Keyword Research for an eCommerce website is different from a blog or other websites. It is the foundation of every SEO strategy, especially when it comes to onsite SEO. A good keyword with a rightly executed strategy will help you make sales in your eCommerce store.

When running an eCommerce store, the main goal is to make more sales and this is different from the goal you have on a ‘normal’ website, which is to get more traffic.

To make more sales, you don’t need any normal traffic but you need targeted traffic that converts to potential customers.

There many ways to increase your website’s traffic and one of the main reason it all starts with good keyword research. There are many free keyword research tools available like keyword planner, SEMrush, ubersuggest, keyword everywhere etc.

In this article, we’ll give a complete guide to keyword research for eCommerce. Let’s dive….

What is Keyword Research?

Keyword research is the process of discovering keywords and phrases that people try to search with the ultimate goal of optimizing content around those terms.

Why Keyword Research is Important for an Online Store?

Now, let’s see why it is very important for the success of an online store.

Keyword research impacts every other SEO task that you perform, including finding content topics, on-page SEO, and promotion. That’s why keyword research is the first step of any eCommerce SEO campaign.

It is also important to know what people are looking for and provide the right content using terms that they can understand. Say for example, the mission of google is to show high quality websites in their search results, that answer user’s queries.

If you want to increase the 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 best ways to do this is through keywords.

Higher rankings in search engine 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 traffic from search engine.

Keywords are like a compass for your SEO campaigns. They tell you where to go and whether or not you’re making any progress.

Researching keywords help you to figure out the thoughts, fears, and desires of your target market. That’s because keywords research gives you tremendous insight into what potential customers are looking for and the exact words and phrases that they use.

In fact, keyword research is just the market research for the 21st century.

Keywords That Does Matter for an eCommerce Website

In today’s digital era, eCommerce SEO is undoubtedly critical for the survival and success of today’s online retailers.

E-commerce businesses today cannot get success without it, and it is a pivotal component of eCommerce SEO.

In addition to that, eCommerce stores have to take into account new ranking factors like site speed, user experience, organic click through rate(CTR) and responsive site design.

As we mentioned earlier, keyword research is the process of understanding the terms and phrases your potential customers use in search engines to find the products you’re selling. The keywords are then matched to fit your eCommerce store and brand.

Based on your research, you can build a keyword plan that you can use to build and optimize your site, create content for product descriptions and write blog posts.

Keyword research influences other SEO-related tasks that you perform on your site. This includes on-page optimization and technical SEO.

Ultimately, it’s about to help search engines better understand what your website is all about. So that they can better match your eCommerce site to relevant search terms.

That is why it’s crucial to select your keywords with care. The better the match, the more likely you’ll score a high position on search engine results page. This will increase site traffic as well as sales.

While getting on the first page of a search engine is important, scoring a high position on the first page is just as crucial. The difference in search result positions is vast. Look at the graph below:

If you closely look at the graph, you will learn that getting on the first page will not necessarily score you a big chunk of the traffic flow. The difference between the last position on the first page (10) is almost 21x less than the first position.

This graph shows how crucial it is to rank closer to the top of the first page. The closer you are at the top of the first page, the more traffic and sales you’ll get. The change in just a few positions can make the difference between profit and loss.

How to Find Keywords for eCommerce Product And Category Pages

As an eCommerce store, the keywords should predominantly revolve around product and category pages. Let’s see how you can practically find which keywords have a commercial intent and are easier to target and find out.

Step 1: Search on Major eCommerce Sites

You can use some of the biggest eCommerce sites in the world for your keyword research. Have a look at the big giant like eBay, Etsy and Amazon. See what they’re doing for research and take a couple of points from these leaders of the industry.

They are the great source for mining product-driven keywords that have been proven to work for some of the world’s biggest online retailers.

Let’s see how it can be done.

Go to Amazon website and start typing a keyword that describes your products.

At a glance, you can see the most popular categories and also the most popular brands.

The search results are most likely very targeted and long-tail keywords. These keywords are less competitive and convert traffic better than medium-tail keywords.

In addition to keywords, the search results also suggest categories at the top of the list. You can use these for your category pages also.

