How to Make Your Product Page Rank Well on Google

If you sell products or services on your website, your product page is arguably the most important page on your site. Why? Because the product page is where most consumers make their purchasing decisions.

With Google getting 92.62% market share of all search queries on the Internet as of June 2019 (which translates into billions of searches per day), optimize your product page effectively for it to show up on Google, and your traffic, conversions and even revenue will go through the roof. Fail to do so, and watch your sales plummet.

In this guide, we'll walk you through the steps you can take to optimize your product page for a place on the first page of Google search.

MOBILE IS INEVITABLE

Over the last couple of years, Google has gotten very serious about its mobile algorithm. They started switching from desktop-first to mobile-first indexing in 2018. This means Google predominantly uses the mobile version of your site for indexing and ranking.

Google announced that starting July 1, 2019, mobile-first indexing is enabled by default for all new websites (new to the web or previously unknown to Google Search).

What is this telling you? MOBILE IS INEVITABLE!

Yes, even for online buying.

One mobile consumer survey found that Americans check their phones up to 80x per day. The truth? They're not just checking social media; they are buying on mobile.

According to insider intelligence, in 2017, commerce sales on mobile alone reached $1.357 trillion, amounting to 58.9% of all eCommerce sales. The same data has been projected to reach 67.2% of all digital sales in 2019 (amounting to $2.32 trillion in revenue) and 72.9% in 2021, amounting to 3.56 trillion dollars.

More people are using mobile to access Google and equally to shop online. It is therefore essential to optimize your product page and entire eCommerce website for the new mobile generation. That way, Google will favor your web pages and rank you higher.

LET CUSTOMERS TALK ABOUT YOUR BRAND

So there's this thing called "brand signals." 

How do brand signals affect SEO? Well, the more your brand is searched for or mentioned from external sources, the more credible and significant search engines perceive it. This improves search rankings.

Google measures brand signals to assess how attractive your brand is to users. Also, Google utilises brand signals to determine a website's authority as a search ranking factor.

So let people talk about your brand and the products listed on your product page everywhere — on forums, review websites, social sites, blogs, Reddit, Quora, etc. The greater your brand signals, the more excellent Google will sense that your product is important enough to rank on the first page.

E-COMMERCE THRIVES ON TRUST

Whenever experts talk about selling things online, you hear them about building trust. That's because if people do not trust your website enough, they will not buy from you. So in a way, we can say that the level of trust you exhibit directly affects your online commerce.

Thus we advise you to add trust-building elements such as social proof and trust seals to your product page.

But trust goes a little beyond that: Buyers not only use faith to make a decision; search engines also use trust to decide how high to rank your website.

To improve your product page visibility on the search engines, you'll need to strengthen the trust signal of the page. Some of the things you can do include:

• Getting backlinks from highly trusted websites

• Increasing your PageRank

• Installing a security certificate (HTTPS)

OPTIMIZE YOUR PRODUCT PHOTOS

Google Image Search seems to be driving much traffic regarding online listed products. When people are scouring the web for products, there's a tendency for them to search for images of the product on Google Image Search.

This is an excellent chance for you to drive your target customers to your product page. Here are some ideas for effectively optimizing your product images:

• Start by using only high-quality images

• Choose the correct file format

• Optimize your images for the web by making them browser-friendly (talk of file size)

• Use descriptive file names

• Optimize the alt text

• Create image sitemaps

• Make your images responsive

The bottom line is that images (your product photos inclusive) are content, not decorations. They can immensely contribute to your SEO strategy if you make exemplary efforts.

OPTIMIZE YOUR DESCRIPTION SO WELL

Your product description is essential for ranking your product page. It is recommended that you fully describe your product in detail.

In most cases, the product description is the central place to attach all the keywords you'll need to add to your product page. 

One mistake most online retailers often make is to go to the manufacturer's website and copy the same product description to paste on their website. Some producers even copy the product descriptions of their competitors. Avoid copying other ideas instead create your own. Make sure you are not infringing on intellectual property rights by employing a copyright checker.

But guess what? Having unique product descriptions (and images) doesn't just set you apart from the competition; it presents your site as unique and valuable to the search engines, thereby improving your site's ranking.

TITLES AND PREVIEW

Your product page needs to give high-level information about the product right off the bat. This happens in the title area and the product preview. The essential information to add includes:

• Product Title

• Short description

• Price

• Features

• Components

• Customization options

• CTA

These areas are also great places to add highly searched keywords.

GO BEYOND KEYWORD RESEARCH

While it is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to add keywords to your product description and title, don't stop at keyword research when looking to build a killer SEO-optimized product page. 

Dig deep into segmented data across demographics. This will help you understand what typically resonates with your potential customers on your site. But don't stop here either. Combine it with research into what your customers like beyond just your website because e-tailing means much more than shopping on your site; it's more about what's trendy in the market.

This way, you'll appeal to users more, improving user interactions and, by extension, your rankings.

NAIL THE DESIGN

Does design affect SEO? Yes!

The design of your product page — its visual elements, content, navigation, etc. — has the power to make or break your store both SEO-wise and on the side of the customers.

First up, Google always prefers user-friendly websites. Good web design makes it convenient for visitors and search engines to navigate the website easily.

This easy navigation, intuitive site structure, responsiveness, and proper use of visual elements boost SEO.

Second, if users land on your site and find that your design sucks, they'll click the back button and go to another place. This will send a negative signal to Google’s intelligence indicating that people do not like your website. In the end, not only will people start avoiding your site, but Google will send it downward in the search engine results pages (SERPs) rankings.

LINK IT UP

Just as inbound links are essential for your site's ranking, outbound links are significant for an effective SEO strategy. Top SEOs believe outbound links (AKA external links) are a substantial source of ranking power. External links pass link equity differently than internal links because Google considers them a type of vote.

To increase the chances of your products appearing in Google search results, you can add an outbound link to another page that already shows up in Google, whether that means another website of yours, your blog, or your social media accounts. This will send a signal to the search bots, who will, in turn, rank your site.

You can check out our high-level, premium-quality search engine optimization tools if you need help with the right tools to optimize your product page or eCommerce website. It's 100% FREE!