Ecommerce website optimization combines UX, SEO, CRO, and content optimization techniques to improve performance and increase revenue. Here are the top expert tips to get started.

One-third of the global population shops online. And with more than 30 million ecommerce websites, competition is high (to say the least).

To stand out, attract customers, and grow sales, your site needs to be well-optimized.

Learn everything you need to know about ecommerce website optimization from a panel of experts, including HawkSEM Co-founder and CEO Sam Yadegar.

What is ecommerce website optimization?

Ecommerce website optimization is the process of improving site elements to increase traffic, convert more customers, and drive revenue.

Optimizing an ecommerce website effectively involves different strategies that can be broken into four categories:

  1. User experience (UX): Making your site easier and more enjoyable to navigate
  2. Search engine optimization (SEO): Making your website more visible on the organic search engine results page (SERP)
  3. Content optimization: Ensuring the content on your website is high quality and relevant to keep visitors engaged
  4. Conversion rate optimization (CRO): Testing different elements on your website to find what drives more conversions and optimizing accordingly

How to optimize ecommerce websites: 10 pro tips

How can your brand get the most mileage out of SEO, CRO, and UX optimization? Map out a plan for your ecommerce site with these expert optimization tips.

  1. Make navigation intuitive
  2. Create a keyword strategy
  3. Enhance product pages
  4. Improve product collections
  5. Upsell and cross-sell products
  6. Simplify the checkout process
  7. Prioritize customer support
  8. Use A/B testing
  9. Improve site speed
  10. Optimize for mobile shoppers

1. Make navigation intuitive

A simple, intuitive navigation structure feels inviting for site visitors and encourages quicker conversions.

When a new visitor lands on your homepage or landing page, they should immediately understand who you are, what you offer, and what they should do next.

To support this, your site should have:

  • Minimal buttons on the main navigation
  • Clear messaging that introduces your brand, offer, and value proposition
  • A single, consistent call-to-action (CTA)
  • An obvious “next step”

“With the Formen Inc. website, we’ve prioritized seamless navigation,” says Andrew Grella, CEO and founder of Formen Inc.

“The website is broken down into obvious categories: Product Categories, Shop All, and Find Us.”

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“We intentionally chose these categories as they are the primary areas clients seek when landing on our site,” says Grella.

“A new visitor first would like to see our products (Product Categories and Shop All) and have the means to reach us (Find Us).”

Is your online store’s navigation cluttered? Start by paring down options to the basics.

Pro tip: If you’re not sure which categories or landing pages to focus on, use the website analytics tools below to identify the most popular destinations on your site.

2. Create a keyword strategy

To create an SEO strategy for ecommerce that attracts and converts search traffic, start with keyword research.

Keyword research uses SEO tools to discover and analyze which search terms your target market uses to find your products.

Using your keyword research tool of choice:

  1. Determine the keywords you already rank for
  2. Compile topics and keywords most relevant to your brand
  3. Find related terms that could boost your rankings
  4. See what keywords your competitors rank for
  5. Assess keyword volume and cost per click (CPC) to prioritize content creation

Further reading: This keyword research guide walks you through each step of the process .

With your list of keywords, build a content strategy that incorporates the most relevant keywords with the highest search volume. There should be a dedicated page for each keyword to improve ranking and avoid content cannibalization.

Further reading: Use this content marketing strategy guide to build a plan that’ll set you up for long-term SERP success .

To rank for more keywords and make your website more visible for a wider range of searches, create a wider variety of content.

In other words, consider expanding your content marketing beyond product pages. Launch a blog that shares answers to customer questions, high-quality how-to guides, and tips for using your products.

“Be what customers are looking for and where they’re looking for it,” says Gabriel A. Mays, co-founder and CEO of POPSMASH. “This means you have to understand how people search and translate your value into those terms.”

Focus on long-tail keywords

“[Long-tail keywords] are your golden tickets to attracting highly targeted traffic,” says Mateusz Calik, CEO of Delante.