Product title and Description

Take note of the keywords used in the title and description i.e.‘Bluetooth headset’, because you can use this later to find long or top tail keywords related to the particular product.

Step 2: Use Google Search for Keyword Search

Now that you have a idea on what people are searching on major eCommerce sites, it’s time to look into Google and the best way to start your keyword research is by visiting Google.com.

When you start typing, Google will make suggestions on how to complete your search query. At this stage, try to keep your search limited to 2-3 keywords, for example: ‘casual t shirt’.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page, and look at the ‘related searches results’.

The term ‘t shirt for boy’ is a term related to ‘casual t shirt’. This is a great new keyword which you can analyze using keyword tools to find out more details.

Step 3: Use Keyword Tool

Keyword Tool gives you the option of exploring several search engines or major sites of your choice for keyword suggestions. You have the option of exploring keyword suggestions in Google, YouTube, Bing, Amazon, and also in App Store.

There are many tools available but for demonstration purposes, we used keywordtool.io. With this tool you have the option of exploring keyword suggestions in Google, YouTube, Bing, Amazon, eBay, Play store, Instagram and Twitter.

Though it has a paid pro option called ‘Keyword Tool Pro’, its free option still provides plenty of suggestions. The search for ‘shoe’ came up with 689 unique keywords. The pro tool allows access to its other data, such as search volume, Trend, CPC and Competition.

Step 4: Use Free Keyword Suggestion Tool

If you’re looking for a free keyword generator tool, SEO Review Tools can be the best.

All you just need to do is type your product keyword, select the country of choice, and enter the Captcha.

The tool generates the keyword trend through graphically, primary keyword suggestions, and keyword synonyms.

Look at the screenshot below:

For example, to get the keyword suggestion we typed “office bag” as product keyword and country as US. The tools given us the graphical trends of that particular product keyword.

If you scroll down you will get the Keyword Suggestion just like the following screenshot.

In this same Primary keyword suggestion, you will also get secondary keyword suggestion.

Step 5: Use the Google Keyword Tool

You can also use the Google keyword tool, Google Keyword Planner is the best tool.

Although it is free, but if you don’t have an active campaign running, it will show you ranges of search volumes and not the exact estimates.

This is what it shows search results with no active campaigns:

Step 6: Take a Look at Wikipedia for Keyword Research

As a last not least step in your keyword research process, you can use Wikipedia.

Wikipedia has detailed articles for almost any topic and the nice thing about their articles is that they organize the information in a structural way.

You can use Wikipedia articles to find related keywords for your product. This can prove very useful later when you will write the actual titles for your homepage, product categories and product description and also to get a good idea on how you can organize your shop’s structure.

Keyword Research for eCommerce Blog

Besides doing keyword research for your online store, you also need to do some research for your eCommerce blog.

Every online business needs a blog. In the case of an eCommerce shop, your blog will help you to:

• Build internal links to your product and category pages
• Have good content to use in social media campaigns
• Attract links from other websites
• Communicate with your customers

While looking for long tail keywords for your products and category pages, you will also come across some keywords which are perfect for your blog posts.

For blog post you can use lsigraph.com. Just type the keyword in the search box, enter the Captcha and click on Generate button.

You will get the result like the following:

How Well Does the Keyword Fit with Product?

Just because a keyword has a high search volume, does not mean that it’s the right keyword for your product. It may not fit your brand, your store, or your business.

It’s not recommended to choose a keyword that is not related to your product over one that is a fitting description just because it has a higher search volume.

Choose keywords that provide the perfect description of the product you’re trying to sell and appropriately reflects your business.

Keyword Research: Final Words..

Keyword research for an eCommerce store is slightly different from normal keyword research.

When doing eCommerce keyword research, your main goal is to:

• Find out the actual keywords that customers are using to search for specific products.
• Differentiate between head keywords, long tail keywords and keywords with a commercial intent.
• Find out the search volume of those keywords.
• Find out related keywords and terms you can use for your eCommerce blog.
• and find out as much as you can about your niche.

Once you are done and you feel confident that you have a clear picture of the keywords related to your products, you can proceed with the above steps.