If you have or are considering starting a dropshipping business, it is important to know what SEO is about and how we can use it in this type of business.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) consists of optimizing the website so that it appears in the first positions in search engines such as Google.
Different business models have different goals and ways of doing SEO. This is mainly due to the very structure of the website and also the purpose itself. Doing SEO for dropshipping is not the same as doing it for a personal blog.
The strategies that we must follow are similar but they have their own characteristics that will end up being the difference between being successful or not.
For this reason I have created the following guide on SEO for dropshipping and all aspects of SEO for Online Stores and the nuances that we must take into account for an efficient SEO strategy for eCommerce dropshipping stores.
The SEO for eCommerce has some specific peculiarities which we will develop throughout the article focused on giving visibility to the product categories of our product catalog.
SEO goal for a dropshipping store
The objective of this type of strategy is to position in Google search results for search intentions related to the purchase process of our potential customers in reference to the products we offer.
So if our e-commerce does NOT appear in Google it will be very difficult for us to get sales through this acquisition channel.
How important is SEO for an eCommerce Dropshipping store?
It is one of the channels with the highest ROAS because the cost per click on Google is 0, in case your online store ranks for the keywords of the products you sell, you will be able to see for yourself that it will be a much more profitable strategy than Google ADS or Facebook ADS.
So if a large part of your sales come through Google, it will be interesting for you to focus on the SEO strategies for dropshipping eCommerce stores.
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How to do SEO for dropshipping stores?
General aspects that you must take into account for the positioning of an online store:
- Keyword research
- SEO structure for eCommerce
- SEO Onpage
- Content for categories and products
- Improve page speed
- Link building
- Create a blog that facilitates and helps the user to buy the best products
These are the basic aspects to take into account to improve and optimize your store for search engines. Let’s take a closer look at these points.
1. Keyword research
Keyword research is one of the fundamental pillars when tackling any project and it was not going to be less in the ecommerce sector. In this step we will search, through the keyword research tools, such as Ahrefs or Semrush. The keywords for which we want to appear in Google search results and, therefore, we want to position.
The objective is to create a mapping of keywords, with the estimated monthly search volume of each of them, from the least specific to the most specific so that they can be associated, in order, with:
- Home: We will place the most relevant search keywords or main terms of the business, generally brand or store words;
- Primary categories and secondary categories: We would define those main or secondary keywords that define the business.
- The specific kewords of the product with the brand or words related to the product (Long tail)
This will help us establish an architecture for the menu and we will know how to organize and name each of the categories.
If you have a blog, then it will also be important to do a little research on what keywords can be used on the blog to position different posts that can bring traffic related to the eCommerce sector.
Read our full guide about how to do Dropshipping keyword research for SEO.
2. Structure
Once we have the keyword research, we can create the structure of our dropshipping store. Let’s see an example of a structure:
At this point is where you have to consider how to prioritize. The most general terms will occupy the upper levels. That is, the families will be those terms that coincide with those with the highest volume. As we go down the steps in the web
Flat architecture
In a flat architecture, authority is transmitted to deeper levels, horizontally or vertically, level zero being home, it is the architecture that Google recommends.
From level 0 (HOME) we would go to level 1(CATEGORY), from level 1 to level 2(SUBCATEGORY), and so on until we reach the products and all of them can be linked together.
As important recommendations:
- Google recommends no more than 4 levels.
- No more than 100 links for each of the pages of each level, that means that according to Google, following this process we could reach up to a million internal pages.
The authority or pagerank is distributed among the different levels, and as we go down the level, the authority decreases, so structuring it correctly is essential.
This is clearly a recommendation because you will find sites with more than 100 links on the home page, we could say that the normal would be more than 500, almost all of them are doing them wrong.
Therefore, we need to try to devise all our categories with the minimum possible levels, try to achieve a flat architecture, it is the recommended option for any online store.
Of course there are other types of structures and this is just one example. We would see it better in the Web SEO Architecture for E-commerce article.
3. Basics on page SEO for ecommerce
With the selection of the keywords and the information architecture defined, it is time to work on everything related to the content of the page, the SEO on page. At this point, aspects such as:
- SEO title
- metadescriptions
- headers
- internal linking
- other elements
SEO Title
Titles are relevant text for Google, since it uses it to know “what is about” the page. The title is the part of the snippet that is shown in the search in blue. Given its importance, we must spend time optimizing it.
The titles must be descriptive, contain the keyword as far to the left as possible and include the name of the brand, without exceeding 60 characters. You can also assess whether to include a secondary keyword or terms such as ‘buy’, ‘online’ or ‘offer’, among others.
