamic elements, with different product pages and variations of the same page. As you are aware, your eCommerce website should appear on the first page of Google – bringing more traffic, brand awareness, trust and sales. 

SEO is no longer defined solely by keywords and creating backlinks to your eCommerce site – it also involves an effective customer experience.

When working on your SEO strategy, bear in mind the importance of the customer experience and setting up a store that will allow you to be in the first positions of Google SERP.

Implement high speed on your website

Website speed has become increasingly important over the years. as it affects the ranking of your website.
Consumers won’t wait too long for a website to load, nor will they think twice before switching to a competitor’s website in that case.
 Website speed has been a ranking factor since 2010. Speed is beneficial for both search rankings and customer experience.
Optimising your eCommerce website involves passing your website through a free tool like GTmetrix or Google Page Speed to check how your site is operating. The advantages of using these tools are that they provide a list of suggestions and opportunities to increase the speed on your website. 
In case there are big image files that need compressing, you can use an image compression tool, which can allow you to enable browser caching so that repeat visitors don’t reload the entire page each time.

2. Make sure that content is unique and updated on all pages


To be at the top of Google Search Engine Results Page, you need to build unique, high-quality content on every URL of your website. This task might be challenging if you have many URLs coming from product variations and categories.

This happens because, on top of conducting unique, keyword-optimized and descriptive content for each product page, you must be wary of internal search result pages and product colour and size, which result in too many low- value duplicate pages that you don’t want Google to index.

It is no secret that duplicate content is severely damaging your SEO.

The question is, how do we fix it?

There are three solutions to this problem:

Implement a canonical tag (rel=canonical) on product variation pages which point to the main product page;
Implement a ‘’noindex’’ tag on the pages that  you wish to disallow from Google;
Implement the variations from robots.txt file.
Nevertheless, don’t forget to solve the issue of outdated content, such as products which are discontinued or seasonal. It is vital to sort this issue in terms of SEO value and also to minimise the chance of customers getting distracted.

How to implement:

By using 301 redirects to transfer the organic value from old URLs to new ones. this way, users will see the updated content related to the product that they are looking for, ensuring consistent customer experience, while the link juice coming from the original URL will be correctly redirected to the new page.

In the last 10 years, online shopping on smartphones and tablets became very common.

3.The mobile experience is very important


Brands which have poor mobile optimisation get 68% less traffic, therefore you should optimise your website for mobile.

In 2021, it is predicted that 53,9% of all retail eCommerce will be generated from mobile devices. Long story short, the majority of your visitors are visiting from a smartphone or tablet rather than a desktop.

However, 84% of users have dealt with difficulties in finalising mobile transactions. This gives you the opportunity to overtake competitors regarding customer experience (CX) and rankings by building a mobile-friendly eCommerce website.

Due to Google’s mobile-first indexing, the mobile version of your store is the standard for how Google indexes your website and decides on the rankings.

To have a stronger mobile experience, you should take into consideration the following best practices:

Implement a responsive design, that will allow the content on your store to automatically fit the screen size. This way, you will show the same HTML code and URLs no matter the visitor’s device.

Establish optimal minifying CSS and JS, avoiding redirects, developing server response times and improving browser caching.

Usability is important as well, so create easy website navigation even on the mobile device. Enable the autofill for contact forms if that is the case. Keep in mind that Google compensates exceptional experience no matter the device.

However, you should avoid these usual mobile UX mistakes:

  • Blocked JavaScript and CSS files

  • Unplayable video content because of Flash

  • Small font size that cannot be read

  • Crowded touch elements

As you can see, mobile eCommerce is a viable trend, prioritized by Google. Therefore, you should build up a mobile-friendly website to better rank and take care of customer experience as well. 

SEO and customer experience are interconnected

The usual eCommerce consumer wishes to be part of an amazing shopping experience. From detecting your store on the first page of Google Search Results Page to a fast-loading website and updated content.  Because search engines like Google have expanded to a point where they can reward unbelievable customer experience with first-page rankings, you have all the information that you need to make a powerful website.
Conclusion:

The three tactics that we have discussed above will improve your SEO and CX. By focusing on getting these right,  it will not only push your website into the top Google Search Results Page but also generate more organic traffic and create an amazing shopping experience where customers will always come back to.