As many as 19% of all e-commerce websites use WooCommerce, according to a study by BuiltWith. When we look specifically at WordPress websites, we see that WooCommerce is the number one most downloaded plugin (including sites that don’t do e-commerce). If you have a WordPress site focused on selling products, you’re probably using the WooCommerce plugin – and this blog is for you. In this blog, we’ll give you a number of tips to help you rank better on Google using WooCommerce.
What is WooCommerce?
For those who don’t know exactly what WooCommerce is: WooCommerce is an open-source e-commerce plugin for WordPress. With this plugin, users can easily turn their website into an online store where they can sell all their products. The WooCommerce plugin integrates seamlessly with WordPress, making it not only easy to use but also simple to make changes. This allows users to set up their online shop without needing coding knowledge or technical skills. It also offers a range of customization options, making it suitable for both small businesses and larger companies. The plugin is easy to find in the WordPress plugin library.
Is WooCommerce SEO Friendly?
One of the questions we often get from clients is whether WooCommerce is SEO friendly. The answer is yes. WooCommerce is very SEO-friendly by default. It runs on WordPress, which is highly optimizable for SEO. WordPress offers various tools and features to make your online shop more visible in organic search results. With WooCommerce, it's also possible to make not just your website but also individual products easier to find. Below, we highlight a number of tips to help you improve your organic visibility.
Optimizing Meta Tags
Optimizing meta titles and meta descriptions is crucial for improving the SEO of your WooCommerce store. By including specific keywords in the meta title, you improve your visibility for those terms. It’s also important to optimize the meta descriptions — make sure they’re catchy and engaging to encourage clicks. Better meta descriptions can increase your click-through rate (CTR) and drive more traffic.
You can easily edit meta tags for category and blog pages, and with WooCommerce, you can also do this for individual product pages.
As your WooCommerce store grows and the number of products increases, manually adding meta titles and descriptions becomes time-consuming. Luckily, WooCommerce offers options for automation. Through WordPress code, snippets, or plugins, you can automatically generate metadata based on elements like product titles, H1 tags, or URL structures. This saves a lot of time and ensures consistent and efficient SEO across all product pages. Just make sure your main keyword is always included in the automated process.
Optimizing Content
Adding valuable and unique content is one of the best ways to improve your online visibility. The content of a page should match the needs and interests of your target audience. It should answer the questions they have while searching. This isn’t just about text — think images and videos as well. Adding this kind of unique content helps Google better understand your page and improves your visibility.
In WooCommerce, adding this is easy. You can add content for category and landing pages, and also for individual product pages. For example, on a product page for a new type of running shoe, you can add descriptive text, product images, detailed specifications, and reviews.
Product Structured Data
Once you’ve added content to your products, it’s important to communicate this to Google using Product Structured Data. Structured data is extra information you give to Google about the specific product, such as price, reviews, brand, and stock availability. This is easy to add in WooCommerce.
Providing this extra information helps your product be found more easily in Google and can also make your product look more appealing in the search results.
Here’s an example of how this can appear in search results:
Enabling Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs are links that appear at the top of product pages, helping users return to earlier category or landing pages. Breadcrumbs improve user experience and also help with SEO. They make the website structure clearer not only for users but also for search engines like Google. Breadcrumbs are especially useful for e-commerce sites because they help users easily navigate back and forth between pages.
Adding Alt Text to Images
Adding alt text to product images in WooCommerce is important for SEO, especially because many users search for products using images. Alt text is an HTML attribute that describes what an image shows. It can be easily added in WooCommerce.
These alt texts help search engines understand the content of images. This means your products can be found more easily — including in Google Images.
Product XML Sitemaps
WooCommerce automatically generates an XML product sitemap for your store. This is a crucial part of your website’s visibility. Google uses the sitemap to read and understand your site. It’s essentially a map of your website’s structure. By providing a clear structure of your site’s content, the sitemap helps search engines find and index your product and category pages more easily. This ensures that your pages get indexed and discovered faster.
Customization Options via Custom Extensions
One of the reasons WooCommerce is often chosen is its customization possibilities. It offers more personalization than many other platforms. Compared to a popular e-commerce platform like Shopify, WooCommerce gives you more flexibility through custom extensions. These include options like adding different shipping and payment methods or customizing the “Add to Cart” button or the checkout process.
Since there are so many different extensions available — and new ones released every month — we’ve put together a top 5 list of the best WooCommerce extensions:
- WooPayments – A fully integrated payment solution with no setup or monthly fees, supporting multiple currencies and payment methods.
- Woo Subscriptions – Allows customers to subscribe to products or services with various billing plans and integration with over 25 payment gateways.
- WooCommerce Bookings – Lets customers book appointments or reservations with flexible scheduling and dynamic pricing options.
- Product Bundles – Enables you to offer custom product bundles or bulk discount packages.
- Product Recommendations – Offers smart upsells, cross-sells, and “frequently bought together” suggestions with detailed analytics.
Disadvantages of WooCommerce for SEO
Despite all the SEO benefits WooCommerce offers, there are some drawbacks:
- International limitations: WooCommerce isn’t set up for international webshops by default. If you want to sell internationally, you’ll need extra extensions, such as WooPayments.
- Update policy and dependency: Plugins and extensions must be updated regularly. This can lead to issues, such as manually configured features being reset after an update. Always double-check your settings after updating.
- Loading speed: WooCommerce can slow down your website, which hurts SEO. For example, uncompressed images can cause delays. Solutions like the WP Smush plugin can help compress images without losing quality.
- Complexity with large inventories: Managing SEO settings becomes more complicated as your number of products grows. For very large stores, platforms like Magento may be better suited.
- Additional costs: Essential plugins or extensions can bring extra costs, ranging from one-time purchases to subscriptions. Keep this in mind when starting a WooCommerce shop.
Conclusion
WooCommerce is a very SEO-friendly plugin for WordPress-based e-commerce websites. It allows users to easily add meta tags, content, breadcrumbs, alt text, and a product sitemap. It also offers automation and customization through extensions. While there are some disadvantages, such as international limitations or potentially slower loading speeds, these can be solved with plugins or other solutions. WooCommerce is ideal for store owners looking for a user-friendly, customizable e-commerce solution. With the right strategy, WooCommerce offers a powerful way to build and optimize a webshop for SEO.
Need help?
Our SEO specialists are happy to answer any questions about your WooCommerce website or overall SEO strategy. Feel free to contact us — no strings attached.