Meta description
Just below the title appears the meta description. It is the black text of the snippet. Its purpose is to draw the user’s attention. It must be attractive and descriptive and not exceed 160 characters.
The meta description does not work as a relevancy factor for Google, like titles. However, even if it does not have a direct effect on the positioning, it can have it on the conversion and the CTR, by attracting the attention of the users. This text works as a small showcase, so you must highlight the competitive advantages of your business. Exclamations and calls to action often work very well.
Headers
The headings serve to rank the different parts of a content. This tells Google which parts of the text are the most important.
The <H1> tag would correspond to the highest level title. It must include the target keyword and related terms. Between the title and the H1 there must be coherence. Sometimes they even coincide. There should only be one per category or product page.
Successive headings (<H2>, <H3>,<H4>,<H5>,<H6>) will be used to title other less relevant parts of the content.
Internal link
All ecommerce must have good internal linking. It is important to link between:
- related products
- related categories and
- even post related to the products.
This linking system must be from post to products or categories. We rarely find category links to a specific product.
Content for categories and products
Content for categories
Categories are one of the most profitable pages for business. They are the URLs that position for the most generic KWs and with the greatest search potential. Therefore, we must develop an SEO strategy that helps us rise to the top of the SERP for transactional queries.
When working on the content of the categories, a series of recommendations must be followed.
The first thing is to check how the competition is doing and what the SERPs are like. From there we will have a basic idea of how to work it.
It should not be too informative. It’s a transactional page, so if we include too much information we can confuse Google about whether to show that URL for informational or transactional queries.
We must optimize them without overdoing it. For this reason, we should not abuse bold or try to bring together too many keywords. The abuse of these elements can negatively affect the positioning of the page.
Content for products
An online store is usually constantly changing. New products, others that are discontinued, others that are out of stock. At the SEO level, it is very important to properly optimize the product sheets. The following elements must be taken into account:
- H1: It must be descriptive and include the brand and the category.
- Descriptive text: it should include the most important features for users. This information must be of quality and be well worked. As far as possible, we must create unique texts for each product in which to include the main kw and the related keywords in a natural way and without abusing it. The use of texts provided by providers should be avoided.
- Feedback: Reviews tend to build trust. It is usually one of the first sections consulted by users interested in the products. They can have a direct and positive effect on sales. At the SEO level, the evaluations are positive, since they allow the page to be updated with original and relevant content more frequently.
- Structured data: Add structured data to your product. It allows you to mark information such as price, availability, ratings… In this way it will be shown as a rich result in search engine results.
- Images: We must also optimize the images of the products. To do this we must write a descriptive text in the ALT tag of each image. It is recommended to include the main kw as long as it is not forced. Images must be sharp and clear of the product.
4. Website Page Speed
It is always important to improve loading page speed of your website. In recent months the Page Speed has become even more important after the announcement of the Core Web Vitals. A page that takes time to load will not be well valued by robots or users.
We know that in an eCommerce you will never get a note, because to have it you might have to sacrifice functionalities that are useful. There are many tools to measure and analyze our website such as Page Speed Insights.
Find out how to optimize the speed of your website in WordPress.
5. Link building
We must work our popularity profile through SEO off page. For this we will use the link building technique whose objective is the acquisition of external links. To develop a good strategy we must follow a series of guidelines:
- Natural links: we must generate links that are thematically related to our sector. If I sell furniture, I must look at decoration and interior design blogs.
- Analysis of the competition: If a website links to my competition, it should have no problem linking to me as well.
- Avoid spam: Check and avoid suspicious domains. Find out if they are of interest to your audience. It is preferable to pay a little more but avoid links that can penalize us in the long run.
- Brand building
The online strategy must be completed with a solid brand building plan, whose main objective is that users love our brand and recommend it. For this, special care must be taken with customer service, exchange and return policies, and the communication of our values to our current and potential users.
As for link building, look at the way we outreach and do it too. Copy and paste our templates, but first carefully evaluate the sites by following our guide.
6. Create a blog that helps the user to buy the best products
Having a blog will help you get more traffic to your website. You can create post related to your products, comment on their advantages or the latest news in your sector. In addition, if from these post you link to your products, you will improve the internal linking of your website, your products will gain authority and you will rank higher.
At the same time, the blog will allow you to create a list of contacts with whom you can carry out email marketing campaigns and send newsletters. So do not hesitate to include the creation of a blog in your SEO strategy for dropshipping ecommerce store.
Conclusion
With this guide you can start creating your own SEO strategy for your dropshipping online store. Put these SEO tips for ecommerce into practice, climb positions in Google results and increase the performance of your dropshipping online store.
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