{"id":5781,"date":"2017-02-14T12:41:53","date_gmt":"2017-02-14T10:41:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/?p=5781"},"modified":"2021-06-27T12:22:52","modified_gmt":"2021-06-27T09:22:52","slug":"keyword-research-ecommerce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/keyword-research-ecommerce\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Do Keyword Research For An Ecommerce Website"},"content":{"rendered":"

How is keyword research for an ecommerce website different from a blog or other websites? What do you need to take into account when searching for keywords you can target in your product pages, product categories or ecommerce blog?<\/p>\n

When running an ecommerce website, your primary goal is to make more sales and this is different from the goal you have on a \u2018normal\u2019 website, which is to get more traffic.<\/p>\n

To make more sales, you don\u2019t need any kind of traffic but you need targeted traffic<\/strong><\/a> and above all, traffic that converts.<\/p>\n

While there many ways to increase your website\u2019s traffic<\/strong><\/a> and many reasons<\/strong><\/a> why this is not happening yet, it all starts with good keyword research.<\/p>\n

Any time you spend on doing keyword research for your online shop (especially at the beginning), is time that will pay off later in the form of traffic and sales.<\/p>\n

Why is keyword research Important for an online Shop?<\/h2>\n

So, let\u2019s see what exactly is keyword research and why it is very important for the success of an online store.<\/p>\n

What do we mean by keyword research?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Keyword research is a term that describes the process to follow to find out which keywords (search terms), people are using when looking for something on the Internet.<\/p>\n

This is what they type on the Google Search Box, Bing, Yahoo, Facebook or any other search engine<\/strong><\/a> or online medium.<\/p>\n

Why is keyword research important?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Knowing what people are looking for, can help us provide the search engines with the right content and also give our readers content using terms (terminology and context) they can understand.<\/p>\n

Take Google as an example, their mission is to show high quality websites<\/strong><\/a> in their search results, that answer user\u2019s queries.<\/p>\n

If we want to increase your chances of ranking higher in Google, you need to give the Google bot the right signals when crawling the content of your pages and one of the ways to do this is through keywords (based on the results of keyword research).<\/p>\n

Higher rankings is equivalent to more traffic. As shown in the graph below, websites that appear at the top of the SERPS get more than 60% of search engine traffic.<\/p>\n

\"Google
\nSource<\/a><\/p>\n

Before getting into the details on how to do keyword research for an ecommerce store, let me give you an example that shows the importance of keyword research.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say that you are selling \u2018hair extensions\u2019 in your store and you have product pages for each different type.<\/p>\n

How you will name your categories and landing pages, depends on the results of the keyword research.<\/p>\n

Keyword research will tell you what people are searching that is related to \u2018hair extensions\u2019 and you will have to adjust your titles and (on-Page SEO<\/strong><\/a>) accordingly.<\/p>\n

If you skip this step and name your categories and products whatever you believe it will work, or the internal names you use for your products, most probably it won\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Keywords that matter for an ecommerce website<\/h2>\n

Another concept that is important when doing keyword research for an ecommerce website is how to differentiate between general keywords and keywords with a commercial intent.<\/p>\n

General keywords or head keywords are usually high traffic but don\u2019t necessarily have a specific intent.<\/p>\n

For example, when a person is searching for \u2018handbags\u2019, is most probably at the initial stages of the buying cycle.<\/p>\n

At this stage the searcher wants to get an overview of what is available without necessarily having a clear intent.<\/p>\n

Long tail keywords<\/strong><\/a> on the other hand are more precise. For example, the query \u2018handbags for women\u2019, shows that the searcher is looking for women\u2019s handbags but it is still not very \u2018commercial\u2019.<\/p>\n

The queries \u2018women\u2019s shoulder handbags for work\u2019 or \u2018handbags for work furla\u2019 are very specific and have a clear commercial intent.<\/p>\n

The reason I\u2019m mentioning this now is the following: When optimizing your product pages, you need to take into account the \u2018intent\u2019 of the user and not go after what is more popular in terms of search volume.<\/p>\n

