Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Magento product listing and SEO: what optimizations can be done for your product listings?

4 November 2016 Maxence Pezzetta

When you enter the world of e-commerce and decide on your choice of products, using the Magento platform to set up your online store is an obvious choice.

Although this CMS is your best ally for establishing an e-commerce site, SEO of your site requires numerous optimizations in order to place well in search results. One of the often neglected and oh so significant elements for SEO comes from the elaborate creation and development of product listings. And what can be said about the product listings of an online Magento store is that creating an effective listing is not as easy a task as one might think.

We can help you discover useful optimization tools to properly reference a product on your e-commerce site and use Magento to boost the sales of your products.

Product listing on Magento

The principle of an effective product listing on Magento is to attract users to your website and convince them of their need to buy the product(s) you list. We find that many online retailers neglect their product listings, both from an SEO point of view as well as from a marketing point of view; with nonexistent content, untapped marketing domains, using edited descriptions taken directly from suppliers themselves, misuse of images etc. There are so many strategic mistakes that do not allow the product, let alone the online store, to do well in search results or in converting traffic coming from the product page.

However, achieving an optimized product listing is an important step for your Magento e-commerce site. So, if you want to get good results in terms of your listing, and at the level of your performance, it is important to implement an effective SEO strategy and to develop quality content to achieve your goals.

Keywords

For your products to have a chance to position themselves in natural search results, it is necessary to define a keyword or search phrase strategy. The keywords users search need to be optimized for the product listing on your Magento website, so they can better appear on search requests made by users.

Title tag and meta-description: Improve your appearance in search results

When one wishes to better position a product in search results, one of the first criteria is to define the <title> and <meta description>. These tags are none other than the title and the product page description that will appear in Google search results. They must meet a number of criteria, namely the inclusion of the keyword that will be typed by the user to find your page; they must not exceed the number of allowed characters and must sufficiently attract the interest of Internet users. In other words, a good optimization of these tags is important if you want Google to improve your position in its search results. So don’t neglect them!

HN tags: Improve the structure of your product listings

When you create a product listing, it is important to properly define the editorial structure of the page by correctly designating the tags: H1, H2, H3 and so on. These tags are intended to define the importance of different sections of your web content, which tells search engines more about the page. Each product listing available on a Magento online store must contain a main title H1, an H2 and may also contain multiple subtitles (H3, etc.) which are less important. To effectively optimize HN tags, make sure they contain the keywords defined by your previous keyword search strategy, while also being catchy enough to generate interest among your users.

To give you an example: the H1 title of your listing should give information about the brand, the product name with its reference, as well as the usefulness of the latter. Like this, you offer a quick overview to search engines and Internet users about the subject of your products. Easy, you say? Not really, because we do not have a countless number of words available, which tends to complicate this task!

Take advantage of your photos/images to generate traffic

In the case of online Magento stores, it is not uncommon to find that e-retailers do not fully utilize the potential of the images used in the products listings

A photo is good, even more is better!

Indeed, Internet users like to be able to judge the quality of a product well before buying it. The integration of multiple images allows users to have a more detailed vision of their future purchase. If you do not provide users with enough photos of your products, they will probably go elsewhere to see all angles of said product; and they find out you’re not the only company selling it. Lack of photo representation is one reason that you can unnecessarily lose potential customers.

In addition, the proper use of these images may be an additional source of traffic. For this to be the case, it is important that your images have certain personal information so that you are present in image search results. Here are the different tags to optimize images on your product pages.

Title and Alt tag: How do you reference an image?

For your images to be understood and properly referenced by search engines, they must have a title tag and an alt tag to indicate the nature of the images. Indeed, although Google & co. are increasingly intelligent, they still fail to decipher visual images as such. So, title tags and alt tags are used to inform search engines on what they cannot see.

The title tag is the name of the photo and serves as a fill-in for the subject, while the alt tag is used to replace the image with a short text when the image cannot be loaded. In other words: the alt tag is the image, but a readable version for search engines. This tag should contain the target keyword of the page that is intended to use the image on, and will compliment the title you have used.

Do not overlook the many images of your product pages, as this information can contribute to good SEO of your Magento online store.

Unique content for your product listings

Today, search engines advocate for quality content of a sufficient quantity in order to provide relevancy to Internet users, and your Magento online store is no exception to this rule. Recall that the good ranking of your site in the search results should be an objective in itself, to accommodate visitors and sustain your online store. Marketing impact of your content is just as important, as once the visitor has arrived on your site, your marketing should give them the urge to make purchases or your traffic will remain stagnant. For this there is nothing like rich, diverse and relevant content to increase the desire and need to shop. So, avoid using descriptions taken directly from suppliers, because you are only creating duplicate content that will probably be on more than one website!

Optimize your product descriptions

As I’m sure you have understood, the product listings content of an online Magento store is crucial, whether for good SEO of your product in search results, or to convert a visitor into a buyer. In order for this content to be effective it is important that all of the descriptions on your Magento store are unique. For this, nothing is simpler because you have lots of information to help you write a unique product listing that stands out from your competition.

To begin, it is important to list the precise use of the product by making a sufficiently catchy description. You should answer questions like: Why use this product? Under what circumstances? Or who is it aimed at? With these simple questions, you will be able to start issuing enticing descriptions for your users who can relate to the product. To further expand your description, a section on the characteristics of your product such as composition, size, origin, etc. will describe your product and provide clear information to users. Finally, the usual precautions, the contra-indications or legal notices will complement the description of your product.

One of the best examples of layout for a product comes from the Amazon site that often includes several compelling visuals of the product. A short description, but also a more complete description located lower on the page. Also, technical descriptions of the product allow users to get an idea of the product. In this way, the content available on the specific products is comprehensive and relevant enough to be correctly displayed in search results.

fiche-produit-magentoConclusion

As you can see, there are many optimizations to perform and you now know the full impact of optimized content to correctly reference a product on a Magento site. This work is not to be taken lightly as it can positively affect traffic and sales on your Magento store.

Obviously, all these optimizations mentioned here are only part of the work that you must perform to see your e-commerce site position itself higher in natural search results. Implementing work to maximize the user experience of visitors browsing your store will improve conversions from the traffic generated by SEO optimization of your product pages.

In a future article on Magento optimizations we’ll talk about the linkage between products, micro formats related to products listings and the importance of friendly URLs for the SEO your Magento online store.

If you need help in the development of quality products sheets, contact our SEO experts!

Maxence Pezzetta
Cofondateur et Spécialiste Web Marketing et acquisition de clients Diplômé d’une double Maîtrise en Marketing et Communication, Maxence cumule plus de 10 ans d’expérience en Marketing digital. Ancien employé de Microsoft, sa mission est de « mettre le Web à la portée de tous » pour aider les entreprises à améliorer leur présence en ligne.
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