The Ultimate Ecommerce SEO Checklist: 100 Essential Steps to Boost Your Online Store

Sometimes I feel like agencies don't share enough, and we're here to change that. In this Ecommerce SEO article where we get into the weeds of optimising your online store for search engines. If you run an ecommerce business you already know how important it is to rank high on Google. But with so many things to consider it’s easy to miss the details that can make or break your SEO.

In this ultimate 100 point checklist I’m sharing the comprehensive ecommerce SEO checklist my agency uses for optimizing ecommerce sites. Whether you’re launching a new store or fine tuning an existing one this checklist will cover everything. We’ll go through technical SEO basics to advanced strategies so your ecommerce site is fully optimized and ready to rank. Please keep in mind that I'm not giving you an ecommerce SEO strategy, instead you'll be able to run a very detailed audit using our Google Sheet to understand what you need to fix to help get your search engine optimization (SEO) results kickstarted and start getting more search engine rankings.

Download our full 100-point Ecommerce SEO checklist now to ensure you don’t miss any critical steps and watch your rankings—and sales—soar!

Starting with the Basics

When launching a new website, getting the basics right is essential. If your website architecture or other technical SEO parts are not setup properly, you won't be able to get any page 1 Google rankings. Ignoring these foundational elements can lead to bigger issues down the road. For example, if you don’t create a proper robots.txt file, Google may crawl your entire website, including pages that shouldn’t be indexed. This could lead to a messy cleanup process later, so it's a high priority on our checklist.

Make sure you have a robots.txt file that effectively blocks pages you don’t want indexed. Additionally, create a sitemap and submit the XML version to Google Search Console. This helps Google understand your site structure and prioritize important pages. Search engine bots have a limited crawl budget and having a XML sitemap will help them understand your website structure, find your pages, and index them quicker.

Set-up Your Google Analytics & Google Search Console Accounts

If you haven't already, you'll definitely want to make sure that you've set up a Google Analytics 4 (GA4) property, and linked this to your website and Google Search Console as this will help you make more informed decisions. You'll be able to get a detailed overview of your organic traffic and get a better understanding of how your organic search is performing.

It’s also crucial to set up Google Search Console or audit your existing property for errors. Key sections to review include how Google crawls your website and what pages are indexed. Check if there are any pages that shouldn’t be indexed and need removal, or if there are important pages under “crawled but not indexed” or “discovered but not indexed.” You don't need to have any SEO tools other than GSC, and going through this will help make the most out of the available crawl budget that Google gives each website.

The rest of the general setup is pretty self-explanatory, but these initial steps lay the groundwork for a successful SEO strategy, you'll page to go through our on-page SEO checklist before you start creating new content, so hit the brakes if you're about to start writing new blog posts. It's important to have the right website structure first, like having your XML sitemap and meta tags, so that you can start appearing on the search engine results page.

Bonus tip: Bing is often overlooked, but has been a good source of traffic for many of our (local) SEO customers, so make sure to submit your site and set up a Bing webmaster tools account as well.

Technical SEO: Optimizing Your Website from a Technical Perspective

For ecommerce SEO, technical issues are often significant. Crawl issues can be particularly problematic. For instance, your site may have orphan pages—pages that no other page links to—or broken links leading to 404 errors, especially if products have been removed.

Another key area to monitor is redirects. Sometimes, a redirect might have been set up correctly, but the final destination page has since been removed, leading to a dead end for users and search engines alike.

Canonical Tags for Product Variants

A common issue we see, especially with Shopify stores, involves canonical tags for product variants. Suppose you sell t-shirts in multiple colors, like blue and red. Often, store owners set these variants to be indexed and then try to use canonical tags to point back to the main product page. This can create problems because Google is left to figure out which page to rank, and with thousands of similar pages, it often gets it wrong.

Instead, it’s better to noindex these variants and avoid canonical tags altogether in such cases. If not managed properly, this can lead to keyword cannibalization, where multiple pages compete for the same keyword, diluting your SEO efforts.

Once your product variants and canonical tags are sorted, check Google Search Console for pages with 0 impressions / 0 clicks. If these are older blog articles that haven't had a fair chance to rank, consider either improving the content or noindexing them to avoid dragging down your overall website score. Low-quality pages that don’t get clicks or impressions can harm your site more than help.

Optimizing Your Website Menu (Navigation)

Another common issue with ecommerce websites is the misuse of heading tags in the menu and footer. We’ve seen sites where the Add to Cart button is wrapped in an H2 or H3 tag—or worse, an H1 tag. Each page should only have one H1 tag, which should be the main heading, like the article title. Subheadings (H2, H3) should follow a logical structure, representing sections of your content, not menu items.

The same rule applies to the footer. Avoid using heading tags there, but do include links to your most important categories. For example, if you sell protein powder, linking to the protein powder category from both the header (menu) and footer can provide some internal link equity and boost your SEO.

Internal Links to Category or Product Pages

Ensure that your homepage links directly to important internal category pages. These should be direct links, not to another collection page. Out of the box, Shopify often sets this up incorrectly, so you’ll want to fix this to ensure users—and Google—can access your products directly.