Remember that your goal is to make more sales, so you need visits from customers who are ready to proceed to the next step i.e. convert and these are the keywords you should be targeting.<\/p>\n

How to find keywords for your ecommerce product And Category pages<\/h2>\n

Let\u2019s see how you can practically find which keywords have a commercial intent and are easier to target.<\/p>\n

Step 1: Amazon<\/h3>\n

What is the first thing that comes in mind when talking about ecommerce? Most probably it\u2019s Amazon.<\/p>\n

Amazon is the biggest ecommerce store online and many studies have shown that people looking to buy something, start their search with Amazon (and not Google or any other search engine or platform).<\/p>\n

So, if this is what people are doing, you should follow their path and start your keyword research with Amazon.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s see how it is done.<\/p>\n

Go to Amazon and start typing a keyword that describes your products.<\/p>\n

\"keyword<\/p>\n

Amazon suggest will immediately give you an overview of what people are searching related to your keyword.<\/p>\n

At a glance, you can see the most popular categories (bags for work, bags for school) and the most popular brands (Michael kors, louis Vuitton).<\/p>\n

To take it a step further, select a category to view the results and look into the left sidebar.<\/p>\n

\"ecommerce<\/p>\n

What you will find is the top categories related to \u2018handbags\u2019. If your store is selling \u2018women\u2019s handbags\u2019 then these are the best candidates for your product category pages.<\/p>\n

The above is very useful for your product category pages and website structure but what about the actual product pages?<\/p>\n

While on amazon, go to the best seller\u2019s page – https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/bestsellers<\/a> and navigate to the appropriate department.<\/p>\n

Browse through the best selling list and find products that are similar (or the same), as the ones you are selling.<\/p>\n

Open their product page and take a closer look at the:<\/p>\n

Product title and Description<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"amazon<\/p>\n

\"amazon<\/p>\n

Take note of the keywords used in the title and description i.e.\u2018casual double zipper\u2019, because we can use this later to find long tail keywords related to the particular product.<\/p>\n

Pro Hint: <\/strong>While on the product page, take a note of the Customers also bought<\/em> section. This will give you a very good idea on how to setup cross selling on your store.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Step 2: Use Google\u00a0Search<\/h3>\n

Now that you have a better idea on what people are searching on Amazon, it\u2019s time to look into Google and the best way to start your keyword research is by visiting Google.com.<\/p>\n

As soon as you start typing, Google will make suggestions on how to finish your search query. At this stage, try to keep you search limited to 2-3 keywords, for example: \u2018womens handbags work\u2019.<\/p>\n

Scroll down (at the bottom of the page), and look at the \u2018related searches section\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"related<\/p>\n

What do you notice in the above screenshot?<\/p>\n

The term \u2018tote bags for work\u2019 is a term related to \u2018women\u2019s handbags work\u2019. This is a great new keyword which we will analyze using our keyword tools to find out more details.<\/p>\n

I also strongly suggest to take this keyword and go back to Amazon and repeat your search.<\/p>\n

You can repeat this process for searching Google and taking a close look to the \u2018Related Searches\u2019 many times until you have a list of all related keywords.<\/p>\n

Step 3: Use your Favorite Keyword Tool<\/h3>\n

Now that we have gathered enough keywords from Amazon and Google is time to utilize the power of a keyword tool.<\/p>\n

A good keyword tool will give us a better insight on the search volume for each keyword and help us decide how to optimize our product pages.<\/p>\n

There are many tools available but I personally like to use SEMRush. \u00a0Even if you don\u2019t have a semrush subscription, you can follow the steps below and get similar results using your favorite keyword research tool.<\/p>\n

Login to SEMRUSH<\/strong><\/a> and select \u201cSEO KEYWORD MAGIC\u201d from the left menu (under Keyword Analytics).<\/p>\n

You can now start your search by typing the keywords we have found from Amazon and Google.<\/p>\n

Our goal at this point is to find out the search volume for each keyword and other related keywords.<\/p>\n

Once you add a keyword, semrush will group relevant keywords together (left part). You can also narrow your search by using the filters in the top bar.<\/p>\n

