The Best Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Software for eCommerce

What are Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools for eCommerce?

There are thousands of sub-par SEO tools out there, which probably makes SEO tools the most convoluted category of them all. For that reason, my first recommendation for finding a great solution is looking for something that is clearly being actively worked on by developers. Many SEO tools were created quickly and are poorly maintained, avoid those. And some even slow down page speed load time- which is BAD for SEO, how ironic.

SEO tools come in quite a variety. You have tools that help you manage your title tags, meta descriptions, and meta images. You have tools that help improve your page structure for better "indexability," and of course you have tools that promise to help your pages load faster, often by minimizing image file sizes, minifying javascript, making scripts lazy load, and fixing some basic on-site coding functionality.

Why use Search Engine Optimization software?

SEO apps are always going to be an important part of the eCommerce tech tool stack. You need to be paying attention to how your pages rank in Google, and what those listings look like. You are especially going to benefit from SEO apps at a few key points of scale: starting, 10k visitors/month, 50k visitors/month, 100k visitors/month, and 500k visitors/month. At each point of scale, you will find yourself with enough budget to warrant a decent investment into a new SEO app or consultatative service.

When should you invest in Search Engine Optimization software?

When starting out, you should have a tool that helps you track basic Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) and how your listings look in Google. As you approach the 10k visitors/month, it is worth investing in a tool that can minimize image file sizes and ensure that javascript is loading properly and asynchronously.

Once you hit 50k visitors a month, you may find it worth it to do a $1k-$5k SEO overhaul, and maybe invest in a tool like Edgemesh. When you hit 100k visitors a month, you may consider investing in a headless commerce platform like Nacelle or Shogun FrontEnd, and maybe even your own mobile app, which isn't necessarily an SEO tool but it does improve the load time experience of your existing customers.

After 100k visitors a month, you have to continuously be investing in SEO and improving page speed load time as well as looking at technical ranking factors and working to improve them.

Who in your team is managing Search Engine Optimization software?

SEO apps are managed by the marketing team, and sometimes the developer team. Some of the tools are "set and forget" but most require frequent check ins to understand what is working, and what isn't, and you as the "head of SEO" need to be continuously improving your strategy, tackling new keywords, changing existing product details and descriptions to match trends and consumer behavior, etc.

What are the most important features to consider when buying Search Engine Optimization software?

You are of course looking for tools that can help you rank better, get more "free" traffic, and take a user from the journey of searching for a keyword, to discovering your brand, and then buying from you. That means these tools should understand your rankings in the SERPs. They should understand good title and meta description field lengths, keyword usage, and strategy. And they should help you make better decisions when writing your next product description, blog post, or landing page.