“I’ll give you a simple example: Go for ‘vintage leather backpacks’ for men’ instead of just ‘backpacks.’”

The person searching for this knows exactly what they want, “and if you provide it, that’s half the battle won,” Calik says.

Another benefit of long-tail keywords? Less competition. “The most crucial element here is relevance,” Calik explains. “Make sure your content matches the searcher’s intent.”

3. Optimize product pages

Whether you use SEO, pay-per-click (PPC) ads, or paid social media to drive traffic to your website, it’s critical to get product pages right.

“With Performance Max and automated PPC campaigns, ecommerce optimization will rely heavily on good UX,” says Yadegar. “You need compelling landing pages that visitors will love, with relevant content that addresses the users’ needs.”

So, what’s the key to optimizing product pages?

“Break down product pages into different elements like discounted price and codes, product images, trust badges, product reviews and ratings, and product features,” advises Swapnil Pate, co-founder and head of SEO at GrowthSRC Media.

“Having these elements above the fold keeps the user hooked. All these elements build trust with the visitor and push them towards buying a product.”

Looking for an easy place to start? Focus on customer reviews and ratings, which add social proof to your products.

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“Your product listings should be short but rich in the details customers are searching for online,” says Michael Nemeroff, CEO and co-founder of Rush Order Tees.

“Always include a product reviews section for each listing. These add credibility to your brand,” he continues.

“When customers visit your listing, they’ll be more inclined to make a purchase if others share positive experiences with similar items. That’s how you’ll capture cold buyers.”

4. Improve product collections

While product pages are crucial for ecommerce sites, they may not be the pages that drive the most traffic to your online store.

“Collection pages are the most important asset on an ecommerce page due to the search potential and volume they command,” says Pate.

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(Image: Lulu’s)

These curated collections of related products help customers browse products based on trends like “vacation essentials,” or “office approved.”

To optimize product collections:

  • Categorize products correctly
  • Incorporate relevant keywords into collection descriptions
  • Add relevant keywords to meta descriptions for SEO purposes

If your collections include a handful of products, you may not need sorting and filtering options.

But if your product categories have dozens of items like Rush Orders Tees do, adding price, color, or size filters can help customers find what they need in a few clicks.

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5. Upsell and cross-sell products

Ideally, your online store will convert website visitors into customers. But when your goal is to increase average order value (AOV) or customer lifetime value (LTV), invite customers to purchase more than just the basics.

Automated offers at checkout can suggest relevant add-ons or a more deluxe version of the original item.

You can also suggest similar items on product pages to encourage customers to keep shopping — as Irresistible Me does below:

Upsell and cross-sell products

Where should you add cross-sells to your site?

Pate suggests using a heatmap tool to see where visitors spend the most time, then adding product recommendation widgets in those positions to improve opportunities.

6. Simplify the checkout process

To drive revenue, you need customers to complete purchases. That means reducing your shopping cart abandonment rate and increasing your conversion rate.

“Optimize the whole checkout process, including the shopping basket, checkout page, and, if possible, the payment page,” says Nemanja Janjic, CEO and co-founder of Tunel Studio.

“An optimized checkout experience reduces cart abandonment rates and increases conversions by making the purchase process as seamless and straightforward as possible.”

How can you make your checkout process easier to navigate? Design a better customer experience for logged-in users and guest checkouts alike.

“Create an intuitive and effortless add-to-cart experience on product pages,” says Janjic.

“Ensure customers can easily navigate adding products to their cart, adjusting quantities, and understanding their options on the product page, without confusion,” says Janjic.

“This is key to a positive user experience, which supports SEO and CRO efforts.”

7. Prioritize customer support

No matter how easy or engaging your website is to navigate, you can’t anticipate every question. That’s where providing customer support with live chat comes in handy.

“We’re a huge proponent of customer support, and we’ve found add-on features like live chat to be extremely important in CRO,” explains Justin Staples, co-owner of Burn Right Products.

Just note that if you’re going to use a live chat, use it well.

