Search Engine Optimisation for eCommerce

Achieve the search engine rankings your online shop deserves with our built-in SEO tools

An eCommerce platform optimised for Google

The importance of having your site featured prominently in major search engines, such as Google, cannot be stressed enough. In order to reach as many potential customers as possible, your search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy must be a major part of your marketing plan. That's why the Bluepark platform is built, and continually developed, with SEO at the forefront, taking care of many on-page factors for you automatically.

On and off-page SEO

How your website ranks in search engines depends on two factors, on-page SEO and off-page SEO. On-page refers to elements you add to the page yourself, as well as the page's code. We've outlined how Bluepark takes care of these below. Off-page refers to factors that are external to your website, such as links to your page from other sites, social media and brand awareness.

Patience is key

Patience is essential with SEO as it is impossible to achieve high-ranking listings overnight and can take months. Therefore, an ongoing strategy, which is continually reviewed and refined, is key. There is no magic formula or quick and easy solution.

SEO companies

Spend time researching a potential SEO company, if you choose to hire an expert. There are many SEO cowboys out there guaranteeing to get your site within the top 10 results in a certain timeframe, something a genuine SEO company will never do.

Static, keyword-rich URLs

Search engines find it easier to index static URLs than dynamic URLs. A static URL doesn't contain a database query, interpreted in the URL as a question mark - ?

Static URL: https://www.bluepark.co.uk/my-product

Dynamic URL: https://www.bluepark.co.uk/product.php?sku=12345

All pages on a Bluepark website have a static URL, so the dreaded question mark - ? - never makes an appearance. The URL text, the section that appears after your domain name, is dynamically created by the system from the title of the page, using best practice structure. However, should you wish, you can override this and add your own with different keywords.

301 redirects

Changing the URL of any page on your online shop will result in a 404 Not Found page, meaning that Google, and potential customers, won't be able to find that page. To ensure this doesn't happen, and to retain page ranking, you need to create 301 redirects to tell them where the old URL now resides.

Automatic 301 redirects

When you change the URL of any product, category, page or blog category or post, Bluepark will prompt you to create a 301 redirect. By confirming that you're happy for this to happen, the system will automatically create the redirect for you to ensure it can still be found.

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Creating 301 redirects the right way

There are right ways and wrong ways to create 301 redirects, and the wrong way can have detrimental effects on your SEO. Therefore, our guide below helps you decide on what's right for your site. If you're migrating from another platform, our Transfer Team can create redirects for your site to help retain SEO ranking.

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Full site HTTPS

With privacy being at the forefront of people's minds when using the internet, sites need to show that they will keep personal details secure. This is done by applying an SSL certificate to every page on the site, turning the full web address from HTTP to HTTPS and displaying a padlock. Potential customers will look for these indicators, so it recommended to have an SSL for your online shop. In terms of SEO, Google now uses this as a factor when deciding where to rank your pages within their search results.

Title and Meta tags

Probably the easiest and most important on-page SEO element you have direct control over is Meta tags. These are small snippets of information which sit within the code of your site and tell search engines exactly what a particular page is about. This information is then used as an influential factor for how your pages rank in their search listings.

Meta tags

Bluepark dynamically uses the title of every page, product, category and blog post to create the Meta Title. Alternatively, each one has a specific section for you to add the Meta Title yourself, along with the Meta Description, and optionally Keywords, although these are now ignored by Google.

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Alt tags

The system automatically assigns ALT tags to product images using the product title. ALT tags for other images can be added manually via the Content Editor. The ALT tag provides a description of the image for Google Image search, accessibility, and when the browser cannot display the image. It is required for valid HTML code.

Rich snippets

Rich snippets, sometimes known as rich results, Schema or structured data, are snippets of code that sit around certain elements of a page. Examples of this are the price, availability and review rating of a product. These snippets are then picked up by Google and shown within their search listings to enhance them. This allows them to stand out from the crowd, which can help to increase your click-through rate. Rich snippets are automatically added to the correct areas within all Bluepark sites.

Content SEO

One of the biggest factors that will affect your SEO rankings is unique, quality driven content. This means ensuring every single page on your site has written content on it that's completely original, easy to read, informative and engaging. For instance, don't use the manufacturer's product descriptions, write your own, so they're unique to your site.

Page Structure

Bluepark's built-in Content Editor is available within every product, category, page, blog post and blog category. This can be used to structure your content correctly using a <h1> for the page heading, <h2> and <h3> for sub and sub-sub-headings, and <p> tags for paragraphs. This is a logically structured page, which results in clean and valid HTML code.

Blog

An easy way to add written content to your website is by regularly posting relevant stories, advice and helpful information on a blog. Every Bluepark site has a blog built-in, ensuring your unique, quality-driven content resides on your domain and, therefore, helps to add SEO value to the whole site.

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Sitemap

Once your site is live for all to see, it is imperative to make sure Google is aware of it. To do this, you will need to connect your online shop to a Google Search Console account. Here, you will be able to submit your site's Sitemap, a list of all relevant active links, for Google to crawl and include in their search engine. The Sitemap is auto-generated by the Bluepark platform in a best practice format for your convenience.

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Off-page SEO

Unfortunately, off-page factors influencing ranking within search engines are impossible for Bluepark to control. For instance, if your site is brand new, then Google will apply a 'sandbox' status for the first 3 - 6 months. This can result in your pages not ranking as expected during this time. This status is applied to ensure it is a legitimate website and, therefore, worth ranking.

Backlinks

Incoming links from other sites to yours, or backlinks, are one of the biggest off-page SEO factors. These should be obtained as naturally as possible by relying on other people linking to your site without your input. Creating backlinks by spamming blog posts with comments that include a link to your site, for instance, is not considered natural and will be frowned upon by Google.

Brand awareness

Natural backlinks often come from building brand awareness, so the more people know about you, the more likely you'll gain backlinks. Creating an active social media presence, writing guest posts on other people's blogs, building relationships with influencers within your industry and even working with a PR agency can all help towards this.

Other search engines

It is also worth mentioning that although Google is the world's dominating search engine, you should not completely disregard Bing or Yahoo!. As some people still like to use these alternatives, it is a good idea to ensure your online shop is listed on those too so they can find you. To do this, simply create a Bing Webmaster Tools account, upload your sitemap, and your site will be pushed to both Yahoo and Bing for ranking.