This is very useful when you want to find long tail keywords that have a certain search volume.<\/p>\n

\"seo<\/p>\n

As you can see above, when you search for your main keyword (\u2018handbags women\u2019), and then filter by \u2018Work\u2019, you can see the associated long tail keywords.<\/p>\n

What is more interesting is that by analyzing the keywords suggested by Google, you will see that \u2018womens tote bags for work\u2019 is a better term than \u2018work handbags for women\u2019, since it has more search volume and consists of more keywords.<\/p>\n

In general, long tail keywords with 4-5 words easier to target than shorter long tail keywords.<\/p>\n

\"keyword<\/p>\n

If you scroll down the list, you can find more keywords you can use for your product pages.<\/p>\n

\"long<\/p>\n

If you combine these keywords with the brand name and model (remember the example of Amazon titles), you will end up with perfectly optimized titles for your product pages.<\/p>\n

Step 4: Use the Google Keyword Tool<\/h3>\n

I know that not all people have a subscription to a keyword tool. Good tools are not free and this keeps people away.<\/p>\n

The truth is, if you want to succeed in ecommerce, you will need one. Besides the keyword research, you can use it for spying on your competitors and improving your SEO and content.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, there is a free option to use and this is no other than the Google Keyword Tool<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What you should know about the Google keyword tool is that although it is free, if you don\u2019t have an active campaign running, it will show you ranges of search volumes and not the exact estimates.<\/p>\n

This is what it shows with no active campaigns:<\/p>\n

\"google<\/p>\n

And this is the same search with active campaigns:<\/p>\n

\"google<\/p>\n

So, to make any good use of the Google keyword tool, it is best to setup an Adwords campaign first (even if it is for a few dollars per day), and then do your keyword research.<\/p>\n

When using the Google Keyword Tool, we are looking for the same things as before i.e. Ideas for our category pages (The Ad group ideas<\/em> tab is a good feature to use for this purpose) and long tail keywords with a commercial intent.<\/p>\n

Hint: Make sure to use the keyword filters<\/em> on the left menu, to narrow down your search based on Competition<\/em> and possibly average monthly searches.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"keyword<\/p>\n

Step: 5: Steal Your Competitor\u2019s Keywords<\/h3>\n

Another way to find out which keywords work for your niche is to steal your competitor\u2019s keywords.<\/p>\n

With the right tools, this is a straightforward process:<\/p>\n

1st<\/sup> -> Search on Google for your target keywords i.e. \u2018womens handbags for work\u2019<\/p>\n

2nd<\/sup> -> Look for websites that are selling the same products as yours. Avoid big websites (like Amazon) but concentrate on websites that are similar to your ecommerce store (both in terms of size and products).<\/p>\n

3rd<\/sup>-> Either take the domain or the specific product page and go to semrush, and select URL under Domain Analytics – > Organic search.<\/p>\n

\"competitor<\/p>\n

This can be very useful in your process because you can see for which keywords a competitor\u2019s page is ranking.<\/p>\n

If you want to increase your chances of ranking for the same keywords, you need to find a way to naturally mention those keywords in the body of the page.<\/p>\n

\"keyword<\/p>\n

Step 6: Take a Look at Wikipedia<\/h3>\n

As a final step in your keyword research process, you can use Wikipedia.<\/p>\n

Wikipedia has detailed articles for almost any topic you can think off and the nice thing about their articles is that they organize the information in a structural way.<\/p>\n

You can use Wikipedia articles to find related keywords for your term (this can prove very useful later when you will write the actual titles for your homepage, product categories and product pages), and also to get a good idea on how you can organize your shop\u2019s structure.<\/p>\n

\"keyword<\/p>\n

As you can see in the screenshot above, the categories suggested by Wikipedia for handbags are similar to those you can find on Google, Amazon and the Google keyword Tool.<\/p>\n

Keyword Research for your ecommerce Blog<\/h2>\n

Besides doing keyword research for your online shop, you also need to do some research for your ecommerce blog.<\/p>\n

Every online business needs a blog<\/a><\/strong>; in the case of an ecommerce shop, your blog will help you to:<\/p>\n