“Make certain you have someone available to manage the chat during store hours, to avoid any potential frustration from users,” says Staples.

“I can’t stress enough how important customer support is to running a successful ecommerce business.”

8. Use A/B testing

Should you rework your website navigation? How about adding an extra call-to-action (CTA) button? Should you tweak your product descriptions?

With A/B testing, you can run different versions of your website simultaneously to compare how different elements impact performance.

When you review the results, you can determine which online shopping experience worked best for your target audience and make the most effective changes to your site.

Further reading: What is A/B Testing? How To Use It + Expert Advice.

9. Improve site speed

An ideal page load time is 0-2 seconds. Any slower, and visitors are much more likely to bounce.

As a ranking factor, website speed also impacts search engine page positions. Things that can slow down your page load time include:

  • Large videos
  • Unoptimized images
  • Too many graphics
  • Excessive ads
  • Clunky or outdated plugins
  • Too much Flash content

To optimize loading speed:

  • Use lighter website themes
  • Check out tools like PageSpeed Insights for theme ideas
  • Enable compression to make photos smaller and faster to load
  • Enable browser caching to store data more efficiently
  • Use Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) — servers that store various pages of content to help it load faster
  • Consolidate plugins and widgets and remove any you aren’t actively using

10. Optimize for mobile shoppers

Mobile devices contribute to the largest share of online orders: around 77% of retail traffic globally and 68% of online shopping orders.

Designing for mobile is non-negotiable when it comes to ecommerce websites. So where should you start? Here are a few essential boxes to check:

  • Prioritize site speed. Make a point to improve page load times for mobile devices, not just desktop devices.
  • Use responsive website design. Every element on a responsive website automatically adjusts to fit the user’s device.
  • Streamline navigation. Simplify menus so mobile users can browse and buy easily.

Further reading: This is your go-to guide to building a mobile-friendly website.

Which metrics should you track?

To make more effective optimizations, it’s important to track the metrics that matter most for your ecommerce website goals.

Here are a few metrics to consider:

  • Conversion rate: The number of ecommerce purchases compared to the total number of site visitors
  • Customer acquisition cost (CAC): The total amount spent on marketing compared to the number of new customers
  • Average order value (AOV): The average amount customers spend per ecommerce order
  • Customer lifetime value (LTV): The total amount customers spend throughout their relationship with your brand
  • Bounce rate: The percentage of site visitors who click away without engaging with your site

How much does it cost to optimize an ecommerce site?

You can expect to pay an average of $2,500 to $5,000 per month for an ecommerce website optimization package that includes UX, SEO, and CRO.

If hiring a digital marketing agency to optimize your ecommerce website, deliverables should include:

  • 404 error identification, resolution, and redirects
  • Backlink audit and cleanup,
  • Content creation and optimization
  • Google Search Console and Analytics integration
  • Image optimization
  • Keyword research, mapping, and optimization
  • Page speed/site speed analysis
  • Schema markup implementation
  • Server and hosting configuration
  • Site structure analysis
  • Strategic link building
  • Title tag and meta description optimization

At HawkSEM, our ecommerce website optimization services helped ThriftBooks boost clickthrough rates (CTRs) by 35% year over year and AOV by 50%.

Examples of optimized ecommerce websites

Need optimization inspiration? Look at these five examples of optimized ecommerce websites.

Irresistible Me

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An online store for hair extensions and wigs, Irresistible Me boasts simple navigation and popups to share limited-time discounts.

These popups encourage subscribers to choose a product preference, which allows for segmentation and more targeted marketing.

Rush Order Tees

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Rush Order Tees, a promotional product retailer, creates a good UX by letting customers choose where to start: “Shop Products” or “Start Designing.” The site displays dynamic delivery dates to ensure the information is always accurate for customers.

Formen

Formen

Formen, a men’s grooming retailer, keeps its product pages relatively simple so online shoppers can check out quickly. But below the fold, each webpage has detailed descriptions of product features and benefits for added SEO and conversion opportunities.

