How to Rank a Product Page

TL;DR:

• To optimize a product page, target low-competition, long-tail, transactional keywords
• Structure pages for user intent and experience, optimize for page speed, URLs, metadata, and mobile-friendliness
• Use alt text, build backlinks, direct visitors with internal links between content and product pages, and utilize Google Shopping Feed for e-commerce
• Consider search intent and focus on content pages if product pages are not ranking well

Ranking product pages is hard. They're not as information-dense as content pages, there's a lot of competition out there, and frankly, the right people don't tend to see them.

But you can stand a chance of ranking product pages — especially if you use internal links and backlinks properly.

How to Optimize a Product Page in 10 Steps

1. Target Low-Competition, Long-Tail, Transactional Keywords

Three things to unpack here:

• Target low-competition keywords: You want to make sure that your product pages isn't lost in the sea of similar pages from companies with more backlinks and domain authority than you
• Target long-tail keywords: Longer-tail keywords are typically easier to rank for since they're less competitive and more specific
• Target transactional keywords: Folks that convert on product pages have transactional search intent, and if you want to drive conversions, you always need to optimize for search intent

Keyword research tools like Semrush and Ahrefs can help you filter your search by intent.

Source Keywords From Customers, Too

Don't ignore zero search volume keywords. Keyword research tool data can be wrong or outdated, and you can easily drive qualified traffic even if the search volume shows N/A.

Other, more customer-centric places to find keywords are:

• from sales calls. You can actually use Letterdrop to automatically pull product questions, themes, and objections from them
• from internal customer-facing teams, like customer support and sales
• from online communities where your ICP hangs out, like LinkedIn and Reddit

2. Structure Pages for the User's Intent and Experience

You need to make sure that your product pages are catered to transactional search intent and provide a smooth user experience. Otherwise, qualified buyers will bounce.

Things to consider include:

• Clean heading structure (H1s through to H6, etc)
• Compelling CTAs
• Relevant images, videos, and screengrabs
• Short, concise copy that's clear on what your products can do and what the benefits are

3. Optimize for Page Speed

Page speed and core web vitals play a huge role in positive user experience and can mean the difference between conversion and bouncing.

Good page performance is also a Google ranking factor.

Some ways to improve page performance include:

1. Minifying HTML, JS, and CSS code in your website settings (sites like Webflow let you do this)
2. Compressing large image and video files
3. Opting to "lazy load" images and files
4. Monitoring third-party scripts and animations, such as removing unnecessary files

PageSpeed Insights can give you the low-down of what could be slowing down your pages and help you implement fixes.

4. Optimize Your URLs

Clean URLs reflect a clean site structure, allowing both Google and users to better understand and navigate your site.

Some best practices to follow include:

• Keep your URL between 50 and 60 characters max
• Your product page title should be less than 5 words
• Use hyphens to separate words
• Use lower case

For example, a clean URL would be yourdomain.com/seo-optimizer

5. Optimize Your Metadata

The clearer and more concise your meta titles and descriptions are, the easier it is for Google to index your pages and for users to find the pages they need.

• Be concise. Your title needs to be less than x characters and your description less than x characters, or they'll be cut off on Google. This is terrible for UX and looks unprofessional
• Naturally include the target keyword(s.) Remember that you're writing for people, not bots, so don't stuff your keywords. See if you can include it or related keywords while still providing value to a reader.

6. Create Mobile-Friendly Product Pages

Over 55% of web traffic comes from mobile devices. You're missing out on a large pool of prospective buyers if your product pages don't work properly on mobile.

Most website-builders have mobile-optimization built in — test your site on different devices for optimal browsing.

7. Use Alt Text

Google is not yet able to understand video and image content yet, which is why it's so important to add alt text and captions wherever possible.

This also makes your product pages more accessible and visible.

• Use descriptive language
• Use your keywords as naturally as possible

8. Build Backlinks

Since product pages contain minimal text content, backlinks are a strong factor in whether your product pages rank or not.

Buying backlinks will only tank your rankings. You need to earn backlinks through:

• PR efforts
• Co-marketing with other businesses
• Asking for guest posts
• Writing for reputable sites like Medium
• Answering questions with sites like AskAB2BWriter and HARO

9. Direct Visitors to Product Pages with Internal Links

Product pages typically don't rank as well as content pages.

This is simply because content pages are better at answering search intent — they're better at equipping a searcher with all the information they need to end their search journey, which is, after all, what SEO is about.

Because of this, you need to internal link to relevant product pages within content pages to drive qualified prospects down the funnel.

Google's John Mueller emphasized the importance of internal linking in an Office Hours webinar.

"I think it’s one of the biggest things that you can do on a website to kind of guide Google and guide visitors to the pages that you think are important." — John Mueller of Google on internal linking

Automatic Links to Product Pages

Instead of manually finding opportunities to link product pages in your existing content pages, you can use automation.

Letterdrop's Find and Replace feature allows you to bulk find and replace terms to link to product pages.

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10. Use the Google Shopping Feed (e-Commerce)

Mueller recommends submitting your product to the Google Shopping Feed to give your product and product pages a higher chance of ranking (this is particularly true for e-commerce sites.)

Submission is free.

Will A Product Page Rank?

Considering that product pages are harder to rank than content pages, you may be wondering whether it's worth targeting product pages at all.

Here's a quick gut-check to know whether you should target a product page:

1. Search the term you're trying to rank for
2. Are the top results product pages?
   1. If yes: Go for it, and focus on backlinks
   2. If no: Focus on answering the question really well with a content page so that you get ranking, and direct visitors to the relevant product page

There's actually a feature in Letterdrop that can tell you search intent and whether a landing page (or any other form of content) is better suited to answering that intent.

Our TL;DR is: target content pages and landing pages, making sure to interlink them for maximum lift.

Get Product Pages In Front of The Right Prospects

With just a little SEO housekeeping (with a focus on link-building), your product pages can rank in no time.

We help teams automate SEO best practices, from linking to content refresh monitoring.

Put your SEO on autopilot today.