For an e-commerce page with more than 2,000 products, how should I conduct my initial keyword research?

[byoung86]

Hi all,

A confused and frustrated SEO noob needing a little guidance here

I'm a bit lost on how I should conduct my keyword research for a start-up e-commerce site selling dietary supplements (~200 brands and ~2000 SKU's).

From my understanding, there are two different types of pages I have to optimize for other than the Homepage & CMS pages: Category pages and product pages.

As part of the fundamental on-page optimization, I'm planning to write unique category/product descriptions for better visibility (as well as to avoid duplicate content issues) on SE. Consequently, this process has prompted several questions related to my keyword research.

My questions are:

1. How would I determine which keywords to optimize for?
2. How many keywords should I target per product page? per category page?
3. Should I include product / brand name as keywords?

The site isn't live yet, but is set to launch in mid-August. Any ideas on how I can conduct my keyword research to be used for category/product level pages?

Thanks all.

[Atlanta-SMO]

First off I would ask the client what products they have the highest margins for and also which are their best sellers.  Then ask your client which other products they would like to sell more of right away (ask them to prioritize).  Take those lists and go from there.

[Rephael]

Hello "byoung86",

1. I would recommend you to optimize the name and purpose of your product as keywords on each product page.

2. Don't stuff too many keywords on the same page. Optimizing 2-3 main keywords on each page is the optimal.

3. I suggest you to create separate pages on your ecommerce for brands, especially if you are going to have 200 brands as you said, and there you can include your product's brand name as keyword.

Hope that helps!

[mark_baird]

In my ecommerce site I work by top level category and make a list of what has the best margin, cross reference that with what is high value and is easily posted and that usually narrows it down. Then I work down through the cats and use the same principle all the way down. I try to hog for brand names in top level and work down to specific products as I get deeper into the Patricia assuming you already use the keyword tool and trends etc.

[evolvingSEO]

Hey There

Determining What Keywords

1. Create List - Create a long list of as many keywords as you can come up with for each category or product. Throw in everything you can think of - and use www.ubersuggest.org and Google Keywords tool. Use two columns in a spreadsheet. One for the keyword, and the second to label the category or product.

2. Gather Metrics - Then we're going to add the most "bare bones" metrics. Grab exact match search volume for each keyword from AdWords keyword tool. Run rankings on the site for each keyword (although your site is not launched, so you probably don't have rankings ). You can also pull maybe CPC (to get an idea of how commercial a keyword is) or Moz Difficulty for an idea of competitiveness. Add your metrics to new columns as you go.

3. Analyze & Choose keywords - Using sorting and/or filters. Look at keywords for one product or category at a time. Basically, you want to choose keywords with a good amount of search volume that you think you could rank for, and they're relevant. You could create a column to tage keywords you're going to use.

How Many To Target

You should really target one, and it's variations. For example - if it's turmeric supplements you'd target "supplements made with turmeric" "turmeric health supplements" etc.

Follow one of my favorite SEO flowcharts of all time (made by Rand) to decide if you should split words into separate pages.

Product / Brand Name

I assume you are selling 3rd party products? Abso-heck-lutely include the brand and product name. People are gonna be searching on those brand and product names. These are very transaction / intent-to-purchase searches - and if you can serve up a result that's compelling enough to get the click, there's a high chance you'll get the purchase.

Hope that helps

-Dan