Recently, Google has been making a lot of changes to its core search algorithms, specifically targeting webmasters who are indulging in deceptive SEO practices.
Google’s primary intention is to provide searchers with high-quality, reputable content that they’re likely to find useful. It doesn’t matter how much traffic you have if your site’s content is irrelevant or of questionable quality.
Your eCommerce website will also want to take advantage of these changes so it can optimize its presence on Google to avoid being penalized by the search engine.
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Core Web Vitals: What is it?
Before proceeding further, you must understand what “core web vitals” is.
According to Google, core web vitals is a set of metrics used to determine the quality of a website. These metrics include:
* E-A-T (expertise, authority, and trustworthiness)
* Mobile-friendliness
* Loading speed and web page performance
* Bot protection & warning signs of user abuse
* Technical health and security risk indicators
* HTTPS usage and security
If you neglect any of these core web vitals, then you’ll likely attract a penalty from Google. For example, a penalty might occur if your website is deemed unappealing to users. A penalized site can happen either because its content is not relevant enough for users or it isn’t possible to satisfy the needs of users on your site.
How to Avoid Being Penalized?
Google is constantly working toward identifying websites that are considered spammy. When this happens, your site might be penalized. This can include getting a significant drop in search volume or rankings for your website.
Fortunately, there are ways to prevent this from happening to your eCommerce website:
* First of all, make sure your eCommerce website is mobile-friendly, and Google recommends using AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) format. AMP is a lightning-fast way to deliver richer content at the same load speed as a regular mobile website.
* Consider using HTTPS and implement secure web protocols. This will help improve user engagement by creating a more secure connection that protects sensitive data from falling into the wrong hands.
* Update your website’s web performance and make it faster to load by implementing website caching solutions, such as Cloudflare (Cloudflare recently made significant changes in their pricing plans, which made it more affordable for small businesses).
To build an eCommerce website according to the core mentioned above web vitals, you should make sure you have implemented the necessary changes on your eCommerce website. But how do you perform these changes? Well, optimizing an eCommerce website according to Google’s core web vitals is not that complicated.
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The most significant factor that influences your search engine rankings is the speed of your eCommerce website. A faster eCommerce website means fewer page visits, which means more money for you.
Tweak Your Web Design
The page load speed is a one-dimensional parameter in which the “link speed” and the “image compression” play a more significant role. It will be ideal if you have a faster website to improve your Google ranking, which means that you need to analyze the following things.
- Images: Make use of images with at least 15kb to mark the importance of an item on your eCommerce site. In addition to marking up items with high importance, use fewer images for small products, especially on mobile phones.
- CSS: Make sure you include only the essential CSS to make things load faster. Only import the CSS you need. If possible, have a dedicated base template for your page or page components.
- Pay Attention To Your Server Configuration: Take advantage of HTTP/2 support by your server, which will leverage new browser technologies to deliver content faster. Also, make sure to use an efficient CDN server so you’ll have access to global servers that are close to your target audience.
- Use A Caching Plugin: Caching plugins are the best way to make your site load faster. The most popular caching plugin you might want to consider is W3 Total Cache, which over 4 million active WordPress users currently use.
- Don’t Optimize Your Homepage: Make sure you don’t optimize your homepage too much for search engines because this can hinder the performance of other pages on your eCommerce website.
- Utilize more straightforward website templates: If you’re using complex website templates, it will most likely take longer for your pages to load. This is because the JavaScript files needed to run the website are much larger than a more straightforward template.
- Standardize Your Web Design: If you’ve got many products on your website, avoid using too many variations for each product. This will help you spend less time making changes to products.
- Use Images For Product Thumbnails: Adding images to product thumbnails is an excellent way to leverage the power of search engines. It is also one of Google’s core web vitals.
- Monitor your website’s performance in real-time: If you want to avoid getting penalized by Google, then you should take advantage of analyzing your website’s performance in real-time by using Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool.
Utilize AMP Technology
Google recently launched its open-source project called AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages), which is being used by thousands of publishers all over the world. This is because it results in a better user experience when compared to other popular mobile publishing formats.
Google is pushing AMP hard because it hopes that this technology will revolutionize the way publishers create mobile content on the web.
Most eCommerce design agencies will be too busy to maintain your website, or you could be an entrepreneur who runs your own business. The last thing you want is your eCommerce website dragging down SEO, resulting in lower sales revenue. Plus, it’s not easy for small businesses to allocate the required budget money towards hiring marketing firms.
There you have it – a simple checklist of what you need to do to ensure your eCommerce site won’t get penalized. If this sounds like a lot of work, don’t worry. We can help you build a eCommerce business (optimized), leaving you with more time to focus on growing your online presence!
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