Levain Bakery

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Cookie retailer Levain Bakery ranks at the top of search engine results for competitive queries like “cookie subscription.”

This visibility enables the ecommerce site to attract organic traffic, while its simple design and good UX make it easy for shoppers to convert.

Top tools for ecommerce website optimization

Whether you need to manage conversion optimization or search engine optimization for ecommerce websites, the right tools can help. Use this list of top tools as a guide.

Ecommerce platforms

Shopify is an ecommerce platform that hosts millions of online stores based around the world.

With Shopify, you can build a customized store, sell across social media and other channels, and measure performance. Using Shopify SEO best practices, you can build a highly visible ecommerce store.

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WooCommerce is a WordPress-based ecommerce platform that powers 4+ million online stores.

Between the platform’s apps (e.g., for subscriptions and upsells) and WordPress’s SEO capabilities, you can build a powerful store that’s easy to find in search.

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Website analytics tools

Google Analytics is a free website analytics tool to understand customer behavior and measure search traffic. It reveals how users navigate your site and where they drop off so you can remove friction points and sell more ecommerce products.

If you enable ecommerce tracking, it can also report on items sold and revenue earned.

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PageSpeed Insights is a free tool for analyzing the speed of your website on both mobile and desktop devices.

It simulates how a real user experiences your site and shows you how long your site takes to load. If the tool spots any areas for improvement, it tells you exactly what to fix to make your site faster.

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Heatmap tools

Hotjar is a heatmap tool that shows which parts of your website visitors interact with most often — and which ones aren’t driving sales. You can use its recordings feature to view website user sessions and request visitor feedback to make your site easier to use.

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Microsoft Clarity is a free heatmap tool that reveals how users engage with any page on your website.

Between heatmaps and session recordings, you can see how far visitors scroll on your site and where they click. You can use this data to inform your A/B testing and optimization efforts.

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SEO tools

SE Ranking is an all-in-one SEO tool for keyword research, rank tracking, and content management.

You can also use it to monitor your backlink portfolio, review the impact of your on-page SEO efforts, and create data-driven plans to capture more search traffic.

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Semrush is a complete SEO management platform with keyword research, on-page SEO, rank tracking, link building, and content optimization tools. You can also use this platform to analyze competitors — and use their SEO and content strategies to inform your own.

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CRO tools

Optimizely is an A/B testing tool for experimenting with different versions of your website or product pages. This platform lets you see which elements lead to the most conversions and gives you control of which users or groups see which version of your site.

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VWO is an A/B testing tool that creates personalized experiences for website visitors. With this tool, you can experiment with layouts, forms, CTAs, and personalized popups to discover new ways to drive more conversions and revenue.

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Popup tools

HelloBar is a tool for creating announcement bars and website popups. In addition to customizing colors and styles, you can create popups that target website visitors by location, date, or campaign to convert more customers.

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OptInMonster is a tool for displaying popups, scroll boxes, floating bars, and games on your website. You can set up different popups for each page and use exit intent detection to display them before potential customers click away from your site.

Checklist for ecommerce website optimization

Search engine optimization

Develop a keyword strategy

Enhance product pages

Improve product collections

User experience

Streamline navigation

Increase site speed

Optimize for mobile shoppers

Prioritize customer support

Conversion rate optimization

Use A/B testing

Customer acquisition

Simplify the checkout process

Upsell products

Cross-sell related products

The takeaway

With a successful ecommerce marketing strategy, you can attract more prospects, convert more customers, see fewer abandoned carts, and drive more revenue.

For most online stores, you need a balance of SEO, CRO, UX, and customer acquisition tactics.

Our seasoned team has experience with all elements of conversion optimization for ecommerce websites. We’re here to help.

Book a free consultation to learn how we can develop a plan to improve your ecommerce brand’s online performance.

This article has been updated and was originally published in March 2024.

Anna Sonnenberg

Anna Sonnenberg

Anna Sonnenberg is a writer for B2B SaaS companies. She specializes in product-led and strategic content for marketing technology, sales automation, and productivity tools.