If you have broad categories like "Furniture," consider linking to subcategories like "Archive Cabinets" or "Office Chairs" directly from the homepage. This helps Google and users navigate your site more effectively.

Blog Post Internal Links to Drive Conversions

Internal links from blog posts to product or category pages are also vital. They not only help drive conversions but also improve your site's internal linking structure, making it easier for Google's crawler to navigate and understand which pages are most important.

Check that your anchor texts are relevant—avoid generic phrases like "click here" or "learn more." Instead, use descriptive, semantically relevant text that clearly indicates what users can expect when they click the link.

Backlinks

When you start a new ecommerce website, claiming all available social media accounts is a must. Set up profiles on platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram to establish your online presence.

Submit your site to relevant directory listings like Yelp, YellowPages, and industry-specific directories. These listings not only help with SEO but also improve your brand's visibility.

Even for ecommerce, consider setting up a Google Maps listing by creating a Google Business Profile. Although it might seem unnecessary, it’s a verified way to signal to Google’s entity-based system that you have a legitimate business. A Google Maps listing can also help you gather reviews, which you can showcase on your homepage to build trust with potential customers.

Research Competitor Backlinks

Once you’ve covered the basics, it's time to analyze your competitors. Identify the high-quality backlinks they have and look for opportunities to obtain similar ones. Also, consider creating blog articles that naturally attract links. These can then link back to your category pages to build internal link equity.

Guest posting and press releases are also effective strategies. For example, if you launch a new product category, a press release can help build links to that page, boosting its authority in Google’s eyes.

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Category Pages - CRO Checkpoint

Your category pages are often the main drivers of sales on an ecommerce website, so they deserve extra attention. Optimize the URLs, title tags, meta descriptions, and H1 tags on these pages. These are some of the most crucial on-page SEO elements.

Make sure your category pages include some content—600 to 1,000 words is a good starting point, though you might go up to 1,500 words for more competitive categories. The content should be optimized for both SEO and conversions. Filters on category pages should be static so users can easily refine their search without scrolling back up, enhancing the user experience.

Optimizing Your Product Pages

Product pages have their own set of optimization challenges. One critical aspect is setting up product color variants as separate pages from the start. If you lump all color variations into one product page, it can be a nightmare to fix later. For example, if you initially set up 1,000 products with 10 color variations each, you could end up needing to create 10,000 separate pages down the line—a task that is both time-consuming and error-prone.

Product Schema & Reviews

On product pages, Schema Markup, also known as structured data, is essential. Use Product Schema to display key information like price, availability, and reviews directly in search results. This not only helps with rankings but also enhances your listing's visibility in search results, driving more clicks.

Incorporating reviews into your Schema is a smart move as well. Reviews build trust with potential buyers and can significantly boost conversion rates. Additionally, properly marked-up reviews can appear in rich snippets, giving your product pages an edge over the competition.

Before you publish your schemas, make sure to validate the code snippet by using a structured data markup testing tool.

FAQs to Improve Rankings and Conversions

Adding FAQs to your product pages is another effective strategy. Common questions about your product, such as how to use it, return policies, or comparisons with similar products, should be answered directly on the page. Use FAQ Schema to help Google display this information in search results.

Not only do FAQs help improve your search rankings, but they also provide answers to potential customers' questions, increasing the likelihood of a purchase. When shoppers feel confident in their decision, they’re more likely to convert.

User Experience and Site Speed Performance

After optimizing your pages, focus on your site’s speed. Page load time is crucial—if your site takes more than 3 seconds to load, users are likely to bounce, potentially buying from a competitor instead. Google also considers site speed a ranking factor, so a slow site can hurt your SEO.

For platforms like Magento or WooCommerce, invest in quality hosting solutions such as Cloudways or Hostinger. If you’re on Shopify, although hosting is included, optimizing your site’s code and assets is still necessary to maintain fast load times.

Cloudways Autonomous - Scaling Infinitely

One of the standout features of Cloudways is its Autonomous Scaling. This feature allows your server to grow with your site, ensuring that your ecommerce store remains fast and responsive even during high-traffic periods. This is especially useful during peak shopping seasons or flash sales.

Cloudways also offers an integrated CDN via Cloudflare, which helps deliver content faster to users worldwide by caching and distributing your site's assets across a global network of servers.

Additional Speed Optimization Tips

To further improve your site’s speed, enable Gzip compression and use caching. Minify your JavaScript and CSS files to reduce the load on your server. When it comes to images, consider switching to next-gen formats like WebP or AVIF. These formats offer better compression, allowing you to maintain high-quality images while reducing file sizes.

For the best results, focus on optimizing images without sacrificing quality, especially for mobile users. As mobile traffic continues to rise, having a fast, responsive site is more important than ever.

Conclusion

By following this comprehensive checklist, you’ll be well on your way to creating an ecommerce site that’s not only search engine optimized but also user-friendly and primed for conversions.

If you need more help, don't hesitate to reach out and schedule a Free SEO strategy call with one of our SEO experts, where we'll give you a free ecommerce SEO audit using our in-house ecommerce checklist. Whether you're focused on Shopify SEO, product page SEO, local SEO or use any other ecommerce platform or CMS, we're here to help.